Question: I know that the musical being called 'Lease' is a reference to 'Rent', but what's the joke behind the song being called 'Everyone has AIDS'?
Answered questions about specific movies, TV shows and more
These are questions relating to specific titles. General questions for movies and TV shows are here. Members get e-mailed when any of their questions are answered.
Question: In the scene where Rolfe is throwing stones at the window, Captain von Trapp catches him and after trying to explain, Rolfe says Heil Hitler. I was just wondering why he says that seeing as all three there are Austrians (esp. von Trapp) and Germany hasn't taken over Austria yet.
Answer: Rolfe sees Max, who he knows is at least loosely involved with Nazi affairs, and then exclaims "heil Hitler." Being merely a child foot soldier for the Nazis, he wouldn't know the extent of Max's involvement with the Nazis, but knows enough to say "heil Hitler", just in case.
Answer: Some Austrians (such as Rolfe) had already been converted to the Nazi cause as a political/social/pseudo-religious movement rather than as an expression of German nationalism, just as you can live in a democracy and be a communist.
Question: The full version of "imba windpo" or something like that, that they play at Ruth Young's funeral plays at the end of the movie. Could somebody listen to the full song and translate the lyrics to English?
Answer: The song was written for the movie and is called "Windsong". The lyrics were originally written in English by Will Jennings then translated into whatever language that is. The music is written by James Horner (Titanic). The original lyrics were: "Sing a song and for a moment you will be visited by the wind. Sing a song and for a moment dream sweetly of the wind. Sleep now until the night is dawn. The wind and the night song, they are there. However the song, my child, will go on forever."
The language used for the movie was Swahili, but yes this is the correct translation of the song.
Question: Why doesn't the dogs senses dumb down with infection? Obviously human senses degrade when they turn into zombies, but the dogs keep their speed and ability to smell scents.
Answer: First, the T-virus affects humans and dogs differently - zombie dogs look like they've been skinned, but zombie humans just look dead. Second, there's little evidence that human senses have been dimmed, it's just that zombies are stupider without higher brain functions (explained in the first movie) and are slower because they conserve energy for actual attacks, not moving. Dogs are much more efficient predators than humans and don't need to slow down as much because a few bites will take down prey.
Question: Why did the Predator target drug dealers, and what was his interest in Danny Glover's character? I never found a connection between the two.
Answer: The predators are honour bound hunters, and as such they will only attack a target if it is capable of defending itself (i.e, if it is armed, which is why it doesn't attack the boy in the cemetary). Although the police outside were armed as well, the Predator presumably attacked the drug dealers because they were a harder target (as the police were outside he could have just sniped them from the roof tops, but he had to get relatively close inside the building) and as such, killing them gave a higher honour. The obsession with Danny Glover's character is probably because he is quite a brave and heroic person, similar to a Predator (the way he saves the other cop by risking himself etc.), so the predator may have been studying him for a while. There's also more honour in killing someone like that (as he'd be a hard target) than there is in just killing a random armed guy.
Answer: Same as in the original, when the Predator targeted Arnold and even took off his armour and weapons to make it a more fair fight. Dutch was his best competition, the strongest, bravest and best warrior. So he made the best trophy. The drug dealers were also heavily armed, and while hunting he would have noticed they are the most violent and would make good targets. Predators have a sort of hunters code, ethics if you will, and only kill armed and dangerous men. No women or children. Usually choosing those biggest, bravest, most bad-ass warrior to save for his last and most prized trophy hunt.
What's your evidence for stating that predators don't kill women? It doesn't kill pregnant women, but non-pregnant, armed women are fair game. Otherwise the film Prey (in which a predator hunts a woman) has an epic plot hole.
Question: Why does Frank have Donnie burn the guy's house down, when at the end, Donnie goes back in time, dies, and therefore cannot burn the guy's house down?
Answer: Frank tells Donnie to burn down Cunningham's house because then Cunningham's kiddie porn dungeon will be discovered and he will be put on trial. If he's on trial, Kitty must be at his arraignment and cannot escort the dance team to Los Angeles, so Rose goes with them instead. Rose chooses to come home with the team on a different flight than Kitty would have chosen, and if they hadn't been on that flight the flight wouldn't have occurred (we don't know why not, but if it happened anyway Donnie wouldn't be necessary, and he obviously is or Frank wouldn't have called upon him). Because Rose takes the flight, the airplane engine passes through the portal and falls into Donnie's bedroom back in the original universe, closing the time loop.
Question: What is the song played in the trailer for this movie at www.apple.com/trailers?
Answer: "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg.
The One With Princess Consuela - S10-E14
Question: What exactly is "Tenure" and "Esgrow" (don't know how to spell this) which are mentioned on the show.
Answer: Tenure: the status of holding one's position on a permanent basis without periodic contract renewals. It is frequently granted to professors at universities, and is a valued commodity as you then know you will continue to have your job as long as you like, unless you do something egregious. Escrow: monies put aside, into a third party's hands, to be delivered only upon fulfillment of specific conditions. It ordinarily comes up in the process of buying a house - you place money in escrow to show good faith and the ability to pay your mortgage, and the builder only gets it upon completion of the home.
Question: When Scotty gets email, it says "mail muthafu**a." Is this something that they did just for the movie or can you get this somewhere?
Chosen answer: It was made for the movie but you can now find it all over the 'net. Try a Google search.
Question: Throughout the movie a set of numbers are mentioned 303 and 801 I think, but what do these numbers mean.
Answer: Taken from the 8 Mile trivia page on the IMDB: "The group 3 1/3 is a reference to Detroit's area code: 313. The suburbs on the other side of 8 mile, in 1995, had the area code 810, hence certain people being called "eight tens" in the film."
Question: At the beginning of his experiment, Dr. Octavius is wearing goggles. One lens is brightly colored from the reflection of the fusion, and the other is dark. Is this supposed to foreshadow that he will soon have a split personality between his good side and his evil side?
Answer: Maybe, but a better explanation would be that only one of the goggle lenses was at the right angle to reflect the light.
Question: Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, is a born and raised American, he writes books in English. Now why, in this movie, does the letter the children receive in the end contain the text "Groeten Uit Antwerpen" which is Dutch/Belgian? Maybe the answer is obvious if you've read the book, but I haven't.
Answer: The children receive a letter from their parents, who are on vacation in Europe (in this case Antwerp, Belgium - the phrase means "greetings from Antwerp"). They thought it was lost or never sent. It has nothing to do with the author.
Question: When Bruce Willis, Julia Roberts and what's left of the gang go to the museum, several people tell Willis how much they liked him in "that one movie". Then they add something like "I knew it when she didn't speak to you in the restaurant". Are they referring to an actual movie?
Answer: The Sixth Sense. They mean that they figured out the true nature of his character when his wife doesn't directly acknowledge his presence in a restaurant.
Question: In the UK Extended DVD, Aragorn's rousing speech at the black gate seems to finish a little differently. The line, 'This day we fight' sounds different to me from what I remember from the cinema and as I don't own the theatrical version I can't check. Can anyone confirm my suspicions and if so, why did they change it?
Answer: It's not different from the theatrical cut, but a significantly different take on the line was used in the trailer.
Question: What is the idea/situation behind the whole scene at the beginning of the film where the two 'Saints' walk up to the alter?
Answer: The priest thought they were trying to attack or assault the other priest, but since they Saints are very religious and the other priest knows it, he let them be. They kissed the statue to show respect.
Question: When Travis goes into his fitness phase, it shows him hovering his fist over the stove fire. Why is he doing this? What does that achieve?
Answer: It helps him create a tolerance for pain. As we see, he certainly gets a lot of that dished out to him.
Question: When Lupin is on the bridge with Harry, he talks about Lily as though he liked her. Is there any evidence in the book that supports this?
Answer: Lupin does like Lily (in purely friendly terms). They don't say this in the movie, but in the book when Lupin turned into a werewolf she was his only true friend. She was the only one in the school who didn't think he was evil. She believed in him, and that is why he didn't give up. He does say in the book that he is thankful for Lily.
Question: This applies to all three of the CSI shows. How accurate are the methods the forensic scientists use? Does Luminol function in real life like does on the show? Can the investigators actually zoom in on a picture, then press a button, and have it instantly upgrade in quality? (On a recent CSI: New York, they zoomed into the reflection of a ladies eyeball, and made out the t-shirt of a suspect)
Answer: On the surface, the scientific techniques they use in their case work are what are used in real life, but the results and what they interpret from the results, are nonsense. Perfect example: finding suspect fingerprints on doorknobs. Doorknobs are the worst place to get fingerprints because so many people touch them. I can also remember many cases where they will analyse something like petrol by GC-MS and they pretty much can tell which petrol station it came from: again, can't be done, you can sometimes get a general idea of where it came from, but not that accurate. Luminol does function to detect blood but you wouldn't spray it on all over the place like they do because you can't then analyse it for DNA, etc. The stuff with the digital pictures is possible with high resolution cameras. I haven't seen that CSI: NY episode but I can't imagine it being possible to pick up a reflection in someone's eye if the picture's good enough. Something else which the shows don't portray is how long these cases take: forensic labs run on a case work backlog of months, even up to a year. Technology these days is heading towards being able to analyse evidence at the crime scene to make things work faster, but at the moment most evidence goes to the lab and sits there until it gets to the front of the queue.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Chosen answer: The musical "Rent" is based on the opera "La Boheme" in which the main character Mimi dies of consumption (tuberculosis). In the updated story for "Rent", the disease is AIDS rather than TB. Several characters in Rent have AIDS or are HIV positive.
Myridon