Question: In a few episodes, the FBI agents will walk into a room and say "smell that?" and the reply is "shots fired", supposedly because they can smell the distinct odor of burnt gunpowder. Then they'll look behind a desk and find a dead body in a pool of blood. But wouldn't the smell of a dead person, or the blood, be way more overpowering? Or would it take too long for a dead body to start to smell? And how long would the smell of gunfire in an enclosed room last?
Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more
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Zorro Fights His Father - S1-E18
Question: I've never understood something about this chapter. Is Mr. Borca an Agent of the Eagle or is he just a corrupt man, like Licenciado Pina?
Question: Unless it's an oversight, how did the family get their pickup truck from town back to the farm where it was in the first movie without making any sound to alert the creatures?
Question: How come Officer Ronnie pulled up in the squad car with lights and sirens near where Lee was parked, and just stood outside for a couple moments when there was no emergency in that immediate area (until the creek just started attacking)?
Answer: While what was happening was not yet considered an emergency, a situation was growing, and town residents were becoming somewhat panicked or were confused. Officer Ronnie used his siren and lights as a safety precaution to warn people milling in the street to move away. He also signaled Lee not to drive off because he wanted to talk to him. Ronnie didn't appear to just stand there. He was looking around and assessing the situation while Lee was walking up to him.
Question: What made Rose change her mind about marrying Cal? Jack talks to her in the gym. It then goes to a scene of Rose at dinner with her mom and two other women. What happened that made her change her mind?
Answer: When Rose is sitting with her mother and the other two women, she stares at a nearby table, where a woman is correcting her daughter's posture and movements. I think Rose imagined the future. Did she want to be like that woman in ten or so years? Married to Cal, and shaping her own daughter into a socially acceptable young lady?
Answer: Not loving or having any feelings for him in the first place, combined with it being very obvious from the start that her mother only arranged it to get Cal's money, plus the fact that he is possessive, ignorant, emotionally abusive, and violent, combined with her reawakened sense of self and determination inspired by her meeting Jack. She put on a veneer of being committed to Cal and the marriage, and got defensive when Jack called her out on it, because she was trying to do what she was "supposed" to do. Gradually, however, she realised that it was possible to be with someone who valued her and made her happy (Jack), and that she shouldn't submit to marrying Cal just out of financial and societal pressure.
Some viewers think that Cal actually loved Rose and basically treated her well until she got involved with Jack. He only "snapped" because of the way she changed during the voyage. Of course, we can speculate that he would end up "snapping" someday, no matter what. Even if he and Rose proceeded with their marriage as planned.
Question: In the end scene with the tripod that has no shield, what are the black tentacle things hanging from under the tripod?
Question: Did the meeting, where John Aaron states that they have to turn almost everything in the LEM off to conserve the battery power, actually happen? When they realised they had to use the LEM as a lifeboat, I recall Gene Krantz saying, before the meeting took place, to power up "essential hardware only." If you read the actual transcripts from the mission, Krantz tells the controllers "minimum power to sustain life." The controllers and the astronauts would have known this immediately.
Question: Can someone explain the scene where Patty tries to get a $5,000 loan, but she would need to deposit $5,800 to qualify? As she herself points out, she wouldn't even need a loan if she had $5,800. The employee might not be friendly, but the offer still doesn't make sense if the company wants to be in business.
Answer: A reputable bank requires borrowers to have an adequate income, a good credit rating, and some type of collateral (property, investments, other assets, etc,) above the amount of the loan in the event the customer defaults. It's been years since I've seen the movie, so I don't remember the timeline of events or what the loan was for, but if Patty and Drake had already bought the house, that could be used as collateral, though they might not want to risk it for such a low amount. If they hadn't bought the house, and had no other assets, it's highly unlikely they'd qualify for a loan.
And plenty of people might not "need" a loan because they've got the money saved, but they'd rather take out a loan and make predictable monthly payments they know are well within their means, rather than eat into their savings, leaving them with no safety net if some financial emergency hits.
This is still unrealistic and made up only for the film. No loan company would ever ask a client to put down a payment of that extravagant amount in order to get back the same amount of what they're asking for a loan for. Why on earth would a person take out a loan in the first place if they didn't actually need the money?
I'm Goin' to Praiseland - S12-E19
Question: What does Reverend Lovejoy mean when he gives Lisa the "Unitarian ice cream", but the bowl has nothing in it? What is the joke?
Question: When the Japanese baccarat player is brought back to the casino, he has a stack of different colored chips in front of him - what denomination are the dark red chips?
Question: Why wasn't Andromeda spread by the wind, killing birds, wildlife, and individuals in the area around Piedmont?
Answer: The satellite containing the Andromeda strain was recovered quickly, helping contain the contagion. Also, Piedmont was an isolated town, further limiting the spread. Dead birds and other animals were shown, but most would be happening off-camera. The scientists also learned later that Andromeda quickly mutated into a non-lethal form but one that caused certain synthetic materials to dissolve, creating further havoc. To eradicate the strain, clouds were seeded to produce rain, which swept Andromeda out to sea where the alkaline ocean water rendered it inert. Would add that movies at this time and before had stricter standard codes and did not show excessive blood and gore like they do today.
Question: Why did everyone at the baseball game decide to leave upon seeing the meteor descend from the sky?
Question: Why did Elizabeth Berkley and Gina Gershon dislike each other when working on this movie?
Question: How did the kids in the flashback know it was Lonnie who stole their brother's candy?
Question: What is the device that Ray uses to scan Vigo's painting?
Answer: In the context of the movie, it's simply a piece of Ghostbusting tech that's nature is never really revealed. In real life, it's a modified version of a camera called a "Globuscope." It was invented in the early 1980s and was used to take panoramic-style photographs. So far as I can tell, only a handful were ever produced, and somehow one of them ended up in the movie.
Question: Were all-male jury panels the norm in the 1950s?
Answer: Depends where, and the type of case. At the time the film was made, women were still barred from juries in three states (South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama); it wasn't until 1994 that the Supreme Court ruled that lawyers could not strike women from juries solely on the basis of gender. SCOTUS had ruled in 1942 that all-male juries were constitutionally acceptable. New York State (where the story is set) had granted women the right to serve on juries in 1927, so an all-male jury may not have been the norm across the board, but the nature of the crime (murder) would have, at the time, allowed lawyers to exclude women at the jury selection stage by citing the unsavoury aspects of the crime and arguing that the details of the case were not "suitable" for women to hear (being such delicate creatures, you understand /s).
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Answer: It takes 24-48 hours before a decaying body begins producing a decaying odor. It takes a number of days for it to intensify enough to be immediately noticeable when walking into a room.
raywest ★