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: Why did Abby and Marcella hold hands for just 2 seconds before walking up to Barney at the end to hug him?

Answer: To show the strength of their friendship and show how much they loved each other, which is what that whole song was about.

Question: Is the bank teller the same actress shown on the parole board when Red is paroled?

Answer: No. Although IMDb lists the bank teller as Claire Slemmer, her list of credits does not include being on the parole board. The actress playing the board member is not even listed in the credits.

lartaker1975

Question: When Peyton wakes up in the hospital, images suddenly appear. What exactly is the significance of the light bulb shattering and the little marionette with the huge head supposed to represent?

Answer: It's just psychedelic imagery to try and show his fragile state of mind and how he's losing it. The shattering light-bulb is likely to show that his mind is "shattering" (as light-bulbs appearing above someone's head are often used to signify brains/ideas in fictional, particularly cartoons), and the marionette "dancing" is the first part of the recurring motif in which he sees himself as a "freak." (Which is paid off later when he starts singing a demented song about "Paying five bucks to see the dancing freak!").

Question: What body parts did Clyde cut from Darby? Clyde only mentioned three or four pieces, but cops on the scene say that Darby was found in about 25 different pieces.

EK8829

Chosen answer: He completely dismembered him. Clyde mentions taking his fingers with tin snips, I believe, so that right there can account for ten pieces.

Phaneron

Answer: He took his fingers off with bolt cutters, and his toes with tin snips. His head was on a table, and after dismemberment of his limbs, there's your 25 pieces.

Question: In this movie, it is said that the well was apparently only partially closed. Why didn't Samara's parents close it all the way? Couldn't she have escaped? Also if the well really was closed, then why was the cover to the well on the tape and the cover to the movie itself show the well being fully closed?

Answer: The lid being partially open is a reference to the first movie whenever Rachel and Noah removed the lid after they discovered the well. When Rachel visits Evelyn in the mental hospital, she ominously tells Rachel that she "let the dead get in". Rachel was the first person to discover what happened to Samara and thought she was helping her spirit, but unknowingly was giving Samara more power to escape and possess someone, such as Aidan. Whenever Samara exits the TV and kills someone, that is just part of the curse. The lid being partially open pertains only to Rachel's actions in the first movie, therefore Rachel must be the one to close it.

Question: A major scene and gunfight take place right after the convoy crosses the border and is forced to stop in traffic. The members of the convoy scan the surrounding vehicles and find two filled with men carrying weapons in full view, not to mention the occupants looking like stereotypical gang members. How did those two cars cross the border in order to be in the same slow traffic - surely border control would have stepped in? How did they come to be there for the attempted ambush?

Answer: They haven't crossed the border yet, and the gang members were there to kill them. They had no intention of actually crossing the border.

Question: When Amanda sits down beside John, before his procedure performed by Dr. Lynn, John tells Amanda that he needs her to do some things for him. He tells her that there is an envelope with her name on it in his drawer, we assume that this contains the things he needed her to do. However, later on in flashbacks in Saw 3D we see that Hoffman actually puts the envelope in the drawer. We also learn that written on the paper inside the envelope Hoffman reveals to Amanda that he knows that she was with Cecil the night that Jill lost her baby due to Cecil's actions, and if she doesn't kill Lynn he will tell John what he knows. So why would John know about the envelope at all?

AmberMac420

Chosen answer: First, slight correction, we actually see Hoffman wrote the note in "Saw IV", not "Saw 3D." And the answer to your question is never revealed. It's possible that Hoffman told John he was leaving a note for Amanda. It's also possible that John did leave a note, but Hoffman replaced it. It's possible John knew what the note said, and was using this to test Amanda. There are plenty of possibilities. But it's never overtly explained.

Question: After Rapunzel locks an unconscious Flynn in her closet, Gothel returns home and Rapunzel tries to show her Flynn to prove her bravery and confidence. After Gothel screams at her, Rapunzel suddenly hesitates to open the closet door. What would have happened if Rapunzel actually opened the closet door and Gothel saw Flynn then?

Johman

Chosen answer: Gothel would have most likely killed Flynn.

Question: When Harry and Hermione go back in time to save Buckbeak, they both see Professor Dumbledore turning around and pointing something out to Fudge, Malfoy and the executioner. This was obviously done to distract them so Harry and Hermione could rescue Buckbeak but how could past Dumbledore know that future Harry and Hermione would be there to save his life?

Answer: Dumbledore is an immensely powerful wizard who detected them before he saw them.

Greg Dwyer

Question: Did Patrick really kill anybody or was it all in his mind? He killed a homeless man but there's no news report about it on TV. He murders Paul but is told Paul is in London. He severely beat and bloodied two prostitutes but no cops show up to arrest him. He murders Elizabeth and Christie but when he goes back to the apartment later, it is empty and put up for sale.

Answer: The situation is intentionally left vague. The homeless man being murdered wouldn't necessarily make the news in the time (there were over 4000 murders in 1989-90 when the book and movie are set). He and his friends are so alike that they continually mistake each other for others. The prostitutes would likely be loathe to call the police because they might be arrested themselves and he would likely get off with a much better lawyer.

Greg Dwyer

Question: Sean Connery took dancing lessons for 11 years in his youth, and he surely knew how to dance when he made this film in his 50s. So, why is his choreographed tango with Kim Basinger in this film so painfully, embarrassingly awkward and heavily edited? Is this perhaps due to the fact that Kim Basinger had virtually no dancing skills?

Charles Austin Miller

Chosen answer: Neither is a professional dancer. Having studied dancing some thirty years before does not mean someone has retained the same level of skills. As you mentioned, Connery was in his 50s by that time.

raywest

Question: While re-watching "Sin City" on HBO recently, I realised that the closed captioning for this film has been noticeably censored. While the audio track seems intact, every instance of the word "fag" results in that entire line of dialogue being omitted from closed captioning. Is this strangely selective closed captioning censorship featured on the original "Sin City" DVD, or is this HBO's own particular brand of censorship?

Charles Austin Miller

Chosen answer: The word "fag" is only used once in the entire movie, spoken by Becky who refers to a club called the Amigo as a "fag joint." The omission in the subtitles might just be an oversight. HBO is known for having original content that pushes the envelope of what people consider to be tasteful (such as "Game of Thrones" and "The Sopranos") so it's highly unlikely that they would be resorting to censorship.

Phaneron

Question: Why, in the credits and trailers, does it say "and introducing Daniel Craig as Joe Bang"? Isn't introducing used for new actors, not really famous ones?

Answer: Established actors are not normally listed in the cast credits this way. This appears to have been done as an inside joke.

raywest

Answer: It's probably the photo they took at her house of them going to the prom.

lionhead

Question: Just before Peter's suit was taken by Tony he said he warned him about the weapons but during that phone call he just lied to Tony and hung up. So when did he warn him about the weapons?

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Chosen answer: He told Happy.

Question: Tony says he was the one who called the FBI but then why would they aim their guns at Peter? Tony wouldn't tell them to shoot at his recruit.

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Chosen answer: Tony wouldn't tell them anything about Peter because he didn't expect Peter to be there.

MasterOfAll

Question: Why did the spitfire pilot land on the beach at the end of the movie facing certain internment when he could have ditched and be taken back to Blighty?

Answer: After running out of fuel, he kept his craft aloft as long as he could so he could shoot down the enemy plane. He then landed when and where he safely could, which was on the beach but in enemy territory. Ditching a plane in water is dangerous and would have meant far less chance of survival.

raywest

Question: Why was Liz so interested when Peter said he doesn't work for Stark anymore? She doesn't consider Peter as that much of a friend. She barely talked to Peter and spent the whole ride on her phone and tried to make Peter give her the corsage and only went with him to the dance cause she didn't have a date.

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Chosen answer: She didn't "only go with him because she didn't have a date". She was interested in dating Peter, and knew he was interested in her. She had been waiting for him to finally build up the nerve to talk to her about it. She was interested in Peter leaving the Stark internship because she was genuinely interested. The awkward silence before hand was due to her dad being in the car (as it would be for a shy teenage boy with his date's father present).

Chosen answer: Actor Tony Revolori, nee Anthony Quinonez, was a controversial choice to play Flash. In the comic books, Flash is a jock of European descent. Mr. Revolori is Guatemalan, and not particularly athletic in appearance. Some comic book fans are notoriously traditional. Often, when the race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation of well known comic book characters are changed for modern portrayals, a segment of the fan base reacts negatively. In an interview with the website CBR.com, the actor stated: "I'm not what the character was in the comic books...and there's still people who will hate that fact. It was very disheartening to receive hate mail and death threats and things like that." There is no mention of the exact nature of the alleged threats, nor how seriously Mr. Revolori took them. There is also no indication of formal police involvement.

Michael Albert

Question: When the Inspector said "We discovered your husband's body lying next to the tracks," I assumed that meant no one actually saw Dyle toss Lampert off the train. And since Lampert was killed in his pajamas before daylight, I assumed that meant Dyle first confronted him in his compartment. So after the murder was committed but before it was discovered, why didn't Dyle retrieve the travel bag, or at least take the agenda, letter and key with him?

Answer: Dyle didn't know that what he was looking for was inside the travel bag. Lampert had used the stolen gold to buy the rare and valuable collector stamps. He then affixed them to the envelope to look like ordinary postage. Dyle, who was impersonating a government investigator, was also letting Reggie (Dyle's widow) figure things out about the key, letter, etc. As Lambert's widow, she had access to her late husbands property and, eventually, would have unwittingly led Dyle to what he sought.

raywest

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.