Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more

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Fun With Veal - S6-E4

Question: When Glen Dumont (as Mike) calls Stan's house to try and negotiate with the boys, he and Cartman exchange words, and at one point Cartman says "Don't have a Dad, Mike. Not going to work." My question is, why does Cartman say he doesn't have a Dad when he found out in Season 2 that his mum was his dad? Sure to him, Liane is only his mum, but she's also his Dad (at this point at least since it's not until Season 14 that he finds out Liane isn't his dad too, and that someone else is).

Answer: Cartman spent several years thinking that Liane was his mother, and apparently continues to view her that way. Just as someone who learns that a parent or sibling is not biological, often feels that the person is still their parent/sibling. Also, Cartman probably doesn't tell everyone he meets that Liane is actually his father. It's not their business, he doesn't feel comfortable sharing, it's not relevant to the situation at hand, etc.

Answer: In a rare moment of enlightenment for him, Cartman thinks of his mother just as his mother.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: Why didn't Jack and Wang run to Jack's truck instead of the basement in the alley after the gang fight?

Answer: Because the battle between the Chang Sing and Wing Kong was between them and the truck.

Grumpy Scot

Halloween: Part 1 - S1-E4

Question: One thing I do not understand is this... "if" the souls of the deceased (that die within the walls of "Murder House") are trapped there for eternity then how does the maid get to go see her mother (obviously off premises) and Tate get to meet up with Dr. Harmon for coffee for his appointment?

AmberMac420

Chosen answer: Because on Halloween, the souls of The Dead are said to roam the Earth. That includes those souls that are trapped within the walls of the "Murder House".

THGhost

Question: Why didn't the police come looking for Allie in Graham's apartment? Some detectives should've been looking for her since Sam died early that morning.

Answer: Because his body hadn't been found yet, It was still early in the morning.

Of course, his body had been found - it was all over the news.

Question: Joy says if she's not in headquarters Riley can't be happy. But Sadness isn't in headquarters either, and Riley is sad throughout the movie. Is there a logical explanation for this, or is this a plot hole?

MikeH

Chosen answer: Riley isn't sad. She's depressed. They are different states of emotion.

Greg Dwyer

Question: There are three filming locations that I haven't been able to identify. All three have been falsely identified on numerous sites. I'm heading to Sicily next month, and would like to shoot some images of them, if I can find them. All three are from The Godfather Part II. 1. Don Ciccio's villa. As seen early in the film, when Vito's mother is killed, and he escapes. Then seen later, when Vito returns as an adult to kill Don Ciccio. No, it is not Castello degli Schiavi, as commonly believed. 2. The Corleone train station. Also used twice in the film. First, for Vito's arrival, as an adult, and later, for his departure. It is obviously a small country train station, with the signs changed. 3. The olive oil mill/facility of Don Tommasino. This is where young Michael, in his fathers arms, makes such a cute face when he tastes an olive. I'm a teacher, using the trilogy in my classes, and would love to present some photos to my students, so any help would be appreciated.

Erik Christiansen

Question: How is Mark communicating with the crew members through his headset when he is in the MAV? Why didn't they do that to begin with, instead of doing the alphabet thing with earth?

Answer: The same storm that marooned Watney destroyed the Hab's communications dish. The Hab couldn't directly communicate with Earth. The MAV had a communications system built in that was fully functional. How could he do that to begin with when the MAV at Ares 4 was 3200km from the Hab at Ares 3?

Grumpy Scot

Question: When the whole gang is inside Starkiller Base and are planting the bombs, why isn't the building shaking? Dust or bits of whatever falling? The rebel X-wing squadron is right outside, shooting the very building they're in.

Answer: The reason they're planting the bombs is that the resistance fighters aren't able to do enough damage. The facility is too well insulated from the attack, so they need to damage it from the inside.

Question: Deadpool spends his whole movie killing dozens of people trying to find Francis. But did anyone else know that his real name was Francis, or just knew him as Ajax?

Answer: No and I think that was the joke. He was angry at that whole system so taking out everyone who worked for Francis was probably just him warming up for Francis. What possibly proves this is when he finally gets to 'Agent Smith' he actually asks "where is your boss?" He doesn't say Francis to him.

Question: Victor got his powers when his suit fused with him. Ben got his when he got pelted with rocks. Johnny was blasted with fire which explains his ability. But, how did Sue and Reed get their abilities?

Answer: It is believed that the heat from the radiation caused Reed to start "melting", which is how he got his rubber powers. It is unknown why Sue got invisibility.

Question: Why would it matter if Night Fox didn't think they were making any attempts to steal the egg from the museum?

Answer: If the Night Fox didn't think they were trying to steal it, he would be questioning why. They had to make the more public attempt because otherwise he would start digging into their recent activities to find out if they already had.

Greg Dwyer

Question: Like Borat, Bruno was mostly unscripted, and most of the people were real people secretly filmed without their knowledge. So does that mean the sex scenes at the swinger party were unsimulated? If they were, how was the movie not rated NC-17?

MikeH

Chosen answer: The MPAA's rating guidelines are all over the place, and tone and context matter. The scene in question appears to be real, but there's not really anything explicit shown, and since it's all played for laughs, the MPAA was probably more lenient on it.

Phaneron

Question: This film is directed by Mike Bigelow, but I can't find anything else he directed or was a part of. Is this a fake name used by Mike Mitchell, the director of the first Deuce Bigalow movie? It seems too coincidental for this director to have the same last name as the title character (albeit an "e" and not an "a"), have the first name of the first director, and not have any other working credits. Plus, Mike Mitchell has worked on several kids films and may want to avoid association with this film?

Bishop73

Chosen answer: Mike Bigelow is a real television commercial director, but yes, "European Gigolo" was his only feature film and the similarity of the names is a coincidence.

Sierra1

Chosen answer: He had been living in a deeply schizophrenic world, living two lives, but not remembering one of them. When he realised that he was actually TWO people, he realised that he could kill them both with one shot. So, his eyes were finally opened to the truth. As it happened, he didn't actually kill himself, but the dark side accepted that he had.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: Why did Bane have a problem with the two men bringing commissioner Gordon down into the sewers? Also how did John Blake know which outflow Jim Gordon would come out, of since the guy said that the sewer leads to many outflows?

PapaJohns01

Chosen answer: Bane had a problem with it because it exposed his plans to the GCPD. Blake knew which outflow to go to because of the body found previously. All bodies from that area of the sewers end up in the same place, Bane's men just don't know where that is.

Question: When there is a street march and the mayor nearly gets killed, what was the timer on the window sill supposed to do and why did Bruce get shot at by one of the police snipers when it opened? Even if Bruce was a supposed assassin trying to kill the mayor, he could have just been looking out the window, so why did he instantly get shot at?

PapaJohns01

Chosen answer: The timer was there as a diversion for the police snipers. As soon as the timer ended the blinds went up causing a sudden movement alerting the snipers to it. They were probably trigger happy or identified the telescope as a weapon and thus they fired. Not unlikely as the threat of an assassination was very high.

lionhead

Question: When it's discovered that the malamute was assimilated by the alien, it gets incinerated. How then, was the alien able to assimilate Bennings or anybody else, since each time someone was discovered to be the alien they were burned to a crisp?

Answer: The Norwegian malamute freely ran around the American base for hours before the kennel incineration scene. Doc Blair even asked the dog-keeper, Clark, how long the malamute had roamed around the base that afternoon, and Clark couldn't give an exact amount of time. It was easily long enough to infect more than a couple of hosts, as there was no single point of infection. Also, even before the kennel scene, the Americans went to investigate the Norwegian base and recovered a half-mutated humanoid corpse, returning with it to the American base. After performing an autopsy and blood analysis, Doc Blair realised that the corpse wasn't completely dead. The animated goo from the mutated corpse is what assimilated Bennings.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: Burning isn't always a guarantee it is dead. They just think it is. The only permanent solution is blowing a Thing to smithereens as it doesn't seem to be able to put itself back together after.

Mostly agree, but complete burning, thorough enough to disrupt every cell, is probably the only practical way to kill it. Exploding it would just scatter pieces of Thing all around. As we saw in the blood test scene, even small amounts of the Thing are motile, and they might be able to rejoin. If the pieces froze after being scattered they would just lie dormant until discovered and eaten by a scavenger, or were thawed and touched by a careless investigator.

Chosen answer: Her name was likely changed in the credits when the series was syndicated as reruns.

raywest

Question: Why does Liv Tyler receive third billing for this movie and its sequels? Her character hardly does anything compared to other characters in the trilogy like Aragorn, Sam or Saruman, and she wasn't exactly an A-lister at the time the movies came out.

Phaneron

Chosen answer: Getting a high billing is always part of an actor's negotiations. She would have been offered it as part of the deal to join the film.

Question: Why did Don Corleone send Luca Brasi to gather intel on Sollozzo? Wouldn't it have been obvious to the Don that sending his bodyguard, who was widely known to be unquestionably loyal, wouldn't fool his adversaries, which would eventually, with Brasi dead, lead to his own death?

Answer: Luca wasn't Vito's bodyguard, Paulie Gatto was. In Mafioso circles the bodyguard is also usually the chauffeur which was the other part Paulie played. Luca was an independent who had loyalty to Vito. Unlike other members of the family, Luca had his own operation and his own scams. He was usually only called into service by the Don when some particularly nasty piece of business needed to be taken care of for which Luca was paid handsomely. Few people knew why Luca was loyal to Vito, it had to do with a bit of trouble Luca got into with a young girl, Luca was looking at some hard time and Vito was able to get him out of it. As explained in the books, Luca didn't care if he lived or died, he didn't even care if he was killed, but he cared very deeply that he wouldn't be killed by Vito. That was the hold Vito had on Luca which made his loyalty so deep. So far as the rest of the underworld was concerned Luca was just an independent contractor who worked for the Corleone's from time to time. If you'll recall when Kay sees Luca Michael tells her "he helps out my father sometimes." Barzini was probably the only other one who truly understood how deep Luca's loyalty went. So, why did Vito send Luca: Vito thought he was dealing with the Tataglias. Ten years prior to the Sollozo meeting there had been a Mafia war. Vito planned the strategy of the war while Sonny handled the tactics. The war was bloody and costly but the Corleone's were able to out maneuver the other families and come out on top. After that war Vito was top dog of all the 5 families. Had Vito been correct that Philip Tataglia was behind Sollozo, sending Luca would have been a smart move. As Vito mentions after the meeting of the commission "Tataglia is a pimp, he never could have out fought Santino." Tataglia would have seen getting Luca as a huge win, not only would he have Vito's special muscle, but he'd probably also believe he'd be able to get information from Luca. Where Vito made the mistake was not seeing Barzini pulling the strings, had he believed Barzini was involved he'd have handled it differently.

The line in Goodfellas seems illuminating here where Henry Hill explains that the Mafia is essentially an organisation that offers protection for those who can't turn to the legitimate law of regular society. This suggests that these "family" ties are not as strong as we imagine. These criminals are not a definite part of an orderly corporation, like head of HR at IBM, but a loose confederation of connections and loyalties that are rather more fluid. This is a theme also explored very well in the book and film, Donnie Brasco. Therefore, it wouldn't be totally unthinkable that someone in Luca Brasis position could turn to another "family" if he felt it expedient. However, these kind of guys have a tendency towards mistrust.

Answer: Luca was instructed by Don Corleone to act as if he was unhappy with his current situation within the Corleone family. In the book, this mission was planned more thoroughly and was spread out over a longer period of time with Luca frequenting the Tattaglia family's bars and bordellos, where he (falsely) bitterly complained to the prostitutes and anyone who'd listen about how he was underpaid and undervalued by the Godfather. Either this ploy did not fool Sollozzo or, if he did believe it, he didn't care and used it to send a message to the Corleones by killing Luca.

raywest

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