FILM 1950: TWINSTERS

FILM 1950: TWINSTERS 

TRIVIA: As of December 2016, Twinsters registered a 100% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Samantha futerman and Ryan miyamoto, co-director, later became lovers.

FILM 1913: MOLLY'S GAME

FILM 1913: MOLLY'S GAME 

TRIVIA: Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut.

It's widely believed that "Player X" is based on Tobey Maguire.

Molly Bloom told Aaron Sorkin that she wanted Jessica Chastain to play her.

Molly Bloom is banned from Canada because she pleaded guilty to a federal crime in the United States. She was granted a 48-hour pass to visit Canada for the movie's premiere at TIFF. Ironically, the film was shot in Canada.

All of the extras in the card games are professional poker players. First-time director Aaron Sorkin wanted realism, right down to the way players handled cards during games.

According to Molly Bloom, the most money she'd ever seen lost in a card game session in one night was $100 million. The losing player settled the debt the following day.

Since this was his directorial debut, Aaron Sorkin often called his friend David Fincher for shooting tips. They'd previously collaborated on The Social Network (2010). He also found Kevin Costner supportive during the shoot (Costner has directed three movies including Dances with Wolves, for which he won a Best Director Oscar).

CAMEO: Aaron Sorkin: one of the underground poker players.

FILM 1835: 2012

FILM 1835: 2012

TRIVIA: The doomsday theory sprung from a non-Mayan Western idea, not a Mayan one. Mayans insisted that the world would not end in 2012. The Mayans had a talent for astronomy, and enthusiasts found a series of astronomical alignments they said coincided in 2012. Once every six hundred forty thousand 640,000 years, the sun lines up with the center of the Milky Way galaxy on the winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon. The last time that happened was on December 21, 2012, the same day the Mayan calender expired. The modern doomsday myth was bolstered by several ostensibly scientific reasons for a disaster, including a pole shift, the "return" of Planet X or the Sun's sinister counterpart Nemesis, a galactic, planetary, or other celestial alignment, global warming, global cooling, a massive solar flare, or a new ice age. None had any basis in respected science. For example, the "galactic alignment" between the sun, Earth, and galactic center happens every December. The best alignment was reached in the 1990s, and was accompanied by its own set of doomsday theories. Alignments since then have been increasingly poor.

Banned in North Korea, because 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of First Great Leader Kim Il-Sung. Several people were arrested for watching pirated copies of the film.

The great disasters of the "galactic alignment" in 2012 were supposed to have occurred on December 21st, the day of the solstice. The filmmakers decided to move those events up a few months, to midsummer. This relieved them of having to decorate the sets for the winter holidays.

When Jackson (John Cusack) goes to pick up the Russian oligarch's boys, the mansion, to which he drives up, is the Fleur de Lys estate in the Bel Air and Beverly Hills area. At one hundred twenty-five million dollars, it was one of the most expensive real estate listings in the country.

The character Jackson Curtis is the real name of 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) backwards. Executive Producer, co-Writer, and Director Roland Emmerich is a big fan of rapper 50 Cent, and wanted to name his lead character after him.

Charlie Frost's animation about the end of the world heavily references the animated Internet meme, "The End of ze World", which centers around the idea that humanity will kill itself as a whole before any natural disaster would ever have the time to destroy it.

In an interview in USA Today, Roland Emmerich said that this will be his final disaster film, "I said to myself that I'll do one more disaster movie, but it has to end all disaster movies. So I packed everything in." He ended up doing several more, including Independence Day: Resurgence (2016).

Roland Emmerich told MTV the cover-up name for this film was "Farewell Atlantis", which is the title of lead character Jackson Curtis' book.

Seth Rogen turned down the role of Adrian Helmsley.

John Cusack and Amanda Peet appeared in Identity (2003) and Martian Child (2007).

The character of Charlie Frost seems loosely based on David Johnston and Harry Glicken, volcanologists killed in the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Johnston was able to broadcast, "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" as a warning before he died. Glicken was considered so eccentric and disorganized, that he was only ever offered temporary positions by the U.S. Geological Survey, despite his incredibly thorough research on Mount St. Helens.

A television shows an Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alike as the Governor of California explaining the situation. The real-life Arnold ended his term in 2011, and the events in this movie took place near the end of 2012.

FILM 1809: LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF

FILM 1809: LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF 

Los Angeles Plays Itself is a video essay by Thom Andersen, finished in 2003, exploring the way Los Angeles has been presented in movies. Consisting almost entirely of clips from other films with narration, the film was not initially released commercially. The film was only seen in screenings presented by Andersen, occasional presentations at American Cinematheque and copies distributed via filesharing and other person-to-person methods. In 2014, it was announced that the film would finally be released officially by Cinema Guild.

Andersen stated that the film idea occurred to him after a lecture he gave at the California Institute of the Arts, where he talked about his objections to L.A. Confidential, the 1997 Curtis Hanson film adapted from James Ellroy's novel.

In the film, Andersen argues that the influence of Hollywood overshadows Los Angeles and is one of the reasons the city's name is frequently abbreviated. He makes the case that directors have a distaste for modernist architecture, which is regularly used for villain's homes.

(Information from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Plays_Itself)

FILM 1735: THE DISASTER ARTIST

TRIVIA: Greg Sestero stated that when he was writing the book, Tommy Wiseau said that only two actors could play him in the adaptation: James Franco or Johnny Depp. Wiseau, who claims to have once lived in New Orleans, was a fan of Franco's performance in the film Sonny (2002).

James Franco spoke like Tommy Wiseau throughout each day's filming, and even directed using Wiseau's distinctive voice and syntax, though Jason Mantzoukas said that Franco did not direct in character and only spoke like Wiseau. Seth Rogen admitted he had a hard time being directed by Franco while being interviewed on The Howard Stern Show. Rogen said during the first two days, he had a hard time containing his laughter as Franco was speaking as Tommy Wiseau with his notable European accent. Franco told Rogen he would get used to it, which he eventually did.

To promote the film the distributor rented the same billboard on Highland Avenue in Los Angeles that Tommy Wiseau rented for five years to promote The Room (2003), mimicking the layout of the original billboard and including a phone number to RSVP to screenings.

In almost every interview for The Disaster Artist, James Franco mentions that Tommy Wiseau approves of "99.9%" of the film. His only objections were the lighting of the first scene, which Franco believes was because Tommy was wearing sunglasses when watching the scene, and also for the poor way James threw the football.

Besides an interview for Esquire and a video for Funnyordie.com, brothers James and Dave Franco have never worked together or appeared on-screen together until this film. Dave Franco almost appeared as himself with his brother in This Is the End, but he was later excluded because his charcter would have had to die and it was considered too sad for the already dark comedy. James was also considered for a role in 21 Jump Street (2012) respectively starring his brother Dave.

All three stars of podcast 'How Did This Get Made?' (Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael and Jason Mantzoukas) appear in the film. In a Variety article, it was revealed that the podcast episode featuring The Room which Greg Sestero appeared on, was a contributing factor not only in the source book being completed but also served as an inspiration for the screenwriters.

FILM 1665: THE INVITATION

TRIVIA: Zachary Quinto, Luke Wilson and Topher Grace were originally cast in major roles.

The director and the writers had complete creative control on the film, as it was independently produced without any involvement from major studios.

BOOK 177: GIRL IN A BAND: A MEMOIR: KIM GORDON

Kim Gordon, founding member of Sonic Youth, fashion icon, and role model for a generation of women, now tells her story—a memoir of life as an artist, of music, marriage, motherhood, independence, and as one of the first women of rock and roll, written with the lyricism and haunting beauty of Patti Smith's Just Kids.

Often described as aloof, Kim Gordon opens up as never before in Girl in a Band. Telling the story of her family, growing up in California in the '60s and '70s, her life in visual art, her move to New York City, the men in her life, her marriage, her relationship with her daughter, her music, and her band, Girl in a Band is a rich and beautifully written memoir.

Gordon takes us back to the lost New York of the 1980s and '90s that gave rise to Sonic Youth, and the Alternative revolution in popular music. The band helped build a vocabulary of music—paving the way for Nirvana, Hole, Smashing Pumpkins and many other acts. But at its core, Girl in a Band examines the route from girl to woman in uncharted territory, music, art career, what partnership means—and what happens when that identity dissolves.

Evocative and edgy, filled with the sights and sounds of a changing world and a transformative life, Girl in a Band is the fascinating chronicle of a remarkable journey and an extraordinary artist.

MY VERDICT: I loved reading this book.  I was not reading as a fan of Sonic Youth (I don’t dislike them, I’ve just never really listened to their music), but rather as someone who was interested in what it was like to be a girl in a band and the scene in New York in the 1980s onwards.

I was not disappointed, there were so many people that Kim Gordon got to hang out with that I would love to meet, people from the art world and the world of the Punk Rock, No Wave and Grunge scenes. She got to tour with Nirvana and REM, she lived with Cindy Sherman, made a music video with Spike Jonze and a skateboarding Jason Lee and designed clothes with Sophia Coppola.

It’s safe to say, I envy her life.

Kim is very open and honest, she doesn’t hold back, but also this isn’t a sensationalist piece. She is clear on whom she likes and doesn’t like and gives us reasons rather than talking in gossipy tones. 

And this book’s greatest legacy, one that makes me hold certain texts in even higher esteem, it made me want to be more creative, a big bonus for any great book.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/08/magazine/great-performers-la-noir-photo-essay.html