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 1568: STEVE JOBS

TRIVIA: The three sequences in the film were filmed on 16mm, 35mm, and digital to illustrate the advancement in Apple's technology across the 16 years depicted of Jobs' life.

Michael Fassbender said in an interview that Christian Bale who exited the project in November 2014 would have been "perfect" to play Steve Jobs. "I thought to myself: Christian Bale is perfect, why isn't he doing it?" The actor told The Hollywood Reporter while promoting the film in London. "I actually called him up and told him that myself."

Seth Rogen met with Steve Wozniak extensively to understand him. Rogen also researched Wozniak's keynotes and speeches online. Rogen cited watching an old eighties video on repeat, featuring Wozniak giving a tour of the Apple museum at their headquarters as part of his research. Rogen later admitted that he had no idea who Steve Wozniak was prior to working on this movie.

Kate Winslet found out about the movie from her makeup artist while working on The Dressmaker (2015). The makeup artist just got hired for this movie and told Winslet. Winslet said that she was intrigued by a movie written by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Michael Fassbender that she asked for more details about the female part. She later sent a picture of herself with a black wig and then she got the script and met with Boyle which resulted in winning the part.

During the montage depicting the failure of Apple's Newton PDA, one of the clips shown is from the animated TV series The Simpsons. This is a more multileveled reference to the life of Steve Jobs than it might appear at first: Jobs, who was adopted as an infant, discovered well into his adulthood that he had a full biological sister, the novelist Mona Simpson (author of novels including Anywhere but Here, Off Keck Road, and A Regular Guy--which is about a Jobs-like billionaire technology mogul). Mona Simpson was married for many years to Richard Appel, who was a writer for The Simpsons during the mid-1990s. One of Appel's lasting contributions to that show was that he was the writer who named the character of Homer Simpson's mother; since Appel was married to a woman whose last name was, coincidentally, Simpson, he named Homer's mother "Mona Simpson."

Leonardo DiCaprio was originally set to play the lead role but dropped out to do The Revenant (2015). Michael Fassbender was cast when Christian Bale also passed on the project. All three actors were nominated at the 2016 Academy Awards: DiCaprio for Best Actor in 'The Revenant', Fassbender for Best Actor in 'Steve Jobs', and Bale for Best Supporting Actor in The Big Short (2015). DiCaprio ended up winning an award.

During the first act of the film, when Jobs and Woz are arguing in the courtyard about the 2 vs 8 ports on their way to the launch of the Mac, writer Aaron Sorkin makes a cameo as the taller of the two gentlemen walking by in the background.

During the 1984 sequence of the film, Jobs (Fassbender) and Sculley (Daniels) are watching the Macintosh Super Bowl commercial from backstage. The commercial was directed by Ridley Scott, who went on to direct Michael Fassbender in Prometheus (2012), as well as Jeff Daniels in The Martian (2015).

FILM 1381: A FEW GOOD MEN

TRIVIA: The original play was inspired by an actual Code Red at Guantanamo Bay. Lance Corporal David Cox and 9 other enlisted men tied up a fellow Marine and severely beat him, for snitching to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Cox was acquitted and later Honorably Discharged. In 1994, David Cox mysteriously vanished, and his bullet-riddled body was found three months later. His murder remains unsolved.

The movie's line "You can't handle the truth!" was voted as the #29 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).

Tom Cruise's Jack Nicholson impersonation (when his character is quoting Col. Jessep) was not scripted.

Jack Nicholson repeated his famous courtroom monologue as Col. Jessep off-camera several times so Rob Reiner could film the reactions of other actors from various angles. Nicholson's memorable on-camera performance was filmed last, but according to Reiner and the other cast members, Nicholson gave it his all every take as if he was on camera.

Screenwriter William Goldman did an uncredited re-write of the screenplay. Aaron Sorkin was so impressed by Goldman's new dialog (as well as changes that tightened the story) that he re-wrote and re-published the play to incorporate the changes.

Writer Aaron Sorkin got the story idea from his sister, who in real life experienced a very similar incident at Guantanamo from the "Lt. Cdr. Galloway" perspective as a female JAG attorney. In that incident, the victim was similarly assaulted by nine Marines and was badly injured, but did not die. Sorkin initially turned the idea into a play, and then this screenplay, which was his very first.

COL Jessep warns LT Kendrick that Santiago needs to score "4646" on his next Proficiency and Conduct report. Jessep is referring to a system by which the performance of enlisted men is rated on a scale from 0.0 to 5.0; a score of 4.6 corresponds to a rating of "Excellent".

The word "sir" is used 164 times during the movie. That's an average of once every 50 seconds.

The title for the play and film came from a long-running recruiting campaign for the U.S. Marine Corps, "We're looking for a few good men." The campaign was slowly phased out through the 1980s with the well-known, "The Few. The Proud. The Marines."

Two "Misery" novels can be seen beside Danny's typewriter while he watches a ball game. Misery (1990) was also directed by Rob Reiner and a typewriter plays an integral role in the plot of that film.