FILM 1644: ARRIVAL

TRIVIA: Director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriter Eric Heisserer created a fully functioning, visual, alien language. Heisserer, Villeneuve and their teams managed to create a "logogram bible," which included over a hundred different completely operative logo-grams, seventy-one of which are actually featured in the movie.

The inky circular alien language was created by Montreal artist Martine Bertrand. It is also the artist's son who created Hannah's drawings.

Louise tells Colonel Weber that the word 'kangaroo' comes from an historical misunderstanding, and actually means "I don't know", only to tell Ian that the story is untrue but illustrates her point. This is an actual myth, not just a made up story. It involves Lieutenant James Cook and Sir Joseph Banks who arrived in Australia in the 18th century, where they made contact with the Guugo Yimithirr, a coastal Aboriginal tribe. They were puzzled by the sight of a kangaroo, and asked a tribesman what it was. According to the myth, the tribesman responded with the word "gangurru", meaning "I don't understand" in his language. Banks mistook it for the local term for the animal, spelling it as "kanguru" in his diary. The myth was debunked in the 1970s by linguist John B. Haviland. In reality, the word gangurru specifically refers to the grey kangaroo in the Guugo Yimithirr language. When Cook and Banks traveled 1,400 miles inland, they encountered the Baagandji tribe, who were unfamiliar with the other tribe and the word gangurru, and thought it meant "unknown animal". The Baagandji then started to use the word to describe Cook's and Banks' horses.

While the shape of the ship was decided early on, Denis Villeneuve had great difficulty imagining an interior that would allow humans to easily navigate through such a steep and vertical design. The later decision to turn gravity sideways offered an obvious and convenient solution.

Ted Chiang, who wrote the story the film is based upon, approved the film, saying, "I think it's that rarest of the rare in that it's both a good movie and a good adaptation... And when you consider the track record of adaptations of written science fiction, that's almost literally a miracle."

"Dirty Sci-fi" is what director Denis Villeneuve and cinematographer Bradford Young called the look they created together for Arrival. Villeneuve wanted it to feel like "This was happening on a bad Tuesday morning, like when you were a kid on the school bus on a rainy day and you'd dream while looking out the window at the clouds."

Scandinavian photographer Martina Hoogland Ivanow was a major influence on cinematographer Bradford Young's look of this film, especially with her exhibition and book "Speedway."

In writing the story, Ted Chiang had in mind the following quote of the great physicist Albert Einstein: "The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

The siren emitted throughout the movie signaling the scientists' preparation to approach the ship is identical to the siren used in The Purge (2013) and its sequels.

Abbott and Costello resemble Kang and Kodos, the aliens from The Simpsons (1989) Treehouse of Horror segments.

  

FILM 1602: NOCTURNAL ANIMALS

TRIVIA: Focus Features paid $20 million for global distribution rights after a heavy bidding battle in Cannes. This is the highest amount ever paid for a film at a festival.

Based on the book: "Tony and Susan". The book that Tony writes in the book is called "Nocturnal Animals" (so the writer chose that title).

Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal have been cast in another project called 'Ezekiel Moss' which would have been directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. However, the project was scrapped after Hoffman's death in 2014.

Although he is known as a fashion designer, Ford chose to leave the costuming in the film strictly to the costume designer. Not a single Tom Ford product appears in the film, as Ford "didn't want a commercial."

FILM 1265: BIG EYES

TRIVIA: This cast only features actors that Tim Burton has not worked with before, which is unusual. The last time this happened was in Beetlejuice (1988).

First live action Tim Burton film to not feature Johnny Depp nor Helena Bonham Carter since Mars Attacks! (1996).

Kate Hudson and Thomas Haden Church were previously attached to play the lead roles. They were replaced with Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Reynolds. After a year in development, Witherspoon and Reynolds dropped out and Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz took the lead roles.

The amount of sales of Margaret Keane Paintings soared ahead of the release of the film, with small paintings being sold for $8,500 a piece. Director Tim Burton also owns an extensive collection of her work. Keane has also painted portraits of Burton's partner Helena Bonham Carter and Burton's former Chihuahua.

Amy Adams liked the script when it was offered to her at first, but she originally turned down the role, because the character lacked "a stronger sense of self". However, working on American Hustle (2013) gave Adams a new perspective of the character, and she was won over because she was intrigued by the character's "quiet dignity", while the relationship between the mother and the daughter spoke to her as well.

When Margaret and Walter are painting in front of the San Francisco palace of Fine Arts, the real Margaret Keane can be seen reading a book on the park bench behind them.

FILM 1097: HER

TRIVIA: Samantha Morton was originally the voice of Samantha. She was present on the set with Joaquin Phoenix every day. After the filming wrapped and Spike Jonze started editing the movie, he felt like something was not right. With Morton's blessing, he decided to recast the role and Scarlett Johansson was brought and replaced Morton, re-recording all the dialogue.

Amy Adams said writer/director Spike Jonze would essentially lock her and Joaquin Phoenix in a room together for an hour or two every other day, and make them talk to each other. Jonze did this so that the actors could get to know each other better. Adams credits this for her and Phoenix's close friendship.

Most of the city backgrounds, especially the ones featuring skyscrapers, are actually filmed in Shanghai. You can see many very identifiable skyscrapers such as the Shanghai World Financial Center. There are even Chinese signs if you look carefully. Apparently, Shanghai now is what Los Angeles will look like in the future.

This is the only movie Spike Jonze has written as well as directed, completely from his own original script.

During some of the more emotional scenes, Amy Adams would sing songs from famous musicals like "Annie" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in order to cheer herself up. Eventually, Joaquin Phoenix would join in and they would sing together. However, they stopped after they saw Spike Jonze filming them.

Film 1096: American Hustle

Trivia: The fight scene that takes place in the bedroom between Christian Bale and Jennifer Lawrence is completely improvised. A version of it had been written in the script, but the actors were struggling to connect with it, so director David O. Russell ultimately decided to allow them to say what they wanted.

According to Christian Bale much of the movie was improvised. So, during the shooting of the film he noted to David O. Russell, "You realize that this is going to change the plot greatly down track." To which the director replied, "Christian, I hate plots. I am all about characters, that's it."

David O. Russell stated that Robert De Niro didn't recognize Christian Bale on the set even after they were introduced to each other. De Niro pulled Russell aside, pointed to Bale and asked who he was. First De Niro didn't believe it was Bale but after Russell convinced him of that De Niro noted, 'Wow, he looks really different", and nodded his head as a sign of approval. Russell then had to re-introduce the two now that De Niro knew who Bale was.

Christian Bale achieved the physical traits of his character by gaining over 40 pounds, getting a comb-over and slouching his posture and ended up herniating two of his disks in the process.

The film is a fictionalized telling of the Abscam (short for Arab scam) scandal of the late 1970s and early 1980s, an FBI operation that began as an investigation of trafficking in stolen property, but was later expanded to include political corruption.

David O. Russell wrote the characters of Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence, Louis C.K. and Robert De Niro expressly for each of the actors to play them.

David O. Russell developed and expanded the role of Rosalyn Rosenfeld specifically for Jennifer Lawrence, who drew inspiration as well as the accent for the character from watching The Real Housewives of New Jersey (2009). Rosalyn is based on Cynthia Marie Weinberg, the wife of Melvin Weinberg (who was the basis for Irving Rosenfeld).

In the early 1980s French director Louis Malle adapted the Abscam story into a film script entitled "Moon Over Miami", with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi set to star, with Belushi playing a conman & Aykroyd playing an FBI agent, but Belushi's death in March 1982 scuttled plans for the film.