FILM 1862: MARWENCOL

FILM 1862: MARWENCOL 

On April 8, 2000, Mark Hogancamp was attacked outside of a bar by five men who beat him nearly to death after he told them he was a cross-dresser. After nine days in a coma and 40 days in the hospital, Hogancamp was discharged with brain damage that left him little memory of his previous life. Unable to afford therapy, he created his own by building a 1/6-scale World War II-era Belgiantown in his yard and populating it with dolls representing himself, his friends, and even his attackers. He called the town "Marwencol," blending the names "Mark," "Wendy" and "Colleen."

Hogancamp was initially discovered by photographer David Naugle, who documented and shared his story with Esopus magazine, whereby his work was shown in a New York art gallery.

TRIVIA: For the film's premiere Mark prepared a story line including the delivery by courier of a 1/6th scale press kit to the village of Marwencol.

This film is also known as Village of the Dolls in the UK.

This film is inspiration for ‘Welcome to Marwen,’ a 2018 drama directed by Robert Zemeckis. 

BOOK: Welcome to Marwencol is an art book by Mark Hogancamp and Chris Shellen published in 2015 by Princeton Architectural Press. It explores the life and work of Hogancamp. It was named one of the best books of 2015 by Amazon.

FILM 1852: THE MEG

FILM 1852: THE MEG

TRIVIA: In real life, Jason Statham is an expert swimmer. In the 1990 Commonwealth Games, he represented England in diving. Footage of him competing can be found online. Most of the shots of him in the water are real. A stunt double was used for more hazardous shots.

In the book, the megalodons are pure white, almost luminescent, from living in an environment with virtually no light. This coloring proved too difficult to render in CGI while still looking realistic, so the megalodons were colored like great white sharks.

Eli Roth was attached as director before being replaced by Jon Turteltaub. Roth left due to creative differences with the studio, namely that he wanted the film to maintain both its R-rating and a $150 million budget. It was also rumored that Roth, on top of writing and directing, also wanted to play the lead role of Jonas, but the studio believed he did not have the star power.

The film is based on the book "MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror," the first book that author Steve Alten ever published.

The Meg (2018) was filmed in New Zealand.

The name of the boat at the end of the film is "Charlotte." This is also the name of the ship that the character Benjamin Franklin Gates searches for in National Treasure (2004), which was also directed by Jon Turteltaub.

Featured on Episode #196 on the podcast "How Did This Get Made?".

FILM 1812: DEEP BLUE SEA

FILM 1812: DEEP BLUE SEA

TRIVIA: The license plate pulled from the shark's teeth is the same one found in the tiger shark in Jaws (1975).

For one scene, Thomas Jane had to swim alongside a real live shark. He was only allowed to shoot this once he had completed all his other scenes.

The orange colored mini-sub visible in the wet-entry area was the same mini-sub seen in the end of Sphere (1998), also starring Samuel L. Jackson.

Preacher's description of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity (Tom Scoggins: "I spent four years at CalTech, and that's the best physics explanation I've ever heard.") is adapted from a quote by Einstein himself: "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity."

Samuel L. Jackson was initially offered the role played by LL Cool J. Jackson's management didn't like the idea of him playing a chef so director Renny Harlin created the role of Russell Franklin for him, Jackson stated about Harlin casting him as Franklin "He said, 'Now you're going to be the richest man in the world, and you're going to have the greatest scene in the movie, and it's going to be a shock to everyone!" Jackson recalled. "He sent it back, [and the part] was Russell Franklin, and I was like 'Yeah, this was great.' I've done a lot of different things in movies, or had a lot of things happen to me in the movies, but nothing like what happens to me in this one."

DIRECTOR CAMEO: Renny Harlin: as one of the workers of Aquatica that are heading home for the weekend on the supply boat.

FILM 1525: EDGE OF TOMORROW 

TRIVIA: Based on the manga and novel "All You Need Is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.

It was never stated in the movie, but in the manga, the reason why Rita uses a melee weapon is because during her "resets" she would often run out of ammo, which resulted in her deaths. Keiji (in the manga) also learned about the convenience of a melee weapon and started using one.

While filming the car chase scene which includes a minivan, Emily Blunt was instructed to drive fast and then to take a right hand turn so that the van would shake. However, Blunt missed her mark and she drove the car right into a tree. She later said that it was both hilarious and terrifying, as she almost killed Tom Cruise, who was in the passenger seat, but both of them started laughing after the incident.

Emily Blunt admitted that after putting on the metal suit, she started crying because it was so heavy (it weighed 85 pounds) and that she would be required to perform action scenes in it for five months. She was jokingly told by Tom Cruise to "stop being such a wuss."

When Emily Blunt's character is introduced, she is doing a "planche" hold. Although she needed a wire for help on long takes, she is actually capable of doing that maneuver without assistance. In fact, when discussing the introduction, a cast member said, "Em, show that yoga move," and she casually demonstrated it.

The default language setup for Cage's battle armor is Japanese, a nod to the novel's country of origin.

Operation Downfall, the name the movie gave the planned invasion, was in fact a real planned invasion: the final invasion of the Japanese Home Islands to end World War II. The real Operation Downfall never happened, as the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought about the surrender of Japan.

Rita, for her bravery, was nicknamed by the public "The Angel of Verdun." In real life, Verdun was the site in France of the bloodiest battle of WWI in 1916. It lasted almost a year and an estimated one million men on both sides died, and Mons was the site in Belgium of a battle in 1914 and spawned tales of what many consider an otherworldly miracle. A 1914 newspaper short story about the battle, "The Bowmen," written by horror-story specialist Arthur Machen, told the tale of how during the battle, soldiers on both sides saw "supernatural" medieval archers appearing in the sky and causing the enemy to retreat. Despite Machen's attempts to prevent it, his story, which was entirely fictional, quickly inspired a popular and strongly believed account of "the Angels of Mons." The Battle of Verdun occurred two years later and there was no association with angelic apparitions, but Rita's nickname does seem to be inspired by the "Angels of Mons" story.

The sound design of the jacket is the same gun used in Aliens (1986).

At the beginning of the movie, there is a montage of different newscasters, news footage, and public officials trying to deal with the alien invasion. One of the public officials they showed was Hillary Clinton, implying that she was President of the United States. The movie was released in 2014, two years before the 2016 presidential elections.

While preparing for her role here, Emily Blunt was tutored in the Israeli self-defense system of "Krav Maga".

Doug Liman wanted to do the film because it showed a role that Tom Cruise hadn't done yet; someone very bad at what they do.

FILM 1520: 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE

TRIVIA: This film was officially announced less than two months before its release. The film had been completed without anyone knowing and the first trailer was shown during 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016).

Bradley Cooper provides the voice of Michelle's boyfriend Ben on the phone in this movie.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead was the first and only choice for the lead role of Michelle.

The name of the gas station Michelle stops at to refuel is named "Kelvin". This is an Easter Egg J.J. Abrams slips into all his projects, a tribute to his maternal grandfather Henry Kelvin who owned an electronics company and influenced Abrams as a boy.

FILM 1473: DAS BOOT

TRIVIA: Originally filmed in German, all of the major actors could speak English. When the movie was dubbed into English for USA and UK distribution, all of the principal actors actually dubbed their own voices into English.

The bulk of the film's $15 million budget was spent on constructing U-boats. Specifications for the original Type VII-C U-boat were found at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. The plans were taken to the original builder of the subs, who was commissioned to build a full-sized, sea-going replica, their first such assignment since the war ended. A second full-sized model was built for interior filming.

The submarine models built for Das Boot were also the ones used in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

Because the original TV mini-series was severely criticized in Germany for portraying World War II Germans sympathetically, the producer greeted the first American showing of the film at the Los Angeles Film Festival with great trepidation. They weren't sure how a former enemy nation in that war would react to the film, especially in a city with a large Jewish population, and their fears were reinforced when the audience applauded the opening caption saying 30,000 of 40,000 German men that went into war in submarines didn't come back. However, when it ended, the audience gave the film a standing ovation in appreciation of the artistry of the filmmakers.

The cast was deliberately kept indoors continually during the shooting period in order to look as pale as a real submarine crew would on a mission at sea.

The full-scale model was little more than a hollow shell with an engine, and could be used only in calm waters. While it was being filmed in rougher weather, it cracked in two and sank. It was later recovered, patched with wood planks and used for the final shots.

The picture was nominated for six Academy Awards which was at the time the highest number of Oscar nominations ever received by a foreign language film. The record has since being beaten by such films as Life Is Beautiful (1997) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000).

Steadicams were not yet in use during the production of the movie. In order to get the fast tracking shots through the U-boat without a shaky image, director of photography Jost Vacano created a system of heavy gyroscopes together with his father that kept the camera steady as he ran through the hallways. The set of the U-boat had intentionally been built slightly bigger to give Vacano more room to work. Even so, as he had to look through the camera, he had to wear a helmet because he would regularly bump his head.

One of the few foreign language films that is primarily referred to on the American market by its original foreign title rather than its translated English title.

With production costs of 31 million DM, it was for a long time the most expensive German movie ever made. It was beaten in 2006 by Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), which, however, was a German-French-Spanish co-production shot in English.

FILM 1418: THE ACCUSED

TRIVIA: Upon seeing a pre-screening of the film, Jodie Foster thought her performance as Sarah Tobias was so awful that she immediately began preparing for and taking the GRE's for graduate school. She was prepared to leave her film career behind and focus on academia...until she won the Academy Award for her performance.

Kelly McGillis was offered the role of Sarah Tobias, but having survived a violent sexual assault in 1982 by two men who broke into her apartment, she declined the role and instead fought for the part of Kathryn Murphy.

According Jodie Foster in her interview in Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters (2006), producer Stanley R. Jaffe felt she was "not sexy enough" for the role and wanted to cast another actress. He felt that 24-year-old Jodie Foster did not have the right talent for the role.

Brad Pitt auditioned for a role.

This is the first film since Two Women (1960) to win the Best Actress Academy Award without being nominated in any other category.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus was considered for the role of Sarah Tobias, but was later discarded because she was "too nice" for the part.

Brian De Palma was originally assigned to direct the movie.

In their separate careers several years after the release of The Accused (1988), both leading ladies, Kelly McGillis and Jodie Foster, publicly and proudly acknowledged their homosexuality. McGillis came out in 2009, and Foster in 2013.