FILM 1706: SNOWDEN

TRIVIA: To make sure the screenplay was not hacked or leaked, Oliver Stone wrote the script on a single computer with no Internet connection.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt pledged to donate his entire salary from the film to "help facilitate the conversation" about the relationship between technology and democracy.

The real Edward Snowden advised Oliver Stone that the NSA's command centers are actually run on tight budgets and are far less glamorous than they appear in movies and TV shows. 

During the film shoot in Germany, Oliver Stone's mother passed away. Due to the limited budget and time constraints, Stone was forced to miss his mother's funeral, as taking the necessary time off would have left the production unable to complete the film within the budget and schedule.

Nicolas Cage had previously played the lead in Oliver Stone's World Trade Center (2006). He agreed to a small role in this film as a favor to Stone.

Melissa Leo plays filmmaker/journalist Laura Poitras, who directed the critically acclaimed documentary Citizenfour (2014), which chronicles the aftermath and effects of Edward Snowden's actions.

The real Lindsay Mills appears in the movie entering the cafeteria, right before Snowden meets Lindsay for the first time.

In the movie, Snowden falls out of his bunk and breaks his leg during military training, earning him an administrative discharge. In real life, it isn't known how Snowden was discharged.

This is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's second consecutive feature film based on an Oscar-winning documentary (Citizenfour (2014)). He'd previously made The Walk (2015) which was based on Man on Wire (2008).

In real-life, Oliver Stone met with Laura Poitras to discuss their respective films on Edward Snowden (the filming of Poitras' documentary is depicted in Snowden). According to Poitras, Stone suggested to her that the documentary be released after the feature film, even though the documentary was completed first, because he believed the feature would reach a wider audience. Poitras claimed she took offense to that and did not meet with Stone again.

DIRECTOR CAMEO : Oliver Stone: audience member in the last scene.

FILM 1646: HIDDEN FIGURES

TRIVIA: While John Glenn did specifically request that Katherine Johnson review all of the numbers for the Friendship 7 mission before he would agree to go through with it, he did so weeks before the mission actually took place, not when the countdown to launch was nearing at Cape Canaveral.

When Taraji P. Henson signed on for the lead role, she met with the real-life Katherine Johnson, who was 98 years old, to discuss the character she was about to portray. Henson learned that Johnson had graduated from high school at age 14 and from college at age 18, and was still as lucid as anyone years younger. After the film was screened for Johnson, she expressed her genuine approval of Henson's portrayal, but wondered why anybody would want to make a film about her life.

The issue with the bathrooms was not something Katherine Johnson personally experienced. It was actually encountered by Mary Jackson instead. In fact, it was this incident, as a result of Jackson ranting to a colleague, which got her moved to the wind tunnel team. Johnson was initially unaware that the East Side bathrooms were even segregated, and used the unlabeled "whites-only" bathrooms for years before anyone complained. When she simply ignored the complaint, the issue was dropped completely.

One of the ways that Katherine experiences workplace discrimination is when her coworkers require her to use a separate coffee pot. Whenever the office's coffee area is shown, the brand of coffee that they use, Chock Full o'Nuts, is also visible. The use of this brand in the context of segregation is historically relevant. In 1957, Chock Full o'Nuts was one of the first major New York corporations to hire a black executive as a corporate vice-president. The man they hired, retired baseball legend Jackie Robinson, had made history by being the first person to break the color barrier in professional baseball.

On the day that the scene was filmed in which Paul Stafford is speaking to the NASA engineers in the Space Task Group office about needing to develop the math for re-entry, there was an extra face in the crowd. Mark Armstrong, son of Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, had been invited by actor Ken Strunk to make a cameo appearance in the scene, and joined the other actors who were playing the NASA engineers.

Several of the control console props in the Mercury Mission Control set were originally built for the Mission Control Room set for Apollo 13 (1995). They were modified for use in the later films, including The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014) and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015).

This marks the second time Taraji P. Henson and Mahershala Ali have played love interests. The first was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008).

Producer Pharrell Williams also oversaw all musical elements, and the soundtrack.

BOOK 108: MR PENUMBRA'S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE: ROBIN SLOAN

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is a 2012 novel by American writer Robin Sloan. It was chosen one of the best 100 books of 2012 by the San Francisco Chronicle, was a New York Times Editor's Choice, and was on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list[3] as well as the NPR Hardcover Fiction Bestseller List.[4] The US book cover, which glows in the dark, was done by Rodrigo Corral and chosen as one of the 25 best book covers for 2012 by BookPage.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore combines elements of fantasy, mystery, friendship and adventure as a way of looking at the modern conflict and transition between new technology (electronic) and old (print books). The main protagonist is a laid off Silicon Valley tech worker who begins working at a dusty bookstore with very few customers, only to start discovering one secret after another. The mysterious old books, along with the store's owner, lead to a 500-year-old secret society.

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.