FILM 1661: WINGS OF HOPE

Werner Herzog returns to the South American jungle with Juliane Koepcke, the German woman who was the sole survivor of a plane crash there in 1971. They find the remains of the plane and recreate her journey out of the jungle.

Herzog was inspired to make this film since he had narrowly avoided taking the same flight while he was location scouting for Aguirre, Wrath of God. His reservation was canceled due to a last minute change in itinerary.

FILM 1426: FEARLESS

TRIVIA: The airplane crash site was recreated in a field in Northern California and was exactly modeled on a crash that occurred outside Sioux City in Iowa in 1989. The "accident" was reported by several flights flying over the scene. The field was first planted with 85 acres of corn which was then bulldozed to recreate the gouge that a crashing plane would have made. The adjoining cotton field was also purchased to make the crash appear bigger. 140 extras were employed for the scene along with 40 members of the Kern County and Bakersfield Fire Department. One of the town's main roads was closed for a week, and the local electricity company was persuaded to knock down several pylons and snarl up half a mile of electric cable to create a scene of almost total devastation. The crash site took a total of 10 days to prepare, and included throwing 600 suitcases and their contents (all items purchased from local thrift stores) liberally around the site. In total, the recreation cost $2 million.

To help him get to grips with his character, Max, Jeff Bridges spent some time with his good friend Gary Busey who, years before, had been in a severe motorbike accident which had put him into a coma.

Ironically, director Peter Weir claimed that making this film cured him of his fear of flying.

One of star Jeff Bridges' favorite films of his own that he has appeared in.

FILM 1354: PITCH BLACK

TRIVIA: The contact lenses Vin Diesel wore in the movie, while a prototype during production, were briefly available to the public from Lens Quest following the release of the film. They were called Shine Job, like in the movie.

The contacts that Vin Diesel wore to play Riddick were a prototype. After the first day of filming, when they tried to remove the contact lenses, they couldn't. Due to where they were filming, they had to have an optometrist flown in from the nearest town, three hours away. Diesel called the contacts hubcaps.

In one of the shots showing cargo pods being jettisoned from the ship before the crash, one of the pods is numbered '2E', a jokey reference to the director's name ('Dave Twohy') from the effects crew.

Although Riddick narrates the beginning of the story, his first dialogue with another character (Carolyn) does not occur until almost thirty minutes into the movie.

Film 858: Unknown

Trivia:  According to his passport, Martin Harris was born on June 7th. This is also the birthday of Liam Neeson who portrays Dr. Harris.