FILM 1839: WINCHESTER

FILM 1839: WINCHESTER

TRIVIA: The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion located in San Jose, California. It is believed to be haunted by the victims of the Winchester rifle. It has been a tourist attraction since 1923, a year after Sarah Winchester's death.

Very little of the filming took place in the actual mansion. The mansion's design in reality is extremely cramped, making filming very difficult. As such, most of the mansion's interior needed to be recreated on sound stages.

According to records kept by the Mystery House proprietors today, Sarah Winchester constantly built and rebuilt the house throughout her 38 years in residence. The Winchester house has windows and doors in the floor, doors that open into walls or go nowhere, and stairs to nowhere or into the ceiling. Its total area is around 6 acres (24,000 m²).

The promotional image for the film of Helen Mirren sitting in the carriage in mourning clothes mirrors the only known photograph of the reclusive Sarah Winchester on the estate, which is seen on the tour of the mansion in San Jose, California.

Lionsgate bought the film and photography rights to the Winchester Mansion for this film. So now tourists are not allowed to take any pictures of the interior of the mansion, because a tourist photo would be in direct competition with a Hollywood movie.

The directors are twins. Dame Mirren likened the experience to having one mind speaking through two mouths.

The quotes on the stained glass windows shown at the beginning, "Wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts" and "These same thoughts people this little world," are obscure Shakespearean quotes, and not even from the same play. No one knows why Sarah Winchester chose them.

The real life Winchester house has spider webs incorporated into its design, as Sarah believed that spider webs were good luck.

FILM 1740: LOGAN LUCKY

FILM 1740: LOGAN LUCKY

TRIVIA: The film was distributed by cutting out studios, in order to have creative control and make money directly from the film itself. Accordingly, for this atypical distribution, Steven Soderbergh raised the budget by selling off foreign distribution rights, and then sold everything except the movie showing up in a movie theater in order to pay for advertising and prints of the movie (for example, selling post-theatrical rights to the likes of HBO, Netflix, Video-On-Demand, television, and airplanes). By following these two steps, Soderbergh was able to sidestep a Hollywood studio, and had creative control the entire time (for instance, the trailers that dropped earlier this summer were by his design, as was the poster and the entire marketing plan). Also, according to Soderbergh, under this set-up, the box-office bar for success is lower. With nearly everything prepaid, and no hefty distributor fees coming off the top, even a modest fifteen million dollar opening would be a win.

Several NASCAR drivers have cameos in Logan Lucky. Ryan Blaney as the Cake Delivery Boy and Kyle Larson as the Limo Driver. Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch as West Virginia State Troopers. Brad Keselowski and Joey Lagano as the Security Guards. As well as Jeff Gordon and Darrell Waltrip.

Katherine Heigl was originally cast, but dropped out, due to pregnancy. She was replaced by Katie Holmes.

Riley Keough, who plays Mellie, is Elvis Presley's granddaughter--daughter of Elvis & Priscilla's child Lisa Marie.

One of the two 2017 movies featuring Channing Tatum and the song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver. The other one being Kingsman: The Golden Circle(2017).

FILM 1643: PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 

TRIVIA: Photographed in the English Technicolor process by Jack Cardiff, this film is considered one of the most beautiful colour films ever made.

The first feature film in color for Ava Gardner.

Esperanza, the name of the fishing village, is the Spanish for 'hope' which was the only thing left after Pandora opened her box in the Greek myth

Van der Zee means "of the sea" in Dutch.

The famous poet Dylan Thomas visited the set and is believed to have appeared as an extra, being briefly visible in the background in one scene.

On the beach, around 0:05:40, Geoffrey says aloud to himself, "'The measure of love is what one is willing to give up for it.' Who said that?" Though the quotation comes up a couple of times more, the question of who said it is never answered. The answer is, none other than Albert Lewin himself, the writer of the story and the screenplay and the director.

Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

BOOK 113: BORN WEIRD: ANDREW KAUFMAN

A family drama unlike any other from the internationally acclaimed author of All My Friends are Superheroes.

The Weirds have always been a little peculiar, but not one of them suspected that they’d been cursed by their grandmother.

At the moment of their birth Annie Weird gave each of her five grandchildren a special power that she thought was a blessing. Richard, the oldest, always keeps safe; Abba always has hope; Lucy is never lost and Kent can beat anyone in a fight. As for Angie, she always forgives, instantly. But over the years these blessings have proved to be curses and ruined their lives.

Now Annie is dying and she has one last task for Angie, her favourite grandchild. Angie has to gather her far-flung brothers and sisters and assemble them in her Grandmother’s hospital room so that at the moment of her death, she can lift these blessings turned curses.

MY VERDICT: I liked this book, it was quirky and interesting but it was missing something.  It was missing some depth, and with so many characters I suppose this is not surprising.  It was a little flat but on the whole I enjoyed reading it, it was easy and entertaining.  Not as good, nowhere as near as good as his first.