FILM 1995: SPECIES

FILM 1995: SPECIES 

TRIVIA: Xavier Fitch (Sir Ben Kingsley) says that the alien signal was received by the Arecibo radio telescope exactly nineteen years after an outbound message was transmitted. Since the transmissions travelled at the speed of light, that means that the alien solar system is approximately nine light-years from Earth. There are two stars which are likely candidates, Sirius and Luyten 726-8A.

Fitch's comment that they made Sil female to be more docile is an in-joke that reveals his ignorance. In every predatory species known, the female is always more aggressive.

During the production, MGM opted not to shoot the "nightmare train" sequence to keep costs down. H.R. Giger was not willing to accept that, however, so he spent one hundred thousand dollars of his own money to finance the sequence.

In scenes of Dan (Forest Whitaker) talking to his therapist, there is a sign on the wall in the background that at first glance is a typical "Thank You For Not Smoking" sign. On closer inspection the text actually reads "Thank You For Smoking".

Michelle Williams dislikes this movie, due to the amount of bullying she received after it was released.

FILM 1894: HULK

FILM 1894: HULK

TRIVIA: Creating the Hulk in CGI was one of the most complex tasks Industrial Light & Magic had ever undertaken at that time. The computer model used 12,996 texture maps, and required 1,165 muscle movements and one hundred layers of skin. It took the combined work and efforts of about one hundred eighty ILM technicians (sixty-nine technical artists, forty-one animators, thirty-five compositors, ten muscle action animators, nine CG modellers, eight supervisors, six skin painters and five motion-capture wranglers), over two and a half million hours, and one and a half years for him to be effectively created and portrayed in the film. With all of that work, some of the public complained that the Hulk looked too fake, comparing him with Shrek (2001).

Edward Norton was approached to play Bruce Banner, but turned it down, as, despite being a fan of the Hulk, he didn't like the script. He later accepted the role in The Incredible Hulk (2008).

A lot of the microbiology work we see on-screen is real, and is the work of Director Ang Lee's wife.

According to the animators at Industrial Light & Magic, the Hulk weighs 3,452 pounds (1,565.8 kilograms), and can exert fourteen tons of pressure per square inch. His skin is ten times as strong as Kevlar. His chest measures seventeen feet and four inches (5.3 meters), his waist twelve feet and ten inches (3.3 meters), his foot four feet and three inches (1.3 meters), and his neck six feet and nine inches (2 meters). If he wore shoes, they would be (U.S.) size eighty-seven. He can move at a top speed of three hundred miles (four hundred eighty-three kilometers) per hour, and cross three to four miles (4.8 to 6.4 kilometers) in a single jump.

Nick Nolte had his hair grown wildly for this movie when he was arrested on drunk driving charges and photographed for his now infamous mug shot.

Ang Lee performed the Hulk using motion-capture technology.

Ang Lee employed the split-screen technique to cinematically mimic the panels of a comic-book page. This required many takes of one scene, which was draining for Eric Bana. It took him four takes to film Banner's first Hulk transformation, and by the time of its completion, he was on the verge of collapse.

This film holds the record for largest second weekend box-office drop for a film that opened at number one, with a 69.7 percent drop.

When the first transformation of Banner into Hulk occurs, the color of the Hulk is either gray or greenish-gray. This is an homage to the first appearance of the Hulk, when he was actually gray in his debut comic (May 1962). The publisher couldn't do gray very well, so Stan Lee changed the color to green, simply because green hadn't been used much by other characters. From the second transformation, he maintains his prominent emerald hue.

CAMEO:Lou Ferrigno: (At around twelve minutes) As a security guard. 

CAMEO: Stan Lee: (At around twelve minutes) The creator of the Hulk (1962) appeared as a security guard. Lee ad-libbed his lines.

FILM 1840: THE INSTITUTE

FILM 1840: THE INSTITUTE

A documentary on the Jejune Institute, a mind-bending San Francisco phenomenon where 10,000 people became "inducted" without ever quite realizing what they'd signed up for.

(Find more information (preferably after you’ve watched the documentary as it gives away a lot) here: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/jp54ky/game-or-cult-the-alternate-reality-of-the-jejune-institute)

FILM 1820: MONKEY SHINES

FILM 1820: MONKEY SHINES

TRIVIA: This was George A. Romero's first studio film. However, the studio he was working with, Orion Pictures, had re-cut the film against Romero's wishes which contributed to the box office failure of the film. Afterwards, Romero went back to independent filmmaking until The Dark Half (1993) (also from Orion).

This was the first film role for Stephen Root, then a stage actor. According to Root, he had been instructed by his agent not to let the casting directors know that he was inexperienced with film as an actor. Root's official debut was Crocodile Dundee II (1988), which had been released in theaters a month before this film, despite being shot a month after it.

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 1747: THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX

FILM 1747: THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX

TRIVIA: The first trailer was released during Super Bowl LII (2018) the same night the actual film was released on Netflix.

A small figurine with the word Slusho can be seen in the first half of the movie. Slusho is a brand subtly featured in both of the earlier Cloverfield movies, as well as J.J. Abrams' earlier TV series Alias (2001). The viral online campaign for the first Cloverfield (2008), indicated that Slusho is a subsidiary of Tagruato Inc., the company behind the deep ocean drilling (and potential explosion) that woke up the monster in that movie.

John Krasinski was in talks to join the cast, but dropped out to lead Jack Ryan (2018).

FILM 1678: LIFE

TRIVIA: Actress Rebecca Ferguson who plays Dr. Miranda North, British, Quarantine Officer, originally turned down the role. She thought she would not live up to standards. She was nervous and scared. She told it to the producer and was advised to talk with the director of the movie Daniel Espinosa. His philosophy and ideas for the film impressed her and decided to change her decision and eventually take part in the movie.

Second film to be written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and feature Ryan Reynolds. The first was Deadpool (2016)

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 1502: THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT

TRIVIA: Based on Dr. Zimbardo's real life psychological study: 'The Stanford Prison Experiment'.

The german movie from 2001 'Das Experiment' with Moritz Bleibtreu and the american remake from 2010 movie 'The Experiment' with Adrien Brody and Forrest Whitaker are also based on the 'Stanford experiment'

FILM 1501: EXPERIMENTER

TRIVIA: Peter Sarsgaard also appeared in "Kinsey"(2004) which was a film about another controversial researcher in the field of human behavior/psychology.

PRODUCTION: Although Almereyda was aware of Milgram's work, it wasn't until his girlfriend began taking a class on him that Almereyda became interested. Subsequently, the director found himself reading Milgram's Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. According to Almereyda once he started reading "[he] instantly saw how filmable it was" becoming increasingly interested in making it into a film the more he went on. In filming, Almereyda wanted it to be "playful" in nature as he felt that's how Stanley Milgram himself would have made it. Almereyda decided to have Milgram break the fourth wall based on viewing films of his in which Milgram would talk to the camera, reminding him of Rod Serling or Alfred Hitchcock. From this Almereyda figured having the character talk to the camera "seemed natural and in fact essential to include that in the movie.” (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimenter_(film) )