FILM 1498: 12 YEARS A SLAVE 

TRIVIA: The tree where Solomon sees several men being lynched was actually used for lynching, and it is surrounded by the graves of murdered slaves.

In order to better portray an alcoholic, Michael Fassbender had his makeup artist paint his mustache with alcohol so that the other actors would react naturally to the smell, as they would to a man who had been drinking heavily.

Director Steve McQueen had been toying with the idea of writing a script about slavery, featuring a black man who had been born free and was later forced into slavery, but McQueen was struggling with the script until his wife found Solomon Northup's biography and gave it to him. Shocked that he had never heard of Northup before, he decided to adapt the book instead.

At first, Chiwetel Ejiofor turned down Steve McQueen's offer to play the leading role of Solomon Northup, but then realized he had to get over his initial fear of taking on what McQueen thought would be the role of the actor's lifetime. Ejiofor prepared for his role by immersing himself in the Louisiana plantation culture and learning how to use and play the violin.

Steve McQueen's daughter told him to hire Sarah Paulson, after viewing her audition tape, because she found her scary.

On location, shooting in Louisiana took only thirty-five days with one camera, which prompted amazed laughter from an audience of Directors Guild peers, including interviewer Kathryn Bigelow, for the startlingly efficient direction of Steve McQueen.

Brad Pitt responded to criticism that his casting in a brief heroic role was self-indulgent, given that he was one of the producers of the film. Pitt claimed that he did not insist on being cast in the part, and that it was simply easier to secure funding for the picture if he was in it.

Four years after he was freed, Solomon Northrup of "12 Years a Slave" disappeared. To this day, historians still do not know what happened to him.

12 Years a Slave (2013) is the first film from a black director to win the Academy Award for Best Picture; second film in a row, following Argo (2012), to win Best Picture and a screenplay Oscar without the Best Director Oscar; fifth film with a numbered-title to win Best Picture, following It Happened One Night (1934), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), The Godfather: Part II (1974) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1956); twelfth movie to win Best Picture with only three Oscars, a list that includes Casablanca (1942), Midnight Cowboy (1969), The Godfather (1972), Rocky (1976), Crash (2004) and Argo (2012).

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FILM 1106: THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT

TRIVIA: Tom Hanks and Bill Murray were considered for the role of Larry Flynt.

Larry Flynt and his brother Jimmy Flynt are played by real-life brothers Woody Harrelson and Brett Harrelson.

The real Larry Flynt appears as a judge.

One scene involves Hustler's offer of a $1 million reward for bringing JFK's killers to justice. The father of actors Woody Harrelson and Brett Harrelson has long been suspected by conspiracy theorists of involvement in the assassination.

Milos Forman claims Courtney Love showed up to their first meeting while under the influence of drugs. Just when he was going to dismiss her, he realized that Love was perfect for the role of Althea. Forman offered her the role on one condition: that Love would stay clean and undergo regular drug testing during filming. She complied. To this day, Love credits Forman with getting her off drugs which led to a career renaissance.

Courtney Love plays stripper Althea Flynt in this film. Before she was famous, Love was a stripper in real life too.

Courtney Love was arrested several times in Mississippi and Tennessee during filming for wearing her outrageous and revealing costumes in public. While filming a particular scene in a jail, one of the female officers working mistook Love for being a criminal on her way in for booking and handcuffed her.

Despite being portrayed in an Oscar nominated movie Larry Flynt was refused an invitation to the 1997 Academy Awards, so Woody Harrelson brought Flynt to the award shows as his "+1".

The Hollywood mansion shown in the movie was the mansion where the real Larry Flynt lived in the early 1980s.

The real Larry Flynt, when asked who he would like to play him in the movie, picked Michael Douglas.

The character of Doug, one of Larry Flynt's bodyguards in the movie, was bodyguard for the real Flynt at the time the movie was filmed.

The closing argument by Edward Norton was taken verbatim from Alan L. Isaacman's actual closing arguments. Isaacman revealed this in a documentary of the film.

The insurance fees for Courtney Love were so high, the studio would not pay them. Woody Harrelson, the producers (Oliver Stone and Michael Hausman), the director (Milos Forman) and Love paid the fees out-of-pocket.

Patricia Arquette and Mira Sorvino were considered for the role of Althea Leasure.

Film 941: Cloud Atlas

Trivia:  In 2005, while on the London set of V for Vendetta, Natalie Portman gave a copy of the original novel to Lana Wachowski, who became deeply interested in it. A year later, both Wachowski siblings wrote a first draft of the screenplay. Tom Tykwer, a friend of the Wachowskis, was invited to co-author several subsequent drafts with them in the following two years, constantly keeping in mind observations by the book's author himself, David Mitchell, while looking for international investors. In all those years, Portman was promised the role of Sonmi-451, but had to turn down the role at the last minute after becoming pregnant in 2010. However, she is given a special thanks in the closing credits.

Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski directed the 1849, 2144 and 2321 segments of the film. Tom Tykwer directed the 1936, 1973 and 2012 segments.

All cast members have several roles in the final film, spanning different times, races and even sexes. This was achieved through prosthetics, wardrobe and tight production times to switch actors between units. For instance, Halle Berry described the experience of filming as a Jewish woman in the 1930s under the direction of Tom Tykwer one day, then switching to an old tribal woman under the helm of the Wachowski siblings, and then again as a environmentalist in the 1970s, all in the same week.

One of the few films in history that has three directors working together as an original team who equally share directing credit.

Number 451 (Luisa Rey's apartment and Somni-451) comes from a classic science fiction novel by Ray Bradbury, "Fahrenheit 451". It denotes a temperature needed to burn books.

With a budget of over $100,000,000, Cloud Atlas is one of the most expensive independent films to date.