FILM 1907: BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA

FILM 1907: BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA

TRIVIA: Kurt Russell confessed on the DVD commentary that he was afraid of starring in the movie, because he had made a string of movies that flopped at the box-office. When he asked John Carpenter about it, he told Kurt that it didn't matter to him - he just wanted to make the movie with him.

The Chinese characters in the main title translate to "Evil Spirits Make a Big Scene in Little Spiritual State".

Kurt Russell suffered a bad case of the flu during the scene just after the brothel, so the sweat on his body is real, caused by the fever.

The vehicle Egg Shen drove in the movie was a 1936 White touring car. That car is now in Yellowstone National Park (the location, for which it was originally built), named "Hollywood", and gives tours out of Old Faithful.

John Carpenter and Kurt Russell explain on the audio commentary that the test screening was so overwhelmingly positive, that both of them expected it to be a big hit. However, 20th Century Fox put little into promoting the movie, and it ended up being a box-office bomb. In addition, the film was released in the midst of the hype for Aliens (1986), which was released sixteen days afterwards. However, it went on to be a huge cult hit through home video. Carpenter and Russell explained that the reason the studio did little to promote the film, was because they simply didn't know how to promote it.

The Brides of Lo Pan must have green eyes. Yet Kim Cattrall and Suzee Pai have brown eyes in real-life. Both wore green contacts for the movie. This is very obvious in the high definition version of the movie.

Zach Braff went as Jack Burton to Kate Hudson's 2014 Halloween party and ran into Kurt Russell at it. They posed for a photo together.

The interior of Egg Chen's garage/office is Fire Station 23, the same building used as the business interior in Ghostbusters. 

Towards the beginning of the film, Jack accompanies Wang on a trip to the airport to pick up his fiancé. A street gang by the name of The Lords of Death kidnap Wang's girl and during the ensuing chase to retrieve her, attempt to run over both of them. Watching the scene carefully, it is easy to spot that John Carpenter shot the scene backwards, with the actors performing all movements in reverse. The scene was then played forward and sped up substantially. This dramatic scene was shot using this reverse method not to confuse actors and crew (or audience for that matter), but for safety reasons due to the speed of the vehicles and lack of stunt doubles. 

FILM 1739: TANGO & CASH

FILM 1739: TANGO & CASH

TRIVIA: Patrick Swayze was originally cast as Cash, but he dropped out to star in Road House(1989).

The glasses Sylvester Stallone wears early in the film are his own, not props. He usually wears contact lenses in his films. The lenses show that he is very near-sighted in one eye, less so in the other. Plus, he has astigmatism.

When Tango and Cash escape from the prison, Cash turns to Tango and asks if he stopped "for coffee and a Danish." Tango says, "I hate Danish," an in-joke referring to Sylvester Stallone's recent divorce from Danish actress Brigitte Nielsen.

When Brion James was originally hired to play Requin, it was a very small role with only two lines. In an effort to give the character something that would make him stand out, James decided to speak in a horrible "cockney" accent. Sylvester Stallone loved it, and re-wrote the script to give Requin a much bigger role.

The production was beset with problems from the start. The intended star, Patrick Swayze, dropped out. Principal photography began without a completed script. Sylvester Stallone had the original Director of Photography, Barry Sonnenfeld, fired. Then, Jon Peters fired Andrey Konchalovskiy. The film ultimately went $20 million over budget, and had to be completely re-edited by Stuart Baird prior to release.

FILM 1734: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: VOL. 2

TRIVIA: According to the Visual Effects Artists, Ego's planet comprises a trillion polygons, and is considered to be the biggest visual effect ever made.

Prop Master Russell Bobbitt had difficulty finding the cassette decks used in the first film, and all of the Sony Walkman headphones they found were broken. Bobbitt contacted Sony to see if they had any available for filming, which they did not, so he eventually created six from scratch.

Dave Bautista's Drax make-up took only ninety minutes to apply, down from four hours for the first film. However, he would have to sit in a sauna at the end of the day, to get the make-up off.

James Gunn choreographed and served as the motion-capture model for Groot's dance during the opening credits sequence. It took the visual effects team nearly two years to complete the CG rendering of the scene for the final film.

According to James Gunn, Kurt Russell was de-aged for the film's opening flashback (set in the 1980s) by visual effects company Lola VFX, in what was a "long, painstaking process that took many, many months to accomplish." He continued, "I know Lola did Michael Douglas, and I think they did Tony Stark and Steve Rogers as well. They're the best at what they do, and keep getting better."

Vin Diesel recorded Groot's voice for sixteen foreign-language releases of the film, up from six in the first film.

FILM 1463: THE HATEFUL EIGHT 

TRIVIA: After the script leaked online, Quentin Tarantino did not want to make the film. But after they did a brief reading of the script in L.A. the cast were stunned and got excited for the film and with Samuel L. Jackson persuading him to do this film, Tarantino accepted.

Quentin Tarantino announced in 2015's Comic-Con that Ennio Morricone would compose the score for the film. Tarantino remarked that it would be the first western scored by Morricone in 40 years. Tarantino had previously used Morricone's music in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Death Proof (2007), Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012). Morricone also wrote a brand new song, Ancora Qui, for the latter. Despite alleged tensions between the two, Tarantino decided to have Morricone on board to write new and original music for the movie. This will be the first film by Tarantino to use mainly an original musical score. Most of Tarantino's previous films have used mainly source music, with only a few cues of original score written for the film.

Despite being their sixth collaboration as actor and director, this is the first time that Samuel L. Jackson receives top billing in a film directed by Quentin Tarantino.

For the most part, the roles of Major Warren, John Ruth, Oswaldo and Joe Gage were written with Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen in mind. The role of Daisy Domergue was less specific and many actresses were considered, before Jennifer Jason Leigh was cast. Quentin Tarantino said: "Daisy became one of the most interesting characters because she's on the page, but she's not on the page; an actress literally needs to invest in playing that character from beginning to end. They have to get you to that last chapter. It had to be an actress I could trust, and also a performer you enjoy watching her character work. When Jennifer came in she was very impressive in the reading, but what really got me was I'd just starting watching a bunch of her movies. I had a whole Jennifer Jason Leigh film festival. I watched one and I couldn't wait to put the next one in, she was such an entertaining actress, especially about that time in the 90s, like eXistenZ (1999) Georgia (1995) and especially Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). Those movies were built around her. Her performance was the center of the movie, and everything was built around that, and that's what was needed for Daisy."

Reunites Kurt Russell and Jennifer Jason Leigh 24 years after they both appeared in Backdraft (1991), though they had no scenes together in that film. Coincidentally, both their dads Bing Russell and Vic Morrow had co-starred 50 years earlier in the TV series Combat!: Odyssey (1965).

Composer Ennio Morricone said in an interview that he accepted Quentin Tarantino's request to score the film because he liked the movie's script, and because Tarantino gave him full freedom in the composition. Morricone said he considers The Hateful Eight an adventure movie rather than a Western, and as a result, tried to make the music sound completely different from his famous Western scores. He based the music on the feelings that the script evoked in him, rather than composing music for specific scenes. Because Morricone had only about a month to produce his score, he added several pieces of music that he had originally written for The Thing (1982), some of which had never been used. Morricone finally gave Tarantino five pieces of music, which he could use in the movie as he pleased.

Director Cameo: Quentin Tarantino:  Voice of the narrator.

Director Trademark: Quentin Tarantino:  [Red Apple Cigarettes]  When Jody asks Minnie to roll him a cigarette she tells him that she uses "Red Apple" tobacco. Red Apple cigarettes appear in multiple Tarantino films. Also Bob the Mexican smokes "Manzana Roja" which is also Spanish for Red Apple.