FILM 2004: OCEAN'S TWELVE

FILM 2004: OCEAN'S TWELVE 

TRIVIA: The Night Fox's mansion is on the shores of Lake Como in Italy. The name of the city overlooking Lake Como is Bellagio. The city and the lake were the inspiration for the design of the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas, site of the heist in Ocean's Eleven (2001).

While on production in Rome, Brad Pitt and George Clooney were not allowed back into the hotel because the doorman thought they were vagrants after the actors were caught in a rain storm while jogging.

George Clooney was 42 years-old at the time of filming the scene in which the other actors guess his age.

Six of the Ocean's Twelve have won Oscars: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Casey Affleck.

The drysuits used by the gang were custom made for the production in two weeks by husband-and-wife team Gareth and Tina Roberts of Gryphon Watersports in Staffordshire, England. Only one of the ten suits ordered had to be fully functioning and waterproof, but the tight deadline still meant that the couple had to work round the clock to get the suits ready in time for the shoot in Amsterdam.

Five cast members also guest starred on Friends (1994-2004) including Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis and Elliot Gould

FILM 1951: THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY

FILM 1951: THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY

TRIVIA: Matt Damon actually sang the song "My Funny Valentine."

Jude Law learned to play the saxophone and Matt Damon learned to play the piano for this film. However while Damon's training enabled him to recreate the proper keyboard fingering the music heard in the film is played by Sally Heath (the Bach) and Gabriel Yared (the Vivaldi).

This is Matt Damon's favorite film he has made.

Leonardo DiCaprio was considered for the role of Tom Ripley.

Fausto and Dickie (and Tom, later) sing "Tu Vuo' Fa' L'Americano," a humorous song about an Italian man in the 50s who wants to imitate the American lifestyle he sees in the movies. But American food doesn't do him any good and in the end, the money he spends comes from his mother's purse.

After viewing this film, Tommy Wiseau was so emotionally moved that he vowed to make a film just as, if not more compelling. This film would become The Room (2003).

When Anthony Minghella learned that Cate Blanchett was interested in playing the small supporting role of Meredith - as opposed to the female lead - he duly expanded the role to get her on board.

FILM 1466: THE MARTIAN

TRIVIA: The Mars exteriors were shot in Wadi Rum, Jordan, which has a red colored desert. Another Mars mission film, Red Planet (2000), was shot there.

The writer of the novel, Andy Weir, first published his book for free on his own blog for fun. Then people asked him to put it in a downloadable form, then to put it on Amazon for Kindle download which he did at the then minimum price of $0.99.

The atmospheric pressure on the Martian surface averages 600 Pa (0.087 psi), about 0.6% of Earth's mean sea level pressure of 100 kPa (14.69 psi). It is so low that a "fierce storm", as they put it, would be something akin to a very light breeze messing up your hair. Author Andy Weir admitted this was his biggest inaccuracy in the story. Due to the low air density sound would not travel like it does on Earth and you would have to stand next to someone and scream for them to hear you, providing you could survive the freezing cold temperature, poisonous atmosphere and lack of pressure.

The name of the mission is Ares 3, a homage to the Greek god of war, Ares, whose Roman name is Mars. The name of the large ship traveling back and forth between Earth and Mars is Hermes, named after the Greek god who was the messenger and emissary. Hermes was seen as the patron and protector of travelers.

In the novel, Mark Watney has two Masters degrees, one in botany and one in mechanical engineering. In the film, however, he has a PhD in botany and no engineering background is mentioned, although he is shown to have a knowledge of engineering and maintenance of the mission equipment.

Drew Goddard, who wrote the screenplay for the film, was also at one point set to direct, but left that role to go direct The Sinister Six film. After that, Ridley Scott read the script and jumped into the project, rather than making a Prometheus (2012) sequel.

Author Andy Weir originally wrote the novel as a serial on his blog. Writing in this serialized approach allowed him to build the story as he went, essentially crafting each plot point around something that could go wrong, and then working out how Mark would get around it. Weir noted that he could not figure his way around failure of the crucial life support systems, so if the oxygenator, water reclaimer, or RTG failed, Mark would have died.

Here's what Mars is like, according to NASA:

Mars has a reddish-orange glow during the day from all the dust.

Sunrises and sunsets appear blue because Mars has almost no atmosphere.

One day or "sol" on Mars is about 37 minutes longer than an Earth day. The natural human circadian rhythm (or sleep-wake cycle) is about 24 hours and 11 minutes, but experiments have shown that humans have no problems adapting to cycles varying from 23 hours 30 minutes to 24 hours 36 minutes; so humans would not experience major disruptions of their biological clock on Mars.

One Martian year is nearly two Earth years. That's because Mars orbits the Sun much farther away than Earth, so it takes a lot longer for the red planet to complete one lap.

The average surface temperature on Mars is a chilly minus-80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 62 degrees Celsius). But temperatures can swing from a low of about minus-195 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-126 degrees Celsius) in winter, to a comfortable 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) during the summer.

Gravity on Mars is only about 40% that of Earth's, so a person would be 60% lighter (but not Moon-bouncing light).

Mars has barely any atmosphere - about 1% of the density of the cozy atmospheric blanket around Earth. That's not enough to protect the surface from dangerous space radiation.

The "steely-eye missile man" is a reference to flight controller John Aaron's actions following two lightning strikes to the Apollo 12 rocket in its first minute after liftoff. The electrical surge caused numerous problems in the telemetry system of the craft, which if unresolved would force a mission abort. Aaron recognized the telemetry problem as similar to one seen in testing a year before, and advised that the crew to switch the Signal Conditioning Electronics (SCE) system to the auxiliary position. This control was so obscure that neither the Capsule Commander, nor the Mission Commander knew what, or even where it was, but pilot Alan Bean did, following Aaron's advice. Altering the setting immediately fixed the problem, allowing the mission to continue. Aaron's quick, calm, and effective response to the crisis earned him the appellation, widely considered to be the highest praise possible within NASA. This can also be a reference to the 1995 movie Apollo 13.

Matt Damon has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in this film. This makes him the only nominee in the Best Actor category of the 84th Academy Awards who was nominated for playing a fictional character. All the other Best Actor nominees were nominated for playing historical figures.

FILM 1420: GOOD WILL HUNTING

TRIVIA: After the 2014 death of Robin Williams, the Boston Public Garden park bench where he and Matt Damon had their conversation scene, became an impromptu memorial site for the actor with people leaving flowers, quotes and various items at the bench. A petition has been passed around to erect a statue in Williams' memory near the bench.

The scene where Sean and Will are in his office, and Sean starts talking about his dead wife and her farting antics. These lines were ad-libbed by Robin Williams, which is probably why Matt Damon is laughing so hard. If you watch the scene carefully you can notice the camera shaking, probably due to the cameraman laughing as well.

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck found a clever way to choose the right studio for their script: the story goes that on page 60 of the script, they wrote a completely out-of-nowhere sex scene between Will and Chuckie. They took it to every major studio, and nobody even mentioned the scene. When they met with Harvey Weinstein at Miramax, he said, "I only have one really big note on the script. About page 60, the two leads, both straight men, have a sex scene. What the hell is that?" - Damon and Affleck explained that they put that scene specifically in there to show them who actually read the script and who didn't. As Weinstein was the only person who brought it up, Miramax was the studio chosen to produce the film.

Casey Affleck ad libbed most of his lines. This frustrated Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Gus Van Sant during filming - but they later admitted that Casey's improvised lines were much funnier and better than what had been originally written for him.

Matt Damon's personal favorite movie of his own.

Minnie Driver's character Skylar is named after Damon's girlfriend, Skylar Satenstein, who left Damon for Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich before filming began. Damon and Driver became romantically involved during production.

Gus Van Sant painted the picture that hangs in Sean Maguire's (Robin Williams) office.

The job interview Will sends Chuckie on is for a company called Holden & McNeil. Ben Affleck's character in Chasing Amy (1997) was Holden McNeil.

When Will (Matt Damon) and Sean (Robin Williams) meet for the first time in Sean's office, Will recommends that Sean read Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States". As a boy, Matt Damon was Zinn's neighbor and provided the voice for the CD recording of that book.

To date this is the film with the highest US box office gross with Kevin Smith's name attached to it. All his own films that he has written and directed have not grossed more than $35 million at the US box office.