FILM 1965: THE BODYGUARD

FILM 1965: THE BODYGUARD

TRIVIA: Rachel's mansion is the same mansion as the "horse's head in the bed" mansion in The Godfather (1972).

Whitney Houston suffered a miscarriage during production and missed a couple of weeks of production recovering.

As of 2015, with over 37 million albums sold, the film had the best-selling soundtrack of all time. Saturday Night Fever (1977) places second--with nearly 10 million fewer albums sold.

Whitney Houston would give Kevin Costner singing lessons on set in exchange for acting advice.

This film was originally proposed in the mid-'70s, starring Diana Ross and Steve McQueen, but was rejected as "too controversial". The film concept was to be attempted again in the late 1970s, with Ryan O'Neal and Diana Ross cast as the leads. The project fell through after only a few months because of irreconcilable differences between O'Neal and Ross, who had been dating.

Crew driver Bill Vitagliano was killed in an on-set accident when he was crushed between two colliding scissor-lifts, during the preparation for an underground parking garage scene.

Rachel and Frank go and see Yojimbo (1961), which was released in the United States as "The Bodyguard".

This was the second-highest-grossing movie in the world for 1992, behind Aladdin (1992).

The wisecracking host at the fictional Academy Awards ceremony is comedian Robert Wuhl, who wrote jokes for Billy Crystal's Academy Awards hosting duties in 1990 and 1991.

Originally "I Will Always Love You" wasn't in the movie - the big single was "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted." When that song was used in Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1991), Kevin Costner suggested "I Will Always Love You."

PERSONAL POST: MY RINGS

I have three rings that I wear everyday. Even during the time I was decorating my house every week and couldn’t wear the rings on my fingers, I would put them on a chain around my neck. I wear them this way so I have them with me always.

My first ring is not worn for sentimental reasons, its just a ring id been looking for for a long time and by chance happened upon it at Brick Lane market. I love Brick Lane and don’t go as often as I once did. It’s a wonderful place and the markets (as there’s more than one) are filled with some beautiful things, crafts, art, vintage items and new original fashion. 

The next ring is one of the most romantic gifts ive ever been given. My boyfriend bought this for me for Christmas one year. Its an item that can be a good conversation starter. Engraved onto the outside and inside of this ring are the lyrics to ‘our song’. Having a song I think is a bit of a dying tradition. I know a few people who have been planning a wedding and I always ask ‘what’s the song for the first dance?’ and ‘do you have a song?’ A lot of people’s wedding songs become their song but not many people have one to begin with. I think Nick and I are in a unique position where we know the very song that was playing when we went from being friends to realizing we were in love with each other. Nothing happened for a long time after that because we were really good friends and it’s a scary step to make but after eight years we’re still together. And the words in the ring? ‘All I ever wanted’ on the outside and ‘All I ever needed’ on the inside from Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence. Wow I still remember that night and that feeling!

The third ring is a ring that I’d wanted for a while. The problem was that it was only available from America. It was from one of my favourite jewellery shops Catbird. I’d put it in my shopping basket so many times and was so close to ordering it but when looking at the postage being almost as much as the ring itself and the chance of it going missing stopped me every time. So when my sister and her fiancé (now husband) said they were going to New York, I asked if they had time if they’d go get it for me. They said yes! When they came back not only did they have the ring but also the story about how they’d got there. They got to the street I’d given for the address not realizing that this was a very very long road and they walked for around three hours to get there. They said it was one of the most interesting walks they’d ever taken, seeing how New York is divided into sections and seeing all the different cultures and people along the way. In a way it was a present to both of us. When they found out my Dad was taking me to New York for my 30^ththey gave me a voucher for Catbird. And although we didn’t have the time to do the walk, we got to see a lot of the things they’d seen on the taxi ride over. This time I got some earrings and a cat ring tray. It was such a thoughtful present and such a lovely day!

Do you have jewellery that you wear every day?

FILM 1649: THE BLUES BROTHERS

TRIVIA: A world-record--at that time--103 cars were wrecked during filming. This feat was exceeded two years later, when 150 cars (and a plane) were crashed for H.B. Halicki's The Junkman (1982). That record in turn held for two decades, until over 300 cars were wrecked during the filming of The Matrix Reloaded (2003).

During filming one of the night scenes, John Belushi disappeared and could not be located. Dan Aykroyd looked around and saw a single house with its lights on. He went to the house and was prepared to identify himself, the movie and that they were looking for Belushi. Before he could, the homeowner looked at him, smiled and said, "You're here for John Belushi, aren't you?" The homeowner then told them Belushi had entered their house, asked if he could have a glass of milk and a sandwich and then crashed on their couch. Situations like this prompted Aykroyd to affectionately dub Belushi "America's Guest."

John Belushi was nicknamed "The Black Hole" on the set, as he went through hundreds of pairs of sunglasses during production. He would do a scene and then lose the pair before filming the next one.

Carrie Fisher became engaged to co-star Dan Aykroyd during this shoot shortly after he saved her from choking by applying the Heimlich maneuver.

Some of the performers were not used to lip-syncing to their pre-recorded songs, the standard procedure for movie musicals. James Brown ended up singing his number live with a recorded backing (the rest of his choir was lip-syncing). John Lee Hooker's performance of "Boom Boom" was recorded live at Chicago's Maxwell Street Market. Aretha Franklin's performance is cut together from many, many takes, using the parts where her lip-syncing was actually in sync.

When recording the soundtrack for the movie, Cab Calloway was needed to record his hit "Minnie the Moocher" in better quality than his original album. When he came into the studios he was prepared to do his new disco version that was just released. Of course, the filmmakers wanted nothing to do with this and asked for the original version, which Calloway reluctantly gave them.

The young woman in the choir at The Triple Rock Church is R & B singer Chaka Khan.

At the Bob's Country Bunker gig, Jake introduces "Stand By Your Man" by saying it's a favorite of the horn section. The horn section doesn't play in the song.

DIRECTOR CAMEO: John Landis: the state trooper driving the second car, the one that shows up after the first car calls for backup, that chases the Bluesmobile through the shopping mall.

DIRECTOR TRADEMARK: John Landis: [filmmakers] Appearances by directors Frank Oz and Steven Spielberg.

DIRECTOR TRADEMARK: John Landis: [SYNW] a billboard advertising the fictional horror movie "See You Next Wednesday" is seen during the Good Ole Boys chase.

FILM 1655: THE JUNGLE BOOK

TRIVIA: Amid the treasures in King Louie's temple, one of them happens to be Genie's lamp from Aladdin (1992).

In The Jungle Book (1967), King Louie was an orangutan. In this film, he's a gigantopithecus, an ancestor of the orangutan whose range is believed to have included parts of India. This change in species was made to make the film more fantastic, seeing as it would be a good way to represent him as King of the Monkeys, and since orangutans are not native to India. Despite this, the film does still feature some animals not native to India, like Peccaries and Red-Eyed Tree Frogs.

Actor Neel Sethi said that since he never actually worked with real animals onset during filming, director Jon Favreau would on occasion stand in for where the animals would be present, one most notably as Shere Khan lunging out from the tall grass.

All the locations in the film are computer-generated VFX. The story may have been set primarily in India, but the film was completely shot at the LA Center Studio in Los Angeles, California.

The CG character Baloo is so large and furry, he took almost five hours of rendering time per frame.

This is the first time that Kaa the snake is portrayed as a female, rather than a male. Jon Favreau said the change was a deliberate one, as he felt there were too many male characters in The Jungle Book (1967).

Lyricist Richard M. Sherman, who wrote songs for The Jungle Book (1967), composed a new verse for "Wanna Be Like You" for Christopher Walken.

Ben Kingsley described Bagheera as a military character: "He's probably a colonel, he is instantly recognizable by the way he talks, how he acts and what his ethical code is."

The animal characters were both motion-captured and performed live on set by puppeteers from the Jim Henson Company. For the on-set performances, Jim Henson's Creature Shop built elaborate life-sized puppets to act alongside Mowgli and serve as eye-lines.

The 3D of the film and the original 1990s Walt Disney Pictures opening logo were a tribute to the multi-plane camera system. Director Jon Favreau said that one his is "rules" for making The Jungle Book (2016) was "let's treat the 3D like multi-plane. Let's be as gimmicky as Walt Disney would have been-but not more." The multi-plane camera is a special camera used to create a sense of dimensional space-of a camera moving through a set, instead of one just taking photos of a series of still images. Disney had a special version of the system developed, which was used first in the Silly Symphony animated short film The Old Mill (1937) and later in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Favreau went on: "There are tremendous shots in Pinocchio (1940) and Bambi (1942) where the multi-plane was a new technology and they were using it to show off, and that was the 3D of its day. And so we were studying that very closely and became very fascinated with the multi-plane and what went into it and the artistry and ingenuity." This aesthetic philosophy extended to the movie's treatment of the main castle logo. "I got the idea, 'Let's do the opening logo, and instead of doing a super high-tech one, let's have a hand-painted, cel-animated multi-plane logo,'" Favreau said. "And not only that but 'Let's make the kingdom behind the castle have elements from what the live action version would have been,' so it was almost like a little taste of what's back there."

Right before he meets King Louie, Mowgli finds a cowbell in the monkey palace and proceeds to pick it up and shake it, causing Louie to appear. King Louie is played by Christopher Walken, who once famously stated on a sketch on Saturday Night Live in 2000, "I have a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!"

The animal characters were created entirely in key frame computer animation, with the assistance of footage of real animal movement, the actors recording their lines, and performance capture for reference. The production team underwent a thorough process to realistically convey the animals' speaking, while still making them perceptually believable to the audience. Favreau researched earlier films featuring anthropomorphic animals - including Walt Disney's animated features, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Bambi (1942), as well as modern films such as Babe (1995) - and adopted certain techniques from those films into The Jungle Book (2016). Nearly 70 separate species of native animals are featured in the film, with several species being portrayed as "150% larger" than their actual counterparts. Jim Henson's Creature Shop was brought in to provide animal puppet figures for Sethi to act against, although none appear in the finished film. Director Jon Favreau expressed a desire to avoid overusing motion capture in order to prevent an uncanny valley effect. Moving Picture Company (MPC) and Weta Digital created the film's visual effects. MPC developed a new software for animating muscular structure in the animals. Around 1,000 remote jungle locations in India were photographed and used as reference in post-production.

This is Idris Elba's second of three starring roles in Disney films of 2016, following Zootopia (2016) and Finding Dory (2016). All of the three films feature Elba in prominent animated voice-over performances.

Over 2,000 children auditioned for the part of Mowgli, in his first audition, acting newcomer Neel Sethi won the part.

The first time King Louie appears on the screen, he is sitting in a chair, his face obscured by shadows and talking in a sinister, slightly muffled voice about offering Mowgli protection before finally revealing his face. This is an obvious homage to the classic film Apocalypse Now (1979) in which Marlon Brando's character, Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, first appears on screen similarly composed.

The end credits feature "The Jungle Book" in book form that has the same cover design as the book seen in the opening credits of The Jungle Book (1967). It is in fact the original book prop, taken from Disney's archives, as mentioned in the making of featurette.

FILM 1460: IKIRU

TRIVIA: When Takashi Shimura rehearsed his singing of "Song of the Gondola," director Akira Kurosawa instructed him to "sing the song as if you are a stranger in a world where nobody believes you exist."

The song sung by Kanji Watanabe, in the bar, is called Gondola no Uta, "The Gondola Song". Written in 1915, it is a song about women and how they should find love before their time has run out.

Director Trademark: Akira Kurosawa:  [weather]  Rain is present during the construction site scene. The swing scene, on the other hand, is calmly accompanied by snow.

FILM 1407: DANNY COLLINS

TRIVIA: Inspired by the story of singer Steve Tilston, who learned of the existence of a letter that John Lennon had written to him 34 years after the letter was written.

The "Danny Collins" concert footage at the beginning of the film was shot at a Los Angeles concert by the band Chicago.

Dan Fogelman had Pacino in mind to play Danny Collins while writing the script. Pacino agreed, with only one request, that Bobby Cannavale play his son.

The key song in the film is written by Ryan Adams, and the version playing in the background actually features Adams singing.

The pictures on the wall of Collins' house (around 10 mins in), are all pics from previous Pacino roles; The Godfather, Serpico etc.

Michael Caine was originally cast but dropped out due to scheduling conflicted and replaced by Christopher Plummer