FILM 1979: CADDYSHACK

FILM 1979: CADDYSHACK

TRIVIA: Carl Spackler was originally a silent character in the script, in the manner of Harpo Marx, but after Bill Murray was cast, Harold Ramis encouraged Murray to speak and improvise.

A big hill was built from scratch for the climactic 18th-hole scene, because the country club did not want its course blown up. The pyrotechnic people used too many explosives, which completely destroyed the hill and caused planes flying by to report the explosion, as if a plane had crashed there.

The movie was inspired by writer and co-star Brian Doyle-Murray's memories working as a caddy at a golf club. His brother Bill Murray and Harold Ramis also worked as caddies when they were teenagers.

The rowdy, improvisational atmosphere during the shoot created by Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and Rodney Dangerfield, didn't sit well with all the members of the cast. Ted Knight, widely regarded as a very nice man, got fed up with the constant shenanigans. Initially, Murray's, Chase's and Dangerfield's roles were to be cameo appearances, but their deft improvising caused their roles to be expanded, much to the chagrin of Scott Colomby and some of the other cast members, whose roles were reduced as a result.

Bill Murray filmed all of his scenes, including the famous scene with Chevy Chase, in six days. Many people expected them to have another confrontation as they had had during Chase's return to Saturday Night Live (1975) years before. They were professional and didn't show any signs of their alleged previous feud.

The famous scene that begins when Ty Webb's golf ball crashes into Carl Spackler's ramshackle house was not in the original script. It was added by director Harold Ramisafter realizing that two of his biggest stars, Chevy Chase and Bill Murray (who did not get along due to a feud dating back to their days on Saturday Night Live (1975)), did not have a scene together. The three met for lunch and wrote the scene together. Although it has nothing to do with the plot, it is widely regarded as the funniest scene in the movie. This is the only time that Chase and Murray have appeared in the same scene together.

Cindy Morgan did not want to appear topless in the movie. In an interview with TV Store Online she claims that while Harold Ramis was amenable to changing the scene, producer Jon Peters asked to talk to her while Ramis had her on the phone. When the call ended, Peters informed Ramis that Morgan would do the topless scene - because he told her she would never work again in Hollywood if she didn't.

Cindy Morgan took swimming lessons before filming. For the pool scene she couldn't wear her contact lenses and had to be assisted on to the diving board, since she was legally blind without them.

The gopher sequences were written and filmed after most of the movie was shot. Originally, Harold Ramis wanted to cast a live animal to play the gopher. When that did not work out, the animatronic gopher and its tunnels were built by John Dykstra.

Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.

Mickey Rourke Was initially considered for the role of Danny Noonan, but was turned down by the producers because he "wasn't funny enough".

FILM 1940: ED WOOD

FILM 1940: ED WOOD 

TRIVIA: This film cost more to produce than all of Edward D. Wood Jr.'s films put together.

Martin Landau's Academy Award for "Best Actor in a Supporting Role" for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi marked the first time in Oscar history that a performer in any category won for playing a movie star. A decade later, Cate Blanchett won a "Best Actress in a Supporting Role" Academy Award for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator(2004).

Initially, Bela Lugosi, Jr. didn't want to see the film because he thought it wouldn't portray his father correctly, but upon further persuasion, he saw the film, and agreed that Martin Landau honored his father in the performance. The two later became friends.

Tim Burton said that he was drawn to the story because of the similarities between Edward D. Wood Jr.'s relationship with Bela Lugosi, and his own friendship with Vincent Price late in the actor's life.

Unhappy with Vincent D'Onofrio, Tim Burton had his voice dubbed by Maurice LaMarche.

The first film by Tim Burton to not feature Danny Elfman's music score.

Johnny Depp said that his characterization of Edward D. Wood Jr. was a mixture of "the blind optimism of Ronald Reagan, the enthusiasm of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz(1939), and Casey Kasem."

Martin Landau's face had to be painted unnaturally white in order for the black-and-white film stock to record it properly.

One story claims that the producers decided to make the film in black and white because no one could decide how Bela Lugosi should look filmed in color. 

Johnny Depp developed a love-hate relationship with angora sweaters. He jokingly told MTV that he learned too much about women's clothing while making the film. Because angora sheds profusely, Depp joked that in certain scenes, he may have "inhaled more angora than oxygen."

In order to imitate Bela Lugosi's voice and mannerisms, Martin Landau watched approximately 35 Bela Lugosi movies, and purchased Hungarian language tapes. With the tapes, he would "literally practice the language and see where the tongue would go." When Hungarian-born director Peter Medak saw the film, he called Landau to praise him. Medak said that Landau's accent sounded spot-on, because, "You are not an actor trying to do a Hungarian accent, you're a character trying not to do (one)."

John Breckinridge originally had very little dialogue. His role was greatly expanded when Bill Murray was cast.

Director Tim Burton's favorite of his films.

During the bar scene with Wood, Orson Welles complains that the finances keeps falling through for his Don Quixote picture. In August 2000, Johnny Depp took part in filming The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018), with Terry Gilliam directing. After years of delays the film was finally released in 2018.

The film cast includes two Oscar winners: Patricia Arquette and Martin Landau; and two Oscar nominees: Bill Murray and Johnny Depp.

Rick Baker was very concerned about the casting of Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi, seeing how they didn't share any similar facial features. Baker, being a very big fan of Lugosi and who had known Tim Burton before the film, persured the job as makeup designer fearing that a lesser makeup artist would do too much. Baker designed and created subtle appliances that would alter Landau's features to make him more resemble Lugosi (a set of a ears, a nose, a chin, and an appliance to cover the fullness of his upper lip) that Ve Neillwould apply on a daily basis. Landau, Baker, and Neill would all eventually win Academy Awards for their work.

FILM 1802: GHOSTBUSTERS: ANSWER THE CALL

FILM 1802: GHOSTBUSTERS: ANSWER THE CALL

TRIVIA: Although Harold Ramis could not make a cameo like his costars from the original Ghostbusters due to his death in 2014, you can see a bust of Harold just outside of Erin's university office near the beginning of the film.

At one point Erin proclaims: "Books can't fly and neither can babies". Both happened in the original Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989).

The movie is dedicated to Harold Ramis, as mentioned in the final credits.

After Erin comes to Abby's lab and announces that she has been fired, Abby says, 'Unlike Columbia, this institute is 100% behind us.' This is a reference to Ghostbusters (1984), where Columbia University allowed its facilities to be used for filming as long as its name was never mentioned.

The role of Patty Tolan, played by Leslie Jones was originally written for Melissa McCarthy. Paul Feig realized that Melissa McCarthy had played similar characters in his previous films, explaining "I wanted to unleash Leslie on the public in the same way we unleashed Melissa on the public in Bridesmaids (2011), with a very showy role."

At one point in the movie, Holtzmann says "they are heavier than you think" with regards to the proton packs. During the filming of the first two original Ghostbuster movies, the actors often complained about the weight of the proton packs.

When the Ghostbusters open the container with the ghost for Dr. Martin Heiss, he jokingly calls the ghost "Casper" in reference to the children's cartoon character "Casper, the friendly ghost". The creators of Ghostbusters (1984) were sued by the owners of the "Casper" properties for $50 million plus the destruction of the film prints. because their logo looked too similar to their character "Fatso", a member of "The Ghostly Trio". But in 1986 the case was ruled in favor of "Ghostbusters". Nevertheless the live-action adaptation of Casper (1995) featured a cameo of Dan Aykroyd as Ghostbuster Ray Stantz.

As of July 2016 this film holds the title for 'most disliked' trailer ever on YouTube.

Four of the cast members, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, and Cecily Stronghave been Saturday Night Live (1975) cast members. At the time of release, Melissa McCarthy had also hosted SNL four times. Of the original cast, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd were also SNL stars, while Harold Ramis was a writer for the Canadian sketch show SCTV (1976), co-starring Rick Moranis.

CAMEO: Daniel Ramis: son of Harold Ramis has a small role as a Metal Head outside the concert Rowan attends.

DIRECTOR CAMEO: Paul Feig: the voice on the other end of the walkie talkie that tells Rowan to go clean the bathrooms.

FILM 1765: ISLE OF DOGS

FILM 1765: ISLE OF DOGS

TRIVIA: This is the longest stop-motion film of all time, beating out Coraline (2009) by two minutes.

Writer and Director Wes Anderson hosted a competition for someone to be a member of the voice cast for this film. The only requirement was that you donated ten dollars or more to the Film Foundation, a non-profit founded by Martin Scorsese, which specializes in the preservation and restoration of film around the world.

The movie was influenced by the work of Akira Kurosawa and Rankin-Bass stop-motion Christmas specials.

The hair of the dogs is made out of Alpacca wool.

Jeff Goldblum recorded his lines over the phone in California. Because of scheduling conflicts he couldn't go to England to record his lines with the rest of the cast.

Wes Anderson's eighth collaboration with Bill Murray.

At the end of the movie Anjelica Huston, who is a long time collaborator with Wes Anderson, is credited as the "Mute Poodle".

"Isle of Dogs" could also be read as "I love dogs"

FILM 1745: GROUNDHOG DAY

FILM 1745: GROUNDHOG DAY

TRIVIA: According to Director Harold Ramis, most of the time, when he tried to explain a scene to Bill Murray, Murray would interrupt and ask, "Just tell me - good Phil or bad Phil?"

All the clocks in the diner are stopped, mirroring Phil's predicament.

On the DVD, Harold Ramis states that the original idea was for him to live February 2nd for about ten thousand years. Later, he says that Phil probably lived the same day for about ten years. A breakdown of this day count and Ramis' thoughts can be found here: youtu.be/swJ-kNdtrdQ

Harold Ramis originally wanted Tom Hanks for the lead role, but decided against it, saying that Hanks was "too nice".

Not filmed in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, but actually in Woodstock, Illinois (just fifty miles from Bill Murray's hometown of Wilmette, Illinois). There is a small plaque that reads "Bill Murray stepped here" on the curb where Murray continually steps into a puddle. There is another plaque on the building wall at the corner that says "Ned's Corner" where Bill Murray was continually accosted by insurance salesman Ned Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky).

Bill Murray was undergoing a divorce at the time of filming, and was obsessing about the film. He would ring Harold Ramis constantly, often in the early hours of the morning. Ramis eventually sent Writer Danny Rubin to sit with Murray, and iron out all his anxieties, one of the reasons why Murray stopped speaking to Ramis for several years.

When Phil takes the elderly man to the hospital, and talks to the nurse, a boy with a broken leg can be seen in the background. This is the same boy who falls out of a tree later on in the film, only this time, Phil catches him.

Harold Ramis makes a cameo in the film as the neurologist that assures Phil that he is okay, but should perhaps talk to a psychiatrist.

Since the film's release, the town of Punxsutawney has now become a major tourist attraction.

Danny Rubin said that one of the inspirational moments in the creation of the story, came after reading "Interview with the Vampire", which got him thinking about what it would be like to live forever.

Brian Doyle-Murray (Buster Green) is the elder brother of Bill Murray (Phil Connors).

The two radio announcers heard at the beginning of each day were played by Harold Ramis and Brian Doyle-Murray.

Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

Fred and Debbie, the young couple who are supposed to get married that day, are played by Michael Shannon and Hynden Walch. Both would later go on to be better known for playing characters from DC Comics. In both cases, they played superstrong aliens from another planet. Walch voiced Starfire from the planet Tamaran in Teen Titans (2003), while Shannon played General Zod from the planet Krypton in Man of Steel (2013) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).

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.