FILM 1977: THE WEDDING PLANNER

FILM 1977: THE WEDDING PLANNER

TRIVIA: Jennifer Love Hewitt was developing a separate film with the same premise for her to star in but was forced to cancel the project when this film was released.

Brendan Fraser was set to play the role of Dr. Steve/Eddie, but scheduling conflicts with filming the movie Bedazzled (2000) prevented him.

In an early scene in Matthew McConaughey's office, he indicates a framed picture of his "sister". The prop is actually a picture of associate producer and choreographer Anne Fletcher, who had a scene in the movie that was cut.

Franny's Mother, played by Joanna Gleason, sings very badly in the movie and is asked numerous times by her daughter not to sing. In fact, Gleason has a very good singing voice and has appeared in several Broadway musicals, including "Into the Woods" for which she won the 1988 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. 

FILM 1975: PET SEMATARY

FILM 1975: PET SEMATARY (1989)

TRIVIA: Stephen King once mentioned that the only novel he wrote that really scared him was "Pet Sematary."

Bruce Campbell was the first choice for the role of Louis Creed.

Stephen King was present on location for most of the shooting of the film. The area it was shot in was only twenty minutes away from his home in Bangor, Maine. 

In Stephen King's novel, Judd mentions that a dog went wild in a nearby town and killed several people. This is a reference to the events of Cujo (1983), another novel by King. It is common for characters in King's novels to mention the events of his other novels.

Stephen King is a big fan of the Ramones and referenced some of their songs in the novel "Pet Sematary." In homage, The Ramones wrote and performed the theme song "Pet Sematary," which is featured in the film's closing credits. The truck driver was also listening to "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" by The Ramones.

The idea for this story came about when Stephen King's daughter's cat, Smuckey, was killed on the highway outside their home. Smuckey's name appears on gravestones in the pet cemetery, in both the film and the novel.

George A. Romero was originally set to direct, but when filming was delayed, he dropped out and Mary Lambert stepped in and Romero directed Monkey Shines (1988).

During the film, the character played by Fred Gwynne mentions that he had a pet named "Spot." "Spot" was also the name of the family pet on the TV show The Munsters (1964), also starring Gwynne.

Director Mary Lambert said that Fred Gwynne was her first and only choice for the role of Judd Crandall.

Initially, Paramount executives wanted a pair of twins to play the role of Gage, like those chosen to play Ellie, which was the more cost-effective option. However, Lambert was very impressed with three-year old Miko Hughes, whom she felt was a natural talent despite his young age, so she lobbied the studio to accept her choice.

Tom Savini turned down the chance to direct the film.

One of the hardest elements for the production design team was the path to the cemetery as it was described as, "shining in the moonlight."

CAMEO: Stephen King: (at around 41 mins) minister at the funeral.

PODCAST: DR. DEATH

PODCAST: DR. DEATH

We’re at our most vulnerable when we go to our doctors. We trust the person at the other end of that scalpel. We trust the hospital. We trust the system. Dr. Christopher Duntsch was a neurosurgeon who radiated confidence. He claimed he was the best in Dallas. If you had back pain, and had tried everything else, Dr. Duntsch could give you the spine surgery that would take your pain away. But soon his patients started to experience complications. And all they had to protect them was a system ill equipped to stop the madness. From Wondery, the network behind the hit podcast Dirty John, DR. DEATH is about a medical system that failed to protect these patients at every possible turn. Reported and hosted by Laura Beil.

MY VERDICT: This podcast is equal parts gripping and shocking, I don’t want to give too much away as I listened to this without knowing anything about it, which I think is the best way to listen to anything. What I will say is, don’t listen to this if you’re about to have surgery or know someone who is. And never let someone operate on you if they are the kind of person who loses their keys daily.

The podcast is short, concise, and the story is well told. I binged it in a few days, in part, because I couldn’t quite believe what I was listening to. This is a definite recommend.

FILM 1841: BODY PARTS

FILM 1841: BODY PARTS 

TRIVIA: Body Parts is very similar to a 1971 episode of Night Gallery titled "The Hand of Borgus Weems."

Advertisements for the movie were cancelled in Wisconsin due to the Dahmer killings.

FILM 1828: THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

FILM 1828: THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

TRIVIA: In preparation for his role, Sir Anthony Hopkins studied files of serial killers. Also, he visited prisons, and studied convicted murderers, and was present during some court hearings concerning gruesome murderers and serial killings.

Jodie Foster claims that during the first meeting between Lecter and Starling, Sir Anthony Hopkins' mocking of her southern accent was improvised on the spot. Foster's horrified reaction was genuine, she felt personally attacked. She later thanked Hopkins for generating such an honest reaction.

With twenty-four minutes and fifty-two seconds of screen time, Sir Anthony Hopkins' performance in this movie is the second shortest to ever win an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, with David Niven in Separate Tables (1958) beating him, at twenty-three minutes and thirty-nine seconds.

After Jodie Foster first read the Thomas Harris novel, she tried to buy the rights herself, only to find Gene Hackman had beaten her to it.

Jame Gumb's dance was not included in the original draft of the screenplay, although it appears in the novel. It was added at the insistence of Ted Levine, who thought the scene was essential in defining the character.

One of the inspirations from whom Sir Anthony Hopkins borrowed for his interpretation of Hannibal Lecter was a friend of his in London who rarely blinked when speaking, which unnerved anyone around him.

Jodie Foster spent a great deal of time with FBI agent Mary Ann Krause prior to filming. Krause gave Foster the idea of Starling standing by her car crying. Krause told Foster that at times, the work just became so overwhelming that it was a good way to get an emotional release.

The production received full cooperation from the FBI, as they saw it as a potential recruiting tool to hire more female agents.

Clarice Starling was chosen by the American Film Institution as the sixth-greatest film hero (out of fifty), the highest ranked female on the list. Hannibal Lecter was chosen as the number one greatest film villain (also out of fifty).

Sir Anthony Hopkins said he saw Lecter as similar to H.A.L. 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). A highly complex, highly intelligent, highly logical killing machine, who seems to know everything going on around him.

Sir Anthony Hopkins described his voice for Hannibal Lecter as "a combination of Truman Capote and Katharine Hepburn."

John Douglas, on whom the Jack Crawford character was based, achieved some fame of his own a few years after this film. He was hired by the parents of JonBenét Ramsey to investigate her death and apparent murder. Up until that point, the parents had been the chief suspects in the case. While Douglas did not fault the local police for investigating the family first, as in the film, investigators usually assume that victims know their killers, he became the first public official to proclaim their innocence.

The movie's poster was number sixteen of "The 25 Best Movie Posters Ever" by Premiere.

Fangoria magazine was declined the chance to cover the film because Orion and the filmmakers felt that the magazine's focus on the horror genre would stigmatize its awards season chances. They were also barred from covering Cape Fear (1991) for similar reasons.

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

FILM 1812: DEEP BLUE SEA

FILM 1812: DEEP BLUE SEA

TRIVIA: The license plate pulled from the shark's teeth is the same one found in the tiger shark in Jaws (1975).

For one scene, Thomas Jane had to swim alongside a real live shark. He was only allowed to shoot this once he had completed all his other scenes.

The orange colored mini-sub visible in the wet-entry area was the same mini-sub seen in the end of Sphere (1998), also starring Samuel L. Jackson.

Preacher's description of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity (Tom Scoggins: "I spent four years at CalTech, and that's the best physics explanation I've ever heard.") is adapted from a quote by Einstein himself: "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity."

Samuel L. Jackson was initially offered the role played by LL Cool J. Jackson's management didn't like the idea of him playing a chef so director Renny Harlin created the role of Russell Franklin for him, Jackson stated about Harlin casting him as Franklin "He said, 'Now you're going to be the richest man in the world, and you're going to have the greatest scene in the movie, and it's going to be a shock to everyone!" Jackson recalled. "He sent it back, [and the part] was Russell Franklin, and I was like 'Yeah, this was great.' I've done a lot of different things in movies, or had a lot of things happen to me in the movies, but nothing like what happens to me in this one."

DIRECTOR CAMEO: Renny Harlin: as one of the workers of Aquatica that are heading home for the weekend on the supply boat.

FILM 1794: THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER

FILM 1794: THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER

TRIVIA: Heart surgery scenes in the film are real. They were filmed during an operation on a real patient who was undergoing quadruple bypass surgery which Colin Farrell attended.

The film's title comes from the ending of the tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides.

When Steven is at the school for the parent teacher conference, the principal tells him that Kim wrote a paper on Iphigenia for which she got an A, and that was read aloud to the class. Iphigenia, in Greek mythology, is the daughter of Agamemnon -- she who was to be sacrificed for the sins of her father.

Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell began working together on The Beguiled (2017), only a few weeks later they wrapped filming on this film. Both films would go on to be in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, and both would win awards in the official competition ("The Beguiled" won the Directing award for Sofia Coppola while "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" shared the Screenplay award with Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here (2017)).

Second collaboration between Yorgos Lanthimos and Colin Farrell, the first being The Lobster (2015).

BOOK 180: JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT: LOUIS-FERDINAND CÉLINE

LITERARY STYLE: Céline's first novel is probably most remarkable for its style. Céline makes extensive use of ellipsisand hyperbole. His writing has the flow of natural speech patterns and uses the vernacular, while also employing more erudite elements. This has influenced French literature considerably. The novel enjoyed popular success and a fair amount of critical acclaim when it was published in October 1932. Albert Thibaudet, perhaps the greatest of the entre-deux-guerres critics, said that in January 1933 it was still a common topic of conversation at dinner parties in Paris.

INFLUENCE AND LEGACY: Paolo Sorrentino's 2013 film The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) opens with a quote from Journey to the End of the Night. The film concludes with a visual of the last paragraph of the book, passing under bridges, arches, and locks along the city's river.

Will Self has written that Journey to the End of the Night "is the novel, perhaps more than any other, that inspired me to write fiction".

The song "End of the Night" by The Doors references this book, as it had a great influence on the work of Jim Morrison.

Charles Bukowski makes reference to Journey in a number of his novels and short stories, and employs prose techniques borrowed from Céline. Bukowski wrote in Notes of a Dirty Old Man that "Céline was the greatest writer of 2000 years".

Céline's literary style greatly influenced Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

In Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 dystopian science fiction film Alphaville, protagonist Lemmy Caution dismisses a taxi driver's offer of route options to his destination by stating that he is on "a journey to the end of the night". The film depicts the use of poetry as a weapon against a sentient computer system.

MY VERDICT:

I can understand why this is cited as a great novel, however I did not enjoy it at all. This book probably, of all the books I’ve ever read, took me the longest to complete. The only reason I can give, is because of the disheartening subject matter that although travelling around the world to many different situations almost each one was more, or as, depressing as the last. There is no hope is this book, no humour, no let up, and because of that I found it difficult to get through. The protagonist is more unlikable the longer the story progresses and I found it hard to sympathize with him even when he was in sympathetic situations. I can see that it is well written, I believe there’s no argument on that part, but above all I want to be able to enjoy reading a book and I did not enjoy one part of this.

FILM 1718: THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE

TRIVIA: Rebecca De Mornay initially auditioned for the role of Claire Bartel and Annabella Sciorraauditioned for the role of Peyton Flanders.

Kevin Spacey was considered for the role of Michael Bartell.

The musical theme that is featured in the opening credits, that Payton hums when strolling the baby through the park, and that Michael hears on the radio at the climax is "Poor Wandering One", from the W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan musical "The Pirates of Penzance".

Cybill Shepherd turned down the role of Peyton Flanders citing her feminist beliefs.

FILM 1677: TO THE BONE

TRIVIA: Like her character in this movie, Lily Collins also suffered from an eating disorder as a teenager.

Netflix bought the film for 8 million dollars.

Lilly Collins worked closely with a nutritionist both during filming, and for several months afterwards, to ensure her health during her weight loss and subsequent weight gain.

Leslie Bibb's character in Ryan Murphy's series Popular also suffered from an eating disorder.