FILM 1955: BORDER

FILM 1955: BORDER

TRIVIA: Actress Aubrey Plaza, involved in no way with the film, was such a fan of it that the filmmakers offered to allow her to host a screening. She arranged this at a theater in Los Angeles and invited 60 people to attend. Ten minutes before it was to begin she was informed that the film had not arrived in the theater. She went into the lobby to announce this, but mid-announcement was told the film had arrived. Everyone was seated and then forty minutes went by. She asked friends Fred Armisen and Nick Kroll, who were in the audience, to go on stage and entertain everyone. Armisen pretended to be the film's director while Kroll took questions from the audience. This lasted another twenty minutes. Ultimately the theater management said the film never arrived, but offered to show the crowd the film Suspiria instead. Then, an hour into showing Suspiria, they cut the film off abruptly and began to play Border, which had finally arrived. Plaza relayed this story on The Conan O'Brien Show.

Official submission of Sweden for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 91st Academy Awards in 2019.

FILM 1736: A CURE FOR WELLNESS

TRIVIA: Filmed at the Castle Hohenzollern in Hechingen, Germany.

Originally, Hans Zimmer was attached to compose the music for this film but he dropped out to focus on Dunkirk (2017). He was replaced by Benjamin Wallfisch.

A Cure For Wellness is a play on the word "Aquifer" which is used to make the patients "well" in the movie.

The building of the sanatorium is originally located in Beelitz-Heilstätten, an old tuberculosis clinic. The building itself and the area around it have been completely renovated after being a ruin for decades. 750 windows (1,000 sq m of glass), 350 doors, 1,200 sq m of walls and many other things had to be replaced or repaired to restore the original look of the building.

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/04/porcelain-animals-ellen-jewett/

http://www.missmoss.co.za/2016/03/03/sabe-masson/

FILM 1479: THE KID

TRIVIA: For the scene in which the Kid is taken from the Tramp and nearly carted away to a workhouse, Charles Chaplin stated in his autobiography that the young Jackie Coogan was made to cry by his father, who told him that if he would not cry in the scene, he would be sent to an actual workhouse.

The production company tried to cheat Charles Chaplin by paying him for this six-reel film what they would ordinarily pay him for a two-reel film, which was about $500,000. Chaplin took the unassembled film out of state until the company agreed to the $1.5 million he was supposed to be paid, plus half the surplus profits on rentals, along with reversion of the film to him after five years on the rental market.

Jackie Coogan, who plays the adorable "Kid," grew up to be the extremely weird "Uncle Fester" on the beloved '60s sitcom The Addams Family (1964).

The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second, or third, generation (or more) copies of the film.

FILM 1478: THOUGHT CRIMES: THE CASE OF THE CANNIBAL COP

Dubbed "The Cannibal Cop," Gilberto Valle was convicted in March 2013 of conspiring to kidnap and eat young women. Valle argued it was all a fantasy; the prosecution's narrative convinced jurors otherwise. Valle was facing a possible life sentence when filmmaker Erin Lee Carr began visiting him in prison. After 22 months behind bars, his conviction was overturned in a stunning reversal. Carr was there for his release and subsequent house arrest to examine a life arrested. But the question remains: given the chance, would he, could he, have done it? "Thought Crimes" unravels the conflicting stories of a potentially dangerous young man and the unexpected consequences of our online activity.

(IMDB)

FILM 1205: THE DARK CRYSTAL

TRIVIA: At the time it was made, it was hailed as the only live action film in which a human actor makes no appearance.

Although there are nine of them, the Skeksis were originally based on the seven deadly sins.

From a budget of $15 million, the film made slightly over $40 million, a rather disappointing figure. This was put down to the fact that many parents felt the film was too scary for their children and also because it opened against the box office juggernaut that was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).

Conceptual designer Brian Froud was behind the look and feel of virtually every aspect of the film's production, from creatures and landscapes right down to the font of the opening title. In total, it took up five years of his life.

Jim Henson offered 22-year-old puppeteer Kevin Clash a job on the film, but since Clash was busy with both Captain Kangaroo (1955) and The Great Space Coaster (1981), he had to turn it down.

http://www.missmoss.co.za/2014/04/17/samantha-pleet-visions/

Film 1035: John Dies at the End

Trivia: Director Don Coscarelli stumbled on David Wong's novel as a result of an email product recommendation: "True story: I received an email from a robot on Amazon.com, and it told me if I liked the zombie book I just read, that I would like John Dies at the End. I read the little logline, and it was just amazingly strange. I thought, 'Well this might even make a good movie.' Plus, it had arguably the greatest title in motion picture history."

The uniforms worn by the two members of the Human Liberation Army were not made for this film. They originally appeared as Thermian outfits in the film Galaxy Quest (1999).

The mall where the Mall Of The Dead sequence was filmed is the same mall that producer Roman Perez saw the earlier Don Coscarelli movie Phantasm (1979) at, back when the mall was in business and had a movie theater.