FILM 2015: SICARIO

FILM 2015: SICARIO

TRIVIA: While Benicio Del Toro's character is frequently silent in the movie, he initially had more lines. "In the original script, the character explained his background several times to Kate," Del Toro said. "And that gave me information about who this guy was, but it felt a little stiff to have someone you just met fifteen minutes ago suddenly telling you what happened to him and who he is." Working with director Denis Villeneuve, Del Toro began cutting some of his dialogue to preserve the mystery of who his character is; Villeneuve estimated they cut 90% of what Del Toro was originally intended to say by screenwriter Taylor Sheridan. Like Del Toro, Villeneuve saw power in stripping the character down to a brooding silence, stating that dialogue belongs to plays and "movies are about movement, character, and presence, and Benicio had all that."

When discussing the score with composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, director Denis Villeneuve said he wanted the the sound of a threat. The one film Villeneuve used as a comparison was Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975).

Emily Blunt based Kate Macer's character on one of four female FBI agents she spoke to in preparation for the role, whom she described as "shy" and with a "loner quality" to them.

The word "Sicario" derives from the Latin word "Sicarius," meaning "dagger man." The term was used by Romans to describe Jewish zealots who killed Roman citizens using a "sica" or small dagger hidden in their cloaks. There were so many murders in the province of Judea around the 1st Century AD that the figure of "Sicarius" was codified in Roman law ("Lex Cornelia de Sicariis et Veneficis -- Cornelian Law for Stabbers and Poisoners") of 81 AD. These words also derive from the verb "secare," which means "to slice."

FILM 2008: THE HAPPENING

FILM 2008: THE HAPPENING

TRIVIA: The movie was shot completely in sequence.

M. Night Shyamalan's first R-rated film.

Mark Wahlberg admitted that he regrets working on this movie, but said, "You can't blame me for wanting to try to play a science teacher. At least I wasn't playing a cop or a crook."

Director M. Night Shyamalan's first film in which he does not physically appear for a cameo. He is the voice of "Joey," who calls Alma a few times throughout the movie. The audience never sees him, nor learns of his fate.

Bystander apathy is a real psychological phenomenon, with a strong theoretical and evidential base.

The film's tagline, "We've sensed it. We've seen the signs. Now...it's happening," referring to M. Night Shyamalan, who wrote and directed The Sixth Sense (1999), Signs (2002), and The Happening (2008).

Mark Wahlberg's line "Be scientific, douchebag" was improvised.

THE ALIENIST (2018)

THE ALIENIST (2018)

TRIVIA: Based on the novel "The Alienist" by Caleb Carr.

An alienist is a term for a psychiatrist who assesses the competence of a defendant in a law court.

The show takes place in 1896 New York City.

The full name of Luke Evans' character is John Schuyler Moore. Schuyler is an old New York Dutch family whose roots can be traced back to well before the founding of the nation and has close ties to the Roosevelt clan. A well-known descendant was Elizabeth Schuyler, wife of Alexander Hamilton.

Blackwell's Island was later named Welfare Island, and subsequently renamed Roosevelt Island. Due to the number of hospitals and asylums, the area was designated as a Hospital Park. By the mid-twentieth century, it became a mixed-use zone, through the introduction of residential developments, and by the twentieth-first century, a satellite campus of Cornell University and Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedom Park was established at the Southern end of the Island.

The main titles for the series where created by the design studio "Elastic". The same studio responsible for the intro of True detective and Game of Thrones.