FILM 1790: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION

FILM 1790: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION

TRIVIA:Tom Cruise stated in an interview that it was his intention to do the stunt hanging onto the Airbus A400M in a way to outdo himself after the Burj Khalifa climb stunt in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). However, his idea raised objections by the crew due to safety. Being a certified pilot himself, he wanted to get the feel of being out on the wing or on the side of the airplane. A major obstacle to filming would be bird strikes and wind resistance on the runway. To capture the action, a wind-resistant custom frame for the camera was built and mounted onto the left wing of the plane. The other major problem would be keeping Cruise's eyes open in the presence of fast wind and runway particles, so his eye specialist designed a special lens that can cover the entire eyeball. Eight takes of the stunt were filmed. Christopher McQuarrie was very concerned that the actor might panic suddenly, but was assured by Cruise to not stop filming until the stunt had been finished.

Ethan receives his new mission on a vinyl long-playing record. This was one of the first ways of receiving new missions from the Mission: Impossible (1966) television

A brief scene in which Ilsa pauses in the middle of an action sequence to remove her high-heeled shoes was singled out in reviews for its realism, especially in light of the just-released Jurassic World (2015), which was criticized as Bryce Dallas Howard spends much of her action movie literally running in heels from dinosaurs. There was even the idea to highlight the scene in promotional trailers and television spots, but Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie refused, saying that "it wasn't about twisting the knife."

When training for the underwater scene, Tom Cruise was able to hold his breath underwater for six minutes.

Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames are the only actors to appear in all six films.

Argentinian composer Lalo Schifrin, who wrote the Mission: Impossible (1966) theme, also created the orchestral arrangements for the "Three Tenors" concerts that made "Nessun Dorma" (featured in this film) an international pop culture phenomenon.

The idea of synchronizing a gun shot with a particular moment in a music score during a live performance is taken out of Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).

FILM 1789: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL

FILM 1789: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL

TRIVIA: During production, Tom Cruise did the majority of his own stunts including the skyscraper sequence(s), to show the audience it was actually him. This would allow Director Brad Bird to have more capabilities with camera angles, and not having to hide the fact that it is a stuntman doing the stunts.

The windows removed from Burj Khalifa were carefully chipped away by two workers with hammers, working from a window washing platform outside the building.

Brad Bird's live-action directorial debut.

FRANCHISE TRADEMARK (jump and hang): Jeremy Renner does the signature jump-and-hang-in-air stunt that Tom Cruise did in Mission: Impossible (1996).

According to Tom Cruise, he was happy to hear that they were using a subtitle in the film's heading instead of a number like the prior two films did. Cruise has never been a fan of a number at the end of the film's sequel titles as he's always considered each film as a stand alone feature in the Mission: Impossible film franchise.

Dermot Mulroney plays cello in the scoring orchestra for this movie. Mulroney, who is better-known as an actor (Longtime Companion (1989), My Best Friend's Wedding(1997), About Schmidt (2002), etc.) is also a classical cellist who occasionally plays in recording sessions for soundtracks.

The Burj Khalifa Hotel mentioned in the movie is the Armani Hotel Dubai, the first hotel designed and developed by Giorgio Armani.

This is the first film to use the 100th Anniversary Paramount Pictures logo. Each movie in the Mission: Impossible series has used a different Paramount logo.

FILM 1644: ARRIVAL

TRIVIA: Director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriter Eric Heisserer created a fully functioning, visual, alien language. Heisserer, Villeneuve and their teams managed to create a "logogram bible," which included over a hundred different completely operative logo-grams, seventy-one of which are actually featured in the movie.

The inky circular alien language was created by Montreal artist Martine Bertrand. It is also the artist's son who created Hannah's drawings.

Louise tells Colonel Weber that the word 'kangaroo' comes from an historical misunderstanding, and actually means "I don't know", only to tell Ian that the story is untrue but illustrates her point. This is an actual myth, not just a made up story. It involves Lieutenant James Cook and Sir Joseph Banks who arrived in Australia in the 18th century, where they made contact with the Guugo Yimithirr, a coastal Aboriginal tribe. They were puzzled by the sight of a kangaroo, and asked a tribesman what it was. According to the myth, the tribesman responded with the word "gangurru", meaning "I don't understand" in his language. Banks mistook it for the local term for the animal, spelling it as "kanguru" in his diary. The myth was debunked in the 1970s by linguist John B. Haviland. In reality, the word gangurru specifically refers to the grey kangaroo in the Guugo Yimithirr language. When Cook and Banks traveled 1,400 miles inland, they encountered the Baagandji tribe, who were unfamiliar with the other tribe and the word gangurru, and thought it meant "unknown animal". The Baagandji then started to use the word to describe Cook's and Banks' horses.

While the shape of the ship was decided early on, Denis Villeneuve had great difficulty imagining an interior that would allow humans to easily navigate through such a steep and vertical design. The later decision to turn gravity sideways offered an obvious and convenient solution.

Ted Chiang, who wrote the story the film is based upon, approved the film, saying, "I think it's that rarest of the rare in that it's both a good movie and a good adaptation... And when you consider the track record of adaptations of written science fiction, that's almost literally a miracle."

"Dirty Sci-fi" is what director Denis Villeneuve and cinematographer Bradford Young called the look they created together for Arrival. Villeneuve wanted it to feel like "This was happening on a bad Tuesday morning, like when you were a kid on the school bus on a rainy day and you'd dream while looking out the window at the clouds."

Scandinavian photographer Martina Hoogland Ivanow was a major influence on cinematographer Bradford Young's look of this film, especially with her exhibition and book "Speedway."

In writing the story, Ted Chiang had in mind the following quote of the great physicist Albert Einstein: "The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

The siren emitted throughout the movie signaling the scientists' preparation to approach the ship is identical to the siren used in The Purge (2013) and its sequels.

Abbott and Costello resemble Kang and Kodos, the aliens from The Simpsons (1989) Treehouse of Horror segments.

  

Film 831: The Town

Trivia: Jeremy Renner decided to surround himself with actual convicted bank robbers in Charlestown for research reasons and to help him nail the accent.

Originally set to be directed by Adrian Lyne, but he had a falling out with Warner Bros., so they asked Ben Affleck to step in.

Slaine (Gloansy) was a concession seller at Fenway Park as a teenager. He described going back there to shoot the film as "surreal."

Director/star Ben Affleck was most concerned that the actors not have phony sounding Boston accents. When Blake Lively read for the part of Krista, she sounded so authentic that he asked her what part of Boston she grew up in. She was born and raised in California.

In the novel, Krista was supposedly to be in her early 30s, but Ben Affleck cast Blake Lively mainly because he was bowled over by her performance in her previous film, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.