Best movie questions of 1997

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Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves picture

Question: Near the beginning, what does Wayne mean when he says "Nothing like the smell of 2-part apoxy resin"?

Answer: Epoxy resin is sometimes sold in two seperate tubes. You have to mix the contents of both for the epoxy to harden into plastic. It also shows how weird he is, as epoxy tends to smell pretty foul.

Grumpy Scot

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Batman and Robin picture

Question: How was Pamela Isley aka Poison Ivy able to fight Batgirl with martial arts-like skills towards the end of the movie? Pamela was a doctor and I highly doubt given her obsession with her research she had the time to take martial arts lessons in her spare time, if she had any during her stay in South America. Even after she transformed into Poison Ivy, her transformation could not have given her martial arts skills since her powers are based on plant abilities.

joshtrivia

Answer: There's no way of knowing whether or not she "had the time" to study martial arts. Regardless of her studies, she could have made time to pursue this as an extra-curricular activity. Universities can have classes, clubs, competitions, and student groups for martial arts on campus that anyone can participate in. She may also have been studying it since childhood. She was also a botanist, so even with a rigorous academic schedule, she would likely have more free time than a medical student.

raywest

Answer: That and they had to have the women fight in here. I mean they couldn't have the guys hit her now could they? So it was necessary for her to fight competently at least.

Rob245

Exactly, and that's a point I make again and again that things happen in movies because it's required to make the plot to work, not because it reflects real life.

raywest

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An American Werewolf in Paris picture

Question: What did Claude say in French to Jacques when he choked him for allowing Serafine and Andy to go through the door?

Joey221995

Answer: Claude says in anger while choking him, "Depuis quand tu laisses partir mes invites, Jacques?", which in English translates to, "When did you let my guests go, Jacques?"

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Dante's Peak picture

Question: I'm asking this because I don't really know a lot about volcanoes but, at the beginning of the movie, Harry was in the middle of a volcano eruption with: rain; rocks falling etc. When the volcano in Dante's Peak erupted, it was different from before, meaning that there was no rain (but ash), rivers strong enough to break a dam, burning water, dead wildlife etc. Even at the end of the movie, the volcano still had one more eruption before it finally died down. My question is, are all volcano eruptions not the same or are they just unpredictable when they explode? It just seems kind of odd that Harry was experiencing different things in nature after the volcano exploded. I hope I explained this enough; I'm just curious is all.

Answer: Volcanic eruptions can range from ash eruption to hot gas eruption to lava eruption to explosive eruption. Movies tend to inaccurately lump all of these eruptions together.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: Volcanoes can differ because of type of volcano, type of eruption, and region. The Pacific Northwest has a history of volcanoes that erupt not lava, but rock, gas, and ash. Other regions (like Hawaii and Central Africa) erupt primarily lava. Age of the volcano is also a factor.

Greg Dwyer

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Fools Rush In picture

Question: Could you please tell me what the father is calling guacamole in the scene where Alex and Isabelle's parents meet? Alex's father says something about guacamole, and Isabelle's father says, "Now you insult (?) guacamole". I can't find what he says anywhere. Thank you.

Answer: "Now you're offending Amalia's guacamole! What's wrong with Amalia's guacamole?!"

I believe it says Mayan's guacamole. Not Amalia's.

No, Tomas says Amalia. Amalia is his wife.

Bishop73

Answer: Amalia is her mother... so yes he says Amalia.

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Answer: In Alien 3, Ripley discovers there was an Alien queen embryo growing inside her, so she chose to kill herself. By cloning her, scientist were hoping the Alien queen embryo she had in her at the time of her death would also become cloned, which finally happen after the 8th try. This is also why the Alien queen they extracted from Ripley has some human traits.

Bishop73

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Scream 2 picture

Question: In the movie "Stab" it shows what is supposed to be reenacting Drew Barrymore's death and looks as if it is just like the one in the first film. But how could it be almost perfect if no one was there to see it?

Movieman123

Chosen answer: In real life, they'd have known there was a phone call involved. They would have known her boyfriend was killed. They could have easily pieced together that the killers played a cat and mouse game with the Drew Barrymore character. But that doesn't account for all the details. Anything else would be speculation. My speculation: Maybe Billy Loomis kept a diary.

K.C. Sierra

And rumor has it that Stu didn't die that he may still be alive.

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The Jackal picture

Question: Why didn't Koslova try to fight while the Jackal is talking to her?

Answer: Because she's dying, in shock, losing blood, and in pain.

raywest

Answer: She's in too much pain to fight. He also just helped her to slow her bleeding, after that she seems to weirdly trust him.

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Anaconda picture

Question: Okay, so I can't figure out why Paul and Matteo had the whole elaborate ruse set up. Why not just come out by themselves? Why did they set up a stranded boat and take the crew hostage with all of the events in the movie?

Answer: They didn't set it up. They were chasing after the anaconda anyway and were stranded. They still wanted to go after the anaconda after they were picked up, so they lied to the crew. They knew the crew wouldn't go after the anaconda on their own.

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Face/Off picture

Question: Why did Castor shoot Dietrich? They were on the same side.

MikeH

Chosen answer: Although they were on the same side, Troy is currently posing as Archer, which means he would have to do everything that the FBI would expect Archer to be doing. The whole point of the raid was to take out Archer, as well as Troy's gang. He would have rather risked killing part of his own gang than risk exposing his identity to anyone else.

Casual Person

That doesn't really make sense. In the scene, he goes out of his way to shoot him and smiles while doing so, carefully and slowly. Was not a collateral damage situation. The question is why he deliberately goes out of his way to kill him.

Answer: If you watch closely, he saw Archer, went out of his way not to shoot him, instead was aiming for his own son that he didn't know was his, to further traumatize Archer.

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Speed 2: Cruise Control picture

Question: After the ship was turned from hitting the oil tanker and then they returned to the bridge, they saw the ship was going to hit land. Why didn't they just go down again and turn the ship out to sea?

Answer: The ship has no way to stop or steer. By hitting land it would bring the ship to a stop (at a considerable cost) where as if they go out to sea, they would just continue to keep going until out of fuel or hit something they can't avoid and risk everyone drowning. A risk that is not present if they hit land.

Ssiscool

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Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery picture

Question: Towards the end of the film, Dr. Evil kills number 2 yet number 2 is alive in the next two films. Why? I've been told there's an alternative ending on the DVD that changes this. Is that true?

Answer: Number 2 doesn't get killed. It is obvious from the attempt to kill Mustapha that the fire/chair thing is faulty, this is demonstrated in the second film by the fact that number 2 has a large burn scar on his face to show that he wasn't killed, just burned.

Kara

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Chosen answer: Although Bob intended to kill Charles (to obtain his wife and wealth), they unexpectedly were struggling for survival in the wilderness. Working together increases their chances of rescue, and Bob cannot survive without Charles' help. He therefore saves him from the rapids. Plot-wise, this makes Charles think that his suspicions about Bob may be wrong. Also, Bob is not a born killer, and may be hesitant about actually committing murder, particularly someone he had admired and respected. Bob likely planned to kill Charles when rescue was imminent and then claim Charles died accidentally. Regarding the title, because the movie is not based on a book of that name, the filmmakers probably chose it for its marketing value because it sounded dramatic. This is a suspense/adventure movie, and "edge" can have multiple meanings, such as being "on the edge," as to whether or not Bob will carry out his plan. It can also refer to the razor-sharp edge of a weapon, an "edgy" emotional situation, and so on.

raywest

Answer: It is called the edge because Charles had a mental edge on Bob.

Answer: Two reasons for the title: They had an edge on the bear with their human intelligence, and they utilized the edge on that knife with it. Two edges.

roy sandefur

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The Odyssey picture

Question: At the beginning of the movie, when the men are boarding the ship, a line of sailors are marching single file, nodding their heads up and down and chanting "Ahh-ah, ah-ooh" repeatedly. What are they doing this for?

Answer: It's a marching chant, sort of like an ancient version of the marching music we have now.

Blibbetyblip

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Volcano picture

Question: Does the art museum catch fire from the lava even though they tried to stop it by putting a bus against it?

Answer: Lava is extremely hot. It heats the air above and around it to such a degree that it can reach the flash point of various items.

Greg Dwyer

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Home Alone 3 picture

Question: When Beaupre thought there was a woman in the Alcott's house, why go back in and kill her? He thought she was in the shower so she couldn't see him, so there was no evidence to give the police about what he looked like.

THE GAMER NEXT DOOR

Answer: It was Jernigan who thought there was a woman in the shower and he couldn't take the risk that if it was a woman, that she would eventually get out and see intruders in the house and call for the police. The only option open to Jernigan would be to kill her so there'd be no witnesses.

No it was Beaupre who thought there was a woman in the house.

I've seen the movie and I can confirm that it was Jernigan who opened the shower curtain because he thought a woman was in the shower.

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Flubber picture

Question: Why did Wilson drop some white bead things to the floor at Sara's wedding? In order to let Phillip slide on them? But Wilson knew Phillip wouldn't show up at the wedding.

Bunch

Chosen answer: It was rice and he just simply dumped them on the floor because he knew he wouldn't be needing it after the wedding to throw at the bride and groom because the Professor didn't show up.

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Suicide Kings picture

Question: Much ado is made near the start of the film about the kidnappers sending Elise's finger back to her family as a threat, but we learn later that she was never harmed. Did the film ever explain where the finger actually came from, or if it was even sent at all?

Answer: The finger is never shown, only mentioned. Since Elise looked to have all her fingers one must assume it was made up as part of the scheme to fool everyone.

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Contact picture

Question: If you read the book version of Contact you know that the stuff about transcendental numbers and the Artist's Signature was left out of the movie. This makes no sense to me, since it's not only the real ending, it's the whole POINT of the story. Without this information, the story's fundamental question (does God exist?) is not answered in the movie. Does anyone know why this was left out?

Answer: If anything, I think the film's producers deliberately left godly topics unaddressed (and questions dangling, unanswered) because they didn't want to alienate any particular audience. However, we know the producers of "Contact" certainly did vilify religion through the sinister scenes with Joseph, the evangelical extremist. At the same time, the film created empathy for the president's glib theological adviser, Palmer Joss. So, I don't think the film was shying away from religious topics, and I think it was pretty fair to the religious viewpoint, for the most part. But this movie wasn't about religion; it was about a primitive, materialistic, self-centered and aggressive species (humanity) reluctantly acknowledging the existence of vastly more intelligent and even godlike entities throughout the cosmos. Even the first-contact entities, advanced as they are, acknowledge other entities much more ancient and much more advanced (the virtual architects of the space/time conduit). The implication was that we live in a universe that may be populated with many intelligent entities that answer every human criteria of godhood. Ellie's narrow-minded atheism was surely shaken to its foundation by her experience; and, while she didn't "convert" to archaic earthly religions, she was spiritually a different person upon her return. The film, however, is open-ended and fence-straddling and doesn't presume to definitively answer the question of the existence of god, leaving it up to the audience to decide.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: The film chooses to focus on Ellie's personal journey and how she deals with and comes to terms with what happens - it doesn't really involve God at all, other than the inclusion of Palmer Joss as a religious advocate, choosing to restrict itself to the much less theologically controversial theme of a straight first contact scenario, without the religious overtones. Given the depth of feeling on religious matters in the US, it's hardly surprising that the filmmakers preferred to leave this particular hot topic out. While Carl Sagan died during production of the film, he both co-produced and was involved in the story process, so he was clearly not concerned about this change.

Tailkinker

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Answer: I don't know how prevalent this is (or how it actually works), but one possibility would be that he was under contract with a particular agency (or company/ business) and could only receive credit for work performed under this contract and/or no other agency could benefit from using him. His name cannot show up in something he did outside of that contract.

KeyZOid

Chosen answer: I don't know why, but he asked not to be in the credits.

Josh Appelbaum

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