Question: Toward the beginning of the movie, on Phil's first day at the bed and breakfast, he turns on the shower and it is very cold. He asks the lady in the hallway why there is no hot water. The lady answers "Oh no, there wouldn't be any today." Why not?
Answer: Likely because there are a lot of people staying there and using up the hot water.
Question: I've noticed that throughout the movie, the first two fingers on many character's right hand are orange. Most noticeable when Holden sees Banky at the end and in the lesbian bar when Banky is swapping stories with Alyssa. What's the significance of this?
Answer: I'm gonna be totally honest... I'm 99% sure there's no significance. In fact, I think it's just stained skin from all the smoking people do in the movie. Most people hold their cigarettes between their first two fingers. And most of the characters are depicted smoking throughout the film, which means they had to smoke a LOT during filming to maintain continuity. I used to get occasional orange (and sometimes yellow or light brown) stains on my fingers and hands when I smoked cigarettes. Especially if I smoked more than one in a short period of time and didn't wash me hands between them. So it's probably just smoking stains on the actor's fingers. In fact, I looked, and you see Banky holding a lit cigarette in his right hand and smoking during the story swapping scene you mentioned, with gives some direct evidence to my theory. (For reference, those stains can wash off with some good scrubbing).
Question: When Dean and Annie are at the restaurant/bar, they go outside and with plastic wine type glasses Dean pours some champagne in their glasses. When Annie picks up her glass, the bottom comes off. She says, Oh I lost my bottom! Was that in the script or was it a blooper? I've always felt it was a blooper and if it was Annie covered it so well. Thanks.
Answer: Goldie Hawn mentioned in an interview that it was a blooper. She explained that she and Kurt Russell are so comfortable with one another that it wasn't really like acting, and she reacted naturally.
Question: What is the restaurant Annie and Walter are sitting in that looks out onto the Empire State Building?
Answer: That would be the Rainbow Room which is located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza (Annie rushes out the door and gets into the taxi), the iconic skyscraper in Rockefeller Center.
Question: Near the beginning at the wedding Fran comes to to meet Mary, Penny comes over to tell Mary about the bellydancer's tattoo. Mary then asks her to prepare the 'Murdoch file' and Fran's mom says "Murdoch? As in-" then she makes a funny noise as if this had some meaning to her. I realize the 'Murdoch file' was fake and just to get rid of Penny, but is there some other meaning for it?
Answer: Murdoch as in media mogul Rupert Murdoch. It makes her sound important, giving the impression that someone of his caliber would use her for a wedding planner.
Question: Why did they use actors who couldn't sing in the leading roles? Wouldn't it be easier to cast people who could sing instead of dubbing with other singing voices?
Answer: People would not come to the theater to see Marnie Nixon despite the fact that she has sung the lead roles in West Side Story, The King and I, and My Fair Lady. They'd rather see that darling girl from "Miracle on 34th Street" again (or Deborah Kerr or Audrey Hepburn) than an unknown with actual talent.
Answer: Natalie Wood was more well-known. And Wood actually COULD sing, she just couldn't hit the high notes perfectly. In fact, she was told only some of her singing would be dubbed.
Question: The premise of "Santa Clause 2" is that the new Santa must find a wife or he goes back to being a normal guy. So, what happened to the prior Mrs. Claus, the one that was married to the Santa that fell off the roof in the first movie - or for that matter, the ones married to any of the prior Santas? Do they just disappear when their husbands are no longer Santa?
Answer: When a Santa dies, the previous Mrs. Claus goes back into the human world and loses all memory of the north pole and Santa.
Answer: The previous Santas probably didn't have wives and then would die or retire before the elves could find out about the marriage clause.
Then why would Scott need to get married if Mrs. Claus wasn't important?
But that doesn't make sense because Scott Calvin, the current Santa, automatically started to reverse naturally without the elves doing anything.
Question: What happens to the Natives? After the first contact with Denham & Co and the sacrifice of Ann they make no further contact with the group, even when the group are inside their village at various points after this.
Answer: They scared them off with their guns. In the scene where they capture Ann to sacrifice her to Kong, Denham and his men come to rescue her and when they start shooting the natives hide. It's never fully explained but the most likely answer is that they are too scared and have even moved villages or are just hiding really well.
Question: When Wall-E and Eve are in the repair ward, and Wall-E is misinterpreting Eve's cleaning as torture, what is the second "scene" supposed to be? I understand that the first one looks like Eve is having her arm ripped off and the third looks like Eve is having her head chopped off, but I can't figure out what the second one with the malfunctioning umbrella is supposed to be.
Answer: It's a combination of what WALL-E sees happening to EVE, with her circuitry lighting up and her head bobbing up and down as she laughs, with the noise of the umbrella as the diagnostic arms try to force it down. All WALL-E can hear is something that resembles a mechanical screech, along with EVE reacting - he thinks that she's being electrocuted and is in pain.
Question: What does Harriet say to the Russian sailors as they walk past?
Answer: Real Russian, here. Sailor #1 says "she's a little thin." Sailor #2 says* "she looks really good to me." Harriet says "Yes. Very good." Sailor #1 says "Damn, she understands Russian." Harriet says "See you later, boys." (*Очень даже ничего is an idiom.) Мальчики or "malchiki" is "boys."
Answer: They are saying she is too tall and too skinny, but one says she's still pretty good looking. She sarcastically says "Thanks a lot," or something to that effect. One of the guys says "Oh, she understands Russian." And Harriet replies, "Yes, I do. You fellas have a nice evening."
Answer: I don't know the entire conversation, but it definitely wasn't just "have a good night fellas" she said "malchik gei", which means gay boy in Russian so she was probably insulting them right back.
Malchiki is boys. She says "See you later, boys." Ну пока, мальчики.
Question: When Nikki came to see Terri, he laid his hat and coat in the chair - no package. Later, he went to the chair and got the package that contained the scarf. Was the package placed there at a later time?
Question: When Bridget and Daniel are in bed at the hotel, she says "that thing you just did is actually illegal in several countries". Anyone know what she was talking about? I assume it's a sex thing and I'm dying to know.
Answer: I'm pretty sure you can assume she's talking about anal sex, which is still technically illegal in a number of countries.
Question: What happens to the Adam Sandler and Tea Leoni characters? Were there any cut scenes that explained it, or something? Does the marriage fall apart?
Answer: There were no explanations offered. I think the movie was far better in leaving that question, and whether or not he married Flor, unanswered. The focus was on the child and her respect for her mother - not the other relationship.
Question: What is it likely that the stone (an emerald, I gather) was worth in 1984 US dollars?
Answer: Any emerald over 1 carat in that beautiful cut and condition would probably go for over 250 million. Real emeralds over 5 carats are rare and the price goes up exponentially after 2 or 3 carats. 305,000 per carat after 5. So yeah that one was probably like 800 or more carats.
Question: Do Charlotte and Bob end up sleeping together? While the obvious answer is no, when they are going up the elevator the night before Bob is leaving, notice the jacket he is wearing. It's the same jacket that Charlotte gives to him the next morning which he says she "stole" from him. While it doesn't necessarily say they did, they obviously did something together after the elevator scene.
Answer: If they did, it was never said or seen during the duration of the movie. Usually if this happens, it means the event did not occur.
Question: Is cousin Tilly Bailey, the secretary at the Building and Loan, Uncle Billy's daughter?
Chosen answer: We know that Tilly (Matilda) Bailey is not Uncle Billy's daughter, because when Billy "loses" the deposit money and rushes back to BBB&L, George tells him that Harry's on the telephone and we hear Tilly say, "Hurry up Uncle Billy, long distance from Washington," so presumably she's George's cousin and Uncle Billy's niece. (When there's the run on the bank we see her desk, and there are a few photographs of men, one of which may be her father).
Question: How exactly did they make the whole underwater fight scene work?
Chosen answer: The actors were weighted down with lead plates. Oxygen tanks were kept just out of picture, and the actors used them to breathe between takes. The takes were short enough to allow the actors to hold their breath through them. The short takes were then cut together to appear as one long fight. Sound effects were added post-production.
Question: Is it important for the storyline of the movie that Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow) can understand the policeman, when he is speaking Arabic to his wife on the phone?
Answer: Old fashioned hotels have a single boiler for all the hotel rooms. Once the hot water reservoir is used up there won't be any more to use until the reservoir is refilled. This only happens once every few days.
lionhead