Best drama movie factual errors of 2009

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The Boat That Rocked picture

Factual error: Many of the songs featured in the film, almost all of which are portrayed as being singles actually being played by the disc jockeys, came out after the 1966 setting of the film, including Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" (June 1967), Tommy James and the Shondells' "Crimson and Clover" (November 1968), The Who's "I Can See For Miles" (October 1967), Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind Cried Mary" (May 1967), the Turtles' "Elenore" (November 1968) and Herb Alpert's "This Guy's in Love with You" (April 1968) among several others.

Tailkinker

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The Blind Side picture

Factual error: Just before Michael and Leigh Anne enter the Big and Tall store, they walk past a Georgia Lottery 'PLAY HERE' sign, and several paces later Leigh Anne says, "I have been in Memphis my whole life..." illustrating that it was filmed in Atlanta, GA, not Memphis, TN. (00:32:30)

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The Young Victoria picture

Factual error: Prince Albert was not really wounded in the assassination attempt depicted near the end of the film. Eyewitness accounts differed as to whether he pushed Victoria down to protect her or simply dived for cover himself, but neither of the two bullets fired struck either of them.

kensei

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A Single Man picture

Factual error: Charlotte is seen speaking on a Princess style phone in the movie. The phone she is using has a modular plug in the handset. Modular cords were not used on Princess phones until 1975. The movie takes place in 1962.

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Star Trek picture

Factual error: USS Enterprise's onboard computer initially refuses to acknowledge Chekov's authorization code. The reason, it seems, is Chekov's Russian accent, which pronounces the letter "V" (pronounced labiodentally) like a British "W" (pronounced bilabially). Problem: Chekov pronounces his ensign authorization code in the NATO phonetic alphabet. ("Nine, Five, Victor, Victor, Two", which resolves to 95VV2) This alphabet is specifically designed to alleviate this exact same situation. The 26 code words in the NATO phonetic alphabet are assigned to the 26 letters of the English alphabet: Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, and Zulu. The slightly mispronounced "Wictor" should not be a problem. (00:42:05)

FleetCommand

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Suggested correction: You're applying today's standards to a fictional future. We've seen in every iteration of Star Trek that security includes both a passkey/password and voice authentication. The actual mistake here is that regardless of how Chekov speaks, the computer should recognize it as his voice because he always speaks that way.

I am afraid the computer's error message leaves no doubt that there was no voice matching at work this time; only pure speech-to-text.

FleetCommand

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The Perfect Game picture

Factual error: The movie is about the 1957 little league world series. In the scene near the end when the factory workers in Monterrey Mexico walk off the job so they can listen to a broadcast of the game, there is a blue 1959 Ford station wagon parked on the street.

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Fanboys picture

Factual error: In the scene of the parking garage in Vegas, as the group is escaping the Trekkies, you can see vehicles in the parkade from the 2000's. The movie is taking place in 1998.

rswarrior

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Amelia picture

Factual error: When Amelia goes to George Putnam's suite and tells him to dance with her, she turns on the radio. The radio comes on instantly. At that time there should have been a delay of up to a minute or so, since vacuum tubes were in use and they would have taken time to warm up.

drw60a

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The International picture

Factual error: Even if the bullets were full metal jackets, the passing through Calvini's head and then the wooden column would deform them so the exit hole would be larger than the entry hole.

Jacob La Cour

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Whiteout picture

Factual error: In several scenes, characters drink 'Scotch Whiskey' from a bottle with a label that is obviously something the props department created. That's how it's spelled on the label, 'Scotch Whiskey'. The problem is, if it's Scotch, it's spelled 'WHISKY' (without the 'e').

matthewquick7

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A Christmas Carol picture

Factual error: At the beginning Scrooge is seen signing Jacob Marley's death certificate in the year 1836. English Birth, Marriage & Death certificates didn't come into being until 1837.

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The Time Traveler's Wife picture

Factual error: When Henry travels back to when his mother is still alive and is riding the el train with her, when he gets off the train downtown there are color coded signs on the platform. Specifically, a brown and purple sign indicating that those color trains stop on that side of the platform. This scene took place sometime in the 1970s since his mother was still alive, but el trains were not color coded until 1993.

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Watchmen picture

Factual error: In the scenes on Mars, two spherical moons can be seen in the background. However, in reality, the moons of Mars (Phobos & Deimos) are not spherical. Also they are so small, that they would only appear as moving dots in the night sky, not spheres like Earth's moon.

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Armored picture

Factual error: The license plate on the sheriff's car when he arrives at the factory is 5Q49926. In California - where the film seems to take place - that is a "Commercial" license plate issued to trucks and commercial vehicles, but law enforcement are issued "Exempt" plates which are 7 numbers.

DaveT319

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Awaydays picture

Factual error: Carty and Elvis meet up and are walking up a street. This film is set in 1979 but as they get to the top of the street, top right of the screen there is a modern day Renault Clio car. (00:42:48)

leemurphy82

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The Road picture

Factual error: If, as the film proposes, all plant life is dead, then human life would have soon followed it. Since plants filter carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, then a lack of plants would allow for the increase of that CO2. And since the the unknown disaster appears to have been the result of a super volcano, the additional CO2 would be accompanied by the gases from the volcano making the atmosphere even more toxic.

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My Sister's Keeper picture

Factual error: In the scene where Anna visits Campbell for the first time, he looks at her medical records, and in the close up it shows Anna's birth date as 05/16/1990, but in the scene where Kate is showing her mother the scrapbook she's made it contains a picture which shows that Kate's birth date is 08/22/1990, which makes Anna somehow 3 months older than her supposedly elder sister.

amizzlebizzle

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Shrink picture

Factual error: In the scene where Patrick meets with the shrink and reveals he's a genius, he multiplies 548 x 297, and comes up with the answer of 16,765. In actual fact, the answer is 16,756. (00:07:45)

Canuck5

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Brooklyn's Finest picture

Factual error: The part of the movie where they have had the morning updates at the police station, Richard Gere later walks on the sidewalk and stares deliberately at a pair of Muslims praying. The sun is shining on the backs of the Muslims heads indicating that they are facing west even though Mecca would be off to a much more easterly direction from Brooklyn.

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