Best drama movie questions of 2017

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Ghost in the Shell picture

Question: This movie is one of a few I've seen to display the title twice during the opening credits. It appears in a plain font at the start of the credits, then appears in a more stylized font at the end of the credits. Why do some movies do this? It seems a little redundant.

TedStixon

Answer: A lot of movies will put a title card at the end of the film before the credits. It's usually to cap off the movie so that it's the last thing you see or think about when you leave (especially back in the day when you didn't sit around to watch for an extra scene). They want it to be redundant so you don't forget (repetition is the key to learning). Most movies (if not all) also have the movie's name at the very end of all the credits too. But I assume for copyright or other legal reasons, the same way a book publisher might print the book's title on every page of the book.

Bishop73

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The Space Between Us picture

Question: Wouldn't Earth's gravity cause Gardner's feet and leg to ache, given that he is from Mars, a planet with much lower gravity, and has lived there his entire life?

Answer: Any answer would be speculation at best, although it does seem likely that being on Earth would cause various pains. But it also depends on his conditioning while on Mars (for example, soldiers in the military often train with heavy packs on). The reason astronauts experience pain upon return to Earth after long stints in space is mainly due to muscle atrophy, similar to someone being bed-ridden for months. Additionally, being weightless in space with 0-g's (not zero gravity), their spine elongates and then back on Earth, it compresses back to normal, which can be painful. Gardner may not experience pain since his muscles aren't atrophied, and he may not experience spinal compression.

Bishop73

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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri picture

Question: Why would they make Anne Australian? Her nationality isn't even mentioned, so why would they let Abbie Cornish use her natural accent? What purpose does it serve? It seems like an incredibly random choice. Abbie Cornish has used an American accent in most of her roles, so of all the ones to use her natural accent, why would she use it in the one where it makes the least sense? Why would an Australian go to a small Ozarks Missouri town? I assume she stayed there because she met Bill and fell in love with him, but why would she have gone there in the first place, before she met Bill?

MikeH

Answer: Since the movie doesn't tell us how she and Bill met, any answer about how and why she was there would be mere speculation. Letting an actress speak in her native accent is not exactly "random"; random would be if she was an American and the writer/director decided to make her character Australian. However, the situation of an Australian marrying someone from, and then living in, a small Missouri town is not as outlandish or nonsensical as one might think; I used to date someone from a tiny town in Kansas, whose mother was an upper-class British woman who happened to meet and marry someone from that town.

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Answer: He was a fictional character. However, Apatow says he was playing a version of himself, though he didn't initially realise that when being cast. He claims he is not that bad in real life; his character is also an amalgam of other producers.

raywest

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I, Tonya picture

Question: Did people actually care about figure skating? I wasn't alive when this happened, but apparently it was one of the biggest sporting controversies of all time. Well I find that quite hard to believe, since before this movie came out, I'd never heard anyone talk about figure skating, I barely even knew what it was. Was figure skating ever actually a big thing, or do people just like controversy?

MikeH

Answer: It used to be a lot more popular. The Harding/Kerrigan Winter Olympic figure skating competition was the 6th highest rated program in TV history as of 1994, with 48.5 million viewers, no doubt helped by the controversy. It's slowly declined over time - from 1998 to 2018 viewing figures for the US championships declined by 1/3. Opinions about its loss of appeal range from a change in the scoring (used to be judges rating out of 6.0, now it's a more complicated points system), to a lack of "star power", with recognisable names grabbing people's attention. In the UK at least, skater team Torville and Dean were household names for a long time, but I'd imagine a lot of people would struggle to think of skaters with that level of popular recognition nowadays. That said, viewing figures for the 2018 US championships were 60% up on 2017, and membership of the US figure skating organization has risen for the last four years - these things wax and wane like any other.

Jon Sandys

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