I have noticed a few movies where the shot looks as if a circular camera was used. An example is the kitchen at the very beginning in Scream. How and why are these shot?
dizzyd
18th Aug 2018
General questions
Answer: Fisheye lens?
28th Dec 2014
General questions
I was talking to someone recently about drone technology and where it's headed - I was trying to give a movie reference to this friend about a movie I saw 10, 15, maybe 20 years ago? In this movie, there are a few gentlemen walking around a lab and one of them spots a fly and I believes tries to swat it with a newspaper. The other guy tells him, no, that it's actually a machine that looks like a fly, I can't remember if it is remote controlled or who the actors were.
Chosen answer: There are two scenes like that. One is from an episode of Get Smart, where smashes a robot fly with newspaper. The other from the 1994 movie Richie Rich, where a scientist shows Richie a robot fly, but Cadbury the butler smashes it.
Answer: Is it Sci-Fi?! If so, then "The Fifth Element" Also fills this bill.
29th Jul 2010
Goodfellas (1990)
Question: If the real Henry Hill wrote a book and co-wrote the screenplay (with Martin Scorsese), how is it that the Mob never found him? Or did they, and we (the viewers/general public) were never told about that?
Answer: He went into the witness protection programme along with his family under assumed names, however was expelled from that programme after being arrested for drugs offences in Seattle in the late 1980s. Since then he apparently lived quite openly, including a number of media appearances, although he continued to have problems with the law, mostly due to a long battle with alcoholism. He lived in Malibu up until his death in 2012. As to why the Mob appeared to be disinterested in pursuing him, you'd have to ask them.
By his own loud admission on Howard Stern, he had no idea why he was able to live such an incredibly long time for his circumstances.
Also, Henry Hill, in the last years of his life wasn't so worried anymore about getting whacked. All the people that were a threat to him were either in prison or dead by that time.
10th Jun 2004
Finding Nemo (2003)
Question: When Marlin discovers Mr Ray has taken his class to the Dropoff, he says "why don't we just fry them up and serve them with chips". American "Chips" are not the same as British "Chips." Is this dialogue only in the UK video release that I have, and if so, what is in the US version?
Answer: Even though "chip" as french fries instead of crisps is not an "American" term, we still use it as a description for "fish and chips." There is actually a Fish and Chips stand about a mile from my house and my mom even worked at a fish and chips stand when she was in college. So, it says that on the American version of the DVD as well.
Answer: There's no reason one can't serve actual potato chips with a meal, loads of American restaurants do, some even go so far as to house-fry fresh ones instead of out of a bag.
It's just a saying as "chips" also refers to "fries." It's not technical.
4th May 2018
Angels in the Outfield (1994)
Question: At the end of the movie George Knox adopts PJ, and Roger. Wouldn't George have had to meet with a social worker before adopting them?
Answer: Maybe he did offscreen?
I meant that as a yes or no question.
Then that answers the question. We also don't know WHEN he did it, so it's entirely possible that he visited with one. We also don't find out that he adopted both Roger and JP because it was supposed to be a surprise, meaning that we wouldn't find out until that moment.
It feels like the question was about the legal steps needed to take, not did he do them or not. Does an individual in his situation need to visit a social worker?
28th Apr 2018
Cast Away (2000)
Question: At the end when Tom Hanks is going over the map and the woman drives up, where exactly is the crossroads location?
Answer: The credits mention Canadian, TX. Canadian is on Hwy 83 in the Texas panhandle. The directions given mention Hwy 83 south and I-40 east. I-40 is roughly 30 miles or so south of Canadian on 83. Texas road signs are visible at the intersection. The ranch, a bed and breakfast and museum are at 9760 County Road 5, Canadian, TX. It looks like the crossroads was actually filmed maybe eight or ten miles south at the intersection of Z and 5.
Answer: Somewhere in the Great Plains, you heard the Woman's vague directions, "Whole lotta nothing 'till you get to Canada", and from the looks of things, it's not important anyway, the generic nature seems to be a plot device.
Question: It's made very clear in the movie that all of the animals in Narnia are intelligent, sentient beings. So what happens when the carnivorous animals have to eat? Since they all seem capable of working together to defeat the witch's army, it just seems very odd that they would then turn around and start killing each other. It may seem like an odd question, but is it explained in the book?
Answer: It is not clearly explained in the books. But as Narnia and the creation of Narnia (The Magician's Nephew) is based on the Bible, you need to understand that animals used to all eat plants until the fall of the human race (Adam and Eve eating the apple). Another explanation is that not all of the animals talk, and the non-talking ones are preyed on.
Answer: The books make it clear only some Narnian animals are intelligent, the rest are like ours.
6th Jul 2005
Batman Begins (2005)
Question: A few times in the movie, you can see Illinois license plates. Is Gotham supposed to be in Illinois?
Answer: Actually in the DC universe, Gotham is meant to represent an over-the-top version of Chicago. Metropolis is the New York stand in.
Answer: Gotham is understood to be NYC on steroids and/or acid.
Answer: It is a mistake, Gotham City is canonically in New Jersey. It's a short distance from Metropolis.
True of the comics, but the Christopher Nolan Batman films are their own self-contained universe.
17th Jan 2005
Batman Forever (1995)
Question: What is the point of the Riddler stopping Harvey (Two-Face) from killing Bruce Wayne when they are in his mansion? They now know that Bruce Wayne is Batman and their goal all along was to kill Batman. Essentially I can understand they want to torture Bruce by kidnapping Chase, but it seems like a huge risk that they don't really need to take as Batman is very elusive and this was a prime opportunity to take him out.
Chosen answer: They are both nuts and extremely arrogant. They are also suffering from "Supervillain Syndrome" wherin the villain will toy with and never kill his nemesis even though it will get him caught/defeated in the end. It's just how comic book villains are.
Also, they specifically say they want him awake, aware and capable of suffering humiliation and shame when they destroy him. Also, since they have a hostage he values very highly, they can be reasonably sure he'll come to them afterwards, Riddler out-and-out says so.
8th Nov 2004
Planet of the Apes (2001)
Question: Can someone please explain how the apes ended up taking over present-day Earth since the future apes never got hold of the time machine? I can't find anyone who can make heads or tails of it.
Chosen answer: Tim Burton has been quoted MANY times as saying it isn't supposed to make sense. Best guess is Leo travelled not just into the future, but into another dimension as well. Ironically, this ending is far more true to Peirre Boulle's original ending than the first Apes movie.
Answer: I have, if not an answer, then a sharpening of the question. A number of fanboys have suggested Thade retrieved Leo's pod from the bottom of the lake, then used it to travel into the MagnaStorm, thereby reaching Earth centuries before Leo's arrival, and inciting Earth Apes to rebel. The problem with This explanation is, once you get past how helpless the Apes are in water, How did Thade, a person who comes from a society without even gunpowder level technology, Repair A Spaceship?! Nevermind learn to use it?!?!?.
30th Nov 2016
Alien 3 (1992)
Question: In the infirmary, when the Alien gets close to Ripley, and then (we realise why later in the movie) pulls back and leaves her, because she is carrying the queen chestburster, why doesn't the Alien hold her, take her with him, into the vent system and cocoon her like we see the others do to all those other humans in Aliens? It seems to be remiss of the creature to let her run around, as opposed to guarding her, especially since it seems to be a "guard."
Answer: Well at the time I'm sure it was just to keep the story moving but as far as the lore, this alien is a different breed (A Runner). They are meant more for acquiring food for the hive were as the drones (from Alien and Aliens) create the hive and the cocoon to hold incapacitated people. The drones can also be used for defending the queen/hive, scouting or gathering hosts for the facehuggers.
Chosen answer: 2 Reasons; 1. The entire rest of the prison was trying to find it and kill it. The Alien is fast and strong but if spent most of its time hovering around Ripley, it would be outmatched and killed. 2. The Alien probably knew that Ripley was an ally of the prisoners. They weren't trying to hurt her, so she didn't need guarding.
For 1) No, not yet they weren't trying to kill it, at this point in the movie noone believed her except possibly a deranged convict (lotssa help he'd be in any case) 2) That one is a little harder to dispel, but nevertheless, the alien would probably want to drag her, hide her, somewhere in the depths of the complex, just to be safe, and certainly to be present and available as a guard when the chestburster actually hatches.
9th Feb 2010
Avatar (2009)
Question: I'm assuming that floating rocks are made from Unobtanium - thus able to fly. But where did they get all the water to supply the waterfalls?
Answer: It's never stated that the floating mountains are made from any particular substance. And it's doubtful they're made from unobtanium, otherwise why would they need to mine it from underneath the Na'vi's tree? The mountains float because of some magnetic properties in that area of the planet. As for the water, I imagine it comes from the same place water comes from on mountains on Planet Earth -- melting snow.
This is an incredibly lush place, probably very rainy, therefore the water could have come from there.
12th Aug 2017
Starship Troopers (1997)
Question: Is there any reason the humans can't simply use nukes, chemical weapons, fuel-air bombs, or bioweapons,, any kind of especially powerful, destructive bomb, shot from long distance, dropped from a plane, or better still, orbit, to fight the bugs? Yes, of course there are big downsides to any such action, but this does not strike me as a society restrained, patient, enlightened or with sufficient foresight to care about those.
Chosen answer: They do use nukes (to clear out bug caves) and fuel-air bombs (like they do before landing troops). It's possible biological and chemical weapons don't work on the bugs because of their physiology. Only nukes and Thermobaric weapons work.
Answer: Nukes, chemical, and bio weapons would render the planets uninhabitable. Not a goal when they want to colonize.
I have already stated these people are not that far-thinking.
13th Dec 2012
Aliens (1986)
Question: What is the actual time frame from when Ripley is revived from the Nostromo's lifeboat to when she joins the mission to LV-426 to when the team actually arrives there? I know that the colonists were attacked after Burke sent the order for them to check out the alien spacecraft, but in alien, it was only a matter of hours before the facehugger dropped from Kane's face, and a few more after that when the newborn emerged. If this is accurate, then how could any of the infected colonists still be alive when the marines arrived and were checking the mass cocoon? In a previous question above, it was ascertained that the flight time was a minimum of 2 weeks, possibly more. Add to that the time it took to convince Ripley to agree to go and prep time for takeoff, I'd say it's anywhere from 2 1/2 to 3 weeks before they got there and any impregnated colonists should have dead.
Answer: You're assuming that all the colonists were captured by the aliens at the same time. There's no evidence to support that, particularly; logically the takeover would have happened over a period of time. Only one alien would have been brought back to the colony, from the facehugger that attacked Newt's father, so some considerable time must have passed while new eggs were acquired to infect other colonists and increase the number of alien warriors available. We don't know precisely when communications with the colony were cut off, but, from the lack of information available to the marines sent to investigate, it must have happened relatively early in the infestation, so it's entirely plausible that the colonists' final stand didn't take place until the marines were already well on their way. Newt's survival until the marines' arrival clearly opens up the possibility that other colonists were able to avoid capture for some time after the final stand. As such, it's not remotely unreasonable to suggest that the live colonist found in the cocoon chamber had been captured by the aliens no more than a day before the marines found her.
Regarding the colonist dying from a chestburster in front of the Marines as opposed to sometime before, maybe the colonist went into a coma of some kind (psychological if nothing else) and the chestburster of course did likewise, and then the Marines caused her, and accordingly the alien larva, to awaken (seems an enormous coincidence of timing otherwise) at that particular moment. It's also possible the adult aliens, having gone dormant with nothing to do, have somehow caused the chestburster and/or host to do likewise, again, with the Marines' arrival, the larva awoke and the adults followed suit. It's even possible the chestburster had some form of birth defect that caused its "late start."
With reference to the original question about taking 2 weeks to get to the planet from earth, in the first Alien film the flight time was 10 months. I know that a military ship would be faster than an old tug 57 years previously but to cut the journey down that much would be impossible.
Well, the colonists may have been infected at the same time but that woman was still alive when they found her, so this shows that not all the colonists were infected at the same time assuming she even is a colonist.
Answer: You're assuming that they received transmissions at sub-light speed. It could have have been weeks or months before they received an S.O.S. Ripley said Newt survived for weeks on her own.
29th May 2013
The Hangover (2009)
Question: If Doug was on the roof the whole time, what exactly has he been doing for the past day while the others try to find him? (01:31:00)
Answer: Doug was with them most of the night. He was in the wedding pictures. I'm assuming it's presumed he went back on the roof for some reason, maybe to sleep since at some part they ransacked the hotel room and he got locked out because at the beginning roof scene Stu propped the door open. They probably were bringing the mattress up to chill on too and he got locked out.
Answer: Mattress was tossed from higher up on the roof, and to push the plot forward the hotel workers go with the idea that some drunk tourist tossed it out a window.
Answer: Of course he was just waiting, sleeping or sleeping it off all that time, but myself I have to wonder; Why didn't any staff OR security find him before his friends?! I'm sure there had to be some daily maintenance work on the rooftop AC's or something, which Doug could use to get back down when they come up! For that matter, I'm sure that if Doug had sufficient wherewithal to signal help by throwing part of his bed off the roof, he could've tried again with either a torn-out padding chunk of the rest, thrown down in the sight of everyone (something soft so as not hurt anyone), disconnecting sundry parts of the aforementioned roof utilities to create something to draw maintenance and security, or some other method entirely. Add to that, finding his box spring in the landscaping would have set the hotel staff buzzing anyway.
It's odd that the guys on the roof removing his mattress didn't see Doug on the roof.
The workers removed the mattress from the porte cochere, which is only a couple stories high. Doug was stuck on the roof of a resort tower, which is substantially higher.
The guys didn't remove the mattress from the roof. It was a statue on top of the lobby entrance. The building is a massive high rise. They'd never look for the roof. Assuming someone broke open a window and pushed it out.
8th Jul 2016
Planet of the Apes (2001)
Question: When Pericles is sent out into space, he enters the wormhole, Leo next and then the Oberon. So how did the Oberon land first, then Leo and Pericles last?
Answer: The anomaly they encountered was not merely a spatial wormhole, it was a rift in time. The order in which they entered the time-rift didn't matter; they could exit the rift in any random order, minutes or months or millennia apart.
Answer: It is understood the order-of-exit is reversed to the order of Entry, although not stated.
28th Jun 2016
Finding Dory (2016)
Question: In the post-credit scene, The Tank gang are seen still trapped in their now algae-covered plastic bags as they reach California. Since this movie takes place a year after "Finding Nemo" (2003), how did these fish survive without eating anything for a whole year?
Answer: Algae on the inside of the bag?
Then what about being able to breathe or not being eaten?
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: It's all about using empty space to create anticipation. The lens used in the opening shots of "Scream" is a high-content cinematic lens used for extremely wide shots, capturing a huge horizontal image without much vertical distortion and giving the effect of spaciousness. In "Scream," this effect helps to emphasize the fact that Drew Barrymore is all alone in this very spacious house (almost always with Drew right in the middle of the shot) as the stalker keeps calling her on the phone. She suspects that the guy on the phone is watching her, so she is glancing frantically around the house; and the audience, too, is glancing around these big, roomy shots, expecting a jump-scare.
Charles Austin Miller