Question: Why did McGonagall send all the Slytherins to the dungeon? It was only one Slytherin who wanted them to turn in Harry, and many times in the series people say not all Slytherins are bad.
MikeH
16th Mar 2015
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)
16th Mar 2015
The Truman Show (1998)
Question: How does Christof talk to the actors? They don't look like they have earpieces, and if they do, why didn't that make Truman suspicious earlier?
Answer: They do have earpieces, just minuscule ones that can't be seen unless you are looking directly into a persons ear. As shown in the scene with Marlon on the beach, he is being fed his lines by such an earpiece. They are also present when Truman is in his car and he picks up the signal they are using to show where he is at the given time. Also, even though you can hear what someone is saying, you can't talk back to them which is why Meryl and Marlon had to talk to a camera when requesting help/confirming Truman wasn't there.
Yep, that's it. Also, the earpieces might not even be that small but Truman isn't looking for them and thus doesn't see them.
Chosen answer: It appears that Christof and the control team in the moon did not, in fact, have contact with the actors very often. It is more likely he had contact with people on the ground who could make things happen per his instructions. But there were inconsistencies. For example, how could he create instantaneous traffic jams at a moment's notice, and set up a hazardous spill scene on the outskirts of town to prevent Truman from leaving Seahaven, but he couldn't get anyone to interrupt or vary the cycle of movements by extras that Truman watched in his rear view mirror when he was trying to convince his wife something in their town was amiss - even when he was talking aloud, anticipating the next extra's move before it happened? Christof could arrange for a road race to happen by and to have people almost instantaneously hustle Truman's father onto a bus when he showed up in town as a homeless man, but it took quite some time to get Sylvia's father onto the beach to whisk her away to Fiji, even though Christof knew exactly where they were headed. And when Truman and Meryl were having their major argument in their kitchen, Christof could engineer Marlon to show up with a six pack of beer, but he couldn't communicate with Meryl to provide her advice on how to handle the situation, and she ended up screaming for help into a camera. I think Christof did place some sort of communication/listening device on some actors at critical times. We saw that in a couple of instances (e.g. When Marlon went into Truman's basement looking for an already disappeared Truman, Christof was feeding him direct instructions). But I don't think it was routinely done. And when it was, Christof's surely would have had the technical know-how to create a supremely inconspicuous piece of equipment.
11th Mar 2015
Goodfellas (1990)
Continuity mistake: When we see the close-up of Tommy pulling the ice pick out of Morrie's head, there's lots of blood on the ice pick. But in the next shot, there's no blood on the ice pick. The next shot is a little quick and blurry, but we can still easily see the ice pick's silver when it should be red.
11th Mar 2015
La Confidential (1997)
Continuity mistake: When White shoots Fitch in the chest, at first there's only a little blood around the bullet hole, but in the next shot there's instantly much more blood.
10th Mar 2015
La Confidential (1997)
Revealing mistake: When the two men in the car are shot with machine guns, there's a bump on each of their foreheads even before they're shot in the head. This bump was so it could disappear and reveal the bullet holes when the bullet hits their heads.
9th Mar 2015
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Question: Why is Sean happy that Will rejected the job interview to go to California? I know he thinks love is important, but his goal was to stop Will from wasting his potential.
Chosen answer: Will is not wasting his potential. Sean knows that Will has overcome many of his emotional difficulties and with his exceptional abilities, there will be many other job opportunities, regardless of where he lives. Sean believes it is far more important for Will to pursue a lasting relationship with a woman for the first time in his life.
Will had multiple job offers - someone of his intelligence could pick up any job he wanted hence he wasn't disappointed.
9th Mar 2015
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Question: Why did Will lie about having twelve brothers? What did he think it would achieve? And why would someone as smart as Skylar believe it?
Chosen answer: It's just part of his personality. He had become used to keeping people at a distance and made up stories so they didn't know what he was actually like. There's no reason for Skylar not to believe him at first. Large families with ten or more children are not unheard of, particularly if the parents have been married more than once.
Answer: The judge pointed out that Will "went through several foster homes." Whether the foster parents had their own biological children and/or other foster kids, Will could have easily had twelve "brothers" who were the functional equivalent of biological brothers. Using his own operational definition of "brother", Will had twelve, so was not lying. However, using a more common definition of "brother", Will was not exactly telling the truth. Will can be said to have told her a "white lie" - only telling her what he wanted to and omitting the details. This can be a type of defense mechanism, giving her the impression that he - like almost everyone else - grew up in a family with his siblings. In a way, he was protecting himself by hiding the way in which he was raised. Because it wasn't typical for Will to become attached to whatever girl he was seeing, he saw no need to reveal his past (although, unknown to him at the time, this relationship would turn out differently than previous ones).
Why would she think that he was making up something like how many brothers he has? Not only did Will go through the names of his twelve "brothers", he was able to convincingly repeat the twelve names after she asked him to. IF he had not been able to quickly repeat a sequence of twelve boys' names, it would have been a giveaway that he was lying. Common sense was more significant than intelligence in discerning whether or not Will was telling the truth. (But common sense often does not match reality).
5th Mar 2015
The Dark Knight (2008)
Question: How can you die instantly from a small quick cut to the cheek?
Chosen answer: Because the camera cuts away before we see the slash, we don't know how ferocious the Joker cuts him. Mind you, the knife was halfway inside his mouth and it did seem like a deep cut, so he possibly died due to the knife slashing an essential artery or vessel.
5th Mar 2015
The Dark Knight (2008)
Question: Why couldn't both Harvey and Rachel be saved?
Chosen answer: There was not enough time. Only the Batmobile was fast enough to save one of them, hence the police being late to the other location. The Joker made sure one would die.
Assuming they sent all the other units to find Dent (Rachel instead), wouldn't it have been helpful and faster to send some cop patrolling near that location to save her? As fast as Batman was with his technology, another cop who might have been close to the location could have gotten there in time I would guess. Or am I missing something?
I think several things are in play (but me speculating). First, the cops were busy trying to safeguard Dent and then apprehend the Joker. Think Die Hard 3 were all the cops were so busy "you could steal City Hall." So while there might be some cops on patrol, not close enough. But given the level of precision in Joker's plan, it seemed like the explosion was going to go off when the cops got there, so even if they got there sooner, the place would still explode.
But I will admit that the Joker's "precision" really seems to be sheer dumb luck that we're suppose to accept as his criminal mastermind plan.
Yes, it could be indeed or maybe like Nolan said: Joker is a mysterious unstoppable force (resourceful one at that) that suddenly appeared. Gotham's extreme corruption at the time allowed for a psychotic (or anarchist if you will) one like Joker to play his cards with more freedom as well, which I think some people forget to consider. In that sense, Bane had to do things differently because the aforementioned aspect was highly reduced after TDK events.
True. With many things at play, possible situations and Joker's preparation, there can be multiple reasons why everything happened the way it did (the film makes a wise decision to not over explain this and leave it to imagination), specially because Joker most likely wanted one of them to die, or they would have both died anyway since explosion occurred either way. Based on everything Joker did, maybe it was always supposed to be Rachel. He wanted to make a point with Dent and Bats after all.
3rd Mar 2015
Good Will Hunting (1997)
25th Feb 2015
American Reunion (2012)
Question: Can someone please explain the photos in the yearbook? It seems like it was the gang in 1999, but they never posed for those photos in the first American Pie.
Chosen answer: They have been friends for a long time. They had plenty of time to take pictures. We only see them on screen for a few hours of their lives spread over a short while.
25th Feb 2015
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Question: What exactly is the scam Norton is running?
Chosen answer: In a nutshell, tax evasion. He's running the prison like a company doing building work with, as its described by the builder in the movie, a pool of slave labour to allow him undercut other contractors. He is skimming profit for his own pockets, along with taking bribes, etc. that Andy's creative book keeping is hiding from the IRS.
25th Feb 2015
La Confidential (1997)
Question: Was the police force in the 50s really that corrupt and brutal?
Chosen answer: Yes.
Answer: Yes indeed. Example: "Bloody Christmas," which takes place in the beginning of the film, was based on a real incident, when on Christmas Day, 1951, some 50 officers, many of them drunk (in violation of the LAPD's alcohol policy), beat six prisoners to a bloody pulp in revenge for an assault on a fellow officer. At least 100 people knew about or witnessed the beatings.
25th Feb 2015
Pay it Forward (2000)
Question: I might be mistaken, but I think I saw the bullies at Arlene's house at the end. Were they there, and if so, why?
Chosen answer: The one who stabbed him was not. The others were there because they did not mean for Trevor to get stabbed and killed so now they feel guilty. They were showing Arlene they were sorry.
They were sorry for killing him.
Only one of the bullies killed him. The others were bullying, but didn't think the other would kill him. However, they still had remorse and were showing that remorse to the mother.
The one who stabbed him was probably arrested offscreen.
25th Feb 2015
American History X (1998)
Question: What was the point of the ending? What message was it trying to send? We have a whole movie sending an anti-racist message, but then a black guy kills Danny for blowing smoke in his face. I'm sure this wasn't the movie's intention, but it kinda seems like we're supposed to believe Derek was originally right and shouldn't have changed.
Chosen answer: No, the message is absolutely not that Derek was originally right. The last part just shows there is evil on both sides and not only the neo-nazis need change. Danny changed, but too late to be saved from being murdered for racist reasons. Its a classic Shakespearean tragedy.
Answer: In the original unaired ending of the movie, it shows Derek staring in the mirror at his home. He takes his shirt off exposing his swastika, then you see hair falling into the sink as he shaves his head.
Anywhere to find that alternate ending?
25th Feb 2015
22 Jump Street (2014)
21st Feb 2015
Up (2009)
Question: How did the movie get nominated for Best Picture? I thought there was a separate category for animated films.
Chosen answer: There's a separate section just for animated films to highlight them and give a wider selection recognition, similar to foreign movies, but they're not excluded from the best picture category, which is open to every feature.
21st Feb 2015
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Question: How come Hadley was arrested for Tommy's murder but nobody cares about Fat Ass's murder? There were hundreds of witnesses.
Chosen answer: 1) This is almost twenty years down the road. Many of those witnesses are either gone from the prison, dead, or may have forgotten any details. 2) Hadley beat Fatass because he wouldn't stop talking, breaking the rules. Tommy was just standing there talking to the warden. It's cold blooded murder vs. Simple brutality. 3) Prisoners are often reluctant to testify against guards because of fear of retribution from other guards.
21st Feb 2015
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Question: How did the movie win Best Picture? I thought there was a separate category for foreign films.
Chosen answer: There's a separate section just for foreign films to highlight them and give a wider selection recognition, similar to animated movies, but they're not excluded from the best picture category, which is open to every feature.
21st Feb 2015
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
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.
Chosen answer: Not all Slytherins were bad, but many were and they would fight against Harry. McGonagall did not have time to pick out which ones were allies or enemies. It was simply more efficient to lock them all up at once. Also, even though there were good Slytherins, they would know that taking sides against Voldemort and failing to fully support him could result in later retaliation against them or their families.
raywest ★