Sammo

Factual error: In the so called homage to "Network", the second TV screen from the left in the top row broadcasts a TV PSA with Clint Eastwood ("The thrill can kill") that is from the Reagan era, years after the events of the movie. Specifically from 1987, which is also the year of the Kellogg's ad in the TV under it, with Keanu Reeves. Another ad playing in the bottom right corner is a Rolling Rock beer ad that is from 1986. (01:46:25)

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Factual error: The subway in the movie has been recreated with exceptional attention to details, including custom Gotham Transport Authority logos and even maps of the fictitious subway. Throughout the movie in general, references to the actual NYC have been carefully removed. However, before he gets to the station just after the iconic stairway dance, Joker runs in front of a store labeled Meat Market that has a 718-992 phone number, from Bronx. (01:31:50)

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Factual error: It is established that Penny Fleck adopted Arthur and that he's been abused. In her file, when Arthur reads it, you can see that she was admitted the first time to the psychiatric hospital at 15 years of age, had multiple episodes with drug abuse, and the file mentions she is 25 and single on the date of the report, 11-2-1952. A single parent already had rather slim chances to adopt in the 50s, but a known mental patient and drug abuser, not a chance. (01:13:40)

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Factual error: When Joaquin Phoenix and Zazie Beetz are taking a walk after Arthur's performance, between the arcade and the newsstand there's a modern video intercom with keypad, not quite fitting the 1981 setting, since the first model of its kind was introduced in 1984 (kinda odd to leave something like this in when they went through the trouble of placing appropriate arcade posters really close by). (00:45:25)

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Factual error: Following Zazie Beetz, Arthur arrives in front of the bank. The crossing is using red colored tactile paving. While technically already invented, truncated domes paving was not adopted in the US in the early 80s, but began appearing in the early 1990s at public transportation stations, and it was not until 2001 that they were used in curb cuts. (00:24:35)

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Factual error: The cart behind Arthur during his dance for the kids has drawers of different colors. That is color coding reflecting the Broselow Tape, a tool used to measure pediatric patients and give estimates of the appropriate scaling for treatments. It's a system that started only in 1985, while the movie takes place in 1981. (00:28:05)

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Factual error: Dave Franco mentions the difficulties finding any hotel in Berlin because of Folson Europe and the Oktoberfest, which would be consistent with mid-September; in the year 2014 when the movie is set, Folsom started on the 13th. But he also adds that the G8 is in town, which is a question mark (couldn't have been the G8 Summit as it was not in Berlin but in Brussels, and in June anyway) and, "this week" the Berlin marathon, who took place on September 28th, definitely too late to be in the same week as Folsom. (00:40:25)

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Factual error: The good guys manage to take over key parts of the prison by homebrewing some chloroform mixing alcohol and bleach in a cute little spray bottle, crawl through the ventilation system and slip in the room a couple dainty squirts. Which instantly knock the guards (one of them with a full face helmet) out. All of this is of course bahooey; chloroform is really volatile and would never make it across the room, and the dosage is absolutely negligible. If the gas were this powerful (which is not) would have KO'd the two agents anyway while they were doing this chemist stunt preparing the gas itself in the tiny broom closet.

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Factual error: The protagonist is serving time in a federal prison, but he regularly sports a bracelet with a very long string, complete with an anchor-shaped pendant super-easy to weaponize (he never does in the movie, being a good guy!) and going pretty much against every regulation.

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Factual error: Throughout the movie Danielle Chuchran wears full makeup (lipstick, eye-shadow, even mascara) despite being a prisoner. All the other female characters wear no make-up at all (or if they do, it is completely inconspicuous). It should also be noted that she is an outcast that is on the wrong side of the people who run the joint, the fact that she's the only one dolled up makes no sense other than for the very non-plot related reason that she is the deuteragonist, 'good guy' and gets close-ups.

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Factual error: As it happens in many Hollywood movies, we have a gun that is "ceramic" (actually a polymer, "plastic" as Ben corrects himself later) that is entirely stealthy, able to fool the metal detectors at the entrance of a building. It's not an imaginary high-tech device, but is explicitly referenced as the FN Five-seveN handgun (here called repeatedly as FN Five point seven). The metal detector would still pick up the metallic parts and the bullets. (00:40:25)

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Factual error: The movie as the opening captions say, is set in Melbourne, Australia, 1978. However when Sam at the beginning of the movie drinks the milk and moves to the other room where the TV is, he passes by a poster (a communist party poster, the Italian communist party, strangely enough) that was designed only in 1981. (00:09:25)

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Factual error: In the elevator, Arthur meets the single mom living on the same floor, Sophie Dumond. In Sophie's shopping bag, the one recognizable food item is a box of Betty Crocker's Hamburger Helper - Potato Stroganoff. Thing is, the packaging uses (look at the design of the 'menu idea') a design predating the introduction of the Helping Hand mascot, which happened in the late 70s. She just bought it, it can't be ancient, long expired food. (00:19:35)

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Factual error: Heading home after the first encounter with the social worker and the incident with the kid and the irritable mom, Arthur is trudging to get his meds at Helms' Pharmacy. Parked in front of the pharmacy there's a sedan, a Mercury Grand Marquis, which by bumper design is a post 1988 model, way past the events of the movie, in 1981. (00:09:20)

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Factual error: In almost every movie when a landmine is involved, dramatic tension builds when the character steps on it, inevitably hearing a click. That's it, you and everyone else realise that you triggered the mine, and it will explode the moment you try to step away. It's time to say farewell to your friends surrendering to your fate, or hold very still until someone thinks of something extremely clever and bold to save you. In the real world, though, you'd already been maimed, since mines are made to explode with the initial pressure, not the release. Example; the legendary ending of Double Team, or the movie Mine, which is...literally all based on this.

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Factual error: At the beginning of the movie, Jason Sudeikis pops out of a door wearing a Jurassic 5 T-shirt. Problem is, the artwork on it is from the cover of Feedback, their 2006 album. The scene, as the introductory caption says, is supposed to happen in 2002. (00:00:55)

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Factual error: Pope Benedict had to leave the moment the helicopter landed, and Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio starts exploring Rome on his own. In the second shot, when he is on the sidewalk opposite a fruit stand, the ad on the billboard he passes by carrying his bags is the ad for a car ("T-Roc; Born Confident") which debuted in the summer of 2017, 5 years after the events of the movie (set in 2012). (00:56:50)

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Factual error: Opening the blank envelope, Marta finds the fragment of the toxicology report. It is signed "Office of the chief medical examiner, Norfolk County, Massachusetts." But then it writes also the address of said office, which is in Marlborough. Marlborough is also the city when Marta resides, and where the lawyers' letters we see come from. But Marlborough is also a city in the Middlesex county, not Norfolk. (01:28:25)

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Factual error: Parker is looking for the phone her mom hid. She is moving a box of cereals. The cereal ingredient label has a few joke entries you may Miss at first (goat hair, bitter almond paste, false eyelashes), but the nutrition facts tab is also incoherent in a way too subtle to be a deliberate joke; sub-categories of each macronutrients exceed the total. For instance, it has 5 g of Fat in total, but 25 g of Cholesterol and 56 g of Saturated fat (at most it could be mg). (01:00:25)

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Factual error: Judging by what is shown at the end of the movie, Owen managed to install the new light switch while the lights were turned on. (01:40:50)

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