Tailkinker

Chosen answer: Firstly, giants are heavy, really heavy. If you double the height of an individual, simple maths indicates that their volume, and thus their mass, multiplies by a factor of eight. So anything huge is going to have a hell of a lot of mass to move around. Secondly, in order for a giant to appear to move at what we would consider normal human speeds, they would actually have to move their body at a much higher velocity than normal. Say, for example, that a human, walking fast, takes two paces every second. A giant ten times the size, in order to appear to be moving at human-normal speeds, would also have to be taking the same two paces per second. Given the ten-times-longer stride length, this would translate to the giant's limbs moving at ten times the velocity of the humans, with a correspondingly much higher acceleration and deceleration. Given the increase in mass (a giant ten times the height of a human would possess a thousand times the mass) and the need for much higher acceleration, basic physics (Force = Mass x Acceleration) dictates that the amount of force required to move at what would appear to be a normal speed is staggeringly higher than that required for a normal-sized human; ten times the acceleration and a thousand times the mass requires ten thousand times the force. While our theoretical ten-times-larger giant would have a thousand times the muscle volume, in order to apply the necessary force, those muscles would still have to operate at ten times the capacity of normal muscles to give the appearance of normal movement. Obviously in the case of fictional giants, that sort of muscular efficiency isn't out of the question (they are fictional, after all), but most creators recognise on some level that there's a certain implausibility there, and thus the image of the slow-moving giant has become an indication of something really big. And while their movements may appear slow, their increased size means that their actual movement speed is still likely to be considerably higher than human norms, so the slowness is somewhat misleading anyway.

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Chosen answer: Any movie shot on film, as all older movies obviously were, has to be scanned into a digital format in order to be placed on a DVD or BluRay disc. Generally speaking, for DVD releases, films were scanned at the minimum resolution necessary for that format, and thus using the same scan for the high-definition BluRay release wouldn't result in any improvement to the picture quality. What companies are doing now is returning to the original film negatives, if available, or original film reels if not and rescanning them as a much higher resolution, generally after going through them painstakingly frame-by-frame to remove imperfections in the original images. Thus the versions of those movies now being released on BluRay are not only cleaned up versions of the original, resulting in a better image, but are taken from new high-definition scans, allowing the full resolution of the BluRay disc and the high-definition television it's being played on to be utilised, making for exceptional quality.

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Answer: The 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film "Predator" would seem to be an obvious candidate.

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Answer: This is Terry Gilliam's 1988 film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, starring John Neville as the titular Baron and Sarah Polley as his young companion Sally. The supporting cast includes an uncredited Robin Williams, as the King of the Moon (the giant floating head that your wife remembers), Oliver Reed and a pre-fame Uma Thurman. More information can be found here.

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Answer: Most likely because, in most of the cases that you cite as copycat books, they were originally published prior to Twilight. The first Twilight book came out in 2005, but The Vampire Diaries first appeared on the shelves in 1991, while The Southern Vampire Mysteries (televised as the rather more succinct "True Blood") has been around since 2001. As such, when Twilight began to hit the heights of its popularity, both book series were already in existence to be swiftly adapted as TV shows, whilst being relatively immune from accusations of simply being copycats by virtue of pre-dating Twilight by some years. Likewise, while premiering after the first book was written, the TV series Moonlight predates the Twilight film series by a year or so and thus it's difficult to level too many accusations there either - supernatural TV shows existed long before Twilight, and Moonlight is better seen as a successor to those than as a cynical attempt to jump onto the Twilight bandwagon. With Harry Potter, the situation is somewhat different, in that relatively few similar literary series existed prior to the Potter series becoming highly popular. As such, any similar show that was produced would likely have to be based on material published after Potter, and thus would be widely seen as simply being a rip-off. As such, TV and film executives are probably more wary of getting involved in such ventures.

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Answer: One of Rohmer's signature touches was that he almost invariably used diagetic music in his films, that is, music that comes from an on-screen source, such as a radio or a character playing a musical instrument as opposed to the vast majority of film scores, which use extra-diagetic music that is used in a scene but cannot be heard by the characters involved. As such, he tended not to employ a composer to create a specific score, but instead populated the film with pre-existing pieces of music from a variety of sources that he would select to be playing on whatever musical object existed with any given scene.

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Answer: One possible factor is that BluRay discs and player have certain capabilities that regular DVD players do not. In some cases, these additional extras are designed to take advantage of those features and thus they cannot be put on the regular DVD. Another key point is that BluRay discs can currently be sold for a higher price, while not costing substantially more to make than regular DVDs, resulting in greater profits, and therefore it's in the interests of the studios to tempt more people into making the switch to the more profitable format. Having BluRay-exclusive features is one way of doing that.

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Chosen answer: The only other documentary for which the Kraffts are credited on the IMDb is Nature: The Volcano Watchers which was made in 1987. Unfortunately this is before their death in 1991, which is an issue if the documentary discussed their deaths, although wouldn't be unusual for an updated edition to have been shown later with the additional information. Hope that's of some use. May not be the right one, but could be interesting anyway...

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Answer: These are two totally unconnected items that you're discussing. McGregor is the lead and the biggest name in the film, so his name appears first, just as it will in the credits of the film itself. As for the picture, that's purely down to aesthetics, how they felt the cover image looked best. The cover designers aren't going to limit themselves by constraints about having to match the image of the individual to where their name appears, they'll go with what they think is the better image. If the image and name order happen to match up, that's a happy accident, nothing more than that. If they don't, no big deal.

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Chosen answer: Could be the last scene of Daredevil, where the injured Bullseye is seen doing precisely that.

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Answer: Sounds like the 1987 Schwarzenegger film The Running Man.

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Answer: Online petitions are just one form of fan-base pressure and it's certainly true that shows have been saved from the axe by the fan community, if sometimes only briefly. Sliders was cancelled after its first season, but fan pressure prompted the studio to continue with it and it ultimately ran to five seasons. Jericho was likewise cancelled after season one, but got a short second season after protests, but was subsequently cancelled again. Farscape was cancelled after four seasons, but plans to destroy the sets were put on hold, at least partly due to fan pressure, which ultimately paved the way for a mini-series entitled "The Peacekeeper Wars", which tied up many of the remaining plot threads from the series. Fan pressure can work and online petitions are a part of that, although not really one of the most effective methods as they would be more ignorable than organising a mass letter-writing campaign to the studio. But every little bit helps.

Tailkinker ★

Chosen answer: In the same way as you direct a normal film. The director is responsible for taking the script and turning into a visual depiction of the story being told - they determine the artistic and dramatic elements of the piece, giving the world depicted in the script a visual and audible form. In a live action film, they'll be working with lighting people, cameramen and so forth to ensure that the look of the scene matches their vision. With an animated film, they're doing the same thing, but are working with the animators instead. The basic principle is no different.

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Answer: Sounds like the 1989 film Catch Me If You Can.

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Answer: The 2006 film Children of Men, starring Clive Owen, Michael Caine and Julianne Moore.

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Answer: Of course it's true. Genuine glass bottles are hard and can take some considerable force to break. Trying to do so over somebody's head would result it, at best, a concussion and quite possibly a serious skull fracture. Plus you've then got lots of sharp bits of glass around the place, which is obviously a severe hazard. Fakes are always used in such circumstances.

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Answer: You're actually spot on with the title. This is the 1973 film Arnold. Further details can be found here.

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Chosen answer: Eddie Murphy is also nominated for Worst Screen Couple this year (so would have been on the same list) for his multiple roles in Norbit. Murphy was also nominated in the 2002 awards for his appearances with several different people, including his own clone in The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Ahnult Schwarzenegger received the nomination at the 2000 awards for his double role in The Sixth Day, with Leonardo di Caprio achieving the honour the previous year for The Man in the Iron Mask. There have also been several occasions where an actor or actress has been nominated along with an item of clothing or other prop, which could arguably count as a solo nomination, and three occasions on which an actress has had her breasts nominated, which would also seem to qualify.

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Answer: Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the Spanish dictator, who died during the first season of SNL. Franco hovered near death for several weeks before finally passing away and news reports that he was still alive were not infrequent, leading the SNL team to adopt the parodic version after his demise.

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Chosen answer: The only thing BMW-related that Guy Ritchie has been involved in is a series of short films, created for advertising purposes under the collective name of The Hire, that were released on the internet, featuring the Driver (an otherwise unidentified character played by Clive Owen) getting into various scrapes while driving assorted BMW cars. Each of the eight films was directed by a well-known director, including Ritchie, Ang Lee, John Woo, John Frankenheimer and Tony Scott and featured prominent guest stars such as Gary Oldman, James Brown, Madonna and Don Cheadle.

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