10 Movie Facts That Are Hard To Believe – Part II
25.03.13 # Top Ten # 46 Comments
I’ve been collecting these. Fun movie facts that are often buried deep in an article, usually in a throwaway line that provides more food for thought than the article itself. Here we go.
– An Oscar only costs $400.
– Jim Carrey is a grandfather.
– Ennio Morricone’s score for ‘The Thing’ (1982) was nominated for a Razzie.
– This guy in ‘Groundhog Day’ is Bill Murray’s brother. (He also played Bill Murray’s father in ‘Scrooged’).
– Anthony Hopkins won ‘Best Actor in a Leading Role’ for Hannibal in ‘Silence Of The Lambs’ despite only being on screen for 16 minutes.
– ‘The Blair Witch Project’ was shot for $22,000. It made $248 million worldwide.
– Kiefer Sutherland once retired from acting to work the rodeo circuit. He came first in the US Team Roping Championships.
– In ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ the actor playing Cameron, Ferris’s closest high-school friend, was actually 30.
– Jean-Claude Van Damme was cast as the original Predator. (A ninja-like alien with the head of a dog-fly). More here.
– 20th Century Fox has been trying to make a Zorro set in the future.
Stands to reason that if the Oscars can get it wrong, so can the Razzies.
I think they’ve got better as their voting pool has grown over the years. In the early days they seemed particularly keen to punish big budget horror that was ahead of its time. As a horror fan that soundtrack is one of the most original and haunting ever written.
The Razzies tend to punish commercial flops and what critics hate at the time. The Shining was not well received by critics and the Thing bombed with both critics and audiences. The general consensus being that Kubrick had made a very predictable ghost story and that Carpenter’s film besmirched the good name of a classic.
The Razzies have only really got better because films are more production line at the moment. The gap between good and bad is smaller and thus the results are usually too mundane to generate any kind of committed fan base.
I think the Razzies get it right most of the time – no one’s going to be looking at Catwoman, the Transformers series or Adam Sandler comedies in a decade and re-evaluate them as classics – but they seem to have a blind spot for innovative horror: The Blair Witch Project was also nominated in 2000.
It depends what you mean by a classic and what you mean by re-evaluate. In the case of low comedy like Adam Sandler it’s fan driven. No one thought things like The Carry On films or Porkies would be considered classics either. Eventually populism beats criticism every time and in an age when fans communicate with each other online you get expertise in subgenre. So to Adam Sandler fans there are already Adam Sandler classics. The fact that a bunch of critics don’t like them will be outweighed by Amazon reviews, fan sites and internet discussions. Pluralism renders the professional critic more or less meaningless.
As for Transformers it’s an age thing. Most of the people who hate Transformers are, like myself, Thirtyomething and grew up with the cartoons. But kids who grew up with the films will get just as nostalgic and see things differently. A truly serious critic from the 6Os, 70s or early 80s wouldn’t see much difference between the Dark Knight or Transformer or even Battleship. They would go on about The Bicycle Thief or Bergman and Tarkovsky and maybe briefly nod at Kubrick, Hitchcock and Spielberg
I don’t believe that in 20 years if critics are surveyed about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen or Little Nicky that it will turn around and come back 80%+, as it did for The Shining and The Thing.
At no point in my post did I say anything about critics other than to suggest that in popular culture and in pluralist age they are mostly irrelevant. Little Nicky will still be popular in 20 years time. I doubt critics will talk about The Avengers, the Amazing Spider man or Iron Man either. Critics at least serious ones will actually be talking about Iranian cinema and various other stuff. Again it also depends on what you mean by a critic. Plenty of populist critics like little Nicky. Critics were almost universally disparaging about 80s action films and Stallone in particular. He’s outlived them as did the Thing.
I’m a huge slasher film fan. Critics didn’t and don’t see My Bloody Valentine as a classic either. Pop culture is fan driven and it’s history becomes specialised like that of any art. The broad stroke of critics is a Sunday supplement at best.
Ya know, The fact about “The Thing”/the Razzies, was about the soundtrack, not the film itself.
What was so great about the Blair Witch project? I doubt anybody’s gonna look at that in a decade and think it’s a classic. It’s not. And not all Adam Sandler films are bad. Little Nicky was cool. You wanna look at somebody who makes terrible comedies? Look no further than Will Farrell.
It had a huge impact and changed horror cinema forever. Watching it at home on DVD is completely different to seeing it theatrically with no expectations. It’s true, it doesn’t work in all environments, so that is a flaw, but when innovation and originality is punished then it’s a sad time for cinema.
“It had a huge impact and changed horror cinema forever. Watching it at home on DVD is completely different to seeing it theatrically with no expectations. It’s true, it doesn’t work in all environments, so that is a flaw, but when innovation and originality is punished then it’s a sad time for cinema.”
I feel that way about Avatar. Without full screen, high def 3D, it’s just kind of boring.
I felt that way about Avatar when I saw it IN theatres.
I agree for the most part. Some Adam Sandler stuff is OK, but I refuse to watch Anything with Will Farrell in it.
Each to his own; I – and many others – think Will Ferrell is HILARIOUS!
The reasons that TBWP did so well was that it was the first film to really use internet to publicize the movie and what they did with their internet campaign was to make people think that it actually was a documentary: people thought they were seeing something real.
as a slashe here’s an odd one.
David Lynch was considered for Halloween II.
Broderick wasn’t a teenager either in ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.’
Sure but he was 23, not so unusual. A 30 year old playing a high schooler, is pretty nuts. Did you really guess he was that old when watching it? I was surprised.
Bill Paxton is the only actor to be killed by a Terminator, a Predator, and an Alien. Game over indeed.
Actually that is not correct,
AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)
With the filming of this movie Lance Henriksen became the second actor to be attacked and/or killed by an Alien, A Predator and The Terminator. Bill Paxton was the first.
Good call but was he killed by an alien? He is still alive at the end of Aliens and asks to be suicided at Ripley’s hands in Alien 3. …Then again maybe I’m being too technical on that, I suppose he did die as a result of injuries.
OMG, lol, that was awesome!! I remember and have all of those movies!
Ah, and Bill Paxton was killed by Curly Bill Brocius and the Cowboys, too. Game, Set and Match.
“- Bill Paxton is the only actor to be killed by a Terminator, a Predator, and an Alien. Game over indeed.”
This is incorrect. Lance Henrickson has also been killed by all three.
-He was shot by the Terminator in “The Terminator” during the battle in the Police station
-He was Ripped apart by the Queen Alien in ALIENS
-He was stabbed by a Predator in Aliens Vs Predator.
If Bishop is an android and not a person can you consider him being killed?
Bill Paxton is the only actor to be killed by a Terminator, a Predator, and an Alien.
FALSE
Lance Henriksen was also killed by all three!
He was one of the cops killed in “THE TERMINATOR.”
He played Weyland who was killed by a Predator in “AVP: Alien vs. Predator”
And he was killed by the Queen Alien in “ALIENS.”
As I mentioned above he’s not actually killed by the alien, but wounded. He kills himself in Alien 3 (asks Ripley to do it).
He was decomisioned by ripley as he,s an android he isnt dead(can robots die ?) just turned off the alien damaged him then the crash damaged him more rendering him totally imobile(he was working fine in 2 on the ship 🙂 the magic egg did the rest)
what was it he said”i can remodelled but ill never be the same ”
for all we know weyland picked him out of the garbage for his knowledge as he probly new he,d have been wiped/remodelled and sent off to serve on masters sail barge
its like saying the alien killed newt and hicks by causing the crash
which to some degree is true. we just need bien to be offed by a predator then we have 2 more candidates who will only get there on a serious technical challenge if you can prove bishop was killed by an alien
I wanted to correct the fact about Bill Paxton, but 2 people made it befor me ! Thanks dudes ! Of course, they forgot Lance Henricksen !
Robin Williams and Robert De Niro were both considered for The Shining
In Scrooged, Bill Murray’s younger brother is played by his real life younger brother. They all look just alike, I tell ya!
The guy pictured (Brian Murray) was also the guy who ran the caddies in Caddy Shack and his little brother Joel was on Mad Men, Dharma and Greg, God Bless America and was also a guest in Scrooged.
“- 20th Century Fox are making a Zorro set in the future.”
Yeah, it’s called Batman. And Warner Bros. beat them to it. Look it up – Batman was based on Zorro originally.
Also The play the Wayne’s watched, before Martha and Thomas was shot, was zorro
Robert Patrick has been killed on-screen by all of the male Planet Hollywood backers.
*Arnold Schwarzeneggar in Terminator 2
*Sylvester Stallone in Copland
*Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2.
The Thing (1982) is still my favourite creature feature of all time. I love the soundtrack, and yes it is a surprise that it was ill-received in its time. I saw it when it was released in the cinema, and it inspired me to become a filmmaker myself.
Van Damme was cast one of the Predator stunt doubles. He was chosen to do all the jumping work. His quitting to do an indie film had nothing to do with the decision to change the design of the alien.
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