Month: November 2015

18 Epic Facts About “Dances with Wolves”

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Jeff Wells and Mental_Floss present 18 Epic Facts About Dances with Wolves.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. IT STARTED AS A NOVEL THAT NOBODY WANTED TO PUBLISH.
Inspired by books he’d read about the Plains Indians, screenwriter Michael Blake (who died earlier this year) pitched Costner on the idea for Dances with Wolves. Costner told Blake, whom he’d met in a Los Angeles acting class, to write a novel instead of a screenplay, reasoning that a novel could generate studio interest more effectively than a cold script. So Blake spent months writing and sleeping on friends’s couches (including Costner’s). “I wrote the entire book in my car, really,” Blake said in a behind-the-scenes feature. Once finished, Blake submitted Dances with Wolves, to numerous publishers, all of whom passed on his manuscript. Finally, after more than 30 rejections, a small publisher called Fawcett accepted it.

2. IT BECAME THE FILM THAT NO STUDIO WANTED TO FINANCE.
Turned down by American studios, Costner looked abroad for help, eventually securing startup funds from a handful of foreign investors. With only a fraction of the movie’s $15 million budget secured, he began filming. Orion Pictures eventually stepped in with $10 million, but Dances with Wolves ended up going more than $3 million over budget. Costner covered the overage out of his own pocket.

18. THERE’S A SEQUEL.
A sequel to the book, that is. In 2001, Blake published The Holy Road, which continues the story of John Dunbar, now a full-fledged Sioux warrior, as he tries to protect his tribe from encroachment by white settlers. Critics praised the novel for the ways it portrayed westward expansion and the plight of Native Americans without coming off heavy-handed. There have been rumblings about a possible miniseries, but nothing is confirmed at this time.

7 Ways Frank Miller Changed Batman

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Jesse Schedeen and IGN.com present 7 Ways Frank Miller Changed Batman.  Here are three of my favorites [Alert — some profanity]…

2. He Grounded the DCU in Reality.
With aliens, giant robots, talking animals and people who can fly, the DC Universe is a pretty strange and wonderful place. But before The Dark Knight Returns, it was a place several steps removed from the real world.. Miller grounded his alternate DCU in reality. His dilapidated Gotham City was much more like the New York City of the time – dirty, crime-ridden and harsh. Miller also drew heavily on the politics of the time. The Dark Knight Returns presented a world where Ronald Reagan was US President and Superman was the country’s first line of defense in their ongoing conflict with the Soviet Union. Not every Batman story since has taken the same approach, but DKR renewed the emphasis on Gotham being as much a character as the people who inhabit her streets.

4. He Made Commissioner Gordon Important.
Miller followed up The Dark Knight Returns with Batman: Year One, a story that offered a more grounded and realistic look at Batman’s first year on the job. However, the most revolutionary element of this story didn’t involve Batman at all, but rather Jim Gordon. Year One focused as much attention on Gordon’s troubled first year in Gotham City. It portrayed him as a character with the same burning desire to save his city as Batman, and it made him a more integral player in Batman’s world than ever before. In DC’s current comics, Gordon himself has taken up the mantle of Batman. Would that have been possible without the influence of Year One?

5. He Made Batman and Superman Frenemies.
Before Frank Miller, Batman and Superman were always the best of friends. The comic series World’s Finest chronicled their many team-up adventures, which always seemed to culminate with the two heroes smiling and shaking hands after a job well done. Miller offered a very different view of their relationship in The Dark Knight Returns. In that comic, the two heroes were less friends than former allies turned bitter enemies. The climax of the series featured an armored Batman fighting a bloody battle against the Man of Steel in the streets of Gotham. That rivalry only grew more heated in Miller’s later work like The Dark Knight Strikes Again and All-Star Batman & Robin. Not only has Miller’s depiction of the Batman/Superman relationship influenced countless other comics, it’s pretty much the basis of next year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

12 Intense Facts About “Platoon”

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Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 12 Intense Facts About Platoon.  Here are three of my favorites…

6. IT TOOK MORE THAN A DECADE TO GET THE FILM PRODUCED.
Stone wrote a screenplay based on his experiences in Vietnam as soon as he got back from the war, in 1969. (He sent a copy of it to Jim Morrison, hoping the Doors frontman would star in it.) By 1976, that draft morphed into what he was then calling The Platoon. Stone couldn’t find anyone willing to make the movie, though. The war was still too fresh in people’s minds; it would be another few years before films like Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter addressed it. And after that, studios had another excuse not to make Platoon: why bother, when Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter had already covered it?

8. IT CHANGED THE WAY HOLLYWOOD LOOKED AT WAR.
A much-decorated retired Marine named Dale Dye, who loved war movies but was disappointed by their failure to convey the mental and emotional realities of combat, offered Stone his services as an advisor. Dye had been turned down by other filmmakers, who felt the way Hollywood had been doing it—you hire a consultant to make sure the medals, guns, and uniforms are accurate, and you don’t worry about the less tangible details—seemed to be working just fine. (Dye said: “They had been making zillions of dollars making war films for decades, and here was some clown coming in to tell them they had a better mousetrap? Go away.”) But Dye’s vision matched Stone’s, and the psychological authenticity they created together was a major factor in Platoon’s success. For the first time, Vietnam veterans were seeing their experiences portrayed realistically. Dye has since become the foremost military consultant in Hollywood, advising (and occasionally acting in) everything from Saving Private Ryan to the Medal of Honor video games.

11. CHARLIE SHEEN ALMOST LOST THE LEAD ROLE TO HIS OWN BROTHER.
Sheen auditioned during one of Stone’s earlier, unsuccessful attempts to get the movie made, and didn’t impress him. The guy Stone really liked was Sheen’s older brother, Emilio Estevez. But financing fell through and the film was shelved. By the time Sheen auditioned again a few years later, he had grown into the role. “This time I knew in 10 minutes he was right,” said Stone.

25 Facts You Didn’t Know About “Grease”

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Hollywood.com presents 25 Facts You Didn’t Know About Grease.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. Elvis was initially offered a role in the film.
It is believed he would play the Guardian Angel role, but he did not accept.

3. In “Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee” they changed the reference and it has a freaky coincidence.
In the stage play, the song had a reference to Sal Mineo, who was murdered in 1976. For the movie, they changed the lyric to “Elvis, Elvis, let me be! Keep that pelvis far from me!” In reference to Elvis Presley, who died the same day the scene was filmed. The day was August 16, 1977.

10. Lucille Ball is the reason her daughter was not cast as Rizzo and the part went to Stockard Channing.
Lucie Arnaz was dropped from consideration after Lucille Ball called and said “I used to own that studio; my daughter’s not doing a screen test!” But actually, she owned the studio Desilu which was bought by Paramount.

15 Elevated Facts About “White Men Can’t Jump”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Elevated Facts About White Men Can’t Jump.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. DENZEL WASHINGTON WAS THE ORIGINAL CHOICE FOR SIDNEY.
Denzel Washington was dead set on playing Malcolm X next and turned them down. Shelton considered Cylk Cozart for the lead role, too. Ultimately, Cozart was cast in the role of Robert.

3. KEANU REEVES, CHARLIE SHEEN, AND DAVID DUCHOVNY WERE CONSIDERED FOR BILLY.

Part of the audition involved shooting hoops at a basketball court at a Culver City casting office. Reeves just didn’t cut it, and Woody Harrelson acknowledged that Reeves’ lack of talent in the sport helped change his career. “I probably would’ve just been Woody Boyd but for the fact that Keanu Reeves didn’t play great basketball,” Harrelson told the Daily Express. Sheen was offered the part after Reeves’ failed audition but passed. Duchovny said he auditioned and really wanted the role.

10. HARRELSON HUSTLED SNIPES OUT OF MONEY.
There was constant gambling on set. Cozart threatened to take all of Woody’s Cheers money and estimated he won $5000 off of him. Harrelson won money off of Snipes though when he successfully dunked. Snipes never realized that the crew lowered the rim before Harrelson’s attempt.

12 Smooth Facts About “The Hustler”

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Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 12 Smooth Facts About The Hustler.   Here are three of my favorites…

2. JACKIE GLEASON DID HIS OWN TRICK SHOTS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
The comedian, best known for playing working-class loudmouth Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners (which he created), had grown up in Brooklyn. Like Rossen, Gleason mixed it up with neighborhood toughs and got to be a pretty good pool hustler. He required no assistance for his trick shots in the film, and Rossen always positioned the camera so we’d be able to see that for ourselves.

4. THERE WAS A REAL MINNESOTA FATS … BUT ONLY BECAUSE A GUY STARTED CALLING HIMSELF THAT AFTER THE MOVIE.
When the movie came out, Rudolf Wanderone was up there with Willie Mosconi as one of America’s best pool players. A hefty gentleman, Wanderone had several nicknames, including Double-Smart, New York Fats, and Chicago Fats. There was no Minnesota Fats; The Hustlernovelist Walter Tevis had made the character up. But in a promotional interview for the movie, Mosconi said Wanderone had been Tevis’s inspiration (which Tevis denied for the rest of his life, adamantly and with great annoyance). Wanderone seized the opportunity, perhaps flattering himself into thinking Tevis really had had him in mind. He embraced the nickname and declared himself the real Minnesota Fats for the rest of his career.

7. THE MOVIE ISN’T VERY LONG, BUT IT WAS WIDER THAN USUAL.
The Hustler was shot in Cinemascope, the widescreen technique that had been in use since 1953. But it was mainly used for lavish epics and colorful musicals, not black-and-white dramas set in dingy pool halls. Yet as film critic Michael Wood pointed out, Rossen used Cinemascope “to create an oppressive, elongated world in which ceilings always seem terribly low; and people terribly separate from each other; in one shot Newman is even separated from his own image in a mirror by the whole width of a very wide screen. It is a world in which the pool table seems the one natural shape, while human beings seem untidy intruders.” Neat, huh?

10 Not-So-Scary Facts About “Monsters, Inc.”

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Tara Aquino and Mental_Floss present 10 Not-So-Scary Facts About Monsters, Inc.  Here are three of my favorites…

5. PAUL DOCTER’S ORIGINAL PITCH WAS TO HAVE A GROWN MAN BE HAUNTED BY THE MONSTERS HE DREW AS A KID.
On Jeff Goldsmith’s Creative Writing podcast, director Pete Docter recounted his original pitch: “My idea was that what it was about was a 30-year-old man who is like an accountant or something, he hates his job, and one day he gets a book with some drawings in it that he did when he was a kid from his mom. He doesn’t think anything of it and he puts it on the shelf and that night, monsters show up. And nobody else can see them. He thinks he’s starting to go crazy, they follow him to his job, and on his dates … and it turns out these monsters are fears that he never dealt with as a kid … And each one of them represents a different kind of fear. As he conquers those fears, the guys who he slowly becomes kind of friends with, they disappear … It’s this bittersweet kind of ending where they go away, and so not much of that stayed.”

6. THE FILM WAS THE FIRST TO INTRODUCE THE ONSCREEN REPRESENTATION OF FUR.
In order to animate each individual strand of hair on Sulley, which reportedly took 12 hours to fill a single frame, Pixar developed a new software program called Fizt. According to WIRED, the software was extremely advanced for its time, as it had the power to simulate each of the three million hairs that covered the lovable monster. “We made the simulator able to digest anything,” said Andy Witkin, one of the studio’s senior animation scientists.

7. JOHN GOODMAN AND BILLY CRYSTAL RECORDED THEIR LINES TOGETHER—A RARITY IN ANIMATION.
Typically, voice actors get into the booth at separate times to record their dialogue. But Billy Crystal pushed for the opportunity to work alongside his co-star, John Goodman. “I did the first two sessions alone and I didn’t like it,” Crystal told Dark Horizons. “It was lonely and it was frustrating.” Goodman was also a fan of the joint process; he told the BBC: “When Billy and I got together, the energy just went through the roof, so it was great.”

Give Thanks and Say, “You’re Welcome!”

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Today is Thanksgiving and many of us will come together with family and friends to pause and give thanks for what we have and perhaps what we’ve been spared.  Charles Dickens may have said it best…

  • “Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many–not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”

Of course not everyone gives thanks.  The Sexy Pilgrim doesn’t. Instead he says, “You’re welcome.”

I hope that you and yours have one of the best Thanksgiving Days ever. Count your blessings, eat too much turkey, ignore that family member who irritates you, make big plans, eat too much pie, doze in front of the tube, have a bit more turkey, and remember to watch a bit of the parade and some football!

Exploring Brian Helgeland’s “Payback,” a Tale of Two Movies

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Over at Film School Rejects, Jack Giroux weighs in on which version of Payback is the best in his piece: Exploring Brian Helgeland’s Payback, a Tale of Two Movies.

Award-winning screenwriter and director Brian Helgeland was fired from the production of the Mel Gibson starrer Payback when the studio and Gibson felt Helgeland’s version was too dark.  Gibson ended up directing the re-shoots and it was his version that was released to theaters.  Years later Helgeland’s movie was released on dvd.

I’ve got both versions in my collection, so it should be clear that I dig both takes on the film.  If I had to choose one, I’d go for the theatrical release [by a hair] but thankfully, since both versions rest in my collection, that isn’t a choice I’ll ever have to make.

15 Facts About “Silence of the Lambs”

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Hollywood.com presents 15 Facts About Silence of the Lambs.  Here are three of my favorites…

3. The moth cocoons Buffalo Bill placed in his victims throats were actually made from a combination of Tootsie Rolls and gummy bears, in case they were swallowed.

9. Jonathan Demme always had characters speak directly into the camera for conversations with Clarice, yet he always filmed Jodie Foster looking slightly off camera.
The idea was to make audiences directly experience her point-of-view to more easily empathize with her character. We think anyone who has watched those gripping last few moments of the film can confirm the success of this technique.

10. Anthony Hopkins is only on screen for 24 minutes and 52 seconds. This makes his performance the second shortest to ever receive a nomination for Best Actor.

16 Cutting-Edge Facts About “All in the Family”

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Kara Kovalchik and Mental_Floss present 16 Cutting-Edge Facts About All in the Family.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. ARCHIE BUNKER WAS ORIGINALLY ARCHIE JUSTICE.
Lear thought that the BBC show’s set-up—a middle-aged, blue collar conservative man who never hesitated to express his racist viewpoints, his doting wife, and his liberal daughter and son-in-law—could be mined for humor for American audiences. Justice for All, as the show was called in his original pilot script, starred Carroll O’Connor as Archie Justice and Jean Stapleton as his wife, Edith. Kelly Jean Peters and Tim McIntire rounded out the cast as Gloria and Richard (Meathead’s original name). ABC passed on the show, however; their main complaint being Archie and Edith’s lack of chemistry with the younger actors. Lear recast the roles with Candy Azzara and Chip Oliver, changed the name of the show to Those Were the Days and shot a new pilot, but ABC was still uninterested.

5. MICKEY ROONEY TURNED DOWN THE ROLE OF ARCHIE.
When Norman Lear pitched the series to Rooney, he only got as far as describing Archie as “a bigot who uses words like ‘spade’” before Mickey interrupted him. “Norm,” said the actor with a penchant for shortening names, “they’re going to kill you, shoot you dead in the streets.” Carroll O’Connor read for the role after Rooney’s refusal and had landed the part by the time he got to page three of the pilot script. But even he was dubious about the show and told Lear that CBS would cancel it after six weeks tops.

15. SAMMY DAVIS JR. CAUSED THE LONGEST LAUGH RECORDED ON THE SERIES.
O’Connor and Sammy Davis Jr. were good friends in real life, and All in the Family was Davis’ favorite TV show. So at his request, a guest spot was arranged for him in season two’s “Sammy’s Visit.” The kiss at the end was O’Connor’s idea, and the audience reaction was the loudest and longest laugh in the history of the series.