Sunday 31 January 2016

Trivia Round-Up: January 2016


It's the first Trivia Round-Up of the year! Technically. There's been two this month because we kind of forgot about December last year. Oops. My movies in December were pants for Trivia so I'm hoping for some better finds this time!

Napoleon Solo's trick of removing a tablecloth from a table while leaving all the objects undisturbed wasn't a visual effect - Henry Cavill actually did it, having trained in the trick from British variety star Mat Ricardo.
I want to see the outtakes of this so bad...

There was talk of a spin-off movie titled 'What We Do in the Moonlight' which would have followed the werewolf pack.
Why hasn't this been made yet?! "We're werewolves, not swearwolves!"
Edit: I've since learnt a sequel of sorts is in the making, called 'We're Wolves'. Ha!

Drena de Niro (Robert de Niro's adopted daughter) Plays the hotel manager
This was the best of a bad bunch!

The writer of the novel, Andy Weir, first published his book for free on his own blog for fun. Then people asked him to put it in a downloadable form, then to put it on Amazon for Kindle download which he did at the then minimum price of $0.99.
I love this so much. That's the power of technology these days. Without blogs we'd have never had the chance to see this movie!

Before Benjamin Walker was set to play the Captain, other actors that were considered included Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, and Henry Cavill.
Anyone else really want to see these versions?! You rang?

While training, Adonis wears a shirt with the message "Why do I wanna fight? Because I can't sing and dance..." This was a line from Rocky to Adrian on their ice skating date in the first film of the series.
I can't wait to see this moment when we watch Rocky as part of our Blind Spot Series!
Edit: I spotted it. It was awesome.

Flightplan (2005)
Jodie Foster's role was originally written for Sean Penn. The original character's name of "Kyle" was even kept. Coincedently, Penn's role in The Game (1997) was originally intended for Jodie Foster.
I thought Kyle was an odd name choice. Now I get it!

Goosebumps (2015)
R.L. Stine makes a cameo and says hi to Jack Black while walking through the halls of the school at the end of the movie. The real R.L. Stine's character name was Mr. Black and Jack Black was Mr. Stine.

The Perfect Guy (2015)
The film was shot mostly at night using Sony digital cameras and anamorphic lenses. Much of the shooting used available light to create a "mysterious" look because they wanted it to seem dark.

Trainwreck (2015)
The first film by Judd Apatow not to be written by him, only directed.
I struggled to find trivia that interested me for this, I think because I disliked the movie so much!

Rocky (1976)
Sylvester Stallone insisted that the scene where he admits his fears and doubts to Adrian the night before the fight be filmed, even though production was running far behind and the producers wanted to skip it. Stallone had only one take for the scene, despite the fact that he considered it to be the most important scene in the film.
Good on him! I loved that scene.

Cloverfield (2008)
The first trailer for this movie played before Transformers (2007). It showed a giant explosion in the heart of New York City and the Statue of Liberty's head being thrown down a street. It was shot with a hand-held video recorder. There was no title.
I remember this now! Crickey that feels like so long ago. Why can't more trailers be like this?
Edit: Here's something else I learnt from Dell at Dell on MoviesMost of the city throughout the whole movie was cgi, not just the monster! Thanks Dell!

American Ultra (2015)
As a promotional stunt, Lionsgate gave away/delivered free marijuana at the San Diego Comic Con to anyone with a medical marijuana card.
Lionsgate, you crazy folks!

The Night Before (2015)
Director Jonathan Levine revealed on Collider that all of the film's comedy was mostly improvised and the dramatic moments were stuck to as per the written script, which he admitted was more like an outline guide.
You can't get Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen and Anthony Mackie together and not expect comedy to happen naturally!

Jobs (2013)
Almost all of the scenes involving Jobs' parents' house and garage were filmed in the actual Los Altos, California house and garage where Steve Jobs grew up in the 1970s.

Steve Jobs (2015)
The three sequences in the film were filmed on 16mm, 35mm, and digital to illustrate the advancement in Apple's technology across the 16 years depicted of Jobs' life.
As the film is divided in 3 acts, it was shot in sequence and the actors got to rehearse for 2 weeks for act 1, then shoot for 2 weeks and then come back and rehearse for 2 weeks act 2. Kate Winslet said that by act 3, Michael Fassbender didn't even have his script at the rehearsals, as he had memorized the whole 180 pages script.
I did love that the film was clearly in 3 acts, it great to see how this was created behind the scenes.

1 comment:

  1. The Steve Jobs trivia sound interesting. I would have watched this film a long time ago if I wasn't so irked with Steve Jobs (the actual person). I don't know what it is that draws me away from him, but if it's something he's involved in, I have no desire to watch it.

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