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| Ask a Stupid Question posted 3/5/03--updated 3/7/03 |
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| More news than you can shake a stick at since September 8, 2001 |
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| No, really. Not that your questions are stupid; we're just saying that we'll take all comers, as long as it's movie-related. And it's not that we know it all, by any means--rather, if we don't know the answer, we'll try to find someone who does. Question: “I live in Australia, and couldn't track down a copy of Vanity Fair earlier this year (April maybe?) where the new up and coming Hollywood actors were featured. One photo in particular featured Cole Hauser, Brian Van Holt, Christian Campbell, Marc Blucas, Adam Beach and Martin Henderson. I'm a long time Martin fan and was wondering if there was any text involved with the feature? And if you know how I could get it? Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!” (Rebecca) Answer: Folks, I am desperate. I actually had and read this issue. I don’t have it anymore. The library at my current school does not carry Vanity Fair the way my previous one did. The issue IS April 2002. There is some text, but it’s minimal. In fact, it’s last year’s version of this month’s “The Hollywood Issue: The Kings of Hollywood.” Last year’s was basically “the upcoming stars.” If ANYONE out there has this page and can scan it or can tell me where to find a scan online, I will bless you forever. It’s become a quest on principle at this point, people. Update: Holy crow, we've found it! Question: Okay, it's from me (Cleo) again, but I promise it won't start up an interna-tional incident this time. And it's not movie-related, but shut up: You know that Dentyne Ice commercial, where the girl writes her phone number in the frost on the subway window? What’s the song that’s playing? Starts out with a guy and then switches to a girl and the first line is, “I can tell by the way you walk...”? Answer: The lovely people on the Fametracker “What’s that song?” thread found it for me, and I just wanted to give them a shout-out. (We get a lot of "What's that song?" questions, and frankly, we may need their help in the future.) It’s “Way You Walk” by Papas Fritas, from a 2000 album called Buildings and Grounds. I downloaded it, and it’s actually a really great song. Question: “Right, so I really need to get past chapter 3 on the Donnie Darko website......please god help me, or any of you will be fine if god does not read this message board, thanks.” (Mammograham) Answer: Okay, here’s why we suck: Not only does God not read our message boards, but I don’t think anyone else does, either. I just today discovered this message, and it had been there for two weeks. (Poor thing.) I’ve been through the website as well, and I got stuck at what seems to be the end of “chapter three.” (By the way—if you haven’t seen Donnie Darko, the spoilers here won’t be too bad, but if you want to play through the website yourself, run away and come back when you get to this part.) I got to a point where there was this bizarre audio conversation/transcript: a British guy seemingly calls up the CIA and tells them that he knows what happened to the plane. You know, the plane with the Falling Engine of Death. It really raises more questions than it answers, and the CIA guy apparently hangs up on the British guy. And then you get this: “time is up, donnie” And it goes no further than that. Or does it? I searched for Donnie Darko fansites and found an excellent site that seems to go by the name “Cellar Door” (yeah, I tried to go to the direct URL, ruinedeye.com—because hey, there’s that eye-poking of the Hell Rabbit, sure—and wound up confronting one of my most heeb-inducing topics: “scrap(e)s and snaps of ruined eye's.” So don’t go there, it’s unrelated). Among their very in-depth features, they have a nine-page (!) walkthrough of the official site, and on the last page, I found—that same CIA conversation. So Cellar Door seems to agree that “that’s all there is to it”: chapter three is the end. Question: Well, it’s actually a response to something on our Return of the King preview: “The picture you currently have to the left of the Mouth of Sauron is from the film "Dark City"- Alex Proyas, about 1996. The guy who is the Mouth of Sauron on the right looks a lot like Bruce Spence, an Aussie who has had lots of genre roles--The Gyrocopter Captain in Road Warrior and an Alien in Dark City as well (though not the one shown). Hope this helps.” (B) Answer: Well, I’ll be damned. I didn’t believe it at first, because why would tons of Lord of the Rings fansites list this picture as “the Mouth of Sauron” if it wasn’t? BECAUSE WE’RE STUPID, THAT’S WHY. Okay, that’s harsh. But, point being, a lot of people make the same mistake I did—“Oh, someone else said so, so it must be right.” What changed my mind? I looked up some Dark City pics at my trusty photo source Movieweb. Here’s what I found (note: I am not necessarily saying that Bruce Spence is in any of these pictures. My point is that they are obviously from the same movie): Far left: The image we ran in the preview. Center and right: certifiable Dark City images. Oh, and Bruce Spence was, as B writes, in Dark City, which is probably how the confusion got started in the first place. Question: “There are remakes and there are sequels, but is the upcoming Ocean’s 11 sequel the first sequel to a remake?” (SR) Answer: Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the best Stupid Question ever asked. I don't know why, but it just totally cracked me up. Excellent question, SR! It's tough, mostly because there's more than a hundred years of movies to consider--there are sequels and then there are sequels, you know? Like, the first thing off the top of my head is how beloved characters get remakes every generation or so--Dracula, Zorro, etc.--but are they pure remakes in the way that Ocean's Eleven was, or simply characters that are routinely revisited? Because I know Mask of Zorro 2 has been in development for a long time, and really, I actually reviewed Brides of Dracula, which, if you consider The Horror of Dracula to be a remake of the Lugosi Dracula, then you've got an answer right there. On a more contemporary level, you've got a planned sequel to last year's The Ring, a remake of the Japanese Ringu. (In fact, five bucks says we find an answer to this question in the horror genre, famous for both 1) remakes and 2) sequels.) And is it considered a "remake" if the original was a TV show? Because you've got Charlie's Angels 2 and Scooby Doo 2 coming up as well. If you really want to twist your brain around, think about this: Red Dragon is certainly the only remake I can think of that is also a prequel... I think. Got any ideas, guys? Question: This one was at the bottom of an AICN report on The Baker Street Irregulars, a film in development with Malcolm McDowell to star as Holmes and Christopher Lee (!) to star as Moriarty. Quint asked a trivia question at the end: “Extra credit geek points go to the one who can tell me when Malcolm McDowell has played Sherlock Holmes before... Be careful... this one's a bit tricky!!!” Answer: Here's what I emailed Quint: He "played" Holmes in Time After Time, of course--McDowell actually plays H.G. Wells, but that's the fake name ("Sherlock Holmes") he gives to the police (one of whom is also named Inspector Gregson, a character from the AC Doyle stories.) And of course, the director wrote "The Seven Percent Solution," so the whole production's rife with Holmes trivia. Moreover, Lee's also played Sherlock Holmes--three times--and was the Baskerville heir opposite Peter Cushing's Holmes in Hound of the Baskervilles (just reviewed the movie, so I've got my geek on). Here's hoping the Baker Street Irregulars project pans out... Cleolinda Okay, before you beat me up and steal my lunch money for being a know-it-all, I have a confession: I have never seen Time After Time. What I want you to see is how we track down the answers to Stupid Questions. I read the article and got on IM with Correspon-dent Vladimir and said, “Come on, think! We can crack this one!” So we racked our brains and came up with nothing. I checked McDowell’s filmography at the IMDB: Nothing. I used their advance search and chose “Characters,” entered “Sherlock Holmes”—nothing. (This is, however, how I found out that Lee had played Holmes three times.) So finally, it came down to a leap of intuition. “Five bucks says it was somewhere in Time After Time,” I told Vladimir. “But he wasn’t Holmes in that one, he was H.G. Wells,” said Vladimir. “I know, but it’s the only one on there with a Victorian-type setting,” I insisted. So I checked the IMDB Time After Time trivia page... and found this: When Wells gives a false name to the police, he uses "Sherlock Holmes". And one of the police officers is named Inspector Gregson, a character from the original Sherlock Holmes stories. Also, director Nicholas Meyer wrote "The Seven Per-cent Solution", which is considered to be one of the best Sherlock Holmes story not written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Jackpot! You will notice, in fact, that this trivia item is uncomfortably close to my answer to Quint. At least I had the decency to put it in my own words, though. The second paragraph, however, is all me (and the IMDB character search), since I really had just reviewed The Hound of the Baskervilles, so feel free to beat me up and take my lunch money over that part. Got a question? We'll see what we can do. |
