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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS);faqs.074 (Also: on the laserdisc version, after the credits, there is a plug to go visit Universal Studios with the line "Ask for Babs" (a reference to the "Where are they now" part of ANIMAL HOUSE)) AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981): SYNW is the name of the porno film that is playing in the Picadilly Circus theatre where David meets with Jack and his zombie friends. The movie bill also appears in the London underground when the man is killed. TRADING PLACES (1983): SYNW is on a poster in Jamie Lee Curtis' apartment. No ape, just the silhouette of two people. Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (1983): SYNW is in lines of dialogue from the movie within the video. "...scrawled in blood...", "What does it say?", "It says, 'See you next Wednesday'." (Also, if you look close enough, there is a poster for SCHLOCK in the lobby as Michael and his date leave the theatre.) TWILIGHT ZONE - THE MOVIE (1983): Steven Bishop plays "Charming G.I." (bad pun) INTO THE NIGHT (1985): There are actually two posters in INTO THE NIGHT for SYNW. Both are in the movie producer's office where Michelle Pfeiffer and Jeff Goldblum make a phone call about a half hour or so into the film. SPIES LIKE US (1985): In one scene, Chevy Chase and Dan Ackroyd are in the office of the commander of the army training post that is the site of their training. There is a shot of the commander lecturing them, and on the office wall behind him is a recruitment poster bearing the legend "See You Next Wednesday." COMING TO AMERICA: A movie poster in the subway station where the Prince's bride-to-be returns her earring gift. (The movie claims to star Jamie Lee Curtis, who starred in TRADING PLACES.) Later, the Prince, to prove to his girlfriend that money isn't important to him, gives his sizable roll of pocket money to a pair of street people, who turn out to be the Duke brothers (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy) from TRADING PLACES. They even appear in the credits! You might recall that the Dukes are destitute at the end of TRADING PLACES, so the plotlines are consistent. It is also amusing that Eddie Murphy, who made them poor in the former movie, made them rich in the latter. INNOCENT BLOOD (NYR): The marquee across the street from the Melody Lounge exotic dance bar. (Visible over the shoulders of the Mafia folks the first time they enter the bar.) (Interestingly, that was not the only movie marquee set up to display the SYNW title. The "car crash at the Shadyside gas station" scene was filmed down the street from Stewart M. Clamen's residence (in Squirrel Hill), and the nearby multiplex changed its marquee appropriately every night after closing. The movie itself featured no footage of that theatre (or the street on which it resides), although it is possible that it was edited out. This leads one to believe that Landis inserts many SYNW references in the backgrounds of his scenes, so as not to constrain himself (and his film editor) during editing.) [Thanks to Randy Spencer, spencer@usc-oberon.UUCP, Stewart M. Clamen, clamen@cs.cmu.edu, and Jerry Boyajian, boyajian@ruby.enet.dec.com, for this answer. Jerry also wants to know if anyone has catalgoed other "Ask for Babs" references.] 12) What does the number at the end of the end credits mean? The Motion Picture Association of America (the MPAA) is responsible for assigning these numbers. It is part of their film rating service. Any film can be submitted to the MPAA for rating (the G/PG/PG13/R/NC-17 ratings Americans are familiar with), for a small fee. Any film rated by the MPAA is issued a unique number. Any film can be submitted, but many aren't, including most adult sex films, many foreign films, industrial films and other training and educational films, television films, and some independently made films. The rating service (and the numbering associated with it) was started in 1968. There is no publicly available list of films and numbers, and the MPAA information office does not have the title of the film issued certificate #1 readily available. Films before 1968 were assigned numbers based on their agreement to the Production Code, instituted July 1, 1934. Under that scheme, the film SHE, released in 1935, has number 985. Reports of any earlier number spottings would be appreciated. Given that the current number is in the 30,000, I believe the current numbers are continued from those, rather than restarted in 1968. A word or two more about MPAA ratings. The ratings are assigned by a board composed of "ordinary citizens", largely parents, as the intent of the rating system is to protect the tender minds of children from harm. The board watches the film and collectively assigns a rating. If the producer doesn't like the rating, s/he has a couple of options. The rating can be appealed to the MPAA official in charge of rating films. On a few occasions, the appeal has been successful. Not too surprisingly, appeals by large studios tend to have a better success rate than appeals by smaller studios. Alternately, the producer can recut the film and resubmit it. The MPAA rating board tends to be coy on exactly what caused a film to get a rating, and they never actually tell a filmmaker that if this scene is cut, you will get that rating. Somehow or other, though, the information tends to get to the filmmakers, so that Alan Parker, for instance, somehow knew that cutting a few seconds of Mickey Rourke humping Lisa Bonet while blood drips from the ceiling changes "Angel Heart" from a film no child should see to a film merely requiring parental presence. While we're at it, what is the MPAA? It's an industry organization for the American film production business, particularly for the major studios. Its members are Disney, Columbia, MGM, Orion, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Brothers. These companies pay fees to the MPAA that are used as the primary source of financing for the organization. In addition to the ratings, the MPAA performs other services for their members, including lobbying the government. (They prefer to refer to this service as "working on issues important to the film industry.") Jack Valenti, the head of the MPAA, is a prominent spokesman who speaks for "Hollywood" as a whole, generally on issues important to all the studios, like film piracy, trade disputes with other countries, and censorship. The MPAA was founded in 1922, so it's been doing this sort of thing for quite a while. [Thanks to Peter Reiher, reiher@onyx.jpl.nasa.gov, for this answer.] 13) What ethnic actors have won Academy Awards? (This question seem to come up every year at Oscar time.) "Actors of ethnic extraction other then European/ Mediterranean who have been nominated for Academy Awards" (so we don't start quibbling over Omar Sharif). I'm not a big fan of groupings by race, but it has its educational values in a situation like this, showing Hollywood's record in honoring minority contributions. In borderline cases, we have gone by the "as generally perceived" standard--thus no Ben Kingsley, who seems thoroughly British despite the fact that his father was Gujrati, and none of the many American actors who proudly say they're "part Indian" when they mean 1/16 or 1/32. With that ponderous preamble out of the way, here's the list: AFRICAN-AMERICAN Hattie McDaniel 1939 supp Gone with the Wind WON Dorothy Dandridge 1954 lead Carmen Jones Sidney Poitier 1958 lead The Defiant Ones 1963 lead Lilies of the Field WON Beah Richards 1967 supp Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Rupert Crosse 1969 supp The Reivers James Earl Jones 1970 lead The Great White Hope Paul Winfield 1972 lead Sounder Cicely Tyson 1972 lead Sounder Diana Ross 1972 lead Lady Sings the Blues Diahann Carroll 1974 lead Claudine Howard E. Rollins Jr 1981 supp Ragtime Louis Gossett Jr. 1982 supp Officer & Gentleman WON Alfre Woodard 1983 supp Cross Creek Adolph Caesar 1984 supp A Soldier's Story Whoopi Goldberg 1985 lead The Color Purple 1991 supp Ghost WON Margaret Avery 1985 supp The Color Purple Oprah Winfrey 1985 supp The Color Purple Dexter Gordon 1986 lead Round Midnight Morgan Freeman 1987 supp Street Smart 1989 lead Driving Miss Daisy Denzel Washington 1987 supp Cry Freedom 1989 supp Glory WON ASIAN (including Polynesian) Miyoshi Umeki 1957 supp Sayonara WON Sessue Hayakawa 1957 supp Bridge over the River Kwai Mako 1966 supp The Sand Pebbles Jocelyn LaGarde 1966 supp Hawaii Haing S. Ngor 1984 supp The Killing Fields WON Noriyuki "Pat" Morita 1984 supp The Karate Kid NATIVE AMERICAN Chief Dan George 1970 supp Little Big Man Graham Greene 1991 supp Dances with Wolves Note that John Singleton is now the first African-American to be nominated as best director. [Thanks to Jon Conrad, conrad@sun.acs.udel.edu, for bulk of this answer.] 14) What are all the James Bond films and who played Bond? When is the next James Bond film? "Casino Royale" episode of CLIMAX TV series 1954 Barry Nelson Dr. No 1963 Sean Connery From Russia With Love 1964 Sean Connery Goldfinger 1964 Sean Connery Thunderball 1965 Sean Connery Casino Royale 1967 David Niven* You Only Live Twice 1967 Sean Connery On Her Majesty's Secret Service 1969 George Lazenby Diamonds Are Forever 1971 Sean Connery Live and Let Die 1973 Roger Moore The Man With the Golden Gun 1974 Roger Moore The Spy Who Loved Me 1977 Roger Moore The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation as We Know It 1977 ? Moonraker 1979 Roger Moore For Your Eyes Only 1981 Roger Moore Octopussy 1983 Roger Moore Never Say Never Again 1983 Sean Connery The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. 1983 George Lazenby+ A View to a Kill 1985 Roger Moore The Living Daylights 1987 Timothy Dalton Licence to Kill 1989 Timothy Dalton "Diamonds Aren't Forever" episode of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS 1989 George Lazenby= And regarding the John Landis stuff, I wonder if anyone has compiled a list of the films that feature the "When In Hollywood Visit Universal City Studios (Ask for Babs)" card at the end of the closing credits. * Woody Allen plays his nephew, "Jimmy Bond" + Only a cameo--Lazenby drives a car with license plate "007" in this made-for-television movie and is clearly supposed to be Bond, though he is never called by name. = Lazenby plays "James ... [sic]" (Michael Golan mentions also CANNONBALL (1976), but in that Roger Moore is explicit that he is *Roger Moore*, not James Bond, in spite of all appearances. Still, some may want to count this. "M" and "Miss Moneypacket" appear in "The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation as We Know It," a 1977 British television production starring John Cleese; they were played by Kenneth Benda and Charlotte Alexandra respectively.) And as far as the *next* Bond film goes: UA, who made the Bond films, is still owned by MGM, which is in moderately bad financial trouble. They keep making movies, but they tend not to make big budgetbusters, at the moment. MGM still has a distribution deal with Broccoli for James Bond films, so any he made would have to go through them, meaning they would presumably be financed by MGM, too. In addition to the financial problems at MGM, there are legal problems. For a while MGM/UA was owned by Pathe Communications, which was run by an Italian weasel named Paretti. He bought the studios under shady circumstances; everyone predicted he wouldn't have enough money to pull it off, and, in the end, he didn't. He's now hiding out from U.S. indictments in his native land. At any rate, one of the measures he took to dig up money for his acquisitions was to sell the television rights to the James Bond films. But part of the money from this sale was to go to Broccoli, and he felt that the rights were sold for bargain basement prices to help Paretti out of his financial troubles (at the expense of Broccoli). So Broccoli is suing. Until the suit gets settled, chances are there will be no more Bond films. Should the suit get settled, and should MGM pull itself out of trouble, there will probably be another Bond film. While the last two performed poorly in the U.S., they were big hits in Europe and Asia, more than recouping their costs. As part of a lengthy series, they have more library value than they would otherwise. Also, given the poor performance of the last "Rocky" film, and the collapse of the Pink Panther films (I doubt if the upcoming one will change that), Bond is the only valuable series that MGM/UA still have. At this point, it's anyone's guess about when the film will appear, what the title, plot, or setting will be, and who will star. [The above re the future of Bond films is courtesy of Peter Reiher, reiher@wells.cs.ucla.edu.] 15) What are those funny dots that blink on in the upper-right corner of films? These are change-over cues, or "reel-change dots," signaling the projectionist that it is time to change reels. The average reel contains about twenty minutes of 35mm film. In some old films on TV, you'll see long changeover cues since some projectionists were paranoid that they would not see the marks. so, they extended the marks to include more frames. Sometimes they would just use a paper punch and make *big* holes in the film. Hard to miss these.... Video versions these days usually don't have these dots, though you may see them in older movies, or in wide-screen films that have been panned- and-scanned. (The video versions lack the dots in part because the sides of the picture get trimmed when it is transferred to video.) (Paul Parenteau, dog@sequent.COM) (Ron Birnbaum, ron@osf.org, also says that the dots also used on television to signal that a commercial break is coming.) PART TWO: Frequent Topics and other things we just thought you might like to know. First a few general notes... The readership of rec.arts.movies is in the whole very knowledgeable about a wide range of movies. However, it is my informal assessment that science fiction and fantasy movies are discussed and analyzed far beyond their popularity in most of the rest of the world. This is neither good nor bad, and the reason for it seems fairly obvious to me. The readership of this group reflects the broader readership of USENET. This latter population is top heavy with computer scientists and other forms of science scholars. There is a correlation (though not necessarily a causal relationship) between being in one of these professions, and an interest in science fiction and fantasy. Okay, enough of that. Now, here are some things which come up often, and, while you are free to discuss them, you should be forewarned that some long-time readers may get fairly fed-up with you. PART THREE: Frequently discussed topics: 1) COLORIZING -- Various legal and moral issues. As most of you probably know, Ted Turner and others have taken to adding "color" old black and white films. "Color" is in quotes, because it is questionable whether you can really call it color. Anyway, there is, every so often, a discussion of some aspect of this. There are a whole host of legal and moral/ethical issues involved here. Suprisingly there really seems to be a fair mix of opinion on this issue. No, you cannot just turn off the color on your television; adding color changes the values of the various sections so they show up differently. However, adding color requires a restored clean print, so many claim that the money from selling color-added films is being used to preserve the films (in black and white as well as in color). It has been ruled illegal to add color to CITIZEN KANE due to the way Orson Welles's contract was written. (Boyajian points out that "colorization" is a trademarked term.) 2) PRODUCT PLACEMENTS IN MOVIES. In many films, the film company will get paid by some companies to use their products. Some readers object to this as a fairly manipulative and distracting presence. Others do not object, commenting that people really do use name-brand products, so using them in films makes sense. Many have commented on the pack of Marlboro cigarettes in DEAD AGAIN, saying this was the best product placement they had ever seen. 3) HAS ANYONE SEEN THIS GREAT MOVIE I JUST SAW CALLED HEATHERS? For some reason, every time someone stumbles across this movie, they feel like they should post to the net and ask if anyone else has seen it, and do they want to discuss it. This is fine, of course, but it does get to be a little repetitive. The film stars Winona Ryder as Veronica and Christian Slater as J.D. Two students at a high school in Ohio. The three most popular girls at the school, and Veronica's best friends, are all named Heather. The film is a black comedy which revolves around the relationship of JD & Veronica, and how they interact with the 3 Heathers and others. Some people think it is very good, although many netters were disappointed with the ending. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. 4) WHAT'S THIS TALK ABOUT A GHOST IN THREE MEN AND A BABY? There is a rumor that if you watch TMATB very closely you will see a ghost in it. The scene in question is the one where Ted Danson's character meets his mom in his apartment. If you look near the window you can see an image resembling a small boy. This is supposedly the ghost of a boy who was killed in the house where the movie was filmed. First of all, the movie was not filmed in a house, but on a Toronto soundstage. So the whole premise is hokey to begin with. But here is more evidence provided by: brian@b11.ingr.com (Brian Enright)): > I then rewound and ran it through super slow mo. When they pass the > window on their way in, you can't see the boy but it looks like there > is a bed post sticking up. When they pass the window again it looks > like a two-dimensional cut-out but not of Ted Danson. It's a little > boy with a baseball cap, a white tee-shirt and a blue unbuttoned > button-down shirt in my opinion. Hmmmm. I had to investigate. > > After further investigation of other scenes in the movie I found there > were no bed posts on the bed. Then I hit the clue that gave it away. > This particular scene is almost at the end of the movie. In this > scene Ted Danson walks to a window where there is a cut-out of him in > a black top hat and a black tuxedo with a white shirt. If you > examine this cut out closely and go back to the scene in question, > you will notice that they are the same cut out. You can see that the > boy *is* Ted Danson and he is wearing a top hat and even his shoulders > hidden behind the curtain are noticeably not a little boy's but a man > in a tuxedo. > > I hate to burst any bubbles but it *definitely is* a cut-out of Ted > Danson in a *tuxedo*.. 5) Can someone explain BARTON FINK? So far as I can tell, no. :-) From: bell@cs.tamu.edu (Will Bell): Other information: There are several lists revolving around film that are kept by netters. These frequently come up. One major project is a list of votes/ratings of a plethora of movies. This list is maintained by Chuck Musciano, (chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com), and it is posted regularly, with a chance for people to vote. The report is also available via anonymous ftp from penguin.gatech.edu (128.61.9.46) in the pub/movie directory. Evelyn Leeper (ecl@mtgzy.att.com) provides several services for the r.a.m readers (aside from her many postings), including maintaining these lists: -- Academy Award Nominations & Winners from 1987 on -- Hollywood Vocabulary (such terms as chopsocky, bowed, helmed, etc.) -- Information on what all those people listed in film credits do (e.g. key grip, gaffer...). Evelyn is also the moderator of the group rec.arts.movies.reviews, which is a collection of movie reviews written by USENET-ers. The rec.arts.movies.reviews archives are currently stored on LCS.MIT.EDU (192.20.239.131) which is a UNIX machine, and are in the directory /common/movie-reviews. The archives are currently available to anyone with FTP access to this machine. The files are numbered, so you will need to refer to the latest index to see which ones you want. Every hundred issues is a cumulative index (nn00). The number of reviews has made it necessary to split them up into subdirectories. Thus, numbers 0001 through 0099 are in 00xx.dir, 0100 through 0199 in 01xx.dir, and so on. There are files "INDEX*" in the directory /common/movie-reviews that index all reviews. If you have no FTP access, you can request copies of reviews (12 or less at a time) by sending mail to Evelyn. Another group of interest is rec.arts.cinema. This is a moderated group, devoted to more serious analyses of film and film related issues. The moderator is Manavendra Thakur. Send submissions to thakur@cfa.harvard.edu. (This group has been very inactive of late, and may be dead.) Several "filmography" lists are kept by various rec.arts.movies gurus, and are posted regularly. These lists are: List | Maintained by ---------- |--------------------------------------- Directors | Dave Knight <dknight@elm.sdd.trw.com> Dead actors | Col Needham <cn@otter.hpl.hp.com> Actresses | Andy Krieg <krieg@titan.med.ge.com> Actors | Col Needham <cn@otter.hpl.hp.com> Writers | Andy Krieg <krieg@titan.med.ge.com> Cinematographers| Michel Hafner <hafner@ifi.unizh.ch> Composers | Michel Hafner <hafner@ifi.unizh.ch> Goofs | "Starman" <meg5184@hertz.njit.edu> The lists are also available via anonynmous FTP from boulder.colorado.edu (128.138.240.1) in the directory ~ftp/pub/tv+movies/lists. Colin Needham has written a set of shell scripts for creating and searching a massive movie database using the information contained on all the lists. The scripts are also available via ftp in the directory ~ftp/pub/tv+movies/lists/tools. He also publishes a set of scripts for managing the task of voting in Chuck's Movie Ratings poll; they are available via anonymus ftp from penguin.gatech.edu (128.61.9.46) in the pub/movie/process directory or via e-mail from him (cn@otter.hpl.hp.com). Bob Niland (rjn@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM) has several articles on Laser Disc technology and availability available from his archives. You may request any of these at any time. Recent copies are also available for anonymous ftp on: princeton.edu (128.112.128.1, directory pub/Video/Niland) and bobcat.bbn.com (128.89.2.103), wsmr-simtel20.army.mil (192.88.110.20). Lastly, there are a series of movie trivia contests. Some of these even offer prizes! The initial contest postings generally include information on how to enter. The important point is that you should never post answers, but should send them e-mail. Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com Xref: bloom-picayune.mit.edu comp.binaries.ibm.pc.archives:5817 comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted:8282 comp.os.msdos.apps:8228 news.answers:3678 Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.archives,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted,comp.os.msdos.apps,news.answers Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!wupost!sdd.hp.com!caen!destroyer!cs.ubc.ca!newsserver.sfu.ca!kko From: kko@fraser.sfu.ca (Samuel Ko) Subject: [c.b.i.p.archives] The Most Useful MSDOS Programs at Simtel and Garbo Message-ID: <1992Oct24.081911.12723@sfu.ca> Followup-To: poster Summary: A list of recommended MSDOS programs at major ftp sites. Keywords: Simtel, Garbo, MSDOS, sharewares, freewares, PD programs, ftp Sender: news@sfu.ca Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1992 08:19:11 GMT Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Lines: 1291 Archive-name: msdos-archives Last-modified: Oct 24 1992 Version: 1.9 [c.b.i.p.archives] The Most Useful MSDOS Programs at Simtel and Garbo ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **** The Ultimate Guide to MSDOS Archive Files **** Version: 1.9 Oct 24 1992 Compiled by Samuel Ko (kko@sfu.ca) This is a good selection of the "best" sharewares and freewares that are available from Simtel (wsmr-simtel20.army.mil) - the largest depository of MSDOS files - and Garbo (garbo.uwasa.fi) - a good alternative to Simtel. This list contains many commonly-and-frequently-wanted sharewares/freewares/ public domain programs. So before you post any requests for ftp'able MSDOS files in comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted or other msdos/pc newsgroups, please try to read the list first. This will help reduce the traffic in those groups a bit. Besides you might find some other interesting stuff here. As it is more convenient to ftp files from Simtel's mirror sites than Simtel itself, so I use the directories of oak.oakland.edu (the most up-to-date mirror site) instead. If you want to use the parent site (Simtel) or other mirror sites (e.g. wuarchive.wustl.edu), please change the path name accordingly. Here is how to do it: (`whatever' is the name of subdirectory to be substituted) oak: /pub/msdos/whatever = Simtel: PD1:<MSDOS.WHATEVER> = wuarchive: /mirrors/msdos/whatever Please note that garbo is mirrored in N. America at wuarchive. Therefore garbo: /pc/whatever = wuarchive: /mirrors/garbo.uwasa.fi/whatever For info on other Simtel and Garbo mirror sites, please see Appendix 1. Thanks to all who have helped in improving the list. However, to save some bandwidth, I do not want to include a long list (over 100 names) of acknowledgment. I do sincerely thank each and every one of you who has contributed to this compilation in one way or the other. Any further comments and suggestions will be very much appreciated. I am particularly interested in any programs that you think are better than those listed below. I will usually update this list once a month. However, I will be pretty busy in the next couple of months, so the next issue will not be out until late December / early January. General format of an entry: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Program: Name and/or Description Version: The latest release Upload Date: The date the program was uploaded to Simtel or Oak File: The name of the file that corresponds to the program Size: The size of the archive file Location: The directory from which the file can be found Status: Shareware / Freeware Info Comment: My comment and supplementary info Alternative: Other similar program --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ Contents: * Section A: Application Programs * Section B: Compression / Decompression Programs * Section C: Utilities Area 1: 4DOS Area 2: Disk Utilites Area 3: Directory Utilities Area 4: File / Text Utilities Area 5: Screen Utilities Area 6: System Utilites Area 7: Other Utilities * Section D: Anti-Virus Programs * Section E: Editors * Section F: Communication Programs * Section G: Miscellaneous Files ---- * Appendix 1: Mirror Sites * Appendix 2: Obtaining files by emails * Appendix 3: Getting upload announcements by emails * Appendix 4: How to do anonymous ftp? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------