Remnants of the Past
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Exploring iconic movies across every era. Commentary and stories from the world of cinema.
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Kingpin (1996) is a comedy starring Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, Vanessa Angel and Bill Murray. Harrelson plays a washed-up bowling champion seeking redemption, while Murray steals the show as the arrogant Big Ern McCracken. Murray was encouraged to improvise, and according to director Bobby Farrelly, "Every line he came up with was better than the line that was scripted." His famous "You're on a gravy train with biscuit wheels" was one of his spontaneous inventions. He even bowled three consecutive strikes himself during the climactic tournament scene. The Farrelly brothers deliberately changed the original ending because, as Peter Farrelly put it, "We wanted him to lose." Despite disappointing at the box office, Kingpin eventually became a home-video hit and a beloved comedy.
Remnants of the Past909,340 Aufrufe • vor 2 Tagen
Fear (1996), directed by James Foley and starring Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon, William Petersen and Alyssa Milano, is a psychological thriller about a teenage romance that gradually takes a dark and unsettling turn. Wahlberg had considerable influence over the screenplay, spending six hours discussing changes with Foley. He even refused to dance during David and Nicole's first encounter, telling the director: "Bro, I'm not dancing." Milano also recalled that Wahlberg pulled her hair so forcefully during a fight scene that she developed welts on her head. Filmed primarily around Vancouver, the movie features a striking waterfront house on Howe Sound, which serves as the Walker family's home. Its isolated setting provides an eerie backdrop for the finale. The atmospheric score was composed by Carter Burwell, best known for his collaborations with the Coen brothers.
Remnants of the Past200,590 Aufrufe • vor 23 Stunden
After the Sunset (2004), starring Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek, is a heist comedy set in the Bahamas, where a retired jewel-thief couple find their peaceful island life disrupted by an FBI agent (Woody Harrelson) who suspects Max hasn't given up stealing. Screenwriter came up with the idea by reversing the usual heist formula: what happens after the thieves pull off their final big score and escape to a tropical paradise? Filmed largely in the Bahamas, the production even built the couple's beachfront house from scratch. There's also a Bond homage: Brosnan's walk through a Junkanoo celebration recalls Sean Connery's similar sequence in Thunderball (1965). The film also has an another James Bond connection. Brosnan had previously approached director Brett Ratner about directing Die Another Day, and although that collaboration never happened, the two eventually reunited for this film. Ratner called the experience of being approached by Brosnan "one of the greatest moments of my life."
Remnants of the Past382,291 Aufrufe • vor 1 Tag
All the Bright Places (2020), starring Elle Fanning and Justice Smith, is a romantic drama about two young people who find an unexpected connection while dealing with grief and personal struggles. Based on Jennifer Niven's bestselling novel, it explores young love, loss and mental health. Fanning had been involved in developing the project for several years, eventually becoming both its star and producer. Filming took place in Ohio, standing in for Indiana, and included the reconstruction of a real backyard roller coaster. Director Brett Haley wanted an emotionally honest story rather than a conventional teenage romance. He explained that his intention was to make audiences feel understood rather than tell them what to think. Fanning emphasized that "mental health should be treated just the same as physical health".
Remnants of the Past806,826 Aufrufe • vor 3 Tagen
Mark Wahlberg trained for The Fighter (2010) for four years, even though the movie kept falling apart. He had known Micky Ward since he was 18 and was determined to play him, training with Ward and even building a boxing ring at home. He trained for up to 8–10 hours a day at times, and his preparation eventually allowed the production to shoot all the fight sequences in just three days. The project had an unusual history: Eminem was originally attached to play Micky, while Darren Aronofsky was among the filmmakers involved during its long development. David O. Russell eventually came on to direct. Christian Bale spent time with the real Dicky Eklund and lost around 30 pounds for the role. Russell said portraying him required more than copying his mannerisms: “Dicky has a rhythm to him, a music.” Russell also wanted the fights to look like real HBO broadcasts, using cameras from the era and an HBO crew. The fight choreography was built from Ward's actual bouts, while the filmmakers used the original HBO commentary rather than recreating it. The authenticity went even further: Ward's real trainer, police officer Mickey O'Keefe, played himself despite having never acted before. Wahlberg was so committed to the project that he took no upfront salary, paying for years of training himself. After years of development hell, The Fighter finally made it to the screen.
Remnants of the Past2,912,532 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
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When Christina Hendricks was repeatedly asked whether her breasts were real or the result of implants, she found the speculation rather bizarre. In a 2011 interview, she responded: “It’s so bizarre that people are constantly asking if my breasts are real or fake. They’re so obviously real that anyone who’s ever seen or touched a breast would know.”
Remnants of the Past8,823,993 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Tamara Jenkins’ Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age comedy. Natasha Lyonne plays Vivian, a teenager constantly moving between cheap Beverly Hills apartments with her divorced father and two brothers, simply to benefit from the area's prestigious public schools. Alan Arkin and Marisa Tomei add plenty of eccentricity to this funny portrait of family life and adolescence. Jenkins described her real family as “economically disabled” and recalled a neighborhood street nicknamed “Divorce Drive,” populated by children from struggling and broken families. Even the hilariously awkward bra-shopping scene was inspired by a real experience with her father, who rushed her to a department store after her teacher suggested she needed a bra, then discreetly disappeared to smoke while a saleswoman helped her. Her father was even more eccentric than his fictional counterpart. Jenkins discovered that he had once operated a Philadelphia nightclub where famous burlesque performer Blaze Starr appeared. Robert Redford, who connected with the screenplay through his own experience growing up poor in Southern California, became the film's executive producer after reading it at Sundance.
Remnants of the Past275,500 Aufrufe • vor 7 Tagen
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One of Jack Nicholson's lesser-known films, Carnal Knowledge (1971) features an outstanding ensemble cast, including Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margret, Candice Bergen, Rita Moreno and Carol Kane. Directed by Mike Nichols, it is a provocative portrait of changing male-female relations, romantic disillusionment and the inability to truly connect. Nichols deliberately manipulated the audience's gaze, explaining: "I wanted them to be thinking of something else, Ann-Margret's top, for instance." He wanted viewers to become complicit in the objectification of Bobbie, played by Ann-Margret. Ann-Margret delivered a remarkably vulnerable performance, earning the film's sole Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1972 Oscars. In a humorous behind-the-scenes-related anecdote, Candice Bergen later joked about her on-screen romantic encounter with Nicholson: "Always wear a double layer of underpants when you're doing a bed scene with Jack Nicholson."
Remnants of the Past230,208 Aufrufe • vor 6 Tagen
In Charlie's Angels (2000), Cameron Diaz had an unusual challenge during the bedroom dance scene. After waking from her ballroom dance dream, she starts dancing around her room, but director McG wanted her to make the dancing increasingly worse with every take. That proved surprisingly difficult for Diaz, whose extensive ballroom dance training made dancing badly harder than it sounds.
Remnants of the Past5,676,064 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Set in a dystopian Los Angeles on the eve of the new millennium, Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995) is one of the rare gems of the ’90s. The film imagines a world where SQUID technology lets people record and experience someone else’s memories. Creating its visceral first-person sequences required nearly a year of work on a custom 35mm camera. Weighing about eight pounds, it was designed to move like the human eye. The production was also almost entirely nocturnal, with 77 of its 80 shooting days taking place at night. The film’s volatile vision of Los Angeles was partly shaped by the 1992 riots, whose aftermath Bigelow witnessed while helping with the cleanup. James Cameron had conceived the story years earlier, while Bigelow and screenwriter developed it into the darker, more political film that reached theaters. Critics were divided upon release. Roger Ebert gave it four stars, calling it “a technical tour de force” and praising Bigelow for using SQUID to make viewers confront the action rather than simply consume it as spectacle. Despite its $42 million budget, the film was a commercial failure upon release, but it gained much more appreciation over the years.
Remnants of the Past2,216,714 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
Keeping Up with the Joneses (2016) is an action comedy about a suburban couple, played by Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher, who suspect their glamorous new neighbors, played by Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot, are secret agents. Galifianakis and Hamm had known each other since the late 1990s, long before The Hangover and Mad Men made them famous. Galifianakis saw Hamm as more than an actor who could do comedy: “He’s really funny and he has a comedian’s mind.” He also joked that it was almost unfair that Hamm could be both handsome and genuinely funny, saying Hamm “speaks like a comedian” rather than like an actor. The film also gave Hamm an opportunity to move beyond his Mad Men image. He recalled that many scripts he received afterward were essentially variations on Don Draper: “Every script I got after Mad Men, it was a thing set in the ’60s and I was chasing a skirt and smoking cigarettes. And I was like, ‘That’s my day job. Why would I want to do that on my days off?’”
Remnants of the Past1,643,160 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
Daniel Craig's charismatic performance in Layer Cake (2004) caught the attention of Bond producer Barbara Broccoli and helped pave the way for his casting as James Bond. Craig initially hesitated to make Layer Cake, but after reading the script, he discovered how much fun it was. When asked about it years later, he recalled: “I mean again, another film I was dragged kicking and screaming it. Seems to be my MO, doesn’t it? Look, the way it turned out was fantastic but I thought it was sort of all sort of popular kind of something or other and actually it what it what it did for me was it freed me up in a way that I couldn’t have imagined. You know it’s sort of not serious, but it’s a kind of it’s a sort of funny film. It’s a comedy to a certain degree and it I just I don’t know what happened, when I got into it and I started reading and I went God, this is so much fun. And I kind of allowed myself to enjoy it sounds like kind of like I’m some sort of stoic.”
Remnants of the Past2,551,521 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
One of the things that made Chuck so memorable was Yvonne Strahovski's striking beauty, elegance, and screen presence. The clip below captures a glimpse of it. Behind that familiar Chuck are some interesting casting stories. Chris Pratt was reportedly the first choice for Chuck Bartowski, but Zachary Levi ultimately got the role. When Strahovski auditioned for Chuck, she was still in Australia. She sent her audition tape from Sydney, flew to the U.S., and within about a week had the job. As she put it: “By the end of the week I had the job.” In a 2013 interview, Levi said he had been cast in the Broadway production of Young Frankenstein, but had to give up the role after the Chuck pilot was picked up as a series. Strahovski also loved the action. When asked about a stunt like jumping from a helicopter, she replied: “I would love to jump from a helicopter.” By the final season, she described Chuck and Sarah as a “Mr. and Mrs. Smith-type couple”, a fun, loving spy couple.
Remnants of the Past1,351,766 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
Jennifer Love Hewitt on her unforgettable first day working with Ray Liotta, playing the seductive secretary 'Wendy' who gets caught in his zipper in Heartbreakers (2001): “Coming out of teen movies, and spending the last three years of my life with a guy and a hook, my first two days of work were not exactly the norm.” “I was a redhead as 'Wendy' dressed in a skintight, tiny little dress with stockings, garters and the whole works, and in the first moments it's like 'Hi, nice to meet you, Mr. Liotta, now I'll be attached to your pants for the rest of the day. How's it going? Good. How're you doing up there? Great.” “But I have to say, that if you have to be attached to an actor's pants, Ray Liotta's are the best! He really made it fun and easy, and hopefully it will be one of the movie's funniest scenes.”
Remnants of the Past2,213,924 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
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The To-Do List (2013) is a raunchy teen comedy starring Aubrey Plaza as Brandy, an academically brilliant graduate who creates a checklist of intimate experiences to explore before college. The cast also includes Rachel Bilson, Bill Hader, Alia Shawkat, Andy Samberg and Donald Glover. Written and directed by Maggie Carey, the film’s screenplay gained recognition on Hollywood’s 2010 Black List after several studios initially rejected it. Carey drew inspiration from her teenage years in Boise, Idaho, even giving Plaza her old high-school diaries to help her understand Brandy. She recalled that despite her academic achievements, much of her teenage writing revolved around boys. Plaza described her character as “sexy, but in a really unsexy way,” capturing the film’s deliberately awkward humour. Meanwhile, Rachel Bilson impressed Carey with her improvisation, delivering several funny lines from the very first take.
Remnants of the Past476,889 Aufrufe • vor 22 Tagen
Just Go with It (2011) stars Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston in a romantic comedy about a plastic surgeon whose lies spiral out of control during a Hawaiian holiday. Nicole Kidman plays Katherine's flamboyant rival, while Brooklyn Decker made her feature-film debut as Sandler's love interest. Decker revealed that her famous slow-motion beach entrance took eight takes to get right. The film features cameos by Sandler's wife, Jackie, and Decker's then-husband, tennis star Andy Roddick. The story is also a loose remake of Cactus Flower (1969), starring Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman and Goldie Hawn. Despite largely negative reviews, Just Go with It became a commercial hit, grossing over $214 million worldwide.
Remnants of the Past203,930 Aufrufe • vor 10 Tagen
While filming Splash (1984), John Candy once arrived late to the set and delayed filming, which was unusual for the actor, who was known for being professional. According to Ron Howard, Candy profusely apologized when he arrived, and Howard told him it was fine and that they would begin shooting. Candy then revealed that he had not slept and was actually drunk. The night before, he had gone to a bar where he encountered Jack Nicholson, who recognized him and proceeded to buy him drinks throughout the night. Candy had told Nicholson, "But I've got to go shoot." Nicholson simply replied, "You're going to be all right, kid. Don't worry about it." Candy then went on to film his scene on the racquetball court, where he was hit by the ball, and managed to get it right in just three takes.
Remnants of the Past2,045,147 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
Troy's (2004) centerpiece is the inevitable duel between Achilles and Hector, Troy's greatest warrior. Brad Pitt and Eric Bana performed the meticulously choreographed fight themselves without using any stunt doubles, rehearsing for months until every move became instinctive before filming. In a 2004 interview, Pitt said about the accidental hits: "We made a deal with each other that we're just going to go for it. We decided that we would pay off for slight infractions 50 bucks and for major hits, if one of us clobbered the other, it would be 100 bucks." Bana later showed a faint scar on the right side of his nose. "I've got a little Brad Pitt scar here," he said. "It's called a full-fledged backhand fist to the face. Luckily for us it was probably about 85 percent through that fight sequence because it does dull your confidence." Asked how much he owed Bana after the six-day shoot, Pitt replied: "750."
Remnants of the Past2,554,630 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
Long before Kirsten Dunst became Torrance Shipman in Bring It On (2000), she had already been a real-life cheerleader. Dunst had been a cheerleader in school, but director Peyton Reed recalled that her experience was basically pom-poms and memorizing short cheers, not the highly athletic routines required for the movie. The cast went through a four-week cheerleading camp, training for hours every day in dance, gymnastics and cheerleading. Reed said they didn't realize how physical it would be: “The first couple of days they really were hating me. They were sore and in pain. It was pretty brutal.” Dunst initially turned down the role, but eventually changed her mind, a decision that paid off when Bring It On became a major box-office success, grossing about $90.5 million worldwide on a budget of just over $10 million. Reed later described it as “a fairly mainstream studio film” that he tried to make “smart, and not to pander too much.”
Remnants of the Past1,025,436 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
While filming The Girl Next Door (2004), Elisha Cuthbert was still best known for playing Kim Bauer on 24. When she was first approached about the film, however, she wasn't convinced it was the right move. “When they said to me, ‘What about a teen comedy and you play an adult-film star?’ And I went, ‘Guys, we’re heading in the wrong direction here. I don’t know who briefed you guys, but this is not the right film.’” After reading the script and meeting director Luke Greenfield, Cuthbert began to see the possibilities: “This could be really cheesy, or this could be really amazing.” Greenfield convinced her, saying: “It’s going to be amazing.”
Remnants of the Past1,201,034 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten