# Another movies technicality thread: Amazing things they got RIGHT. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 28, 2004, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959 "2004-08-28T15:58:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/81 "2004-09-13T00:48:18Z")
> [@Dooku](#): > > FYI, I’m pretty sure that was Al Michaels. Oh duh! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![FisherQueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/82 "2004-09-13T01:33:19Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > I don’t like **Good Will Hunting** because Damon and Affleck are a couple of liars. Yes, they wrote a screenplay together. They worked on it for years, and it was about a brilliant young man who worked for the government. However, that was not the movie or the script that was ultimately made. Oliver Stone (entirely uncredited) wrote the script that they won the Oscar for. Last time I heard that story, Kevin Smith had really written the script. I heard it once with William Goldman as the writer, too. 'Cause universal demands that, if you’re pretty, you have to be too stupid to write your own script. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/83 "2004-09-13T02:10:21Z")
> [@well he's back](#): > > Regarding things movies get right: I like that during the fights in LOTR people got really dirty, and well, it looked real. For example, at the end of FOTR when Aragorn fights Lurtz. I have seen lots of movies where people even fights or long treks or whatever don’t look dirty, smudged or stained in the least. This may not really be a detail - it’s actually a pretty big thing to attend to in an action film, fantasy sci-fi or real world. But they don’t always pay attention, and that bugs me. They had dirt under their _nails_. In most movies, the characters who are fighting and wandering the wilderness will have a smudge or two on their cheeks and dishevelled hair, but their hands will be impeccably clean with nice trimmed nails. That bugs the heck out of me too. There are some scenes where it looks like Peter Jackson came in to say “Great scene, guys, but you know what it needs? More dirt!” Fantastic! ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/84 "2004-09-13T11:41:31Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > We’re supposed to believe that Will Hunting, with no one to push him, with no one to discuss math with, while spending much of his time drunk and getting into fights with his friends, is able to learn enough math to dazzle a Fields Medalist and to learn enough about subjects like history, law, chemistry, and psychology he would be more well-read than Mills was at 20. What seemed most implausible to me about the Will Hunting character was how well-rounded his self education had been. Aside from the topics you mentioned, he also knew all about art. . .and there may have been other areas I’m forgetting. I don’t know why they wanted to make Will a master of every discipline. Wasn’t being a math genius enough? Wasn’t that all that was needed for the plot? Now, I know almost nothing about advanced mathematics (I barely survived calculus). I don’t know how much study someone would have to put in to reach the level Will is depicted as having attained in the film, and most moviegoers are probably in the same ignorant boat as me. I’d have been willing to accept that, in a movie at least, there might be a young man who managed to be an entirely self-taught math whiz despite his deprived upbringing. But _only_ if the movie had made it clear that he had devoted himself single-mindedly to the study of mathematics ever since he was a young boy. Not just because he wouldn’t have had the time otherwise, but because real people who are studying completely on their own naturally gravitate towards the subjects that interest them most. No one is equally interested in _everything_. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/85 "2004-09-13T12:25:42Z")
Lamia writes: \> What seemed most implausible to me about the Will Hunting character was how \> well-rounded his self education had been. Note especially how implausible his argument with the Harvard history grad student is. First, why would a history grad student be quoting random facts from his textbook to impress a girl in a bar? Somehow I suspect that, even at Harvard, girls are not impressed by drunks quoting from textbooks. But, beyond that, note that the things that Will says are the things that a professor with a broad knowledge of the subject and a _precise_ knowledge of what books first-year grad students would be studying would say to an enthusiastic but not quite well-read amateur. If Will were self-educated in history, you would expect him to be quoting from his favorite book and the other person to be saying that, while that book is good as far as it goes, there are other books that shed more light on the subject. Will never talks like a self-educated person. He talks like someone who went through the usual education in the subject and who knows all the books in the subject that a professor would know. ---
**Author:** ![Chastain86](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Chastain86](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chastain86)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/86 "2004-09-13T15:21:57Z")
> [@Ilsa\_Lund](#): > > The point is that Hunting has thousands and thousands of dollars worth of upper-level math textbooks. Actually, this one’s not too hard to explain away. He works for the university. It’s not too completely out-of-character to think he might be taking home books from the university library. And, I believe universities typically keep copies of textbooks in the library as well. Just playing a rousing game of Devil’s Advocate™. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/87 "2004-09-13T17:43:20Z")
**Wendell** , I’m not able to dig up a cite, but the early life of Bart Kosko may have been disproof of what you’re saying about prodigies. About seven years ago, I read a capsule bio on Kosko in a book on fuzzy logic, the area he made pioneering advances in. His early life involved juvenile delinquency, and was righted by an interest in music – he was a prodigy composer. It was later that he found his niche in mathematics. As I said, I can’t find a cite, and I don’t recall that he was necessarily dirt-poor – he may have been a middle class kid who became a juvenile delinquent, which wouldn’t contradict what you’re saying. And he certainly isn’t on the level of an Euler or a von Neumann , while Will Hunting was. But his life sounded so much like that of Hunting that when I saw the movie, I found myself wondering if the character had been based on him. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/88 "2004-09-14T13:51:16Z")
I’ve just done a search, and I can’t find any mention of the fact that Bart Kosko was either a prodigy or a delinquent. Does anybody have any specific knowledge of his biography? And I do mean specific. Please, no vague memories of what you think you heard in a conversation five years ago. ---
**Author:** ![MikeCollins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bbce88/32.png) [@MikeCollins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeCollins)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/89 "2004-09-14T22:43:16Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > Lamia writes: > > \> What seemed most implausible to me about the Will Hunting character was how > \> well-rounded his self education had been. > > Note especially how implausible his argument with the Harvard history grad student is. First, why would a history grad student be quoting random facts from his textbook to impress a girl in a bar? Obviously you haven’t had the distinct pleasure of hanging around losers. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/90 "2004-09-15T03:35:39Z")
> [@MikeCollins](#): > > Obviously you haven’t had the distinct pleasure of hanging around losers. I was thinking something very like this. I know PLENTY of guys who would start gabbling along about history or math or philosophy or, God forbid, comp sci to sound ‘cool’ to a girl. These are not necessarily what you would call ‘successful’ pickup lines. Except to some girls. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Ross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@Ross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ross)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/91 "2004-09-15T13:08:24Z")
In _Morons from Outer Space_, which received a serious critical panning but I liked it so bite me, Griff Rhys Jones has to sneak along a corridor and whack an unsuspecting guard with a spanner. The reality bit came when the guard failed to drop silently and helpfully to the floor. Instead he holds his head, emits lots of loud “AAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoooowwww!” noises, and follows Jones, demanding to know “What did you do that for? That REALLY HURT!” (it actually works as a tactic, because Jones gets past the guard, but he leaves him moaning and swearing, rather than bundled into a tidy heap) Much of this is very vague in my memory, and of course Jones isn’t a trained combat bloke or anything, so it was supposed to represent an amateur messing things up. But still, it made me grin broadly, and still does. I’m fairly sure it’s been done lots of times since, too, but when I first saw it I was growing up under the standard Hollywood impression that _Anyone Hit On The Head From Behind In A Film Will Immediately Lose Consciousness (And Regain It In Moments With No Long Term Harm Resulting)._ So I REALLY wasn’t expecting it. It might not even have been _Morons_. It might have been in something else. ---
**Author:** ![NewHeart\_Male](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc8723/32.png) [@NewHeart\_Male](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NewHeart_Male)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/92 "2004-09-18T21:46:46Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > Lamia writes: > > \> What seemed most implausible to me about the Will Hunting character was how > \> well-rounded his self education had been. > > Note especially how implausible his argument with the Harvard history grad student is. First, why would a history grad student be quoting random facts from his textbook to impress a girl in a bar? Somehow I suspect that, even at Harvard, girls are not impressed by drunks quoting from textbooks. I believe your recollection of the scene is a little misleading. Chad (as I think the blonde weirdo in question is called) doesn’t recite the facts in order to _directly_ impress Scarlett (Minnie Driver) per se, but actually picks his fight with Will’s buddy (played by Ben Affleck). At first it’s because Affleck’s character lies and says that he attends a history class that (as we know) he doesn’t. That’s when Chad gets involved and asks his opinion on a particular matter (which as we all know, Affleck doesn’t have a clue about). That’s when Will Hunting steps in and takes over. So it’s not that he’s quoting random facts to impress Scarlett - it’s more to show up Affleck (and his obvious lack of knowledge and blatant lying) in front of the girls. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959/93 "2004-09-19T08:41:38Z")
> [@](#): > > True, the character in the movie might not be as adept as some real-life pros. Nonetheless, I’m just trying to point out that a second deal doesn’t make a sound, and there’s no reason why it should make a sound. One may argue that this (whether it makes a give-away sound or note) depends on how adept the dealer is. I would respectfully suggest this is not the case. You can either execute a second-deal sufficiently well to use it in a real game, or you can’t. If you can, then it doesn’t make a sound. If you can’t, whether it makes a sound or not is going to be immaterial, because everyone at the table will be able to see that you are second-dealing. My second is good enough that I use it in a few close-up routines. Might not get by a lot of magicians, but great for the usual audience. I just tried mine (which is a push-off) and found that if I hold the cards too tightly, there is a slight “click”. Then again, holding the cards too tightly makes the deal (as I do it) more difficult to do. Like you say, this is not a mistake that someone doing this in a real game should be making. I haven’t had my Erdnase out in a while (and can’t find it at the moment), but doesn’t he describe a rather distinctive “mechanic’s grip”? I remember trying to learn it and finding it really awkward, as if my fingers are not long enough. (I’m sure I wasn’t doing it right; I really want Ortiz’s “Annotated Erdnase”.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-movies-technicality-thread-amazing-things-they-got-right/261959.md?page=4)