Not having read the books, I liked that they never explained it. It made Lupin and Black look like smart people who knew interesting things and had a history at Hogwarts. Having them be the ones who made it would have been too cutesy and contrived.
It’s maybe even worse by the fact that Harry refers to Sirius as “Padfoot” 2 movies later without ever explaining it.
He had help. He even asked Wang if he got everyone.
Avengers: Endgame How Captain Marvel… finds or even knows to look for Iron Man. I thought it was fairly obvious that she had returned to Earth at the end of Captain Marvel (post-credits scened) and then was sent out to find Iron Man, who had been broadcasting an SOS (similar to the way the Asgardians had which led to the Guardians finding them). But it seemed without specifically spelling it out, it went over many’s heads.
Given everything else outside of spoilers about the movie, that probably wasn’t necessary, but I’ve been ticketed before by the Spoiler Police.
It doesn’t even have to have been a general SOS. Remember, Rocket was there on Earth - he probably installed some sort of LoJack on his own ship, and all he had to do was give her the code.
Two Nolan films, Memento and Inception, leave a lot of stuff unexplained. That’s part of why they’re so good.
A previous thread on that scene: The scene with the Margie and old high school friend in "Fargo": Why? - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
ISWYDT.
Huh. I found this on YouTube, but never saw it in the theater or on DVD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVx6bXoCnC0. I liked this comment by a fan: “What all of the Fremen should have been saying at the end: Great, now all the sandworms will die and they’ll be no more spice. Damn you Space Jesus!!!”
They filmed the Exchange scenes in the actual exchange and used real traders for all the extras. And apparently, the prices used for FCOJ were realistic too. The impossible Hollywood part was that it changed so much in only 5 minutes instead of several hours or days.
One of my favorite Doctor Who things is in ‘Blink’. It’s a great episode in which the Doctor is only adjacent to the plot. Toward the end he’s actually there with Martha and is just passing through. During his brief conversation with the protagonist Martha - inexplicably holding a bow and arrow - is more and more frantically urging him to get a move one.
“We have to go!”
“Let’s go!”
“Doctor, they’re HATCHING!”
The doctor is having his own adventure completely disconnected from the plot of the story we’re watching. We never learn about it, I believe.
They assume you know how futures contracts work- you’re agreeing to sell/buy a specific amount for a specific price at some future date. The whole thing hinges on shenanigans surrounding the date/time/price.
Brief chronology:
Winthorpe and Valentine (Ackroyd & Murphy) feed the fake information to the Dukes (crop will be bad), who tells their trader to keep buying OJ futures, regardless of how high the price goes, which drives the prices high.
When the price gets really high, Winthorpe offers to sell for a lower price($1.42) on April 30th (a future). People jump on it- this is a LOW price, and they think they’re going to rob Winthorpe. So they buy from him at $1.42, thinking they’re getting a steal.
Then the crop info comes out, and the news is that it’ll be fine- there will be no constraints on the OJ supply. So the price won’t actually be high in the future- it’ll be relatively low.
So they all start selling their futures that they bought high, in hopes of not losing too much money on the deal. Winthorpe and Valentine then proceed to buy a whole bunch of futures at a dramatically lower price($0.29).
At this point, they’ve basically bought at 29 cents and are selling for 1.42. That’s how they made their money. Meanwhile, the Dukes did the opposite- they bought at 1.42 and sold at 29 cents, bankrupting themselves.
Another premise on this that’s Hollywood-fake is that the government report is a huge surprise to everyone. The market generally knows what the report will say through identical research by private agricultural analysts. The movie sort of lampshades this by having some other traders say, “The Dukes know something! BUY BUY BUY!” But I don’t know how much effect a single big trader can have trying to corner a market in a few hours.
Of course - just remembered Truly, Madly, Deeply. The Wiki page does a fine job of summarising the plot. A bit long to cut and paste, though.
Brief recap, for those who have not seen it. Nina and Jamie are a couple. Jamie dies unexpectedly. Nina is distraught. Jamie comes back as a ghost, to Nina’s initial joy. Jamie also brings back with him a number of (all male) ghost friends, who hang around in the apartment all day watching videos and football on TV. It annoys the hell out of Nina. Nina becomes increasingly unhappy, meets someone new. The last thing you see is Nina and her new man, in a car, driving away from the apartment; in the background you see Jamie and his ghost friends watching from an upstairs window. Then
In turn, each of the ghost friends hugs Jamie. At this point you realise that Jamie has returned from the dead to drive Nina away from her memories of him and into the arms of a new lover, to carry on with her life. And every one of Jamie’s ghost friends has, in the past, done exactly the same.
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Footage connecting Tiffany Case and Plenty O’Toole in Diamonds Are Forever was shot but left on the cutting room floor. I wondered about this discontinuity for years until I bought a book with the history of every James Bond movie ever shot (including the TV adaptation of Casino Royale) up to Pierce Brosnan assuming the role.
***Swordfish ***was a very confusing movie. I got that John Travolta had a double without too much difficulty, but I still don’t understand why Halle Berry was wearing a wire, unless it was just a clever way of showing her bare boobs. (And yes, they were delightful! :o )
A beautiful ending to a fascinating film. Love it.