i love the way the artwork in hana bi mirrors the action.
especially at the end.
and in another film (possibly called fish eyes, i’m not sure) about a gunman in glasses kitano appears in cameo as a dumb yakuza who buys the gun. the opposite of his usual character.
It wasn’t intentional, unless they were willing to take the joke really far. Tim Burton and Paul Reubens discuss this scene and the bike chain scene in the commentary on the DVD. Burton says it was unintentional, but that the scene had been hailed by several critics as “showing the falsity of moviemaking” or somesuch remark. On the DVD the scenes have been edited so you can no longer see the flubs. A mistake in my book.
Disney movies are full of self-references. In ‘Tarzan’, when the apes are trashing the camp the dinnerware set is the same as Angela Lansbury’s Teapot in “Beauty and the Beast”.
In “Aladdin”, when the old sultan is making a tower of toy animals, mixed into the tower are various Disney characters.
In “Hercules”, the scene where Herc becomes famous shows a bunch of kids buying toys at the “Hercules Store”, which is a direct parody of Disney’s own tendency to market the crap out of everything. Nice to see they could laugh at themselves.
In “Star Wars”, when the Stormtrooper that Luke knocks out or kills to take his armor is called “THX 1138”, which was the name of Lucas’s first sf movie. Those letters appear in all kinds of Lucas films.
In ‘An American Werewolf in London’, the porn movie playing is called, “See you Next Wednesday”. John Landis works that title into most of his movies, if I recall correctly. I can’t remember why.
Then there are the wacky cameos… John Landis appears as a crazed Iranian in “After Dark”. Steven Spielberg is the Cooke County Claims Adjuster at the end of “The Blues Brothers”. And in the final jailhouse scene, the crazed convict dancing on the table is Joe Walsh.
I think that was Frank Oz, not Spielberg, as the claims adjustor in Blues Brothers.
One of my favorites is in the climax of Big Trouble in Little China, when Kurt Russel kisses Kim Catrell and gets her lipstick all over his mouth. It’s there for the rest of the scene, including his dramatic show down with Lo Fong (“You’re messing with Jack Burton now!” “Who?”)
I also loved the scenes in zero g in Final Fantasy. Just can’t do that sort of FX properly in a live action film.
Nope, it was Spielberg. Frank Oz is the officer at Joliet who gives Belushi back his personal belongings at the beginning of the movie.
The scene with the bikechain (similar situation with the other scene, I believe), when originally shown in theaters, did not show the bikechain coming from below the basket, so the DVD actually didn’t edit out the flubs, but restored that scene to what Tim Burton intended, and what was seen in theaters.
The way it worked was that when widescreen movies became popular, some theater owners, in an attempt to cash in on it, used “masking”. So if a movie wasn’t widescreen, they’d mask the top and bottom to change the aspect ratio to make it seem widescreen. Filmmakers generally hated this because it altered their original vision. However, some filmmakers used this, so they could shoot on cheaper film (with a different ratio from widescreen), but still show it in widescreen. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure was one such film.
However, in Europe and on television, they use a different aspect ratio. The critics Burton was talking about in the commentary were in Europe (France, I believe). Burton had no idea the masking wouldn’t work in Europe until he actually saw it at a screening, there.
The same thing happened with the subsequent TV showings and video releases of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Because they were shown in the format it was originally shot in (the same ratio as TV), they didn’t bother pan-and-scanning the widescreen (because they didn’t have to). So because it wasn’t masked, you got to see the whole picture, and the bike-chain thing was revealed.
However, because many people have seen it this way for years, they think that’s the way Burton originally had it in the theaters.
Glen Keane, head animator for Tarzan, was also head animator for The Beast. So the the reference in Tarzan is a much stronger connection than simply a random Disney presence.
In the movie A Time to Kill, when the racists rape the little girl, the camera angle is looking up at their faces, as they would appear to her, which is really disturbing.
In Anastasia, despite numerous inaccuracies, there are some little touches that stand out, such as:
-The picture she draws for her grandmother is an actual picture that the real Anastasia painted for her father.
-The figure of Alexandra dancing with Nicholas in the music box, and when Alexandra’s ghost comes out of the painting, she is wearing mauve. Mauve was the real Alexandra’s favorite color.
-The “Dream Waltz” scene-all of Anastasia’s sisters look like the actual Grand Duchesses. Alexei’s ghost limps-something the real Alexei did, as he suffered from hemophilia.
There’s a scene in the otherwise-mediocre Pacific Heights where one of the characters walks out the door of a hotel in the left side of the shot, then the camera changes focus to something in the foreground - a glass with only ice cubes, which right then shift and clink. It has nothing to do with the story as far as I can see but it’s nifty to look at.
In Pulp Fiction, in the scene where Vincent and Jules are carrying out their hit: while Jules is interrogating Brett, Vincent hangs back and smokes a cigarette - he knows that Jules likes to toy with his victims and that it’ll be a few minutes before the shooting starts. Then, when Jules launches into his Ezekiel bit, Vincent (in the background) stubs out his cigarette and gets his gun ready - he knows that Jules’ routine is almost finished.
I’ve always liked the “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” bit in Planet of the Apes.
The Shakespeare references (six, I think) in L.A. Story.
When I finally saw 2001: A Space Odyssey on a big screen I noticed something that never came across on television. During the entire Dawn of Man sequence, there is absolutely no camera movement until Moonwatcher throws the bone into the air and the camera follows it. I’m sure it was deliberate, any motion of the frame would have implied something smooth and mechanical. When they show this on TV, the pan-and-scan really breaks the mood.
In one of the senate scenes from Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace, (dang, that movie has a lot of title), one of the senate cubicles or pods is filled with ET characters.
In the same movie, when Liam Neeson’s character is collecting his winnings from Sebulba, the floating probe sent by Darth Maul passes out of focus in the background, barely visible, thus locating it’s prey.
In Predator 2, when Danny Glover’s character is inside the creature’s ship, one of the hunting trophies on the wall is a skull from one of the creatures in Aliens.
All three of the Naked Gun movies have a lot of nice touches. In 2 and 1/2, there’s bar scene near the start that’s meant to parody various classic film noire scenes. The pictures on the wall show the Titanic sinking, the Hindenburg disaster, and a Nazi rally. In 33 and 1/3, the police station has the uniforms of famous police officers in frames on the wall. Of course, the frame that’s labeled “J Edgar Hoover” has a dress instead.
The “See you next Wednesday” reference is a sort of tribute to Stanley Kubrick that Landis does in all his movies. This line was originally in 2001: A Space Odyssey–Heywood Floyd I believe says this to his daughter when they are talking on the video phone near the beginning of the movie.
A couple other “See you next Wednesday” references:
The Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure scene where Pee-Wee dresses as a woman to help the desperate con he is traveling evade the police and there is this beautiful shot of Pee-Wee (who makes a pretty good looking woman BTW) with the sun streaming across the windshield and the con gives the briefest wolfish, admiring glance over to Pee-Wee checking him out in his finery.
Silent rob has it very close. Up until 1954, all movies were filmed in 1.33 to 1, which is the same ratio as television. To differentiate themselves from TV, moviemakers developed a variety of widescreen techniques, which eventually boiled down to two versions used today. One uses an anamorphic lens to squeeze a widescreen (2.35 to 1) image onto 35mm film stock, and requires an equivilent lens to expand the image when projected. This was expensive, requiring special cameras and projectors, so an alternate method was developed.
Regular cameras were used and a 1.33 to 1 ratio was shot, but the top and bottom portions were never intended to be seen by the audience. The masking method was actually developed by moviemakers, who filmed their movies with this in mind, i.e., filming material at the bottom and top of the frame that is supposed to be masked out when projected. In the US, the usual aspect ratio for this type of widescreen is 1.85 to 1, in Europe the ratio is 1.66 to 1.
Problems can occur when a movie shot for 1.85 projection is shown in a European theater which masks the film to 1.66 to 1, thus showing more of the film at the top and bottom than was intended by the filmmaker. Usually, this tends to reveal things at the top of the frame such as boom mikes, lights, or cranes, which were expected to be masked out. When you see a boom mike at the top of the frame in a theater, it’s because the projectionist hasn’t framed the film properly.
When 1.85 or 1.66 movies are transferred to video or DVD, there are two methods of creating a “full-frame” transfer. The most common method is pan-n-scan, in which the video pans back and forth across the approved middle portion of the film, thus disregarding the extra information at the top and bottom. But sometimes a video transfer is made by transferring the entire frame, including parts at the top and bottom of the frame that were masked out in theaters. This is not pan-n-scan, as the video shows everything that was shown in the theater, with more at the top and bottom. Stanley Kubrick framed most of his later films so that a full frame transfer could made using the whole film frame. If you have seen, for example, “Full Metal Jacket” in 1.33 to 1, this is not a pan-n-scan, it is Kubrick’s preferred video presentation. Some filmmakers intentionally frame their movies to make such video transfers.
In the case of “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure”, when shown in Europe, the 1.66 masking revealed slightly more at the top and bottom than intended, thus showing parts of the chain scene that were meant to be hidden. Improper framing in the US sometimes revealed this also. Burton did not supervise initial video transfers of the film, and again, improper framing revealed more than he intended for the audience to see.
A bit of trivia: Robocop was filmed for an aspect ratio of 1.66 to 1, but most American theaters at the time could only mask films for 1.85 to 1, so most people saw it at the wrong aspect ratio in the theaters. This then caused problems when the Criterion edition restored the correct 1.66 ratio for their DVD edition, leading people to complain about the picture being altered.
Another bit of trivia: Many golden age Disney movies were 2.35 to 1. Most modern Disney movies are 1.66 to 1, to make the transfer to video more convenient. Which is to say, Disney has changed to an inferior format for the theater because they make a lot more money from video.
Actually, that Trooper is TK-421. What you’re thinking of is when Han and Luke present Chewie to the Prison Level Officer, and tell him it’s a “prisoner transfer from Cell Block 1138”
And the cell that Leia is kept in is 2187, which hardly anyone knows is the title of an experimental student film (read ‘pretentious claptrap’) that George Lucas made when he was a teen.
IIRC, there was also an Out, Out Damned Spot Cleaners and a Globe movie theater.
I agree with bean_shadow that Kubrick’s films have a lot of neat touches. Late in Eyes Wide Shut, after Tom Cruise’s character has witnessed some events at a mansion (I’ll say no more in case anyone who wants to has yet to see the movie) and is being followed. He picks up a newspaper with the headline “Lucky to be alive.” This sparked a debate between a friend and me about whether Cruise’s character was ever actually in any danger.
[Nerd] Actually, the trooper was TK-421. I think what you’re referring to is the serial number on the plane in which Indy escapes in…Raiders? Or maybe it was the Temple of Doom. I’m not sure. But anyways, just a minor nitpick. [/Nerd]