I’ve seen The Godfather Part II several times and I never realized that Johnny Ola was played by Dominic Chianese, who would later play Junior Soprano.
In my defense, Chianese was 43 when he played Ola and 68 when he began playing Junior.
I remain convinced that this was meant to be a punchline in GalaxyQuest.
Holy shit. That never occurred to me! I think you might be right, but a little too subtle a joke.
Maybe I’m missing some nuance, but Tony Shaloub’s character was Fred Kwan, and he played Tech Sargent Chen.
I was thinking that auditioner Fred “Kwan’s Not Even My Real Name” Kwan could have seen the Chief Engineer get abbreviatedly referred to, over and over, as “ChEn” in the script, and promptly gone all-in on that to get the role back when — as a throwaway joke that the movie’s writers (a) maybe figured they could briskly relay, with a couple of crisp lines, but (b) eventually realized, when they got around to trying to write it, that it takes a bit too long to clunkily spell out, prompting them to leave it on the cutting-room floor.
Okay. I was thinking that you were thinking that the name was Cheng, and going from there. I misread the intent.
Sort of like how Jenette Goldstein misunderstood what the movie “Alien” was about, and showed up to the audition in Hispanic make-up?
Aliens.
“My Cousin Vinny” is set in a small Alabama town. In Judge Herman Munster’s office, there’s a portrait of Justice Hugo Black, who was from. . . Alabama.
In Cat’s Cradle, Vonnegut describes the religion of Bokononism founded by the prophet Bokonon… “Bokonon” is what a babalawo, father of secrets, is called in the Fon language.
In his version of “Chim Chim Cheree,” Allan Sherman brags that his car has “Autronic Eye / Which winks when a cute little Volvo goes by.” Guess the censors didn’t object…
This is a realization in the form of a question, one on which I have wavered back and forth over the years. It concerns a very old movie, Now, Voyager.
In the middle part of the picture, after Charlotte has had her therapy, become glamorous, gone on a sea voyage, fallen in love with a married man, and then come back home to find her mother in full tyrant mode, she finds the courage to stand up to her mother, helped by a camellia sent to her anonymously by that married man. There is a family gathering that evening, and once the mother (Gladys Cooper, playing one of her trademark vile characters) finds out that her daughter now has a backbone, she goes downstairs to the main floor by herself, supported by a cane. As she goes down the stairs, her cane falls down the steps, followed by her, as she tumbles over a couple of times and ends up with a torn ligament in her ankle.
Now the question: did Mother dearest fall down deliberately, or was it truly an accident (with Freudian overtones of unconscious intent)? It sure looks like she pushes the cane away on purpose, but a fall like that would be terrifying for an old woman, she could certainly have died or become a permanent invalid. I can’t make up my mind. I also couldn’t find a clip of that particular scene, so you may have to rely on your memory.
Bob Dylan likes to throw random rhymes and details into his lyrics — which is probably why I never connected the financial and emotional downfall of the song’s subject with the verse about her “diplomat.”
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discover that?
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal?
There’s no way to be sure that’s the major reason she now needs to pawn her diamond ring, but it’s the most substantial reason offered.
Maybe not the “millionth time”, but when I watched Starfleet Academy, I didn’t notice that the character Nus Braka was played by Paul Giamatti until like halfway through his second appearance in the show.
I’ve been seeing this new ad campaign which, inexplicably to me, features a talking goat that is green.
It was probably around the fifth commercial before I put two and two together and realized the coffee company was Green Mountain Coffee, which explained the color. And I then put four and four together and realized that mountain and goat fit together as well. So Green Mountain Coffee’s mascot is a green mountain goat.
Probably less here than I’m seeing but. . .
On the old TV series “Route 66,” when the title appears, it starts out small, and gets larger, somewhat like a car getting closer to you, as the series is about the adventures of two guys driving around from place to place. This is similar to the opening of “Hawaii Five-O,” where the title “rides in” on the wave, although that might have been inspired by the earlier movie “Blue Surfari,” which has a similar title sequence.
Anyway. . . the connection between the ‘zooming in’ titles. . . “Route 66” and “Hawaii Five-O” were both produced by Leonard Freeman.
I just watched the original Ghostbusters for the first time in years, and noticed a detail I hadn’t picked up on before.
When Dana comes home the first time, Louis tells her that her TV was on so loud that other tenants complained. The implication is obviously that something supernatural is going on.
When Dana enters her apartment, the Ghostbusters commercial is playing on the TV.
Does this mean the spirit world was either intentionally or accidentally signaling to Dana about the existence of the ghostbusters? Did the ghosts inadvertently choose the form of their own “destructor?”
In The Godfather, the scene involving Woltz and his horse head is even more far-fetched than it appears. Consider the sequence of events:
- Hagen and his men would have arrived in LA not knowing that Khartoum was Woltz’ weak spot. So they would have had to formulate their Khartoum-related plot ad hoc as soon as they realized this. Which creates further complications.
- Hagen’s men would have had to gain ingress into Khartoum’s stable. Easy enough, one supposes; pay off (or intimidate) the guards and you’re good to go.
- They’d have had to secure, in advance, a vial of whatever substance veterinarians use to put down horses. I imagine just shooting the poor beast would have alerted the neighbors, so that would have been out.
- They’d have had to go to a hardware store and purchased a big-ass saw to relieve the beast of his head. Using a chainsaw would have made too much noise and woken Woltz and everyone else. That must have taken a couple of hours. Hagen’s goombahs would have gotten blood and sinew all over their suits, so they’d have had to change at some point.
- They’d have had to get into the house (again, pay off or intimidate the guards, no big deal).
- Sneak into Woltz’ budoir carrying a big-ass horse’s head, without making a sound, then put it in his bed without waking him up. This is where the whole thing falls apart. Unless they somehow drugged Woltz, this would be the most difficult part. If Woltz sleeps like Mrs. Homie, a cockroach walking across the floor is going to wake him up (to say nothing of two goombahs carrying ~300 pounds of horse head). And if he sleeps like me, well, the cockroach may not do the job, but two men and a bunch of horse sure as hell are.
Maybe they also bought full-body hazmat suits like the guys in Very Bad Things.
(Also, what did they do with the rest of the horse?)
mortadella