The Screening Room

Q: Was there a real Skyfall house in Scotland?

3:30 AM

0

I was re-watching Skyfall, and saw that his parents' house was supposed to have been in Scotland. I was guessing right next to Hogwarts. So, the question is, is Skyfall house a real lodge/house in Scotland, or was it made up for the movie?

skyfall film-location

Q: skyfall: why did the plug the drive into the network?

4:26 AM

0

Any security person worth their salt would know that you don't plug a drive retrieved from a malicious source onto a network connected system. At least not connected to the uber secure network. Why did M plug the drive into a system attached to the secure network? Why didn't he take the extremely...

skyfall

Q: need help with a movies name

5:45 AM

0

I remember the ending of a 70s horror movie(made for TV I believe) where a brown/black hair boy was killed by his father, whom had thrown him into the ocean. The brown acted as if things that had happen were foggy memory but at the end tells the killer father that the little boy he looked like wa...

horror

Tomato Bot

7:01 AM

Rotten Tomatoes: Top Movies: 59% The Equalizer

posted on September 29, 2014

The Equalizer is more stylishly violent than meaningful, but with Antoine Fuqua behind the cameras and Denzel Washington dispensing justice, it delivers.

Rotten Tomatoes: Top Movies: 72% The Boxtrolls

posted on September 29, 2014

While it's far from Laika's best offering, The Boxtrolls is still packed with enough offbeat wit and visual splendor to offer a healthy dose of all-ages entertainment.

8:07 AM

@TomatoBot Hmm, sounds satisfying enough to me.

Q: Usage of "The Sound Of Silence" in The Graduate?

12:47 PM

1

In the movie The Graduate, the Simon & Garfunkel song "The Sound Of Silence" is used 4 or 5 times. There's even an instrumental version in one scene. I can't think of any other movie where one song is used so many times, unless it's a "theme song" like "Axel's Theme" in Beverly Hills Cop. Was ...

soundtrack the-graduate

2:40 PM

I had an idea for a question but I'm not sure if people will call it a list question or not

Basically I want to ask about the different ways of adapting written media to visual which has the character's thoughts are part of the narrative

MattD

@MovieReel This question is really starting to piss me off. If anything it's actually making me hate the movie a bit more because it's showing it was likely chalk full of bad dialog usage/meanings.

3:01 PM

@MrLore Hah, I always wanted to ask a question about the technique used in Dune and The Beguiled where you hear the character's momentary thoughts directly spoken from the off. Always seemed extremely unique to me. But I couldn't ever come up with a reasonable way to phrase it as a proper question. But this just sprang to my mind again recently.

@ChristianRau I was thinking something like "What are the methods of adapting a character's thoughts from a written to visual medium", then in the body I'd mention that obviously there's the basics like having a narrator, but there must be others

The only other one I could think of was in Dexter where he hallucinates seeing his dead father and thinks out loud by talking to him

@MrLore Well, the narrator-driven one has various different levels. There's your classic film noir style off-commentary (amazingly un-popularized by Harrison Ford ;-)). And then there's the much more imminent way that Dune uses it, which is one of the most unique ways of storytelling I'd ever seen, albeit being so intuitive and obvious. I always wondered why nobody has ever used that or if it was somehow considered "a cheap trick" circumventing the medium's own ways of storytelling.

Now imagine my suprise to see that exact technique used in some completely unknown Clint Eastwood movie from the 70s I happened to stumble across some night.

I really need to try Dune again, I saw it as a kid but I couldn't follow it at all

Though I gather that's a common complaint among adults too

Still it's probably one of Lynch's most accessible movies (which doesn't have to mean much, though). ;-)

I haven't seen Dexter. But there's also such kind of personal reasoning by employing some kind of dream. Like how Sherlock found out about the guy having a car breakdown in the countryside by the help of dream-Irene. Or how Bruce found out the (supposedly) true relation of Bane to the League of Shadows by imagining an old adversary.

Still I guess it could be a quite broad a question, considering what everything may count as "adapting a character's thoughts".

3:22 PM

Maybe I could add a criteria to it, like say "Only methods which you can name 3 examples of" to limit all the 'Arthouse film 227B has a talking chipmunk xD' posts

@MrLore Well, such a restriction would unfortunately only emphasize the list nature of the question (and would seem rather arbitrary in the first place).

True :(

What about if we go all altruist and I make it a community wiki question so we can make a single authoritative answer?

I dunno if people would realise the distinction though

Dexter is a particularly odious example as it employs both voice over *and* ghost Harry to elucidate Dexter's inner turmoil, usually in the most obvious, redundant way possible. Along the lines of:
[Debra runs away, upset by Dexter's words]
Dexter VO: I guess I upset Debra.
Ghost Harry, suddenly appearing: Debra seems upset.
(This got worse and worse as the show progressed.)

I sometimes (not always, though) associate VO with lazy writing in TV shows. Big 'show, don't tell' supporter.

Usually yeah, but arguably it can be worse when they leave it out entirely

like Harry Potter for example, the last few films make no sense unless you've read the books because you never know what Harry is thinking

Especially in the Half Blood prince where it gets mentioned 3 times in the whole film, but you never know that Harry suspects Malfoy the entire time

That's OK, not much going on in that mind :P

3:36 PM

Haha true

What do you think Walt, is the question too list-y?

I think it could be phrased in a non-list way

VO kinda worked in Veronica Mars, for example, because it was a homage to gumshoe plots

This is amazing, BTW:
https://vid.me/VFj

@MrLore Bleh, CW ;-(

On the other hand, there can also be a big atmosphere and immersion aspect to it, rather than just the (supposedly lazy) storytelling aspect. And this was the case for me with Dune (sorry for bringing it up again, but it has definitely impressed me in this regard).

Afterall film isn't just a visual medium either, but an audiovisual one.

@ChristianRau Meant VO's mainly lazy on TV. It could be definitely an integral part of a movie's narrative

@Walt Yeah, like in Blade Runner.

I'm afraid I only saw the VO Blade Runner

3:49 PM

@Walt I guess I saw that a long time ago (the voice over version, I mean, seen the movie often enough in general), but don't have so bad memory about it anyway. It's mainly fan-fuss I'm relying my judgment on here, I admit.

I don't think I saw it more than 1-2 times. Not sure why.

Trying to think of more VO examples on TV

The one in HIMYM is necessary, I guess, because the plot's so convoluted (and it frames the show)

But I always found it neat that Harrison Ford made the voice overs totally crappy on purpose, hoping for them to get removed that way.

The one on Desperate Housewives was awful because it tried to forcibly tie all the subplots together

@Walt And it's also often enough used to play with the whole unrelyable narrator concept (though, they also do this in the non-VO parts of the story).

The one on Pushing Daisies fitted the fairy tale theme, but was only good in small quantities

3:53 PM

Neither seen any of those. But the off-commentary in Arrested Development was great (though, that was a complete story-outsider).

@ChristianRau Yeah, they did that a lot

@Walt A recent one I watched is Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles which has Sarah narrate it like T2

@ChristianRau Agree. Stuffed even more jokes into an already loaded show

@MrLore I guess they felt the need to copy the film. But it usually feels like a cop out. The Sopranos did it well, using the therapy sessions instead of VO. It's a sign of confident writing when you don't need to fall back on tricks like VO

Chris, not sure why you were dissing the CW, but I wholeheartedly agree anyway ;)

Mr Lore, in any case, I don't think this sort of question necessarily leads to a list but rather to a comprehensive answer (and potentially to other ones picking up the slack), which isn't bad

4:11 PM

@Walt Sure, but it needs to be worded appropriately. That being said, even a list question doesn't need to be bad at all:

6

Q: Policy for list questions

There is nothing in our What topics can I ask about? that outlaws list questions. There is nothing in our What types of questions should I avoid asking? that outlaws list questions. In his post Real Questions Have Answers, stackexchange co-founder Jeff Attwood states: Constructive subjective ...

discussion faq policy

@ChristianRau Hell, I'm up for an interesting list question after all those recommendation requests

Q: Film about a man and his mother try to transport their gold, gold bars are hidden in bricks of a portable house

4:22 PM

-1

I saw this film when I was a boy (about 20 years ago) There is a scence in this film, the main character try to catch an 100 dollar bill flying because of wind, finally, he caught it but the bill was sticked with dog shit

identify-this-movie

Q: Is Gotham a post-apocalyptic city?

5:01 PM

0

In the TV show Gotham, I noticed how it's always dark and the sky is always filled with dark clouds. Is the story in a post apocalyptic world?

gotham

0

Q: What's the distinct color grading in David Fincher's movies?

In most movies, there is a post shoot processing, which gives the movies a distinct look. Often this color grading is based on certain pre-defined presets or let's say themes. Now, every time I see a David Fincher movie, I can almost tell, they have a distinct look. Something yellowish or may be...

film-techniques

MattD

5:28 PM

While I love that I get to flex my Batman knowledge in addition to performing some research to enhance it, I feel like the questions related to Gotham from a story stand point would warrant there being a sort of "moratorium" on certain questions for a new TV show. Both of my answers to Gotham questions have basically been, "Well we're only one episode in, but..."

Like, c'mon people, give it some time to flesh things out so more definitive answers can be given.

Q: How did Sherlock survive the fall?

6:21 PM

@MattD I know what you mean, that's why I absolutely hate this question and the unfixably upvoted wrong answers it got

33

In Sherlock, BBC Series, Season 2 Episode 3 - The Reichenbach Fall, how did Sherlock survive the fall? I've read some theories online regarding this, but in this interview, Steven Moffat says "There is a clue everybody's missed". He also says "Yes. We had to have Holmes dying in Watson's arms – a...

plot-explanation sherlock

7:26 PM

@MrLore Well, that one is likely never going to get a correct answer anyway, which is by design. But sure, they could've at least waited till season 3 as a resolution was likely (only that there wasn't one anyway ;-(). But well, even then the question would have been the same, only now being "what is the most likely from the possibilities presented". Though, at this point the ground for an opinion-based close would then have been given, now it just has to stay deliberately unanswered.

But maybe one user should step up and give the canonical and only true "there isn't an answer to this and this is by-design because..." answer (but some of the answers already seem to delve a bit into this direction).

Q: What movies are like Guardians of the Galaxy?

8:21 PM

0

Are there any movies or TV shows that are like Guardians of the Galaxy? If so what are they?

guardians-of-the-galaxy