Movie Meme

[01] — Look up TEN of your favorite movies on IMDB.
[02] — Click the "trivia" link in the sidebar.
[03] — Post a fun and random bit of trivia from each film.
[04] — Tag five people.

1: Gone With the Wind
Olivia de Havilland always meticulously researched her roles. As she had not yet had a baby in real life, she visited a maternity hospital to study how various women coped with the stresses of childbirth for the scene where Melanie has her baby. Off-camera, the scene's director, George Cukor, would occasionally pinch her toes to make her feel pain. [Since this is my most favorite movie ever, I'd always heard Cukor twisted de Havilland's ankle when he wanted her to have a contraction.]

2: Dirty Dancing

The lake practice scene was filmed at Lake Lure in the mountains of North Carolina in October. There are no close-ups because the actors were so cold that their lips were blue.

3: The Last of the Mohicans

One of the reasons Michael Mann decided to shoot the film in North Carolina instead of New York was that he felt the woods of North Carolina looked more like the old-growth forests of the Adirondacks, which still show evidence of logging during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many of the scenes were shot at Biltmore, George Vanderbilt's North Carolina estate; the forest in the estate was carefully planned and planted about 100 years ago.

4: The Royal Tenenbaums

Although the exteriors were largely shot in New York, Wes Anderson intentionally avoided virtually all shots of skyscrapers or other distinctive New York landmarks. In one scene, Royal and Pagoda are talking in Battery Park (on the southern tip of Manhattan) and Anderson intentionally had Kumar Pallana (Pagoda) stand directly in front of the Statue of Liberty so it wouldn't show up in the shot.

5: That Thing You Do!

Tom Hanks named the beach band (Capn' Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters) after two seafood restaurants near Beaufort, SC, where many scenes in Forrest Gump were filmed. Capt. Geech's was on Lady's Island, but is now closed. The Shrimp Shack is still open for business on St. Helena Island.

6: Forrest Gump

With every transition of Forrest's age, one thing remains the same- in the first scene of each transition he wears a blue plaid shirt.

7: The Godfather

The presence of oranges in all three "Godfather" movies indicates that a death or or an assassination attempt will soon happen. Tessio plays with an orange at the wedding. There is a bowl of oranges on Jack Woltz's table. Vito buys oranges right before he is shot. At the Commission meeting, bowls of oranges are placed in front of Don Tattaglia and Don Barzini. Vito dies after playing with a slice of orange in his mouth.

8: Steel Magnolias

Is shot in the small Louisiana town of Natchitoches. Reportedly, the filmmakers placed such a great strain on the locals, particularly those who volunteered to be extras, that several years later, when the film The Man in the Moon (1991) was shot in the same town, extras were difficult to find, as so many townspeople had been burned by the Steel Magnolias crew.

9: 9 to 5

In an interview with Isaac Mizrahi, Dolly Parton states that when she wrote the song, she used her long acrylic nails to create the beat to the theme song.

10: O Brother, Where Art Thou?

References to Homer's Odyssey:
- The names of George Clooney and Holly Hunter's characters (Ulysses and Penelope)
- one-eyed Big Dan as the Cyclops (blinded with a burning pole)
- the three girls by the river as the Sirens
- Ulysses' wife marrying someone else when he comes home
- the old-man disguise
- the changing of one of Ulysses' companions into an animal
- the Baptists as the Lotus-eaters
- the Ku Klux Klan has a rank of Grand (or Exalted) Cyclops
- they catch a ride on a hand-pumped railway that is being operated by a blind prophet, who tells them that they will not find the treasure they seek. The prophet character in the Odyssey was Teiresias, whom Odysseus consulted in the underworld when he needed information on how to get home again
- the movie theater scene as the trip through the Underworld
- Odysseus nearly drowned, but clings to a piece of wood
- Odysseus and Everett both reveal themselves by performing an act no one else could: Odysseus strings a special bow and fires it through seven rings; Everett sings "Man of Constant Sorrow" as only the leader of the Soggy Bottom Boys can "Pappy's" given name, Menelaus, is the same as the king who declared war on Troy in the first place
- the Latin equivalent of the Greek name Odysseus is Ulysses
- "Sing in me O Muse...”, the line at the beginning of the film, is the first line of the Odyssey -
the killing of the cattle of Helios by the "fools" in the Odyssey is mirrored by Baby Face Nelson shooting the cows
- every time Ulysses falls asleep something bad happens
- the song which plays throughout the movie is called "Man of Constant Sorrow", Odysseus means "man who is in constant pain and sorrow"
- Pappy's opposition for Governor's has the first name Homer
- when Ulysses first meets Big Dan in the restaurant there is a statue of Homer in the background
- There is a "Blind Bard" who pays the boys to "sing into his can". Homer was often (and probably erroneously) thought to be a blind bard who told his stories verbally to his students.