How did Blackadder become the king?

I don't think it has ever been established definitively, but here's a theory plausible enough for the TV show. It doesn't require major new historical alterations-- only Edmund's avarice and determination.

In the first episode of the show, Richard III is succeeded by the (fictitious) King Richard IV, father of Edmund, the first Black Adder. What this means for the (real) King Henry VII is unclear. However, since Elizabeth I eventually becomes Queen, it's clear that it wasn't long before the House of Tudor took the throne from the House of York. Later houses-- Stuart, Hanover, etc, probably followed as in the real world.

So how does this relate to the later (fictitious) King Edmund III, the most recent Black Adder?

The Edmund of Blackadder Goes Forth is, as far as we know, a direct descendant of the Edmund seen in the first episode. He (or a later 20th century Edmund) may know this, or he may have discovered it by researching his own ancestry. He could make a plausible claim to be the only surviving heir of the House of York. Making an argument that this gave him a rightful claim to the throne, superior to that of the present House of Windsor, is quite a stretch-- in the real world. Probably impossible, really. But it's exactly the kind of thing any of the historical Edmunds would love to take up. He'd probably argue that the entire House of Windsor were merely pretenders to the throne and therefore not rightful monarchs. We pretty much have to assume he succeeded, based on Blackadder Back and Forth.

This could conceivably take place at any point between the two Blackadder series. I'd guess the most likely time for it to happen would be the end of 1936 or early 1937, right after the abdication of Edward VIII. This led to a crisis over succession and over the state of the monarchy in general-- exactly the sort of confusion where Edmund would make a move. He'd probably start by claiming that Edward VIII had discredited his entire royal house, and work his way up from there.

Why Edmund the third? There was an Edmund II, a thousand or so years ago.

As for Prime Minister Baldrick, the Edmunds always keep the Baldricks around. Getting a Baldrick elected PM would be a natural next move for Edmund III. And anyone devious enough to argue his way to the monarchy would certainly be devious enough to manipulate parliament to serve his ends.

casting - Why don't they align actor & actress names with their photos in film posters?

Its based on graphic design decisions:

TEXT- We, as occidental people (mainly) read from left to right, so the main actors name is almost always in that order, or top to bottom.

PHOTO- Visual hierarchy defines that the protagonist face (or an important element of the movie) is going to be the biggest, or at the center of the poster.

If the composition is more interesting than "centered" or "left to right", this "rules of thumb" could be changed, showing more of the story or the mood of the film.

Examples:

Why does Agatha buy the book titled The Number 23 for her husband?

She merely bought the book for him as she felt he would be very interested in it, having just skimmed through it herself. She did not (nor did Walter, at this point) know anything about his past or that he actually wrote the book.

It is essentially a plot device coincidence.

game of thrones - Who was Tyrion Lannister's champion in Ep. 6?

The champion was Bronn, he was in the tavern when Catelyn abducted him on behalf of all the bannerman and he was a mercenary in those troops.

On the ride to the Eyrie, they have a slight bonding moment and Bronn decides that allying himself with Tyrion would be more profitable due to him being a Lannister, and, I belive in secret, respect Tryion's attitude towards life.

With a million years with them, how did they ever managed to almost die?

There are probably two main things to consider:

1) Will's whole goal is to distribute as much time to as many people as possible. If he were to keep too much for himself, there could be someone, somewhere, who wouldn't have enough. Remember his line, 'no one should be immortal if even one person has to die.' Will had gotten used to living on just enough time, so he wasn't worried about it, and the movie constantly shows him giving time away (a trait he likely inherited from his mother ... she gave him some time in the morning even though she didn't have it to spare).

2) Will and Sylvia get a rush out of having very little time -- almost as if that's their way of knowing they're still alive.

What purpose did Quaid serve Cohagen as an Average Joe on the assembly line?

I can't say anything for the 1990 version, but I don't think step 2 was included in the 2012 version. I could be wrong, but my understanding was that Quaid worked for the rebels knowing he was a double agent. The video recording that was activated by playing the piano had Quaid stating that he was Cohagen's agent with the mission of getting close to and killing the rebel leader. He said that this mission changed when he met Melina, and she showed him the "truth" about the rebels. So, we are lead to believe that Cohagen realized Quaid had turned, so he gave Quaid the false information about the kill code as an unknown source of disinformation. Then, to make the disinformation seem real, Cohagen captured, brainwashed, and hid Quaid from the rebels. By doing this and having the "wife" complicate things, he made it seem that the info Quaid found out was very important. Once the rebels got the "average Joe" Quaid to the rebel leader, they tried to access the information about the kill code in his brain. But, this just allowed Cohagen to trace the location of the rebels, since the code doesn't exist. In the 2012 version, it seems that Cohagen played Quaid from day one.

So, for the 2012 version, the purpose Quaid served as a factory worker was to be a "trojan horse" and unknowing double agent after he was brainwashed. This allowed Cohagen to pinpoint the rebel leader's location and kill him.

What is the significance of a man sitting on the train engine in the last scene of "Live and Let Die"?

In "Live and Let Die", after Bond throws Tee Hee Johnson from the train window at the very end of the movie, and returns to Solitair, we see an image of smiling Baron Samedi sitting on the train engine:

... despite the fact that in an earlier scene, Bond killed Samedi by kicking him into a coffin full of snakes.

Wikipedia has this to say on the topic:

Later on, Bond witnesses Baron Samedi rising from a grave, and shoots him in the forehead; however, it is revealed to be nothing more than an animatronic dummy. Only minutes later, however, the real Samedi rises from the grave and engages Bond in a machete fight. Bond kills him again by pushing him into a coffin full of snakes. But just before the end credits roll, Samedi is seen riding on the front of Bond and Solitaire's speeding train (laughing), suggesting that he either survived falling into the coffin of snakes or that he was not mortal to begin with - that he really is "the man who cannot die". Because of this, he is probably the only James Bond 007 character to take on a supernatural basis rather than reality itself.

Question:

Was there ever any clarification on the point of this shot from someone involved with the movie (as opposed to pure guessing in Wikipedia)? Was Samedi merely not killed by snakes, or were the creators intentionally showing him to be immortal/supernatural?

What happened to the pursuers when the lightning hit?

In a fascinating article for Slate, Forrest Wickman explains that this film (like others of Anderson's before this, notably Rushmore and Bottle Rocket) was influenced by Anderson's love of Peanuts and the work of Peanuts director Bill Melendez. (The dog in the film is even named Snoopy.) You are in a fantasy world from the beginning, but perhaps you just don't realize it until the lightning scene. Of Moonrise Kingdom, Wickman says:

Some of its sequences are remarkably cartoonish. When one character is
struck by lightning, he looks more like he was hit by Acme dynamite:
His face is blackened with soot, and he seems otherwise unharmed. And
the scouts aren’t Boy Scouts, they’re Khaki Scouts, a fictional
takeoff that’s reminiscent of Snoopy’s Beagle Scouts. Anderson has
spoken often of his fondness for “self-contained worlds,” a penchant
he says comes from Peanuts—and while all of Anderson’s worlds feel
self-contained, that’s never more true than here, in which all the
action literally takes place on a (fictional) island. The magic of
self-contained worlds is also one of the central themes of the film:
At the end of the movie we learn that Moonrise Kingdom takes its name
from Sam and Suzy’s own secret place, a cove where they try to make a
life of their own away from troubles back home.

It’s there that Moonrise’s hero bonds with his own Little Red-Haired
Girl: Suzy. Suzy’s outfit, complete with pink dress, white collar,
and, in some scenes, a pink cape, is almost identical to that of the
Little Red-Haired Girl. Sam’s outfit may not mimic Charlie Brown’s as
neatly, but he does wear a lot of yellow—and, as The Star-Ledger’s
Stephen Whitty pointed out, at one point he even says, “Rats!”

Wickman draws from the work of film critic Matt Zoller Seitz, who has studied Anderson's work and has created a video commentary called "The Substance of Style - Part 1" about Anderson's work.

Why did they change the relationship between Hellboy and Liz Sherman?

With the Hellboy comics, the writers have the advantage of having (as of now) 10 years to be able to write a compelling story with believable characters; with the Movie, the writers are limited to two hours, they have to make you believe that these people are real people with emotions and feelings similar to ours. And it is easier for most people to understand a romantic relationship existing between male and female characters.

Which is another advantage with comic book writers, they know exactly what there audience is, and are able to tailor their story to their audience; whereas movie writers (generally) try to make their movies to be accessible to all people.

molecular biology - How are there alternative initiation codons?

Actually, the start codon, no matter whether it is AUG or GUG/UGG, always encodes for Met. So the translation is initiated by tRNA^fMet (prokaryotic translation). The 30s ribosome subunit binds to the Shine-Dalgarno sequence and then it scans the dowstream mRNA sequence for AUG and the tRNA loaded with Met, which has the CAU anticodon form the most stable interaction. But apparently, only two-bases-interaction between the start codon (GUG, UUG) and the fMet-tRNA anticodon are sufficient for the initiation of translation (1). I will look more into the literature.

1. Initiation of translation in prokaryotes and eukaryotes

identify this tv show - Man who kisses the daughters of the boss of the branch office he's sent to close

I'm looking for a British TV show set in the 1930s maybe (?), only has a few episodes.

The man kisses all three of the manager's daughters in various charming British misunderstandings, once sitting on a ruined wall in the gardens of a mansion. In another scene, he paints a daughter in the nude.

The first episode ends with him and one of the daughter's dancing the Charleston on an old steam train which the manager likes to drive around on.

I saw the first episode of this years ago, it was really funny, I'd like to watch the whole thing but I don't know the name.

origin - Does Kanima's mythology match any historical stories/works or is it only written for Teen Wolf?

According to this interview with Teen Wolf creator Jeff Davis, the Kanima is, at least loosely, based on South American mythology. He says the original Kanima was a "were-jaguar" (that is, half-man, half-jaguar; named in analogy with "werewolf"). The Wikipedia article on the were-jaguar suggests that it may have been inspired by a venomous toad thought to resemble a jaguar. However, the Teen Wolf version is more like a reptile. Davis says

I ... saw CONAN THE BARBARIAN. And one indelible image that was left in my mind was the scene where James Earl Jones starts to transform into a gigantic snake. That look stuck with me and that’s what we went for

So the name may come from South American mythology, but the appearance has a more modern origin.

Why are rainy scenes in Thelma & Louise sunny?

I wasn't able to find much, but what I could find leads me to believe that it was just Mother Nature's unwillingness to cooperate. It happens sometimes, as I'm sure you've seen in other films. It's possible it could have some deeper meaning, but I didn't see any production notes anywhere alluding to it. The two primary shooting locations are listed as Bakersfield, CA and Moab, UT, so it's likely it was just unlucky weather.

Identify this Punjabi film about 1984's Anti-Sikh riots?

I remember a Punjabi (Indian) movie about 1984's anti-Sikh riots. The hero helps terrorists to stay in their house for a night (Because the terrorists are having weapons and he doesn't have any other option). Even one of the terrorists is a known person to him (maybe his old classmate from collage/school). I think the actress playing his wife is Juhi Chawala but googling didn't help me.

The whole plot revolves around trouble causing to hero's family due to the terrorists stay in their house. He and his family faces abuse from police and maybe from society too. And they help the hero to go underground or help him to go abroad. In the end, He comes back for his wife to meet her but he dies in police firing in front of her.

So, does anybody know which film this is?

harry potter - Why were there so many spells cast in the movies without saying the words to the spell?

I assume that the filmmakers wrote the dialogue that way for dramatic effect. My impression was that they had the characters say the words almost all the time, but that in most fight scenes they skipped out on most of the incantations in order to focus more audience attention on the action. For example, in the book version of the final fight between Harry and Voldemort, Voldemort uses the Killing Curse while Harry casts a Disarming Charm. In the movie, the first detail can be presumed while the second one makes no sense in context (in the book, Harry gave Voldemort a last shot at redemption, and it was thought of as his signature dueling spell), so the scriptwriters dropped it.

The movies, as far as I can remember, completely passed over the idea of casting spells without saying the words.

EDIT: Yes, this was done in the fifth or sixth book and afterwards. But they never covered that in the movies, so for a movie-only audience the ability doesn't exist. There were also combats where Harry would say one or two spells and not the rest. This really stood out for me in the fight scene at the end of movie 5.

reference - What is Kevin from?

From the Visual Companion to The Cabin in the Woods:

Some stuff had to get cut from the monster rampage sequence at the end. The Angry Molesting Tree, which you can glimpse in the elevator in one scene, got much more molest-y in another shot, which might wind up as a DVD extra. Also, one of Goddard's favorite monsters was Kevin, a sweet-looking guy who seemed like he might work at Best Buy — until he dismembers people.

What is Belgravia in 'a Scandal in Belgravia'?

It is a very exclusive part of London, part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is named after Belgrave Square, which today includes many international embassies to the UK.

It was used as an alternative UK based location for the original Arthur Conan Doyle story which was A Scandal in Bohemia. Belgravia was probably chosen because of the alteration with Bohemia and the reputation of the area as being a location of rich and powerful people, who Irene Adler (as a professional and very expensive dominatrix) might find clients.

Why did Borden lead Angier to Tesla?

1) Why Borden led Angier to Tesla?

Borden tried to mislead Angier by giving his diary, which Olivia acted as she had stolen from Borden, on request of Borden, to make fun out of him proving he (Angier) was no match with Borden. Borden also succeeded Angier to make him leave the town for a long time. Considering Angier was the only tough competitor in magic, it bought Borden some time to expand his business in an empty field! The diary which Borden had given was encrypted and Borden knew, misled by the story of stealing, Angier would take a serious step in order to get the key from Borden to decrypt the diary. Angier had been to Tesla's show of Telas's discovery in a science fair. But considering the risk attached with the show, no spectator stayed there to see it including Angier. I believe Borden encrypted the diary with a key "TESLA" for no specific reason (casually) and also the word might be catchy for Angier as Angier knew Tesla had discovered something really special (and he did not know what it was!). So Borden might have thought when Angier would see the word Tesla, he would surely think this is the discovery Tesla had made and Borden was using it. Borden's diary read as:
And yes, Tesla is merely key to my diary, not to my trick. You really think I would part with my tricks so easily after so much.

2) Didn't he know that it would make him more successful?

Borden did not have any idea that Angier would take the name so seriously. Angier thought Tesla knew the way of Transported Man, made Borden one and Borden is using this machine for his show. So he went to Tesla and requested him to make a similar machine he had made for Borden and surprisingly, Tesla could make such a machine for Angier! Borden had no idea what Tesla was capable of. If he knew, he did not take the risk to push Borden to such a famous scientist and would have made the key different.

3) And did the other half not know about the plan, which is why he went to inspect Angier's machine and end up being accused for murder?

Borden (both the brothers) did not have any clue what Angier had come up with from Tesla. That is why one brother went to check the trick. Like I said if he had knew, he would not have pushed him towards Tesla.

4) If it really had been Borden's plan all along, then surely he could've told his twin the complete truth?

Angiers coming with new machine was not Borden's plan at all and that can be concluded from the aforementioned facts.

Movie where two couples are stuck inside because of an airborne disease?

I remember seeing a trailer for a movie where one couple visits another and the two are stuck together in the house because of an airborne disease outside. Other people come along and knock on the door seeking shelter, but are told they can't come in because they might be carrying the contagion and because they hadn't shown up on time anyway (for whatever get together the couple was hosting).

I had thought that Carnage was the movie, but it turns out not to be.

What does Sherlock say just before opening Irene Adler's safe?

Just before he opens the safe, Sherlock looks at Irene (probably because he suspects there might be some kind of booby trap). She looks sharply down and to the right. It's obvious given what happens next that this look is code for "Duck!"

So he knows to duck, and she knows to duck, but someone has to warn John somehow. You can see from John's reaction and expression immediately after Sherlock yells, "Vatican cameos!" that he's reacting specifically to that phrase, not because he had any previous intent to duck.

Googling reveals that there seems to be some sort of myth going round that this is a phrase used by military personnel to indicate that there was an armed (non-military) person who had entered the base. I say myth because, despite it being repeated an awful lot on Tumblr, Yahoo! Answers and Urban Dictionary, I've yet to find a single corroborating source for it. It's also nicely debunked here.

The single place we do know of the phrase being used (prior to Sherlock) is in the original Sherlock Holmes stories.

“I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases.
—Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles

So, it's a nice little nod to the original stories, as we know the writers of Sherlock are keen on doing.

But what does it mean in-universe?

This is definitely a codeword very precisely targetted at John. Most likely, it's a reference to a case that Sherlock and John worked on together. The fact that it isn't explained in any more detail than "saying 'Vatican cameos' makes John duck" isn't particularly unusual for the series.

For example:

• Sherlock attacking a corpse with a riding crop in the very first episode.


• Sherlock harpooning a pig and arriving home (via the Tube!) drenched in blood at the start of The Hounds of Baskerville.

And even an example of a past case being a codeword:

• In the unaired pilot, Sherlock says, "Angelo, headless nun" to refer to a past case. Angelo simply asks, "Same again?" and when Sherlock confirms, Angelo throws him out of the restaurant as if he were drunk.

Finally, this is brought up again in The Sign of Three, with slightly more explanation as to its meaning (if not its origin).

Sherlock: Vatican Cameos.
Mary: What did he say? What's that mean?
John: Battle stations. Someone's gonna die.

It's not clear whether it literally means "battle stations" or whether that's John's translation for this context (much as his translation for the previous context was "the safe is trapped, get down"). However, it's slightly more information than in Scandal.

Was it the character's inner devil that came up in Devil?

It is a simple as the Old Woman is the devil.

As far as who killed who:

In a last, desperate plea for forgiveness, Tony, using a radio, confesses to a hit and run five years earlier: while drunkenly reaching for beer in his car, he smashed into another car and killed a woman (unknown to Tony that the woman was Jesse Bowden, Detective Bowden's wife) and her child.

Tony killed the Detective's wife and child.

directors - Why does Christopher Nolan end the Dark Knight Trilogy this way?

First of all it is an allusion to Alfred's previous story: When Bruce was away for many years during the events of Batman Begins (when he was an outlaw and later trained by the League of Shadows), Alfred was every years on vacation in that restaurant and hoped for seeing Bruce sitting there happily. He just hoped that he would finally have found a way to escape all the sorrow that Gotham meant for him.

As we learn in one of the ending scenes the autopilot has been secretely repaired by Bruce a long time ago, which already suggests that there was something going on with the Bat. So Bruce really got out of it alive. And this is in line with the movie's earlier motive of Bruce rediscovering his will to live (think of the pit scene as a good example). After all his sorrows and secretely hoping to die for the sake of Gotham he finally managed to find back to himself and dicovered that there could be a Bruce Wayne without a Batman. He managed the "symbol" to bring the ultimate sacrifice for Gotham and remain in the minds of the people forever, while still not sacrificing the "person" and found a way to finally seperate Batman from Bruce Wayne.

And this leaving behind of Gotham and all its sorrows is what Alfred always hoped for Bruce and in this last scene he (and the audience) finally found it. So what Christopher Nolan gave there was not only a happy ending for Alfred (and the audience) but the culmination of Bruce's struggle to get out of the pit he was in since the death of his parents (and to show that final conclusion for the main character is a strength only a completed trilogy can play out). Afterall, this path of Bruce to leave behind his sorrows and to finally cope with all the emotional trauma without just supressing it into the Batman was a major point of the the whole trilogy.

---

There might be a few people that are going to tell you that the ending scene was just a dream by Alfred and he just wished for Bruce to not have died, I for myself am pretty sure that Alfred indeed saw Bruce there at the end in reality, because of the above mentioned reasons. Still one could just see this whole 3-movie-struggle for peace of mind as unsuccessful and fruitless with Bruce's death as the only viable solution, but I refuse to do so for the reason that The Dark Knight Rises's whole motive of rediscovering his will to live suggests otherwise.

space time - nasaworking on a way to travel faster than speed of light

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Why doesn't Carl use the pill to either replace or take out Eddie?

Carl has a supply of the drug, so why does he need Eddie to run for president, instead of putting his own candidate (on pills) in the running? Alternatively, why doesn't he either use the pills himself or give them to one of his minions so that he can take out Eddie like he threatened.

positional astronomy - Get date and time by position of the sun and the observer position

Ok guys, I've found the solution. Sadly, if you really want to know the really exact datetime, there is no exact and universal formula.

I found several formulas:

http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/25336/reverse-sun-position-algorithm

http://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/properties-of-sunlight/declination-angle

http://www.itacanet.org/the-sun-as-a-source-of-energy/part-3-calculating-solar-angles/

There are several problem with these formulas.

What I'd like to know?

As I mentioned in my original post, I have a datetime, and a geolocation, and with that Swiss ephemeris program, I can "query" the angle of the sun.

From this point, I substract 88 degree with this angle, and I want to know the exact date time by the angle and the geolocation.

The problems

The first problem is the declination. There are several problems with this. The declination is not the same at every day in a year as you know. Ok, let's say, I want to figure it out. I can not. Since, I want to know the exact date first, I do not know, the ordinal date. Sigh, at this point the whole formula has a missing value. But, let's assume, I know. Even, if I know the ordinal date, the formula is not right, because the declination is not the same at 2015-01-01 and 2016-01-01. Let's see:

swetest.exe -edirD:/Apache/htdocs/astro/vendors/swiss/ -b01.01.2010 -geopos19.2,47.29,0 -topo  -p0 -eswe -fPlTd -g, -head -n5 -s365.4
Sun            , 280.4507684,01.01.2010,-23.0283899
Sun            , 280.6104798,01.01.2011 9:36:00 ET,-23.0160751
Sun            , 280.7713793,01.01.2012 19:12:00 ET,-23.0008866
Sun            , 280.9345061,01.01.2013 4:48:00 ET,-22.9876598
Sun            , 281.0890407,01.01.2014 14:24:00 ET,-22.9741190

-22...., -23... is the declination. Declination is the same in a day.

So these formulas can gives you approximate results, but not the exact, even if you know the ordinal date. And I think, the formula is does not calculate with the leap years.

The solution

In my case, the solution was to track back 95 days, and get 20 recors for every day from that time. 95 because the sun is moving 1 degree about 1 day and 2-3 hours. The sun has different speed at different dates, 95days seems enought for me for 88 degree.

With my program, I am checking, where the integer values are equals. For example, if I need to get 69.217465 degree I am just checking, where the sun was in 69.xxxxx position.

When I have this date, I am track back 3 days, and list the values by hours, 72 hours. I get the proximate date and time. And after this, I track back 3 hours, and listing the results by seconds.

This will be the exact (most proximate) date and time.

From a Yahoo group, a guy told me, this is an interpolation. This is how you can get the exact date time for a given angle, I do not know more precise method. If you know, please write me.

classical mechanics - Is it possible to break bulletproof glass with your voice?

This must be impossible, even for lady Castafiore with her earthquake voice. For a glass to break by sheer sound you need to produce a tone equal to the glass's natural frequency - the frequency at which a body vibrates with the least amount of energy. In other words: there you get the most vibration with a minimum of effort. This is also called resonance.

However, it is much harder to create resonance in mixed materials because each component has a different fundamental frequency. So two layers of different types of glass will effectively prevent resonance.

Of course, apart from that the mere thickness of the material will be a problem for our Nightingale.

identify this movie - Female protagonist in a futuristic army vs. rebels film

This sounds a lot like Tank Girl.

First part of the plot on wikipedia says:

Set in a dystopian 2033, a comet has hit the Earth, and altered the
climate turning it into a dry and arid wasteland. There has been no
rain for over 11 years - water is extremely scarce, and what little is
available is controlled by the Water & Power company, led by Kesslee
(Malcolm McDowell). Water & Power are opposed by the almost mythical
"Rippers", a mysterious group that no one can find. Rebecca - Tank
Girl - (Lori Petty), is a member of a small community that has set up
their own water well in the basement of a house. Learning of this,
Water & Power attacks, killing most in the house and capturing Rebecca
and a young girl named Sam. Imprisoned, Rebecca is repeatedly
brutalized by Kesslee, who wishes to break her spirit, brainwashing
her into working for him. Between intellectual jousts with Kesslee,
Rebecca befriends Jet Girl (Naomi Watts) - an otherwise un-named
mechanic who works on Water & Power's vehicles.

During the movie there are some animated scenes, some of them quite weird. If I recall correctly one of them matches the missile thing.

lost girl - How come Lauren isn't harmed during her relationship with Bo?

By the time Bo and Lauren actually hook up in the series, Bo has developed a significant amount of control over her powers. She still doesn't have complete control or know all of what she can do, but she can control how much she feeds and when. If I recall correctly, Bo rarely, if ever, actually feeds on Lauren. If she did feed on her, she had enough control over herself to prevent any harm coming to Lauren.

Also, it's implied in the series that as long as she doesn't take all of a person's essence, they heal over time.

Trying to find a movie with fantasy religion-based world

It is Franklyn. Here is a link to it. However, I wouldn't count on too much action. There are three important characters, each one with its own story, one of them sounding very similar to what you described here: in a world where every person must have a religion(even if it is a very weird one, more like a club), an atheist becomes a vigilante, trying to find and kill the head of a criminal... religion. Although this may seem like a film packed with action, there are quite few thrilling scenes. The intention of the filmmakers was to make you ask yourself some questions regarding religion, faith, existence and other philosophical topics. But, this goal doesn't seem to me as being achieved. In my opinion, they aimed at too many things at once.

Hope it will be helpful.

identify this movie - Girl looks into mirror, sees demon swimming towards her

I remember watching parts of a movie on tv some years ago. I missed the beginning, and saw some parts from the middle and the end. I didn't really understand what was happening, but I can provide some details about what I remember (including the ending, so stop reading if you want to avoid spoilers):

• the movie had a very creepy atmosphere, and the image seemed to be quite desaturated if not black and white


• a guy was having some weird dreams (or visions?), including an ominous figure walking behind some pillars; the dreams always stopped before he could see who it was


• there were some messed up mirrors in a building, showing and/or doing horrible things (I think including killing people); apparently there was another world behind them, with a demon or several demons


• a demon was trying to come out into the real world, and several characters were trying to stop it


• the part I remember most clearly: in one scene, a girl went to a mirror and the demon was kinda swimming towards her from the other side; they joined hands, then the girl went into the mirror, somehow pushing the demon away; then I think the guy (who was in the room) smashed the mirror; I understood this as a self-sacrifice of the girl


• and the really creepy ending: the guy is having that weird dream again, and now he can see the figure - it's the girl from the previous scene

Some details may not be accurate, but that's how I remember them. I found "Into the Mirror" (2003) and "Mirrors" (2008) on wikipedia, but I can't find a description of the ending that matches what I remember. And I think I saw (those parts of) the movie before 2003.

What is going on in Mulholland Drive?

I have my own interpretation of the movie, I haven't shared it with anyone yet, think is about time to do it, since it is quite different from anything I have read so far (and it's been quite some time since the movie opened). I think that what this movie/Lynch is trying to tell us is that God is something like a movie director, casting auditions after a person dies. Depending on the outcome, i.e. if the actor gets the part or not, this person is sent to hell or heaven or even gets another chance in life, the chance to play another part in a movie. In this place, you don't have any recollection of your past, you are given a clean start.

The order of the events is mixed up but note that Diane pays someone to kill Camilla and then commits suicide, so both girls are dead. Camilla dies first so she goes through this "audition" first and apparently doesn't get the part (remember that when Betty auditions, the man there mentions something about a brunette woman that also auditioned), so she is not given another chance, unfortunately. Now recall that in the beginning of the movie, a person is trying to lead Camilla somewhere that she doesn't want to go but then an accident happens. So instead of being put away since she fails, she is now on the loose.
Diane now is also there, since she committed suicide out of guilt, not long after Camilla was killed. The two women now meet in this place which is something like in-between the real world and hell/heaven, something that shouldn't have happened. Now recall that there was a strange woman living there, kinda spiritual, that freaked out when she saw Camilla and told that "she shouldn't be there".

None of the two women have any recollection of their past life, but at the end, inside the "Silencio" club, they remember everything, this is what the opening of the weird blue box symbolizes. Both women have failed, Diane wakes up by a freaky cowboy in cheap motel, a symbolism for hell. I haven't seen the movie in a while, but I do remember that everything weird could be explained under my assumption.

Last scene in Django Unchained where Django & Shultz are practicing in the snow?

I didn't catch any reference to future sequels — also because sequels are not decided by open endings or similar stuff, they are decided by the money the film managed to make and the likelihood of a sequel having a similar success (and revenue) —, rather a reference and play on the popular and fixed expression fastest gun in the west.

I can't find an official script to quote from but I guess he does mention the "fastest/quickest" part too.

Now, considering most Western movies are set in... the Western part of the North American continent (with exceptions, some of which quite notable), I think that here what Tarantino was trying to convey was the fact that Django was among the best, if not the best, man with a gun in the South.

This is the only explanation I can think of and I couldn't see anything else on the internet that would suggest otherwise.

The sign outside Vito Corleone's house

In The Godfather, Part II, it is shown that Vito Corleone's olive oil business is called "Genco Import Co."

However, near the end of The Godfather, there is a sign outside his house as the family is packing up to move to Las Vegas that says "Genco Land Co."

Now, it's strange that there would be a sign for "Future Commercial Development" outside this house in the first place, because as we know the house passed down to Frank Pentangeli. What's more interesting to me, though, is that these two companies have the same name. I thought it might just be a Hollywood stand-in for "Generic Company", except that the name has a real background to it -- it's the first name of an old Corleone family friend. Did the Corleone family have interests in real estate as well as in olive oil?

star - Metallicity of Celestial Objects: Why "Metal = Non-metal"?

There is no 'history' behind it. Stellar physics is less than a 100 years old. Thus, it is not a terminology that came to be due to some anecdotal reason. This is the way it has been since the start. Why?

Because we don't care. Why, really?

Hydrogen and Helium are more important and abundant, so we need something to measure the others, which can be grouped under one name due to their low significance to us. One fine day, one fine astronomer was sitting in his balcony, drinking coffee, and he thought, "What do I call a group of elements most of which are metals?" Surprise surprise, He decided to call them metals.

I am not kidding with you, although it may have sounded like that. But that is how it is with astronomical terminologies. I am assuming you are new to the field, because this is not the only crazy thing we've done to express how much crap we give in for terms and notations and units.

How was the nuclear reactor failure simulated?

In short, it isn't simulated, it is a real, but small leak.

In the book, someone makes a small radiation leak by drilling a small hole through a thread of a connector in some part of the cooling system, a part that is under not enough pressure to leak when the reactor is not fully powered up to run the engines. It is unsaid, but the reader is meant to presume that this has been done by the chief engineer so that they do not show the leak. The fixed radiation detectors near the reactor have also been disabled. The Engineer has also tampered with radiation dose badges that all crew members wear, by exposing to an X-Ray machine in the doctor's surgery.

A few days into the plot, the doctor who is not part of the conspiracy routinely collects the badges and photographically develops them - and discovers that they show that a leak has occurred. This is part of the plan to unsettle the crew, and provide an excuse for unexpected behavior from the captain. There really is a leak, but the conspirers have made it appear bigger than it really is.

Initially the officers send some middle ranking engineers to find the leak with a hand-held detector, and they cannot because the reactor is powered down and the steam from the cooling system isn't under enough pressure to leak - so the non-conspirators do not know whether there is a leak or not, perhaps the dose badges are faulty or someone has deliberately exposed the badges to radiation. So they power up the reactor and continue the journey to Cuba.

It is only later in the plot that the leak gets bad enough to trigger a detector further forward in the submarine, that the chief engineer joins in the search for the leak and 'discovers' how the leak was made - by this time the crew is very unsettled by the leak even though the levels of radiation are low - so the leak has performed its purpose by the time it is fixed, promotes rumors of sabotage, and sets the scene for them using the reactor as an excuse to do whatever is needed later in the conspiracy.

I think it was important to the conspirators to have this take a few days to work through, as this kept the crew busy and worried, but that it was eventually found and fixed. An uncontrolled leak would have given the conspirators only few possible plausible courses of action, and at this stage they do not know how events will work out. So they manage to engineer a situation where they can use the reactor as an excuse if necessary, but only if necessary.

The book is quite long and includes all this detail - a lot of this is left out of the movie obviously, but the principle of the plot is still the same - the officers engineer a deliberate leak.

staining - Is there a photobleaching-resistant, cell-permeant viability stain in the far red part of the spectrum?

I am looking for a live-cell–impermeable dye for viability. (The cells cannot be permeabilized and fixed in this experiment.) I would prefer with excitation and emission spectra similar to Cy5, but I can be flexible here as long as the spectra are far away from Hoechst.

I have tried TOPRO3, but it seems to lose its brightness after a few exposures, so I would like something more resistant to photobleaching.

Why does the killer need to conceal their identity?

I remember being impressed by the 1985 thriller Jagged Edge when I first watched it. The plot (in case you don't remember) involves a prominent Editor (Jeff Bridges) accused of killing his wife brutally. He hires a lawyer to defend him (Glenn Close) who falls in love with him, blurring her clarity about his guilt or innocence (hence providing much of the tension in the plot).

Early in the movie the audience sees the murder being committed, but the murderer hides their identity. As a police expert pointed out to me later there is no reason (in the movie) why the murderer needs to conceal their identity other than to deceive the audience until the reveal at the end. They kill any possible witness to the crime so there is no reason to hide their face.

Am I wrong or is there some internal logic to the concealment?

identify this tv show - '80s Aquaman tv-series?

Back in the good old days of Automan, The Greatest American Hero and Manimal, I remember watching another (probably) tv-series featuring a sort of Aquaman. I think I watched just a few episodes of this series, maybe only the pilot, so I just remember this man with webbed hands and feet, trapped in some sort of lab, saying he was cold (or warm?) because he was mutating.

Can someone help me in identifying this series and, maybe most important, tell me if it's worth watching today?

ridley scott - How to explain the discrepancies between the end of Prometheus and the beginning of Alien?

There is no actual evidence that Prometheus takes place on a different planet. There is a widely accepted "theory" that it takes place on LV-223 instead of the LV-426, but there is no hard evidence, other than word of mouth. Even if that is from the director himself; it's still word of mouth. The truth is: they screwed up on the continuity either on purpose (just to add one last scare), or on accident (just to add one last scare)--and LV-223 was just a way for fans to cope with the continuity error . . . which it is.

The reason why the atmosphere changed from Prometheus to Alien is because the spaceship which is in itself a terraforming mechanism crashed and hence, wasn't working properly. What happens when an oxygen super producing underground spaceship stops working? The area around it has becomes less full of oxygen. Without plantlife on earth, earth would have mor Carbon Dioxide in the air . . . and it's the same with Prometheus. The ship no longer produced oxygen and thus more carbon dioxide in the air many years in the future when the people from Alien landed on the planet (and the spaceship is in the exact same position, mind you).

And, likewise, the reason why there were no eggs in the fallen spaceship in Prometheus is because the alien that popped out of the super human's chest hadn't yet laid the eggs.

It's really quite obvious that Prometheus and Alien takes place on the same planet; or at least the writers wrote it for that reason because all the pieces of the puzzle seem to fit the same way The Thing prequel fit with the events in original The Thing.

In conclusion, it being a different planet was only born to cope with this particular continuity error . . . and it is a continuity error. A BIG ONE. Such a big one that perhaps they (being perhaps Ridley Scott) would purposefully plant it.

title - What does the Flag symbolize?

While Kevin Howell is quite spot-on in his explanation of the upside down flag representing distress, I think especially his link to the Flag Code gives another, maybe even better fitting explanation. The country itself is objectively seen not in distress during the course of the show. So while the upside down flag could represent some kind of metaphorical distress in the way that the government and the political system are depicted, what may better fit here is the other, albeit invalid, reason for an upside-down flag, disrespect.

By showing the flag upside-down without an imminent presence of "dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property" it shows disrespect to the flag and the political ideals (and ultimately the country and its people) it stands for. Of course, I'm neither saying the show or its makers are disrespecting the U.S. flag nor am I making any personal judgement about such behaviour, just that the characters and the way politics are shown have lost the ideals that flag was once supposed to represent. This disrespect is shown by the political schemes and plots that (not only, but most prominently) Frank Underwood plays with the governmental forces (and ultimately the country) in order to feed his own lust for power. The show depicts a political system and moral that have been (in/per)verted upside-down in the same way as the flag that represents them.

The missing stars could either be just some kind of stylization, but could as well refer to something deeper. One might interpret that into the same disrespect symbolization as the upside-down part, but could maybe also come up with something based on the fact that the stars represent the states. Maybe this way it shows that the show isn't about actual politics with any significance to the whole country, but about a man not interested into anything outside of Washington D.C. and misusing the country's fate only as a device for his own goals.

documentary - Have there been any TV specials on lava lakes?

There was a 30-minute documentary called Lava Lake Acid Lake by volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft. The Kraffts were famous for close-up photography of lava flows, and in fact, died in Japan in 1991 (along with 41 other people) when a lava flow suddenly changed direction. Their documentary appears to have been released on disc in 2006 by Learning Media of America (Las Vegas) - that company, which distributed educational films for free, may now be out of business, their former web address (lmofa.com) having been subsumed by someone else. The World Catalog shows a few libraries with the disc, so you could ask your local library to try to get it through interlibrary loan. At most public libraries this is a free service, but sometimes holding libraries won't lend something if they consider it rare.

The BBC's 2008 Earth: the Biography covers volcanoes on the first of 2 discs, and the lava lake in Ethiopia is covered. It is available through Amazon, and many libraries have this one, so you should have no problem getting it.

The Nova program (PBS) produced an episode called Volcano Under the City:
Will Mount Nyiragongo Obliterate This Thriving City? Nyiragongo is famous for its lava lake, so it is probably discussed. The same volcano is covered in the 2011 National Geographic Explorer series, Season 1 Episode 13, Man vs Volcano.

How did the glove save Tony Stark?

After Tony Stark was caught in debris under the sea, Jarvis detaches the glove from the suit and takes the hand of Tony (by controlling the glove), pulling him out of his death trap.

How this is explained? We can assume the glove has thruster on its back end (to be able to fly to Tony when needed), but how it can fly in reverse?

how i met your mother - Does this flashback scene refer to an actual previous episode?

In the Television series, How I met Your Mother, Season 8 Episode 11, a reference has been made to a point of time 5 years ago where Barney doesn't follows the rule of a "Jinx" and ends up in a hospital.

My question is, does this refers to an actual episode in some previous season of the television show? Because I think that I remember Barney in Hospital.

Why does the T-800 Terminator model talk with an accent?

If we take just The Terminator as valid for this, due to changes in timeline, then the answer has to be related to Cameron's offhanded remark:

"Somehow, even his accent worked. It had a strange synthesized quality, like they hadn't gotten the voice thing quite worked out."

Further more from that article:

The Terminator in the first film spoke only 17 lines (he has several times more dialogue in the sequel). But those were the lines, delivered in a singularly Schwarzeneggerian deadpan, that made Arnold a movie icon.

Most of what he said is very simple, short sentences, in a monotonous voice. The two most complicated ones are in the gun shop The .45 long-slide with laser sighting. and Phased plasma rifle in 40-watt range.

Remember what Kyle told Sarah?

"The 600 series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy, but these are new. They look human - sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait till he moved on you before I could zero him."

The T-800 we see is a newer model in a line of Infiltrator units, a progression in robotic evolution. Each new series improved on the last. It's limited speech and monotonous voice likely required it not to speak in order to pass as a human, only speaking when it needed to. A big improvement from rubber skin, no sweat, non-human smell.

It has an accent because Skynet is still experimenting on how to design Infiltrators for maximum infiltration capability.

Now taking the other movies into account, we see by the time Skynet, now delayed a decade in creation, but starting with future-tech, has a jump start on technology, created the T-1000 series which has corrected the voice problem, having a more advanced processor and everything.

identify this movie - Comedy about train robbery ruining the sherrif's car

Was it Free Money? Sounds just like you're describing with the idiots who love the warden's daughters.

Walrus-like warden, Sven "Swede" Sorenson, a cross between Bluto and
Wimpy, runs the prison, murders convicts who escape, and has the FBI
on his trail in the form of agent Karen Polarski, the daughter of the
town's corrupt judge. Swede's twins tell their father they're pregnant
(they aren't), so he pushes their dim boyfriends, Bud and Larry, into
shotgun marriages. He also turns his sons-in-law into slave labor, so
Bud hatches an escape plan: to rob a train carrying old bills to the
mint for burning. Larry's his reluctant accomplice. When Bud is
captured and railroaded into Swede's jail, his death looks certain,
until he hatches yet another plan that requires Larry's help.

Source: Free Money - imdb

Looked for quite a while and this was the only one I could find that seemed to fit. Released in 1998.

savages - Did Ben and Chon know about each other sleeping with O?

I haven't made it through the movie, but in Don Winslow's original novel (on which the movie is closely based), Ben and Chon are both fully aware and accepting of the fact that she sleeps with both of them, regarding O as the bond that holds them all together.

The book's a great read. Amazon link

production - Why the discrepancy between the sound levels of dialogue and music in older movies?

I've been watching a lot of older films lately (older, in this instance reads "circa 80's and 70's" and mainly in the Sci-Fi and action genres), and have been asking myself the same thing as I watch each one.

Note: I'm watching these on DVD or Blu-Ray, they're not rips or VHS tapes if that makes any difference.

I've noticed that a lot of these films have their soundtrack's mixed in a very particular way. I've noticed that the musical queues and sound effects seem to be mixed at a higher volume than the dialogue. I the versions of the films that I have and watch, at least.

As an example, I've recently watched the UK version of the Blu-Ray release of Aliens, and I found that I had to turn my sound system up quite high to hear the dialogue, but turn it back down again during the action sequences (or scenes with lots of sound effects or musical queues) as I have room-mates and don't wish to disturb them just so that I can hear the dialogue.

I'm convinced that it's not my sound system, as a lot of the films from the same era seem to be mixed the same way. Also, playing them back through my PC, I notice the same thing.

Is this related to a stylistic decision made by the director/sound engineer? A technical limitation of the technology of the time? Is it related to potential problems with converting the (I'm guessing) analogue soundtrack to a digital format and compressing it?

I know (from a very limited knowledge of how it works) that Dolby is an encoding format aimed at reducing hiss, and that one of the ways it can achieve this is by lowering the overall volume of the soundtrack to a point where hiss isn't as easily detectable. So, I'm guessing that this might just be a by-product of that encoding process.

Any ideas or suggestions?

How did "Jack" (the narrator) manage to attract people to join Fight Club?

The first time you see the fight, some people look at them because they're interested in the fight, and then later ask him if they could have a go one time.

Then later, when it turns out he was beating himself up, it still makes sense actually, because it's still a valid reason for them to go looking at him, and also to ask if they could have a go (in this second case meaning punching him). When the first fight started it all makes sense as in the first case actually.

That's what I thought of it at least.

casting - In opening credits for TV shows, why does it say 'with so and so' for some actors?

Generally the way credits work in TV shows is that the most important characters within the show will appear in the credits first - these actors are said to have "top billing" and their roles within the production will be significant. These will be followed by less important/not so well known supporting characters. At the end of the credits there may be a few additional actors who while their role in that particular work might not be significant, are generally better known actors than all of the other actors on the list (unless you've got somebody A list for your leading roles, that is).

For example, using NCIS, you have the main team members from the Major Case Response Team (Mark Harmon as Gibbs, Michael Weatherly as DiNozzo, Pauley Perrette as Abby, Sean Murray as McGee), then your supporting characters like Brian Dietzen (Jimmy Palmer) and then the credits end up with David McCallum as Donald Mallard. David McCallum has a much longer career but a much smaller part yet his name is separate from the rest of the cast and appears at the end of the credits.

It is also possible for some actors playing small parts to appear first in the credits, this is usually down to these actors being very well known in comparison to the rest of the cast, or for contractual purposes. The Wikipedia article for Billing in Film-making uses the example of Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman both being credited before the title in Superman (1978), while a then unknown Christopher Reeve (who played Superman) was not.

identify this movie - Millionaire kid developing a game

I think the movie you're looking for is Matt's Million, which was a TV movie, released in 1996.

Synopsis from Wiki on this movie:

The story was about a boy called Matt Collins, who became a
millionaire at the age of 11. After developing a successful computer
game, which sold heavily in the Far East, Matt receives a cheque for
just over £1.25 million from his family solicitors. Upon the initial
reaction of shock, Matt carefully purchases some select goods, namely
two bikes and a rented Rolls Royce, driven by his own personal
chauffeur, Henry. As the series progresses, he later discovers money
makes life harder than you think.

What is the meaning of the blue lettering on the board from Cabin in the Woods?

Blue letters represent the group which bid on the monster. Do you remember the scene at the start of the movie where they start collecting money from the people working ? That's what the money is for.

For example in the movie The Redneck Torture family was chosen by the characters. The Maintenance team bet on that before the group spends their night at the cabin. Oh I forgot the intern chips in too on that same bet as well.

zoology - Do cockroaches have less health issues than humans?

AndroidPenguin, where did you read that our immune systems are far better than those of 'a cockroach'? This seems pretty strange to me, but I'd be interested in reading a study that compared human and cockroach immune systems if you can provide a reference.

Victor, with respect to cockroaches, there are numerous species of cockroaches. Here's a page about cockroaches with a link to publications on cockroaches and a phylogenetic tree of the families and subfamilies.

http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/cockroach.html

All those species tend to occupy distinct niches with distinct traits. With respect to cockroach evolution, sewers are too new a phenomenon to have had an influence on cockroaches. Rather cockroaches have been successful in adapting to this novel 'habitat'. The same holds for rats and other denizens of sewers. Sewers are a very nutrient rich environment, and as in many nutrient rich environments, a few species tend to possess the right traits (whatever those may be) to survive and out-compete other species. To take an example from coral reefs, when coral reefs suffer from eutrophication, this leads to a growth in phytoplankton and a reduction of the euphotic zone that can lead to the death of all but the most resistant corals. Likewise in the terrestrial environment, only the most tolerant or opportunistic species tend to survive in highly perturbed and nutrient rich environments like sewers. With respect to cockroaches getting cancer, I've never read anything about insect cancer, but I imagine in theory that they could get cancer. I'm not sure, however, of the impact given the much shorter life spans of insects. It's an interesting question though.

In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, why do the students want his attention?

Ok, so I'm moving my research out of my question and placing it in an answer.

The joke here is that, while Indy is an accomplished "adventurer", he's not so good at being a professor -- at with least the clerical aspects of the job.

His secretary, Irene, says:

                     IRENE
       Dr. Jones, I'm SO glad you're back. 
       Your mail is on your desk. Here are 
       your phone messages. This is your 
       appointment schedule. And these term 
       papers *still* haven't been graded!

Back at school, Indy is immediately overwhelmed with paperwork. What's more, I looked at the original script, by Jeffrey Boam, and I discovered the following:

Students once again CLAMOR for his attention: 
"Doctor Jones!" "Wait, Doctor Jones!" "My grade!" "My term paper!"

It's clear that Indy sees his job as a bit of a chore, and so actively avoids grading his students' work, or giving them the feedback they need. It seems he'd rather be adventuring and so neglects his duties as a member of staff at the college.

Instead of dealing with his irate students, he makes up a ridiculous scheme (whereby poor Irene has to try and decide who should be seen first) and then jumps out his office window.

How did the female astronaut turn into an ape?

In the original Planet of the Apes, the astronauts get lost in space and crash land on what they believe is an alien planet.

But when they wake up only the female counter part has turned to an ape.

How did this happen?

According to the story line, apes eventually evolved and learned to do all the things that a human was capable of, and the human species lost their capabilities and behaved like primates, but looked a lot like humans. But the astronaut seemingly had turned to an ape.

What is the reason for the many directors used in the Game of Thrones series?

Game of thrones is actually three separate tv shows filmed and shot simultaneously, in different locations. There are three completely separate crews and teams known as "units".

Many big films have a "second unit" with a less important director than the official one; who shoots establishing shots, minor locations and other scenes that the headline director cant be bothered or doesn't have time to do. This happened on the Godfather for example where the close ups of sonny being shot at the traffic booth look noticeably different from the rest of the movie and are often viewed as wierdly cheesy or bugsy mallone like, because they are the work of a second unit director; to francis ford coppola's eternal embarrassment.

GOT is unique in that rather than a junior and senior unit, it has three equal first units in different parts of the world, codenamed Wolf, Dragon and Lion.
They cover the different climates that the show takes place in.

One in Iceland covering all the snow scenes like bran and jon.
One in Northern Ireland doing all the British looking scenes as well as all the interior scenes shot on sound stages and in the studio
One covering all the hot dessert scenes and shooting in Croatia, Morocco and spain, though sometimes they may switch them around and have two units in the med, one in Morocco /spain and the other in Croatia, depending on how busy they are.

Different units each have their own equal directors leading them.
When everything is shot the show runners pick one person who may or may not have run a unit, to be in charge of editing and unifying the footage for each episode to set the tone and flow of that piece.

They pick the director based on the nature of the episode. For example they chose famous British horror / action director neil Marshall to direct the episode blackwater because of its focus on violence and his experience of shooting and editing hard action on the cheap.

Hope that makes it all clear!

faq - How can I find tv shows/films similar to one I like?

Jinni is the way to go, and is the future! (See movie genome info.)

Wikipedia was mentioned, but what was not mentioned is that they have a few stellar consolidation pages to do searches from. This list of lists page is invaluable, as just one example.

IMDB was mentioned, but what was not mentioned is the unbelievably great Keyword search function. Searching for movies by keywords is a great way to do it. (Ahm.. I’m rather chuffed with myself for creating the first keyword for “female sitting on a toilet” (Wow – did I just share that?) and “meme”. Be sure to click on the “Movie” link on the right to refine your search to just movies or TV or whatever. Jinni is basically generating huge amounts of keywords like this for movies so that people like us will make it to the next level of the pagoda!

Netflix changed the world! (if you have a subscription.) They have great cross references to similar shows too. Also, you can use their central search field for your own keyword search based on movie summaries. (e.g. “Biker” will bring up Angels from Hell (1968))

Finally, YouTube again for keywords is ..key. Type in a movie name + “trailer” and then see what other movies pop-up on the right hand side. Love that!

What is the meaning of the penguin in Fight Club?

The cave and the penguin are the result of therapy where the female voice tells the whole group how to "meditate". Every person has their own interpretation of the cave and an animal that is inside (which represents them); in the narrator's case he sees himself as a penguin.

He probably interpreted himself as a penguin to show himself his inability to let go of his depressing lifestyle, since penguins can't fly away from their "problems" they can merely slide away. Which is what he did he slid to the "new life".

In the movie there is also another quote that references the "sliding" :

Narrator: You had to give it to him: he had a plan. And it started to make sense, in a Tyler sort of way. No fear. No distractions. The
ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.

What is the history between Little Bill and English Bob in Unforgiven?

Watch Little Bill's conversation in the jail to the writer. It shows that Bill ran in the same social circles as Bob when he was younger and that there is little real difference between them. He also knows about Eastwood and his history.

The old gun fighters have grown up and are trying to find ways in the world but the world has no real use for them anymore.

Bod tries to become a posh English assassin (notice his real accent comes out when he is being driven away). At heart he is, basically, an East End thug but is trying to become something else and it falls apart, he is beaten, humiliated and driven out. The only part of him that still works is his gun skill (notice the competition on the train).

Little Bill was a gun slinger and is trying to become an honest man but simply does not have the skills. Notice he is trying to build a house (very common skill for a man at that point) and he is terrible at it, he is also not a very good Sherrif. His spineless way of handling the girl having her face cut up just causes trouble for the town. His bullish way of trying to stop assassins from arriving does not work. He beats Ned to death even after getting the information about who was with him, which directly causes Eastwood to come back and kill several people.

Eastwood tried becoming a farmer but his farm was failing, to make enough money to set himself up he has to resort to his gun skills and to handle that stress he resorts to drinking (notice how the first time he drinks is just before he rides back to town to kill Little Bill).

In a deeper analysis you can say that these men know each other as well as they know themselves as once you cut beneath the surface they are the same.

production - What comes first, the music or the take?

As a filmmaker, I can provide some insight into this, however there are always going to be exceptions to the rule.

In general, a film is scored after editing—a notable exception to this would be the specific use of a particular piece of established music, in which case the editor may well be asked to edit to the beats of that music.

For a scored film, it is important to get the edited film to a 'lock', which means the visual elements (SFX finished or not) are in place and edited. There is a sense of visual 'timing' that an editor can employ, and this might well affect the composer's decisions.

Once the picture is locked, the composer can then go in and create the music, whether it be sweeping themes, leitmotifs, or short snippets to emphasize a scene.

In order to stay on budget, the producers do not want the composer having to rework pieces to fit re-edited sections, which is why the picture lock is so important.

(I'll add more to this answer in a few hours: on the road right now ;)

science fiction - What is the name of this movie with (intelligent?) ants?

I try to remember a movie I saw long time ago on TV. It must be at the beginning of the 90s, possibly the end of the 80s. The movie might be older though. It was something about a scientist researching and experimenting with ants. I think the ants got intelligent, but I'm not sure about this. If I recall it right, in the end the ants took over the world, or only the lab. Sorry, that's all a little bit cloudy. My memory is not the best about this, that's why I need your help to get the name of the movie.

Did Leon see no other way out?

In an interesting analysis of the film (and Luc Besson's work in general) in her book Luc Besson (1998), Susan Hayward explains that when looking at the film's structure overall, the ending is not so much about a character's intentions as what makes sense for the story. Psychologically, when Mathilda is attracted to Leon as lover, she is transferring love for her brother and desire for the love of father she never had to Leon.

Leon plays father, son, and lover. But he assumes that latter role
only when it is too late. Or, put another way, since the social order
of things prohibits him from becoming Mathilda's lover, he gives up
his body for her. He sacrifices the material body for the corporeal
love that cannot be had. Equally significant, he pulls the plug (the
pin of the hand grenade) on his life in exchange for that of
Mathilda's. Having acknowledged his love for Mathilda, the only way
that love can be sublimated is through death, that is, through a
de-phallicising of the masculine body. This notion of the
de-phallicised masculine body is in fact a trope of melodrama. The
phallus is made safe so that the social order of things remains safe
and so that the family does not come under threat...

Besson continues in his description of these two protagonists:
"...Elle lui amene la vie. En acceptant, il accepte sa mort. Mourir
pour donner la vie. Geometrique et cellulaire." (Roughly, She brings
him life. In accepting it, he accepts death. He dies to give life.
Geometric and cellular.)(p. 141-146)

You ask whether Leon intended to die, and we cannot know this this since Leon is only a construct of the storyteller. The storyteller intended that Leon should die and that Leon should accept this death, as repayment for life ("You have given me a taste for life") and love. He also tells her he wants a bed to sleep in and roots, and she gives him that by planting his peace lily. Geometric!

If you try to imagine a world where he survives, where would this relationship go?
Besson did write a sequel to it, by the way, with Mathilda all grown up, but as he is no longer connected to the production company that filmed the original (and has rights to the sequel), it may never get made.

How is Eduardo unaware of the progress on Face Mash?

Here is the script from the movie: (Source)

EDUARDO:
What’s going on?

MARK (narration):
Perfect timing. Eduardo’s here and he’s going to have the key ingredient.

EDUARDO:
Mark.

MARK:
Wardo.

EDUARDO:
You and Erica split up?

MARK:
How did you know that?

EDUARDO:
It’s on your blog.

Emphasised how Eduardo knew about Mark and Erica breaking up.

Here is the narration of Mark's blog for the night:

MARK (narration):
I'm a little intoxicated, I'm not gonna lie. So what if it’s not even 10PM and it’s a Tuesday night? The Kirkland facebook is open on my desktop and some of these people have pretty horrendous facebook pics.

Billy Olson’s sitting here and had the idea of putting some of these next to pictures of farm animals and have people vote on who’s hotter.

Yea, it’s on. I’m not gonna do the farm animals but I like the idea of comparing two people together. It gives the whole thing a very “Turing” feel since people’s ratings of the pictures will be more implicit than, say, choosing a number to represent each person’s hotness like they do on hotornot.com. The first thing we're going to need is a lot of pictures.

Unfortunately, Harvard doesn’t keep a public centralized facebook so I’m going
to have to get all the images from the individual houses that people are in. Let the hacking begin.

Emphasised on what he was "planning" to do, but didn't actually state in his blog (at least in the voice over) that he was in progress of creating the ranking website. Only that he had an idea he liked of "comparing two people together" and that he was hacking the Harvard facebook websites.

Maybe Eduardo read that part, but simply ignored it as Mark seemed to be a person who is outspoken on his emotions.

How did Sara know what a Looper was?

From a mere writing standpoint it could just have been a shortcut, so that Joe doesn't get a hard time explaining to her all the things she surely wouldn't believe, which wouldn't bring the story much further (Ok, maybe it could have opened other interresting conflicts and sub-stories, but well).

And in fact when he started "time travel is not possible, but in thirty years..." I found myself thinking nerved "Whoa man, stop it, she's never gonna buy that" only to be relieved when she said "You're a looper", thinking "thanks, not a hard long mistrustful explanation session".

I'm not saying that's the only reason (or that everybody would have felt like me and explaining it to her couldn't have been a good story arc, too) and there is no in-story explanation. But seeing that not everything in Looper was that thought out well, it's a possibility.

toxicology - Why is hydrofluoric acid so dangerous if it is a weak acid?

The confusion arises from the term weak, which has only to be interpreted in chemical terms.

Weak acid, as you say, just means that the acid does not readily dissociate, not that its effects are weak! Just to say one, HF corrodes glass, something that not even smoking HCl does.

Wikipedia has a nice summary of HF toxicity (see also the references in the article itself):

Hydrofluoric acid is a highly corrosive liquid and is a contact poison. It should be handled with extreme care, beyond that accorded to other mineral acids. Owing to its low dissociation constant, HF as a neutral lipid-soluble molecule penetrates tissue more rapidly than typical mineral acids. Because of the ability of hydrofluoric acid to penetrate tissue, poisoning can occur readily through exposure of skin or eyes, or when inhaled or swallowed. Symptoms of exposure to hydrofluoric acid may not be immediately evident. HF interferes with nerve function, meaning that burns may not initially be painful. Accidental exposures can go unnoticed, delaying treatment and increasing the extent and seriousness of the injury.
Once absorbed into blood through the skin, it reacts with blood calcium and may cause cardiac arrest. Burns with areas larger than 25 square inches (160 cm2) have the potential to cause serious systemic toxicity from interference with blood and tissue calcium levels. In the body, hydrofluoric acid reacts with the ubiquitous biologically important ions Ca2+ and Mg2+. Formation of insoluble calcium fluoride is proposed as the etiology for both precipitous fall in serum calcium and the severe pain associated with tissue toxicity.

Did Walker ever show up behind the bad guy?

So I was sitting in the bathroom when the theme song to Walker, Texas Ranger popped into my head. The line “If you’re in Texas look behind you, because that’s where the ranger’s going to be.” It got me thinking if Walker does ever sneak up or appear behind a bad guy in the series, and I honestly can’t remember and have no idea how I would search for that.

So, in keeping with the theme song for the show, did Walker ever actually sneak up behind a bad guy?

neuroscience - Do human beings have pheromone receptors?

From what I have gathered, I would think that humans do have receptors that are able to detect pheromones.

For example, some studies that have indicated human responses to pheromones. Of these pheromone responses, some have been traced to the olfactory mucosa and olfactory epithelium.

The trace amine-associated receptors (TAAR) for which humans have 7 genes (TAAR1, TAAR2, TAAR3, TAAR5, TAAR6, TAAR8, TAAR9) and 2 pseudogenes (TAAR4P, TAAR7P) are found in the olfactory epithelium whereas androstadienone receptors are found in the olfactory mucosa. As suggested by the anatomical location, these receptors interact with the human sense of smell and the olfactory system

More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheromone#Humans

identify this movie - Mafiosi abduct man from Italian village for job in America. What's the film?

There's an Italian movie of the 60s or maybe even the late 50s (it's in b/w) where the story revolves around such a scheme.

Except that the main character lives in Milano where he works as a middle manager in some big factory. The abduction, his shipping (in a wooden box aboard a cargo plane!) to NYC, his killing some mafia boss in a barber shop and his return happen in a less then 24 hours span while he was summer vacationing in Sicily with his family at some relatives house.

In order to cover his trip abroad from his family, the Sicilian relatives organize a fake hunting from dawn to sunset.

Funny that I remember all these details, but I can recall neither the movie title, nor the name of the actor playing the main character which I'm sure was one of the leading Italian movie stars of the time.

---

Ok, I made some research and found the movie!

The movie title is "Mafioso", starring Alberto Sordi and with the direction of Alberto Lattuada. It came out in 1962 in Italy, but was distributed only two years later in the U.S.

Here's the Wiki page of the movie. Those who can read Italian may switch to the somewhat more detailed Italian version.

Why didn't the fog enter the supermarket in The Mist?

In The Mist (2007), a white fog covers a small town, and a number of residents take refuge in the local supermarket. But the fog stops at the glass windows, never seeping through the cracks around the doors, or later in the movie, through the broken windows or the opened garage door. Why?

reference - Who is "The Mask" impersonating after he gets "shot"?

After the Mask finishes kissing a young, gorgeous Cameron Diaz; the jealous boyfriend comes downstairs with his cronies to confront him.

The big guy pulls out his gun and--after several failed attempts--finally shoots him.

Comically, we hear:

You got me, partner....Hold me closer, Ed, it's getting dark

The voice he uses to say these lines sounds very familiar.

Which actor is he impersonating?

Did one actor ever play two distinct characters in one scene in the Star Trek franchise?

There have been several times in the various Star Trek series when one actor interacted with himself/herself as a clone, Mirror Universe double, or other "alternate" version of the same basic character. But has the same actor ever played two completely distinct characters in the same scene?

For example, Jeffrey Combs once said that he always wanted to do this with Brunt and Weyoun, but he never had the chance to. And in the Deep Space Nine episode "Chimera," the alien guest star was played by J. G. Hertzler, and Martok is mentioned several times in the episode, but he never appears on screen.

Has it ever been done?

Did Miles Dyson kill all these policemen?

I stumbled upon this recent question about Terminator 2, in particular about the scene where Miles Dyson dies after having been wounded lethally and trying to buy time for the others by detonating a grenade. He warns the upcoming SWAT team that the grenade will go off shortly and they run away.

You are implying in the question that there was a moral line the film didn't want to cross. Where no humans are intentionally killed.

Except, Sarah goes to Dyson's home and shoots him infront of his wife and kid. Attempted murder is just as morally wrong as murder. The terminator then cuts the flesh off his arm to show he's a machine. So violence wasn't some hidden in the film.

I don't think the moral line is drawn in the sand as deeply as you imply, and the film was rated R so there wasn't an issue with violence.

Still, the question isn't the morality, but if the police survived the explosions.

Here are a couple of facts, because I happen to be watching it on NetFlix when this question came up.

• The police enter the science lab from the stairwell, and that is the same door they leave in when they run out.


• I was able to count to about 14 seconds from the time the police start moving before the bomb goes off.


• Sarah, Arnold and the kid are in the elevator when the bomb goes off, and have no problem surviving the explosion.


• The bomb doesn't destroy the floor. It only destroys the research lab on that floor (see image below). The fireball only comes out from a wide second, but clearly not the entire floor.


• When Arnold exists the elevator there is the same swat team there waiting for them. They were able to get downstairs before the elevator. I was find the same actor playing a swat team member both before and after the bomb explosion (see image below).

Explosion Of Research Lab

Swat Team Member Before/After Explosion

So it's clear the swat team didn't die, and they actually appear again in the next scene. Sadly they are all shot in the leg by Arnold. Black guy with big explosive bomb zero points. Terminator with hand gun 10 points. You have to feel sorry to Dyson. First Sarah shoots him, then the swat team shoots him and then he blows up.

I'm going to watch the rest of the film. If I see anything else that I can add, then I'll be back.

Rubbing dirt on hands scene in Gladiator

In her book Gladiator and Contemporary Society, University of New Mexico Professor of Classics Monica S. Cyrino writes:

When Marcus Aurelius asks Maximus after the battle in Germania: "Tell
me about your home," Maximus delivers a sentimental speech about the
simple beauty and tranquillity of his farm, with its fecund soil
"black like my wife's hair." His wistful reverie evokes the modern
individual's yearning for the simplicity of the land. Russell Crowe
wrote this speech himself, drawing on his feelings of homesickness for
his own ranch: "That's the way I feel about missing my home too."

Marcus Aurelius tells Maximus that his home is "worth fighting for"
and thereby suggests that the protection of the small family farm is
one of the purposes of Roman military conquest. The old emperor, beset
by doubts about the legacy of his rule, has come to realize that the
countryside, not the city, is the true Rome. Maximus' speech
anticipates and fortifies his depiction as an old-fashioned man of the
land in the rest of the film, one who has been brutally displaced.
Maximus "has a farmer's vanity-free self-confidence." He picks up a
handful of dirt and smells it before each fight, drawing strength from
his connection to the soil. Franzoni explained why: "We wanted a
character trait that humanized the hero before battle ... Some thought
he did it when his life was in danger. But really, the impulse was,
he does it when he's about to kick ass." Maximus cannot lose as long
as he keeps in contact with the earth. (p.141)

David Franzoni was the screenwriter.

Explanation of the ending of "Oldboy"

On the first question, I agree with most of what you guys are saying.

Second question:

When I watched the movie for the first time, I felt like he was asking to forget about being the father. I watched it again and I still feel like that was what he was asking the hypnotist to help him forget. He wanted to remain a lover without having to know he's in love with his daughter.

So, the hypnotist told him that he would split into 2: one, the monster, who knows that Mido is his daughter and another who will remain a lover without that burden. We assume that he walked the 70 steps and before he wakes from the hypnosis, lying in the snow, that falling to the ground could be the death of his monster and him waking free from burden of knowledge, or just a simple awakening from hypnosis.

What do I mean by a simple awakening?

If you pay attention, the hypnotist says that with each step the monster would age 1 year and die at the age of 70. This could be hypno-babble for, "walk 70 steps and you'll forget that your lover is your daughter" or you won't forget till you die at the age of 70. Personally I favor the first. It fits more with the feel of the movie since if we don't believe hypnosis works, then why do we believe that the events that took place would take place?

Everything that happened between Oh and Mido were a result of hypnosis. In order to keep their lover relationship going on, Oh went through more hypnosis.

It's all in the smile/cry, I agree.

We can't really pull anything from the smile/cry. Obviously, it can go both ways. It's a smile and a cry. So were the tears of joy that went with the bliss that accompanies ignorance. We may never know. But, the movie quotes a poem a few times, Solitude by Ella Wheeler. The line they chose was "laugh and the world laughs with you, weep, and you weep alone".

Oh will be happy with Mido but the burden of knowledge is carried alone.

Maybe. Hahaha.

castle - Are Attorney General Special Agents real?

Yes it is a real thing. For example, I am a Special Agent working in the Investigations Division of the Office of the Attorney General in my state. We are sworn Criminal Investigators with full Police powers and come from extensive law enforcement backgrounds. I am assigned to investigate major felony crime and our office handles a very wide variety of criminal cases including drug crimes, weapons crimes, fraudulent ID mills, murder for hire, cold case homicide, white collar crime including medicaid fraud, public corruption, etc. I am aware of other states that have Special Agents under the Attorney General and would be willing to bet most states have something similar. It is a fantastic job by the way, the work is demanding, interesting and the people I work with are top notch.

production - What was the first film or television show that used computer generated credits?

I imagine, but do not know for sure, that in the early days of film and television, credits were filmed on a second reel and added to the production after the fact.

Historically, what was the first film or television series to use credits that were generated by a computer instead of presented on transparencies or through other means?

Why do Jerry and Newman dislike each other?

Throughout Seinfeld, Jerry and Newman have an adversarial relationship, marked by the infamous exchange of "Hello, Jerry" "Hello, Newman." While at times they get along (In "The Barber," (S5E8) Jerry allows Newman to use his bathroom and invites him to watch Edward Scissorhands with him), or work together (In "The Andrea Doria," (S8E10) Jerry helps Newman deliver mail on his route so that Newman can get a promotion to the Hawaii so he'll move away from Jerry), the general dynamic of the relationship never changes.

Why do Jerry and Newman dislike each other?

Is there an explanation for which emotions and senses are connected?

I haven't seen the movie yet, so any answer I guess would be just that - a guess. But here is my hypothesis:

Smell - sadness: Smells can trigger a lot of memories. Perhaps you smell bread baking, and you're taken back to when you were a kid and you and your mom went to the bakery every week to get a fresh loaf of bread. As weird as it sounds, when I get a whiff of mothballs, I think about my grandmother's apartment, because the smell was distinct and she used them in her drawers where she kept her clothing. Not being able to smell anymore would rob you of those memories, which I can imagine would lead to great sadness.

Hearing - aggression/anger: This actually makes sense when you think about it. Nine times out of ten, you're pissed at someone because of something someone else told you about them. One good example is how most people find out their partner is cheating - they hear about it from someone else (or they overhear a conversation they shouldn't be hearing).

Vision - love: Again, this also makes sense. We tend to fall in love with our eyes. You can describe a woman like Angelina Jolie in a 1,000 words, but it will not have the same impact on you until you actually see a picture of her. There's also a reason why the expression is "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder."

Movie where man and woman compete who has more scars

It was a movie with man and woman, both in police or some other profession which involved danger. And there was a tension between those two. There was some scene where they were in the room, trying to impress the other with battle scars. It ended them being naked. What was the name of the movie/serial? Wasn't it Dempsey and Makepeace?

animation - A 90s cartoon show about racoons

You mean The Raccoons.

The series revolves around Bert Raccoon and married couple Ralph and Melissa Raccoon, of whom Bert is a friend and roommate. The series mostly involved the trio's efforts against the industrialist forces of greedy Aardvark millionaire called Cyril Sneer (the antagonist you meant), who usually tries to destroy the forest for money.

game of thrones - How many wolves were there in the first episode?

The wolves that were found were 6 in number, 5 sucking milk and one albino pup.

Master   Dire wolf  Sex     Fur             Eyes     Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robb     Greywind   Male    Smoke Grey      Yellow   Fierce and Man-hunter
Sansa    Lady       Female  Smoke Grey      Yellow   Smallest
Arya     Nymeria    Female  Brownish Grey   Yellow   Leader of wolf-pack   
Bran     Summer     Male    Silver grey     Yellow   Bonded with Bran
Rickon   Shaggydog  Male    Black or dark   Green    Fierce and uncontrolled
Jon Snow Ghost      Male    White albino    Red      Bonded with Jon

Each direwolf embodies one of the children of Ned Stark, with each having the personalities and traits of their assigned masters. Jon Snow got the albino (snow like) pup as he was the bastard of Ned Stark, and not a true Stark himself. Thus, all true Starks of Winterfell come to have a dire wolf of their own.

Why doesn't Marty use the other DeLorean?

As noted by Doc's letter to Marty, Doc has been in 1885 for 8 months. This is crucial to figure out why the gas, how ever much is left, would not be useful. Gas tends to have a shelf life of 3 months. 8 months is more than twice that. And that's only in ideal conditions. Since Doc likely knew enough to prep the damaged DeLorean for long term storage, which involves in draining all fluids, and that 1955 Doc specifically told Marty at the drive in that he filled it with gas, we can assume it had no 70 year old gas inside. Doc, had he kept it, would have needed a container, and 1885 would not have any quality, gas grade containers (air tight, opaque, low permability).

Gas will go stale within months. And that's modern day Gas, who knows what 1955 gas shelf life is like. The more space in a tank, the more space it has to evaporate. Condensation will add water to the fuel ruining it. Temperature swings will as well. As we know, 1885 had no temperature control to speak of. The older the gas, the less likely it will ignite. Diesel would last longer as it does not need a spark to ignite, just compression.

In short, even if Doc had saved the gas, eight months and imperfect storage would have made it useless by the time Marty showed up.