Random Movie Trivia - The Big Lebowski

Here is the next edition in our weekly Random Movie Trivia post.  Enjoy:

The Big Lebowski

• A lot of the clothes The Dude wears in this film are actually Jeff Bridges' own clothes including the Jellies sandals.
• The reason Steve Buscemi's character Donny is constantly told to "Shut the fuck up!" by Walter (John Goodman) is because Steve Buscemi's character in Fargo never shuts up.  Fargo was written and directed by the Coen brothers (Joel and Ethan), the same guys who wrote and directed this film.
• The word "Dude" is said 260 times and printed once.
• The word "Fuck" is used 292 times.
• And The Dude says "Man" 147 times.
• Also, The Dude drank nine White Russians over the course of the movie.
• The Dude is in every scene of the movie even the scene where the Nihilists are ordering pancakes, you can see him drive by in a van in the background.
• Before every scene, Jeff Bridges would ask the directors "Did The Dude just burn one on the way over?" and if the answer was yes, he would rub his knuckles into eyes to make them red.
• In an early draft of the script, it is revealed how The Dude receives income, he was apparently the heir to the inventor of the Rubik's Cube.  Obviously, this was later dropped from the final cut.
• In the edited cut made for TV, the line "This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass!" was changed to "This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!" and is deemed one of the most creative TV edits every conceived.
• Despite being on a bowling team, you never actually see The Dude bowl for his team.  Also, Donny (Steve Buscemi) bowls a strike every time except right before he is killed by the Nihilists.

"The Dude said 'Man' 1.5 times a minute in this movie.  Impressive."

Top 10 Most Awesome SNL Cast Members

Because everyone likes to read lists for some reason and because I like making lists, today we are going to compose another fun list - The Top 10 Most Awesome SNL Cast Members.  In the past I made a list of Surprising SNL Cast Members, but today we are going the opposite way.  Also, note that it doesn't say "Best" or "All-Around" Cast Members, but the Most Awesome SNL Cast Members.  So, this list will be composed by judging which SNL cast members I thought were the most awesome, it's as simple as that.  Here's a list of all SNL Cast Members in case you wanted to see if I missed anyone (which I probably did).  Let's get it on:

• 10) Norm MacDonald - his Weekend Updates were amazing, nobody could deliver a terrible joke like he could, plus his Burt Reynolds was so bad it was funny.
• 9) Dana Carvey - Garth, the Church Lady, Ross Perot, Hans, George H.W. Bush.  The guy had range and was somewhat under-appreciated in his day.
• 8) Darrell Hammond - if they needed a political impression, then Darrell was their man.  On top of that, he holds the record for most seasons on the show with 14 seasons.  Oh, and you can't forget about his Sean Connery abusing Alex Trebek on Celebrity Jeopardy.  Priceless.
• 7) Kristen Wigg - she may be the only woman on this list, but that might be because she is also the only woman who carried the show for a whole season.  Her characters could be annoying sometimes, but when she nailed one, it was great.
• 6) Adam Sandler/Andy Samberg - these two had to be included because they are basically the same guy.  They would do the occasional sketch but always seemed to play the same character, and it was their musical talent that put them over the top.  I'm still amazed at how funny both The Lunch Lady Song and Dick in a Box are to me.
• 5) John Belushi - he might have been before my day, but of the sketches I have seen in the reruns, he brought an incredible amount of energy with his characters and that has to count for something.
• 4) Eddie Murphy - he quite literally changed the way SNL was run.  Not only was he only 19 years old when he joined the cast, but he left after only a few seasons and forced Lorne Michaels to make new cast members sign 6-year deals.
• 3) Phil Hartman - like Darrell Hammond, Phil had a range of characters that cannot be matched.  His Bill Clinton impersonation alone puts him in the Top 5 of this list.
• 2) Will Farrell - he easily has had the most memorable moments of the show in the past 15 years.  Everything he did was pure gold and it was a shame he left the show to go on and have such an up-and-down movie career (I still think Anchorman was terrible and the sequel will suck, too).
• 1) Chris Farley - this is a no-brainer.  His energy was insurmountable.  No one before and no one since could ever match the pure essence of comedy this man brought SNL.  He was so awesome that he would even fall over in the street to any fan that asked him just to make them laugh.  Rest in Peace, sweet prince.

"Quite possibly the funniest SNL sketch ever."

Surprising Celebrity Ages

I think I have mentioned once that I was shocked to find out that Chuck Norris is way older than you would think.  So, I decided to do a little research and find some other surprising ages of big-name celebrities.  Let's take a look:

• William Shatner (81) - I know Captain Kirk has been around for quite some time, but 81?  I did not see that coming.
• Samuel L. Jackson (64) - I guess his role in Django Unchained actually makes a lot more sense now that I found out how old he really is.
• Chuck Norris (73) - I did a post on this one awhile back, but it still shocks me.
• Harrison Ford (70) - did you know they are talking about doing another Indiana Jones movie?  Now that you know he is 70, that really makes that role seem that much less believable.
• Paul Hogan (73) - Crocodile Dundee is 73?  When did that happen?  I remember him from my childhood as being a badass, so how old does that make the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
• James Earl Jones (82) - the voice of Darth Vader has been pulling in Social Security for far longer than I thought.
• Liam Neeson (60) - those Taken movies made him look so kickass, but knowing he is 60 kind of takes away from that role now.
• Brent Spiner (64) - you remember Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, right?  Well, he is 64 and no one but nerds could have known that.
• Brad Pitt (50) - not really that shocking, but still makes you wonder if you can bag hotties like Angelina Jolie at that age.  The answer is no.
• Jack McBrayer (39) - Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock is almost 40, I could have sworn he wasn't a day over 25.

I guess you will notice that there are no women on this list and that is probably because most actresses kind of stop getting work after a certain age and we never hear from them again.  Meanwhile, most actors seem to age better and continue to find work well after you would think they should still be driving a car.

"Now that I see a picture of him from his time as Crocodile Dundee, he really looked pretty old back then, too."

NOKW - Real Steel

Here comes the next chapter in our "I'm Okay With, I'm Not Okay With" series (if you don't know what this is, click here for all of the past posts):

Movie:  Real Steel

Basic Plot:  It's Rock'em Sock'em Robots The Movie, enough said.

I'm Okay With:  The fact that this movie wasn't half bad as long as you ignored the annoying kid.  The fact that robot boxing is so popular in this world when regular boxing hasn't been relevant in our world in decades.  The fact that Wolverine thought it would be a good idea to put his first robot in the ring versus a live bull.  The fact that you could watch Rocky and imagine Sylvester Stallone as a robot and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two movies.  The fact that there must be thousands of fighting robots with thousands of different names and yet everyone seems to be able to name each one on sight.  The fact that a robot not built for fighting was able to last more than a minute against robots that were built specifically for fighting.  The fact that in the last fight our underdog robot is switched to mimic mode and is able to mimic Wolverine's movements without actually seeing him.

I'm Not Okay With:  The fact that during the big fight, they had ring card girls who were female-looking robots.  Why?  I understand that two robots are doing the fighting in the ring, but do you know who is watching the fight?  Not other robots.  So, why would you have robot ring card girls (and in case you don't know what that is, it is the chicks who walk around in bikinis holding up a card telling you what round it is before the bell rings)?  If I'm going to see a fight (which I never will), I want to see some hot chick in a skimpy outfit with daddy issues walking around the ring with a card that tells me what round it is and not a cold, metal machine that looks vaguely feminine.  I am not okay with that.

"All this movie was missing was a run on a beach followed by a highly inappropriate man hug from a black guy named Apollo."

Stupid State Laws - North Carolina

Here comes another post about a state law that still exists on the books and why it is ridiculous (to see them all, click here):

North Carolina

"All couples staying overnight in a hotel must have a room with double beds that are at least two feet apart.  Making love in the space between the beds is strictly forbidden."

Good try, North Carolina, but not good enough.  The law says couples can't have sex "in the space between the beds" but it doesn't say anything about having sex anywhere else in the room.  You could do it on either bed, you could do it on the outside of either bed, you could do it in the shower, and you could probably even do it while stretched across the two beds as long as you don't touch the floor.  You're better than this, North Carolina, way too many loopholes in your silly law.

"And you would definitely do it on that table."

Future History Class

Do you remember taking history in school?  Do you remember how much history there seemed to be even though a lot of the past was only partially recorded?  Do you also remember how boring that class was?  Well, if you thought history class sucked when you were a student, imagine how much students will have to learn a hundred years from now.

Not only will the kids of future have an additional hundred years of history to have to study, but that additional hundred years will be so meticulously documented that there will be way too much information to process that it will be impossible to make ends of anything covered in class.  Look at it this way, Beyonce lip-singed the National Anthem at the President's Inauguration last month and there were more stories written about that than there are recorded accounts of Alexander the Great's entire life.  That's right, more people had a take on an overrated* performer's flub of the National Anthem then there are recorded stories of one of the greatest conquerors in world history.  My problem with this is that 50 years from now, people will still be teaching about Alexander the Great but no one will still remember Beyonce.

So, maybe that's what it really boils down to - will kids really have that much harder of a time learning history in the future because history between now and then will be recorded better than in the past?  Or will kids have it exactly the same because if you really think about it, other than 9/11 has there really been anything worth putting in a history book since the end of the Vietnam War?  And no, the life and times of Justin Bieber will not make history books no matter how hard tween girls try.

* I consider someone to be overrated when I can't name more than 3 of their songs/movies/works of art/etc and in the case of Beyonce, I can name one.  Austin Powers in Goldmember and that doesn't even count b/c she was so terrible in it.

"We don't even know who made the Sphinx, but if it were made today, we would have a million people making fun of it on Tweeter."

Colorful Comic Book Characters

So, I'm not entirely sure what I was trying to do when I first started writing this post, but I did the research and don't want to put it to waste.  Basically, I saw a commercial for some new (presumed) crappy TV show called Arrow which is about the comic book character Green Arrow.  Then I was flipping through the channels and saw that The Green Hornet and Green Lantern were playing on some random movie channel and got to thinking that that seems like way too many comic book characters using the adjective "green".  So, I wondered how many more do the same.  After looking that up, I decided to look at some other colors and see which color happened to have the most comic book characters with that color in their name and my results are below.  You should know that I only looked at Marvel and DC Comics because this took way longer than I had expected and still got my point across.  Enjoy, I guess:

• Black (106) - Abbott, Bolt, Box, Cat, Cloak, Crow, Death, Fox, Jack, Knight, Lama, Light, Lotus, Mamba, Marvel, Panther, Raazer, Racer (x 2), Rider, Spectre, Swan, Talon, Tarantula, Tom Cassidy, Widow (x 2), -bird, -heart, -lash, -light, -out, -thorn, -wing (x 2), Ace, Adam, Alice, Annis, Assassin, Barax, Baron, Bat, Beetle, Betty, Bison, Butch, Canary, Circle, Condor, Death, Diamond, Dragon, Eagle, Flame, Flash, Hand, Hood, Jack, King, Knight, Lamp, Lightening, Mace, Magician, Manta, Mask, Mass, Master, Miguel, Mongul, Moray, Nebula, Nergal, Orchid, Patch, Pharaoh, Pirate, Plague, Rat, Rogue, Shark, Siren, Smith, Spider, Star, Thorn, Vulcan, Vulture, Wind, Witch, X, Zero, -beard, -feather, -fire, -guard, -hand, -hawk, -jack, -mask, -rock, -smith, -snake, -starr.
• Red (51) - Celestial, Ghost, Guardian, Lotus, Hulk, Nine, Raven (x 2), Ronin, She-Hulk, Shift, Skull, Sonja, Wolf, Judge, -neck, -stone, -wing, Bee, Blue Blur, Bromine, Claw, Dart, Death, Devil, Dragon, Fox, Hawk, Hood, Inferno, Khan, King, Logan, Mask, O'Riley, Panzer, Robin, Rogers, Ryan, Shift, Star, Storm, Talon, Tornando, Torpedo, Tucker, Volcano, X, -burn, -fue, -horn.
• Blue (23) - Blade, Bullet, Celestial, Diamond, Eagle, Shield, Streak, Beetle, Bolt, Bowman, Damsel Fly, Devil, Jay, Lama, Leader, Matt, Moon, Raider, Snowman, Tracer, Trinity, -beard, -jay.
• White (20) - Noise, Rabbit, Tiger, -face, -out, Cat, Dwarf, Feather, Knight, Lightening, Lotus, Magician, Martian, Queen, Rabbit, Rajah, Toshi, Willow, Wind, Witch.
• Green (13) - Goblin (x 2), Arrow, Cigarette, Fury, Guardsman, Lambkin, Lantern, Lightening, Man, Skull, Sparrow, Hornet.
• Gray (12) - Gargoyle, King, The Grey Family (Jean, Brian, Elaine, John, Nate, Sara), Face, Ghost, Lady, Man.

"The Duke Blue Devil didn't make the cut, probably b/c he flopped."