Best movie questions of 1998

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Blues Brothers 2000 picture

Question: What does Buster mean that he'll be put in a foster home with people who don't love him? What's gonna happen to him if he lives with them?

Trainman

Answer: He was just saying it pessimistically. Although, depending on which reports you read, 1 in 3 children are abused by their foster parents. In addition, many children in the system also get placed into several different homes during their childhood (since fostering children is not the same as adopting them), leaving the children to feel unloved by their foster parents.

Bishop73

I don't know the frequency with which it actually happens, but there are also neglectful foster parents whose sole motivation is the monthly stipend from the state, rather than a genuine interest in their wards' well-being.

Cubs Fan

Answer: Foster homes are meant to be temporary. While, hopefully, foster parents will be kind and caring to the children in their charge, they cannot form overly strong attachments that would only cause emotional trauma for a child when they transition to another living situation.

raywest

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BASEketball picture

Question: When Remer is showing Squeak around the house, they walk into a bedroom. Squeak sits on a pull-out bed, and Remer says 'That's Jenkin's Bed'.Who is he referring to?

Answer: Jenkins is their dog, the one that attacks him earlier in the film when he walks into the back yard.

Gary O'Reilly

And also attacks him seconds after this conversation.

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What Dreams May Come picture

Question: What is the significance of the man in Hell who thinks Chris is his son?

Answer: Just to show what hell does to your mental state.

Phixius

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Godzilla picture

Question: After they blow up Madison Square Garden, as they are standing outside Godzilla makes an appearance after previously being assumed dead. How did it manage to get back to Madison Square Garden without being detected by anyone?

Answer: Everyone was so focused on the nest in the Garden, they all forgot about Godzilla.

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Apt Pupil picture

Question: Why did script writer Brandon Boyce change the ending of the story? In Stephen King's book, Todd Boyden commits suicide but he doesn't in the film.

Answer: He didnt commit suicide in the book, he took his rifle to a fortified spot alongside a highway, and began shooting at cars. The police killed him. The film seems to tone down the story a lot, so I guess the only answer is they didn't really want to end it in such a violent way.

RJR99SS

Answer: The director, Bryan Singer, was quoted as saying, "I told [King] the ending reads so beautifully. I could never measure up to it; I would have killed it." It also gives a darker ending to most people, since Todd gets away with everything rather than being shot down by the police.

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Wild Things picture

Question: Did Kelly Van Ryan really love Sam Lombardo or was she trying to use him to get her mom's money? Or both?

Answer: Yes, Kelly WAS in love with Sam. And the money was just a bonus.

ChristmasJonesfan

Answer: Kelly loved Sam and hated her mom. She wanted the money that was left to her by her grandfather and this was the only way to get it without her mom dying.

Greg Dwyer

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3 Ninjas: High Noon At Mega Mountain picture

Question: In real life, do amusement parks actually have a master control room that controls all the rides?

Answer: No they don't, the rides are controlled individually by a ride operator at each ride. This was just made up for the movie.

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Shakespeare in Love picture

Question: At what point does Will actually realise that Thomas Kent is really Viola?

rachypoos

Chosen answer: When they are in the boat, just after "Thomas Kent" delivered Viola's farewell letter to Shakespeare. After a brief discussion about Will's feeling's for Viola, Thomas (Viola) kisses a surprised Will Shakespeare, then rushes away when the boat docks. The ferryman comments to Will that it was actually Lady Viola.

raywest

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Meet Joe Black picture

Question: Where is the birthday party for Bill held? On whose estate?

Answer: The script calls it the "Parrish country estate", so it belongs to Bill Parrish and his family.

Sierra1

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Six Days, Seven Nights picture

Question: How and where did Quin get a hacksaw to cut the pontoons off the WWII plane that crashed up in the trees?

Answer: Quin would likely have tools stored in his own airplane.

raywest

Answer: They were on the run from the pirates at that point, he didn't have his tool bag with him. I presumed he found it on the Japanese WW2 plane but I'm not so sure a hacksaw was standard issue to a Japanese WW2 pilot but eh who cares, love the movie anyway.

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Practical Magic picture

Question: Near the end when Sally is in the circle with Gilly, there is a series of flashbacks. There is a shot of a woman with curly shoulder length hair surrounded by white. Who is she? She's not their mother as she has long straight hair.

Answer: She is the one from the opening sequence, their "great, great, great" grandmother who started the whole "curse" thing.

Bruce Minnick

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Ringu picture

Question: There is a scene in Sadako's video (ie. the death tape) which features some people crawling backwards. I have watched this film millions of times and cannot work out what it means. Does anyone know what it means or if relates to anything in the film? Does it even have a meaning?

Answer: The other answer is not correct, although you could take it that way if you wanted. The novel upon which "Ring 0" is based was not even out at the time, nor was the prequel even planned at the time this movie came out. So that's not really the answer, although you could retroactively try to connect the two. As for the actual question: the crawling figures are typically viewed as being representations of the victims of the volcanic eruption that Shizuko (Sadako's mother) predicted. Especially as they appear right after words like "eruption" appear onscreen. Or they can be viewed somewhat more nebulously as representations of Sadako's pain, or the pain her victim's feel.

TedStixon

Answer: It may relate to a scene in Ringu 0, which goes a bit more into Sadako's origins; in that film, Sadako is a normal girl trying to hold back the evil spirit within her. A large group of people chase Sadako past the well, but the evil spirit breaks out and Sadako kills them all; the crawling people could be them as they were dying.

Moose

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Les Miserables picture

Question: I haven't read the novel, so I don't know if it's addressed there, but after Javert interrogates whom he later finds out to be Cosette in her own home, he goes back to find the house empty, and Cosette and Valjean are now living in another house. Is this an additional house that Valjean already owned as a safe house, or did he just rent it?

Phaneron

Answer: I'd say it was a house he rented.

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Soldier picture

Question: Todd has been raised from birth to be totally emotionless. When he is thrown out of the colony, what caused him to cry?

Answer: Emotions aren't just learned. Some are inborn and can't be fully suppressed.

Greg Dwyer

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Answer: Russian Beer Roulette. The scene is meant to be a recreation/tribute of "The Deer Hunter", where they slapped a lot. Instead of a revolver with one round in the chamber, one beer can is shaken up and put in with unshaken up ones so that the "loser" gets sprayed when opening the wrong one.

Bishop73

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The Negotiator picture

Question: The ending apparently had to be reshot, because the original ending leaked out. What was this original ending?

Answer: The original ending features a huge shoot-em-up, involving more than 150 cops, but it was changed to a shoot-em-up on a much smaller scale that involves only Kevin Spacey, Samuel L. Jackson and Ron Rifkin.

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Who Am I? picture

Question: Was a lot of the dialogue dubbed? It seems that a lot of the actors' voices don't seem to match up with the movements of their mouths.

Answer: It's quite possible because most movies use dubbing (or "looping") as part of the post-production work to enhance the quality or fix minor sound problems. Sometimes a different actor's voice is dubbed over a minor on-screen character.

raywest

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Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels picture

Question: During the gambling game at the beginning, one of the rules is 'an open man can't see a blind man'. This seems an insane rule - it means that as soon as one player has their first win, and thus has more money than everyone else at that instant, he should always play blind. If others play open, they can't call him (that would be 'seeing' him), they lose if they fold, so all they can do is raise - and since he has more money, he can then raise back, and keep going until they are unable to raise further (and have to fold, because they still can't 'see' him). The only way to prevent this is to play blind themselves, so after the first win, EVERYONE would play blind. Is this really what's intended?

Moose

Chosen answer: If you are playing blind, you obviously aren't allowed to see your cards, nor exchange any cards. So if I'm playing open, I've seen my cards (and only me) and after the first round of betting I can exchange some or all of my cards. Statistically I'm now going to have a much greater chance of having a better hand than the blind man. Both players know who's likely to have the best hand, so it's a very brave gambler that plays blind for more than a couple of rounds. Imagine betting hundreds or thousands of pounds on cards that you haven't seen versus a hand that your opponent has managed look at and change. The rule an open man can't see a blind man tries to even up the odds, and make the game more interesting. It's literal seeing, rather than poker terminology.

They are playing 3 card brag. Nobody can exchange cards regardless of whether they see or not.

Answer: The open player can still "cover the pot", which means they bet all the money they have left and then place their cards face down on top of all that has been bet so far (hence cover the pot). The rest of the players then open a new pot and place their bets there. Once the new pot has been resolved, the player who won it compares their hand with the cards covering the old pot - the better hand wins the covered pot. This means if you keep playing blind you will likely lose those covered pots.

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Antz picture

Question: When Z joins the soldiers and Weaver joins the workers, why couldn't the soldiers and workers tell that Z is actually a worker and Weaver is a soldier as the soldier ants are muscular and the workers aren't?

Answer: It seems there are cases where smaller ants are soldiers, and larger ones are workers. Remember the workers didn't seem to care that Weaver was huge and muscular.

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Urban Legend picture

Question: How can Natalie and Michelle get only probation for causing someone's death?

Rob245

Answer: They would have been charged with vehicular manslaughter, not even a felony in some jurisdictions. If it was a first offense and/or they lied about what happened, probation wouldn't be off the mark.

LorgSkyegon

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