... sith, oz & floyd, potter and more - oh my!

Recently, Kosh and I put to the test some stuff we'd heard about off of the net:

1. Of siths and kitchen sinks

Did you know that for Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith... In the opening sequence when the second Separatist ship is destroyed a piece of debris flies into the Clone Star destroyer that shot it. That piece of debris is a Kitchen Sink. It was it put in there by ILM as a joke from someone saying, "We're throwing everything in the sequence but the kitchen sink." (from HERE, 19th (i think) bullet point down)

I found this bit of trivia *after* we'd seen the movie, but well before the DVD was released. It's been on my mind ever since - one of those things that I just *have* to see for myself...

Of course, I wasn't in any hurry to see the movie again (yes, it was the best of the latter/newer three, but NOTHING close to the original movies!!), but once the DVD was available, we managed to get it from the library.

I proceeded to waste maybe half an hour, going through the opening battle scenes over and over and over, trying to figure out WHERE exactly the friggin' sink was.

There were a few potentials, but really, even with the slow/step feature, there was no way to definitively say "THERE IT IS!"

Bah, humbug!

2. Of wizards of oz and dark sides of moons

Ever heard of the supposed synchronicity between the movie The Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon?

Set your CD player to repeat the entire disc - start playing the album at the end of the 3rd roar of the MGM lion at the start of the film. Sit back and enjoy the movie with its added effects.

Yeah.....

I think one needs to do this when stoned, drunk, or both :p

One thing that did get me LOL watching The Wizard of Floyd (or Dark Side of Oz?) was the tense scene where Ms Gulch comes to take Toto away. The song at that time is the early part of Time (I think?), and the ominous guitar sounds really seem to line up with every time Dorothy looked desperately from one person to another.

For your follow-up pleasure:

• Everwonder.com (has scenes from movie to illustrate what to look out for)
  
• Easter Eggs (eeggs.com)

3. Of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I don't know why I was disappointed by this movie, but I was fidgeting 30mins into it!

Maybe a big part of it was the totally crummy job with the convoluted love interest part of the tale (Ron - Hermione - Viktor, and Harry - Cho - Cedric, for example), which made those parts of the movie a big "HUH?" for those who haven't read the book.

And so much was left out!!!!!!!!! I'm cringing at the thought of how the next movie - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - is gonna end up... So many details of Book 4 were axed in order to squeeze the 734pg tale into 157mins - what more for Book 5's 870pgs?!!

But no worries, no matter what, I will still catch the next HP movies on the big screen.

In the meantime... if I were a non-muggle attending Hogwarts...

Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?

Your in-depth results are:

Ravenclaw - 13
Gryffindor - 10
Hufflepuff - 9
Slytherin - 8

4. Of strange loves and bombs

Galvanised by the many 100 all-TIME movies I'd not yet seen, I recently watched Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

I would categorise this as a dark comedy: that a general knowingly starts a process to nuclear holocaust is a horrible horrible premise... having a war room of politicians and generals frantically trying to stop it from happening, but being bogged down by existing prejudices is all too realistic despite its comedic setting... and having Slim Picken's character ride the H-Bomb was hilarious in a disbelieving way... Certainly time not wasted watching this movie :-)

Oh, and did you know that this movie is also where James Earl Jones made his screen debut? He went on to become the voice of Darth Vader (and CNN!). THAT is trivia worth remembering :-)

5. Of running blades...

Also from the 100 all-TIME movies list, I recently watched Blade Runner too.

Ah, a young Harrison Ford, with that mischievous boy look - always a pleasure :-)
A dark prediction of a dark future? Literally and figuratively! Excellent.
The questions raised about what it means to be human, especially when artificial life forms can experience emotions and, in the case of Rachel, not realise that she/it's NOT "human" - always valid questions as technology gets more and more sophisticated...

Again - definitely time not wasted (but I did have to watch certain scenes over again since they'd ended up watching ME instead, LOL!)