Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2010 June 14

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June 14

Is The Room a joke or not?

There cannot be any possible way a line like:

Johnny: (All exasperated) It's bullshit, I did not hit her. [Sudden German Accent; Over-exaggerated Facial Expression] I did naaahhht.

Johnny: (Completely back to normal) Oh, hi Mark!

Can be unintentional.

If you've never seen the movie you can see the scene in various clips. What I am asking is, can this movie really be something done on accident, by a clueless director? Couldn't this be some sort of a once in a thousand years lining up of the cosmos? Could the director's supposed inanity be performance art? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.245.109.91 (talk) 08:15, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't know either way, but here is a link to our article, The Room (film). (I always thought it sucked too much to be intentional, but then, if it was supposed to suck, I guess he's a genius.) Adam Bishop (talk) 14:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Films that are disguised re-writes of classic novels plays or other literature

Clueless is said to be a re-write of Jane Austin's Emma. What other examples are there please? 92.24.183.80 (talk) 10:15, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

10 Things I Hate About You is a loose adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew. Dismas|^(talk) 11:17, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

As was Kiss Me, Kate. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 12:52, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) A play rather than a novel as a source, but Forbidden Planet/The Tempest is a famous example. Deor (talk) 11:19, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Ooops! I mean plays as well - have amended title. Thanks. 92.24.183.80 (talk) 11:21, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Samuel Beckett told Polanski that he did not want Waiting for Godot to be filmed. So Polanski made Cul-de-Sac (1966) which has numerous parallels with Waiting for Godot. Pepso2 (talk) 11:42, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Cruel Intentions / Dangerous Liaisons. Are you looking for some sort of pattern or is this more of a trivia question (which we really shouldn't be entertaining on these desks)? There must be hundreds of examples out there. Also, for cross-language examples you can look at Hindi cinema or Indian cinema in general, which is rife with "remakes" of Hollywood movies. Zunaid 11:47, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Another question for you (having noticed that my Cruel Intentions / Dangerous Liaisons example does not actually meet your criteria): how do you define "disguised" vs. just a normal adaptation or remake? This is a reference desk so we do need to provide referenced answers as far as possible, I'm thinking the typs of answers you're going to get will be no more than speculation or educated guesswork. Zunaid 12:03, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a retelling of Homer's Odyssey. West Side Story is Romeo and Juliet. Staecker (talk) 11:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Ran (film) is King Lear. --Viennese Waltz ^talk 12:02, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

It's a problematic case, as neither Kurosawa nor Leone acknowledged the connection (perhaps for copyright reasons), but Red Harvest → Yojimbo → A Fistful of Dollars seems to me to be a clear "double play" example. Deor (talk) 12:12, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

What about Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness? Alansplodge (talk) 12:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Lost in Space and Swiss Family Robinson. Alansplodge (talk) 15:32, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of Kurosawa, Throne of Blood is adapted from Macbeth -- Ferkelparade π 12:56, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Some people have said that the movie Barb Wire is a ripoff of Casablanca. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.55.9.68 (talk) 13:35, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

She's All That is based on Pygmalion (which is also the source of My Fair Lady). AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:29, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, see Film adaptation, Category:Films based on plays and Category:Shakespeare_on_film for the broader categories. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:35, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Bride and Prejudice and, well, have a guess. Gwinva (talk) 21:43, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

What is meant by "disguised"? It's no secret that, for example, Bridget Jones's Diary is a loose modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice or, for that matter, that Clueless]] is a loose modern adaptation of Emma. John M Baker (talk) 22:29, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Strange Brew is a very loose adaptation of Hamlet, with the McKenzie Brothers playing the Rosencrantz-and-Gildenstern style bufoons. --Jayron32 05:55, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The Rest Is Silence (1959) adapted Hamlet to a setting in Germany of the 1950s. An excellent film, as I recall. Pepso2 (talk) 02:26, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Jonathan Larson's RENT is a rock opera based on Giacomo Puccini's La bohème. ^Avicenna_sis tb? @ 09:44, 4 Tamuz 5770 / 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is, I'm reliably informed, "based on the short story The Sobbin' Women, by Stephen Vincent Benét, which was based in turn on the Ancient Roman legend of The Rape of the Sabine Women". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:22, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

And Miss Saigon ≈ Madama Butterfly. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:17, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

What's the character between the words Saigon and Madama there? I imagine it's an arrow or something, but I only see a square on my browser. I can't believe that there are still browser compatibility issues (I'm using IE7) over a simple character at this stage of the game...--Viennese Waltz ^talk 12:20, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

It's an "approximately equal to" sign - basically an equals sign but with a wiggly top line. DuncanHill (talk) 12:29, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that. More to the point, why can't IE7 display it? --Viennese Waltz ^talk 12:37, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it was the "approximately equal" sign - picked from the "Math and logic" characters below the edit box, and showing up fine in Firefox. I've replaced by the asmyp HTML entity. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:45, 16 June 2010 (UTC).

song 2

whats the song in this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQkYQO2XYj8 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexsmith44 (talk • contribs) 13:03, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

André Hazes - Ik leef m'n eigen leven --Onorem♠Dil 13:17, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Details of own goals

Thinking about the own goal in yesterday's Netherlands-Denmark football match, I'm curious — statistically, who gets credit for the score? I would guess that the Danish defender will be credited with it, judging by the third paragraph of the "Association football" section of own goal. However, I didn't watch the match, and I don't understand football well enough to be sure, so I'm quite uncertain that my guess is correct. Nyttend (talk) 14:50, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

In football, when an own goal is scored, no player on the offensive team gets credit. It is recorded as being scored by the defending team's player who sent it into his own net with the mention "own goal". Football differs from ice hockey in this, since every goal is credited to an offensive player in hockey, no matter what the circumstances, but not in football. --207.236.147.118 (talk) 15:17, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

It is credited as an own goal by the defender, and no attacker gets credit. There is a bit of a grey area if a shot takes a large deflection off a defender. In these cases the attacker usually gets the credit if the original shot would have been on target, and it goes down as an own goal if it would have gone wide. Some competitions even go so far as to use a Dubious Goals Panel to decide these things. Oldelpaso (talk) 15:44, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

As with all goals the "credit" goes to the player who made the decisive touch to send the ball goalwards. So yesterdays own goal was credited to the second danish defender (the one who's back the ball riccoched off, not the one who headed the ball).213.160.108.26 (talk) 22:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Mistake in Titanic

In the movie they show a guy carrying a semi-automatic pistol, and a very sophisticated gun at that, in fact nickel plated. The film is set in 1912, i.e. before First World War. Did they have this type of guns at that time ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 18:43, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Probably. Without knowing exactly which gun was in the movie. The History section of the article you linked to shows that the Mauser C96, Browning M1900 and Colt 45 were being produced. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 19:02, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Yes they did have those types of gun at the time but see the imdb goofs section, it is suggested that it wouldn't be possible for an M1911 pistol to be available to the public so soon after initial production and the model used in the film is the M1911A1 which wasn't made until the mid-20s. Modern looking semi-automatics have been around since the turn of the century, with the FN M1900 being the first semi-auto with a slide being made in 1896. Nanonic (talk) 19:06, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

You could check the Internet Firearms Database to find out what kind of gun it was. Dismas|^(talk) 21:41, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Yep, it's on there. Dismas|^(talk) 08:47, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Apostrophe next to note

In this[[1]] page some of the notes in the tunings have an apostrophe next to them, for example: Dan Ghita - c f c' g' c... What's the difference betwen a c and a c'? Is it supposed to be a sharp? Thanks for any help 188.82.140.2 (talk) 19:08, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

In the example you quote there is more than one "c", and the apostrophe is intended to show which octave above middle C you need to play. So we have middle C - F - C one octave above the first one - G one octave above middle C - middle C. The number of octaves is denoted by the number of apostrophes, so C with 3 apostrophes after it (damn Wikipedia HTML!) would be the C 3 octaves above middle C. If you wish to denote octaves below middle C, then you use a comma. Sometimes it is possible to see lower case Roman numerals used in this way, as a superscript for above middle C, or as a subscript for below middle C, thus: c^iv or c_iv I can't see this referred to in our "Musical notation" article. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Use the <nowiki> </nowiki> tags for that. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 20:03, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

See Helmholtz pitch notation and Scientific pitch notation. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:07, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Wavelength - it looks like my music teacher was wrong about the notation for middle C in the Helmholtz notation then! Oh and thank 75.41 too.--TammyMoet (talk) 09:56, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Flipping the Great Bird of the Galaxy

What is the source of the widely disseminated picture of Captain Picard giving the finger? Is it from a blooper reel? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 22:04, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

It's not from a blooper reel, but it is photoshopped. During the climactic scene of Devil's Due (at approximately 1:27 on this video), as Picard speaks the line "Did she not even pick up one piece of trash?!", he makes a little flourish of his index and middle fingers, presumably to illustrate trash collection. When you freeze-frame it, he seems to be giving a V sign, which is rude enough, depending on where you come from. This frame was photoshopped so that the index finger would seem to be bent, and presto, you have Picard giving the finger. LANTZY^TALK 00:00, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! --Lazar Taxon (talk) 00:43, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

boulevard phil collins

is there a song called boulevard by phil collins —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexsmith44 (talk • contribs) 23:06, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Well I've had a good look through Phil Collins discography and I can't see one. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:07, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I can't think of or find a single song by Collins that even contains the word "boulevard". Is it possible that you're thinking of "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"? Dismas|^(talk) 13:12, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Considering that TLLDOB's lead vocals were performed by Peter Gabriel, that seems unlikely as well. --Jayron32 02:19, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, yeah, it's a stretch but Collins was in the band at the time. *shrug* Dismas|^(talk) 13:42, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Not only did Collins do backing vocals on the studio and live versions of Lamb, after Gabriel left he took over lead vocal duties and sung TLLDOB live on, for example, Seconds Out. So not much of a stretch. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:44, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Jackson Browne had a hit song named "boulevard" back in 1980. 10draftsdeep (talk) 20:31, 16 June 2010 (UTC)