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daveyh's Replies
First thing I did when I found out Moviechat existed was looked up this question - only occurred to me long after the old imdb boards had vanished to see if anyone else had asked this.
Having read the answers, I now get it. There are so many reasons.
I'll throw a couple of others out there
(1) It's possible that Miles opened the motel room door with every intention of telling Jack, but didn't get chance to because Jack was being insufferable. He literally jumps on him as soon as he steps in the room, when he eventually cottons on that Miles is visibly upset, he starts mocking him, then, when Miles finally snaps at him, and Jack starts to back off, his only thought is to ask if he had "trouble performing". Would have been very interesting, though, if, when Miles says "don't answer it", Jack asked 'why not'. Would Miles have told him then?
(2) Miles' insecurity has already been mentioned on this thread. Given the vibe of their friendship, and the way their lives were going at that point, it's also possible Miles' train of though was something to the extent of 'Jack already thinks I'm a loser, I don't want his opinion of me to get worse by letting him know that I've told Maya.'
(3) Rationally, there was a possibility that he'd get away with it. They're going home the next morning - OK, chances are Maya called Stefanie to tell her as soon as she got home, but it would just need Stefanie to ghost Jack for the rest of that day (far easier to do in 2004), and Jack to not get upset or obsess over not hearing from her enough to turn up at her house or workplace to ask why - and Miles would hope to distract him with, say, another round of golf or a heavy night on the wine until he forgets about it.
Then they would just go home for the rehearsal dinner the next day, so all Jack's focus then would be on his upcoming wedding.
As someone else has pointed out on this thread, Miles avoided confrontation. In this instance, he was hoping Stephanie and Jack would do the same.
I got my first mobile phone in 2004 and immediately started texting, mainly because most of my friends had been doing that for a while by then, and it had already become the main form of communicating for people my age and younger. I'm in the UK, and the U.S. is usually a good couple of years ahead it comes to technology, so it's entirely possible that texting had been a common thing in the US since the turn of the millenium. That said, maybe it was very much a youth thing until much later in the decade - guys Miles' and Jack's age would still communicate by phone call. There's an episode of The Wire, set in the spring of 2003, where they realise the criminals are using text messages - it seems to be a whole new concept to the middle aged detectives, but one of them says something to the effect of "my kids are always doing that".
It's also possible that the film is set a few years earlier - do they specify that it is 2004? If so, I found it a bit odd that Miles didn't have a mobile phone by this point. I know Bush is on the TV screen but that could have been during his campaign or earlier in his presidency? Plus I read somewhere that the episode of The Grind on the TV in the room during Miles' "freakout" is from the 1990s. I've not read the book yet so I don't know when that takes place.
Completely agree with the OP though - would have completely changed the course of events in the film - Christine would just be texting Jack rather than bombarding him with calls and ringing the hotel room phone, in fact it's unthinkable nowadays to leave your phone in your hotel room while you're out overnight. Stefanie might have looked up Jack' social's and seen that he was engaged (and he'd probably have to have a strong social media presence to network for his acting career), Jack would also have to worry about any pictures tagged at tourist spots around there in case Christine saw him and Stefanie looking intimate in the background etc.
sorry, one more. "Did you have trouble performing? That's a shame" gets me every time - again, the way he says it more than anything
the way Jack says "windmill" after Miles tells Maya they're just gonna go to the motel and crash
Miles gets his turn, though, when he repeats the word "deep" after Jack talks about being with Stefanie. Also love the way he says "oh, you've been thinking" in this scene too.
And for lines they don't say, when they first go back to Stefanie's place, most people are still laughing from the "1 for you, 3 for me" bit and don't hear when Miles says "are you sure you want to do this". Jack turns round, looks at Miles for a second, sighs and then carries on. It's brilliant.
usually, they start you out on wines that have learning disabilities
I guess I'm replying to an old imdb post, but I can also recommend Bad Match. She plays an unhinged person in that too.
I reckon she must be the most level headed, boring person ever in real life, in order to play crazy so well.
I think the only reason he doesn't is because, immediately after calling the number, he looks through the SIU file and sees that picture of Costello talking to Lazlo and other stuff indicating that he's an FBI informant.
He therefore thinks twice about helping Costello and it contributes to his decision to "take him down" when he knows he's going to the warehouse
"you can't get a little bit pregnant" and "(money) makes you do things you don't want to do" are 2 of the best lines in a film full of great one-liners, which is especially something since, like you say, he had such little screen time.
Having been convinced that the film was originally supposed to be shown in this order, I've just re-watched again and now I'm unsure. That scene after the "final fight" when Clooney's backpack malfunctions and only goes horizontally is a nice echo of the same thing happening to young Frank Walker at the beginning of the movie.
The "intro" is also only revealed to be the speech they're giving to the new recruiters in the very final scene, which would suggest it was designed that way....but maybe the original ending was different and they re-shot it?
But, as the guy in your video link says, the way Clooney's introduced when Casey's at his door, it's like he's being gradually revealed, as if it's his first appearance in the film, which doesn't make sense because, with the intro, the viewer already knows the appearance and personality of the adult Frank Walker.
And I would add that, in a similar fashion, the scene when Casey's on the motorbike and uses the drones and breaks into NASA before finally taking her helmet off, feels like it was supposed to be "teenage" Casey's first appearance.
Each viewing just raises more questions!
A good money making idea - only problem is what would the story of this movie be? Aside from Utah, there's only Tyler and the background FBI characters who survive the original film.....wait, maybe Warchild gets out of prison, and now, there's no-one to tell him to back off. Seriously.
Or to speak into the microphone, squidbrain. Maybe he comes after a now carefree ageing surfer Utah as revenge.
And the final twist is that Bodhi comes to his rescue again. Turns out he really did pppahdle to New Zealand.
Joking aside, there wouldn't be much beyond a 50-odd year old botoxed Johnny Utah shuffling round. People would still pay to see it mind.
sorry if I'm replying to an old imdb account here. Thought it was worth answering anyway.
My interpretation is that after Harry gets the signal that Ed only has a pair of sixes, you get an extreme shot of Harry's "reaction" to this - his pupils dilating, which Ed notices. Given that a significant enough amount of time has passed since each player looked at their own cards (including Harry), Ed see's this reaction as Harry thinking "i'm going to pull a major bluff, here goes nothin'", and his subsequent OTT bets further convince Ed of this.
Considering what a major part of the plot losing the card game is, though, it's not very well explained at all.
To answer the OP, Ed could have folded, but that would have meant losing all of his and his friends' money, as I think the 100k and then some was already on the table at this point. And if Ed was convinced by his usually accurate reading of reactions that Harry was bluffing, that would have been another reason to take the loan
.....his teammates take their coach's cue and ostracize Voodoo, culminating in the restaurant scene.
Granted, the guy didn't do himself any favours at times - changing the music at the party and telling Smash that he needed to "climb some trees", but by then he was already disillusioned by life in Dillon with a coach and team who didn't want him. And as he quite honestly stated, he's not there to make friends. Which makes you wonder who those guys accompanying him are at the party and in the restaurant - extended family members maybe?
OK, some of this has been tongue in cheek, but you could actually write the story from Voodoo's point of view - katrina refugee, forced to move to some hick town, mistakenly thought the coach's speech was meant to motivate him when it turns out he wasn't wanted and is now stuck there - and make Taylor and the rest of the Panthers players and staff appear to be the bad guys.
The Ray Tatum Story. I like the sounds of that.
I'd also like to see the story told from Caster's point of view. Or the poor girl who had her hair set on fire by a Panther player in season 3, only for that wonderful Coach Taylor to be more concerned that the offender's parents weren't into football. Way to get your priorities right, oh great leader of men.
Back to the OP - sports dramas tend to need the opponents in the final to be villains in order to up the stakes (rather than just another group of kids with similar qualities). I think that's the only reason they made Voodoo out to be such a monster.
Incidentally, how lazy was the writing - Buddy quite explicitly states that he's gone back to his school in Louisiana, and has admitted to being recruited. A few weeks later - no, another Texas school (who must have been on course for the playoffs by then anyway) recruited him, gave him a swimming pool, and no-one in authority questioned it.
Can you imagine if such a bad and contrived inconsistency had happened in Season 2?! We'd never hear the end of it.
I'm glad someone else has said this. I'm getting ready to start a thread on what a cock Coach Taylor is, and having just re-watched some of series 1, the Voodoo situation is a great example.
First of all, let's look at how he ended up at Dillon. Buddy and Coach go to the motel or whatever where the family are staying, Coach clearly doesn't like what he's seeing and hearing, and when the guy doing the talking mentions a guaranteed starting spot, Coach snaps and says that starting spots have to be earned, wishes the family well and leaves. As far as Coach is concerned, that's the last they'll see of each other, and he proceeds to try to get the players he has firing again - hence the wind sprints.
Unfortunately, Voodoo overestimates Coach and thinks this was some great reverse psychology on his part - what does Buddy say - "your speech worked". The look on Taylor's face immediately tells Voodoo that Taylor was being very linear back at the motel - he was giving the speech because he didn't want him there, further empathised when he continues to use Matt during practise.
Voodoo's possibly the only player who's ever been brutally honest with Taylor, and Taylor clearly didn't like it - in fact, Voodoo's "arranged marriage" analogy was quite brilliant. And, I'm only realising this as I'm typing, his closing line was a great reversal/parallel of the end of the speech Taylor had given him in the motel earlier - just replace "join Arnett Mead" with "start Matt Saracen". It's beautiful.
Come the game, and Voodoo quickly becomes dissatisfied with Taylor's utterly ineffectual play calling - the only time they score is when Voodoo takes matters into his own hands and runs his own play - "look at the scoreboard Coach" indeed. It backfires second time he tries it. Taylor's response is to scream "YOU'RE DONE" in his face in front of all his team-mates, making him the villain in all their eyes - great man management skills.....
well someone's got to reply to this.
Yeah, until the Moe Green scene, John Cazale's virtually an ascended extra.
If anything was going to be great subject matter for a sequel, it would be Fredo and his relationship with the family.
It's interesting that, after appearing so timid and socially inept in New York around the family, and clearly not cut out for the mob life, the turnaround when Michael arrives in Vegas is astounding - he's confident, charismatic, jovial....maybe it was banging all those cocktail waitresses two at a time that really brought him out of his shell...
Anyway, Michael immediately shuts down the party, undermines Fredo and then effectively trashes the life he's spent years building for himself in Vegas by making an enemy out of Moe Greene. This would in all likelihood have sent Fredo into the tailspin that we see at the start of 2.
Did Michael ever think about that? Did he ever once stop to think about that?
One thing that's not explained in 1, or maybe it is in the book, I don't know - where is Fredo between Vito's shooting and release from hospital? I don't see him at the house any time in the aftermath. Maybe he's also in hospital being treated for shock? Sonny says something about sending him to Vegas to rest.
there's a deleted scene which would take place between Tom Hagen leaving Woltz's and the horse's head scene, showing Tom already back at the Corleone residence talking with Sonny and Vito (it also shows Connie and Carlo having a heated argument and Sonny wanting to intervene then) - Tom basically reports back and Vito says something to the effect of "we'll give it to Luca", and THEN they cut back to Woltz's to show the horse's head scene, before going back to the discussion between Tom, Vito and Sonny, in which the topic changes to Sollozzo.
So i guess it's Luca who comes up with the horse's head stunt - must be to express his gratitude at being invited to the house on the day of his daughter's wedding.
I think it plays a lot better without the scene, the way the screams are still being heard as Vito's image slowly appears on screen, the first time we've seen him since the wedding.
just read this on the thread about Michael not quite carrying out the hit as per Sonny/Clemenza's instructions. The post is from 6 years ago but the thread was recently added to which is why I'm only just seeing it:
N the book some of these issues get explained.
"On sitting back down, it was a bit absent minded of him. But he also believed that Sollozzo had a guy there and if he pulled the gun right out he would have been shot immediately. He figured that if he sat down it would seem more natural. And he was right. In the book one of the other diners was a Sollozzo henchman and he got caught unawares. He basically puts his hands on the table to show he will take no action."
Another post a couple of comments down also mentions that Michael didn't come out of the bathroom blasting because he believed Sollozzo may have other men in there so he sat back down to put anyone watching at ease.
I guess that's easy enough to describe in the book but impossible to portray in the movie. Well, difficult, not impossible wahey
you fingered Sonny for the Barzini people
I agree. I wonder if it would have been better to have made one movie that ends after Michael kills Solozzo and McCluskey, and then have a 2nd movie pick up a couple of years later, to cover the rest of the time period covered in the book.
There are enough deleted scenes to stretch the run time for the "first movie" if we go with this idea (and, for me, most of these scenes shouldn't have been deleted as they enhance the viewer's understanding of the story or add more depth to the characters).
The 2nd movie could maybe include the prequel parts too in order to make it a full length movie.
Or, alternatively, end the movie after the five families meeting in 1948.
Either way, I agree with the OP. The pacing just feels off. The last 40 minutes feel rushed, and at the same time make the movie too long, so it's both too much and too little.
This film is a remake of Reykjevic-Rotterdam and - spolier - the same thing happens at the end of that, so it's just staying true to its source material
OK watched it again last night (it is October). When they're inside the mountain, they do make a big reveal of the fact that the grandson's only 15 after claiming all movie to be 17. And the years carved into the wall, they do quite explicitly say that it's taking place in 2021. Sorry I missed all that on my first watch. I also picked up on the years noted on the photo wall of Callie (didn't see the 1984 one you mentioned but I did see one of her as a child saying 1987).
I still don't like that Egon would have been a father during the events of both earlier films and yet this is never mentioned in them, even if it does have nothing to do with the story line.
And I stand by what I said in the OP that the events of the 2nd film are airbrushed here (apart from Ray's Occult shop).