In this reel of COL Movies, Jeff and Ray are all by their lonesomes as Steven takes the week off. They start off in the past trying to remember the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger flick “Total Recall”. The memory implant falls and they only find another 3 breasted woman in the present day Colin Farrell version of “Total Recall”. In the future, they discuss if “Sinister” is sinister at all. This and Bob Hoskins Retires and utterly unsurprising news from the No Shit Sherlock department. It’s the 117th reel of COL Movies “Two Weeks”

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News:

• It the No Shit Sherlock department: Joss Whedon signs on to write and direct Avengers 2
• Bob Hoskins announces retirement

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The Past: Total Recall (1990)
Rotten Tomatoes 85% Fresh 70% Audience

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Director: Paul Verhoeven

Staring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Ronny Cox, Rachel Ticotin, Dean Norris

Trivia:

• As many as seven directors were considered for and even hired to direct the movie, including Richard Rush, Bruce Beresford and David Cronenberg. Cronenberg had even written a few drafts of the script before Paul Verhoeven took over the Total Recall project.
• Over 40 drafts of the script were written, some of which depicted Quaid as a mild-mannered accountant (instead of a construction worker). According to Paul Verhoeven, although there were many changes made to each of the scripts, the final draft of the script was very similar to the first draft.
• Johnnycab whistles the Norwegian national anthem.
• Robert Picardo was voice of and facial model for the “Johnnycab” robot.
• When Quaid is dressed up as the fat lady, the passport he hands the guard is the actual passport of Priscilla Allen (who played the fat lady).
• The subway scenes were filmed in the Mexico City subway system, specifically, the Insurgentes station of the Line 1: Constituyentes-Pantitlan.
• Some of the large ads seen after Quaid gets off the subway were real signs featured above the Insurgentes subway station in Mexico City, most noticeable the Fuji Film and Coca Cola signs, the Coca Cola sign still stands today
• The original cut of the movie was given an X-rating by the MPAA for excessive violence. Some violence was trimmed and different camera angles were used in some of the more over the top scenes and the movie was then re-rated R.
• On the graph that Quaid is shown at Rekall, it appears that traveling by space shuttle has been getting more and more dangerous as time goes on!
• The short story on which it was based was first optioned in 1974, 16 years before the film finally was released.
• Patrick Swayze was signed to play Quaid when the movie began preproduction in Australia with Bruce Beresford as the director. However, early in preproduction, Dino De Laurentiis’ company went bankrupt. After Arnold Schwarzenegger heard about this, he persuaded Carolco to buy the script for him.
• The concept of Quaid being a physically-buffed construction worker was suggested by Arnold Schwarzenegger himself. In the earlier drafts of the script, Quaid (originally named Quail) was originally described as an average-looking accountant-type person. Because of this detail, when the movie was originally going to be produced by Dino De Laurentiis, he was adamant about not letting Schwarzenegger audition for the role of Quaid. It was only after Schwarzenegger convinced Mario Kassar to buy the script rights from De Laurentiis (whose production company went bankrupt) that the later drafts were re-written to change Quaid’s character into one more suitable for Schwarzenegger to play. Schwarzenegger said that he felt this helped the story even more, giving a much stronger contrast to it by turning a character who is otherwise powerful physically into a character that becomes vulnerable after having his mind stolen.
• Quaid’s metal briefcase contains the following items: a worker’s ID for the Pyramid Mines on Mars under the name “Steve Leonetti”, a driver’s license under the name “James D. Brubaker”, several other miscellaneous ID cards, a large sum of pink Martian dollar bills, an unusual medical device (later used to extract the bug from inside Quaid’s head), a portable wrist-worn hologram generator, a laptop-like video communication device, various clothes (possibly the fat lady outfit), and a piece of paper with the name “HOFFMAN” written on it, who’s purpose is never revealed (possibly Quaid’s passenger ticket to Mars?).
• All of the crew fell ill due to food poisoning during production, with the exception of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronald Shusett. Schwarzenegger escaped because he always had his food catered from the US. This was because three years earlier, he had fallen ill due to drinking tap water in Mexico during production of Predator. As for Shusett, he took extreme health precautions, such as only brushing his teeth with boiled or bottled water and insisting on getting a weekly vitamin B12 shot. Shusett was even mocked by the crew until they all got sick themselves.
• The miniatures used for shots showing Martian geography were based on Martian photographs.
• One of the heavily re-edited scenes to get an R-rating was the escalator shootout where Quaid uses a human body to shield himself from bullets.
• Body count: 77
• Kurtwood Smith was offered the role of Richter, but he turned it down because he felt the role was too similar to his character in RoboCop.
• Christopher Reeve was offered, but turned down, the role of Douglas Quaid.
• Both the adaptation of the screenplay (written by Piers Anthony) and early drafts of the script had the main character’s name as Douglas Quail. The original Philip K. Dick story has the name Quail as well. The film was being made during the Bush administration, with Dan Quayle as Vice President and it is presumed that this was the reason for the change.
• During Quaid’s Rekall orientation, a monitor momentarily shows an illustration of a green Martian from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Martian novels.
• Richard Rush was initially hired by Dino De Laurentiis to direct the project, but he left when they couldn’t agree on the script. Rush was replaced by Bruce Beresford. Lewis Teague was also under consideration to direct around this time.
• The escalator chase scene was filmed in Mexico City’s “Chabacano” Subway Station (Intersection for Lines 2, 9 and 8, though 8 wasn’t operating at the time). The only changes made are direction signs in English, and the station names replaced.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger was originally going to play the title role in RoboCop but problems with the costume caused producers to drop the idea. After Schwarzenegger saw Robocop, he expressed that he loved the movie and wanted to work with director Paul Verhoeven. When he and Verhoeven heard about Total Recall, they decided to work on that.
• Originally to be directed by David Cronenberg, who turned down the chance to direct The Fly in order to work on this film. Cronenberg was replaced on The Fly by Robert Bierman, but Bierman later pulled out of that project due to the death of his daughter. Around the same time, Cronenberg left Total Recall when it was placed into turnaround, which left him free to return to direct The Fly.
• As it is often done in futuristic movies, this one also uses contemporary design objects to depict future settings – among other things, the small cups with the black plastic ring, used by Quaid while preparing his breakfast smoothie, are Bodum Bistro coffee mugs from Denmark, and a desk lamp at Rekall is the Tolomeo from Italian manufacturer Artemide.
• Although never mentioned in the film, the cover of the VHS-edition of the movie mentions that the movie takes place in the year 2084 AD.
• The Spanish title for this movie is “Desafío Total”, which translated to English means “Total challenge”. This movie was also released under another Spanish title, “El Vengador del Futuro”, which translates to “Future Avenger”
• It took 15 puppeteers to control Kuato, whose name is from the Spanish word: cuate (twin). In Imagining ‘Total Recall’, Director Paul Verhoeven said that special makeup effects designer Rob Bottin had made the Kuato puppet look so real, that he was approached by 2 people on the street asking if he (Marshall Bell) was a “real freak” or possibly a semi-born Siamese twin.
• In the featurette Imagining ‘Total Recall’, production designer William Sandell tells about the brutal conditions the cast and crew experienced while shooting in Mexico. Aside from most of the cast and crew suffering from food poisoning, Sandell also talks about the poor air quality in Mexico City, comparing the breathing conditions to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. He also mentions that at one point, the air quality had gotten so bad that associate producer Elliot Schick had to be transported via MEDEVAC copter to a nearby hospital.
• Jeff Bridges, Matthew Broderick and Richard Dreyfuss were each considered for the role of Quaid.
• The portable locator used by Michael Champion (Helm) was built by Casio
• In the featurette Imagining ‘Total Recall’, editor Frank J. Urioste said that most of the external shots of Mars almost didn’t make it into the final cut of the movie, much to his dismay. The producers felt that those shots would be too expensive and would make the movie go over-budget. Urioste then addressed his concerns about those shots with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was able to influence the producers to not cut the external shots from the final film.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger suffered several hand-related injuries during the shoot. When filming the scene where Quaid smashes a train window, a tiny explosive in the glass was supposed to shatter the glass a fraction of a second before Schwarzenegger struck it, but it didn’t go off and Schwarzenegger hit the glass for real, badly cutting himself. When filming the fight scene inside Quaid’s Hilton suite (immediately after Quaid shoots Dr. Edgemar), Schwarzenegger broke a finger on his right hand and had to get a cast fitted. As a result, most of his scenes shot afterward kept his injured hand off-screen.
• Robert Davi turned down the part of Richter.
• When Quaid is going through the items in the silver suitcase, he picks up a stack of fake ID cards. The name on the first ID is Steve Lionetti, who was a production assistant for the movie.
• Approximately 3 weeks before the movie’s scheduled theatrical release, it only had 43% public awareness of the movie, which Arnold Schwarzenegger described as being “absolutely disastrous”. Arnold was able to convince Mario Kassar and the rest of Carolco to pump in more money for advertising, and as a result, the movie ended up opening with 99% public awareness.
• In the DVD commentary, Paul Verhoeven said that for the love scene after Quaid wakes from his nightmare, he wanted Sharon Stone to show off more skin for the scene, but Stone had refused to do so. He settled for shooting the scene as it is shown, but mentions that he “got her back” while shooting the movie Basic Instinct.
• Towards the end of filming in Mexico, Paul Verhoeven got so sick from food poisoning that he would have an ambulance nearby on set at all times, and in between takes, they would administer fluids and medication, so that Verhoeven could keep directing in spite of his illness.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger was so impressed by how much dedication Sharon Stone had in training for her character role, that he even referred to her as the “Female Terminator”. Stone was even inducted into the Stunt Woman Association as an honorary member.
• Total Recall was one of the last major Hollywood blockbusters to make large-scale use of miniature effects as opposed to CGI, and at the same time, it was also one of the first major Hollywood blockbusters to use CGI (mainly for the scenes involving the X-Ray scanner) and have it look “photo-real”.
• Though the location of the city in which Quaid lives and works is not revealed, the phone number featured in the Rekall ad he sees in the subway shows an area code of 915, which suggests the movie is set somewhere in western Texas, possibly El Paso. This is later confirmed if you look carefully at one of Quaid’s fake IDs that he pulls out of the suit case inside the old cement factory, which lists him as “James D. Brubaker” of “El Paso, TX”.
• David Cronenberg was set to direct and even wrote a few drafts of the script before Paul Verhoeven took over. Cronenberg stated that he wanted to cast William Hurt as the lead, and was displeased by the producers’ decision to reimagine the lead for an action star such as Schwarzenegger.
• When Quaid fights with Harry and his men after visiting Rekall, the sounds of bones being broken are actually celery being twisted and snapped.
• To coincide with the movie’s release, Sharon Stone posed nude for ‘Playboy’ magazine, showing off the buff body she developed in preparation for the movie (she pumped iron and learned Tae Kwon Do).
• When Ronald Shusett and Dan O’Bannon first started working on the screen play for this movie back in the 1970’s, they realized at the time that the movie would probably be too expensive and difficult to make (by the standards of special effects and budget in the 70’s). So they delayed working on the story and instead worked on an idea O’Bannon had about a space monster terrorizing a spaceship crew. This became the movie Alien.
• According to Bob McClane and the display screen, Quaid’s Mars Vacation Package includes the following: Private cabin on the Mars-bound shuttle, Two weeks accommodations at a deluxe suite at the Mars Hilton, three meals a day at a 5-star restaurant, romantic encounters, personal tour guide to Mt. Olympus, Pyramid Mountain, the Grand Canals, and Venusville. Counting the Secret Agent Ego Trip addition, Quaid’s vacation costs a total of 1199 credits (899 for the standard vacation and 300 for the Ego Trip addition), which would later be refunded after Quaid’s schizoid embolism incident.
• After seeing Sharon Stone’s performance as Lori in this movie, director Paul Verhoeven got the idea of making an entire movie based on a similar character with many of Lori’s traits (most notably her ability to change from a timid charming sweetheart to a diabolical person and back again at a moment’s notice). This idea would form the basis of the character of Catherine Tramell (who would also be played by Stone) in the movie Basic Instinct.
• When filming the fight scene between Lori and Melina, director Paul Verhoeven asked 2nd unit director Vic Armstrong to choreograph the fight not as a “cat fight” but more like a martial arts fight, to give the feel of two “warriors” fighting each other and not simply two women. Verhoeven remarks in the DVD commentary that this is probably the first time in a feature film where we see two women fighting each other normally, as opposed to a cat fight.
• Although the specific location of Mars City on the planet’s surface is never mentioned, the fact that many of the habitable structures are built on the sides of a massive canyon could lead one to sufficiently assume that Mars City is located along a section of the Valles Marineris canyon near the Martian equator. Valles Marineris is a massive canyon that stretches over 2500 miles, many times longer than any canyon on Earth. The idea for having the structures built along canyon walls was taken from information gathered by production designer William Sandell when he traveled to various universities to find out how one might go about living on another world (as well as gather ideas for the sets), and a popular idea was to build structures half-inside rocks to protect from solar radiation.
• Paul Verhoeven and special effects supervisor Rob Bottin had had constant disagreements during the making of RoboCop, so it seemed unlikely that the two men would ever cooperate again. However, when they saw how good Robocop had turned out, they changed their minds, and Verhoeven gave Bottin full freedom to make his own Martian creature designs.
• The software that was intended to be used to fully computer-animate the X-ray sequences didn’t work, so the animators had no choice but to do the animation by hand, using the live-action filmed sequences as reference.
• Writer Dan O’Bannon had a falling out with director ‘Paul Verhoeven’ when Verhooven replaced the satirical humor with extreme violence. In the original screenplay, dark humor was much more prevalent.
• Composer Jerry Goldsmith had said that he had received some criticism about the movie’s score that “the movie had no theme”, to which he strongly disagreed, stating that the movie did in fact have a theme, but it wasn’t the kind of theme that “people left the theaters whistling after”. Goldsmith had modeled some of the movie’s score after the score from Conan the Barbarian composed by Basil Poledouris.
• All of the men portraying guards on Mars are Marines and sailors from San Diego’s 32nd Street Naval Base, Marine Corps Recruit Depot and Miramar Naval/Marine Corps Air Station (except for stunt men).
• The trivia items below may give away important plot points.
• During filming, Sharon Stone complained to director Paul Verhoeven that she wasn’t sure whether her character really was married to Doug
• When Quaid is being shown the monitor in the implant room, some of the drawings scrolling by are concept drawings of the reactor on Mars.
• The final scene fading into white is intentionally done by Paul Verhoeven to leave some question marks regarding whether everything was a dream and Quaid got lobotomized in the end.
• As director Paul Verhoeven is careful to explain on the DVD commentary, when Dr. Edgemar (Roy Brocksmith) visits Quaid, he outlines the entire third act of the movie. He says that if Quaid kills him: “the walls of reality will come crashing down” (moments after Quaid shoots Edgemar, the walls of the apartment literally crash down); he says that Quaid will believe himself the savior of the resistance only to discover that he is in fact Cohaagen’s “bosom buddy” (which is exactly what happens); and he says that he will have visions of an “alien civilization” (which Quaid experiences during the mind meld with Kuato). Verhoeven points out that if a viewer believes the whole film is a dream, then Edgemar’s prediction that Quaid will end up being lobotomized is fulfilled in the fade to white which ends the movie.
• Marshall Bell had a full-body make-up for the Kuato scenes. The head of Kuato was fully animatronic.
• CASTLE THUNDER: Can be heard mixed with other sound effects during the scenes where the alien reactor is melting the ice, and the mountain explodes.
• The design for the alien reactor which melts the ice and gives Mars air at the end of the movie, was based off of a nuclear reactor. According to Paul Verhoeven, he wanted to “be inside a nuclear reactor” (with poles going into water), but wanted to make it to a much grander scale, with the poles being as big as skyscrapers. Both he and William Sandell found a book with showed pictures of skyscrapers that were built around the turn of the 20th century, which had potential for the reactor design, but initially neither of them were convinced that idea would work, so they threw the book on the ground, but the book landed in a way with the skyscraper pictures upside down, and both Verhoeven and Sandell looked and realized that upside down, the skyscrapers had the right look for the alien reactor.
• In the scene where Quaid shoots Lori, afterwards he says “Consider that a divorce.” According to Dan O’Bannon, in the original script, Quaid says “Consider THIS a divorce” and then shoots Lori afterwards. This was ultimately changed to what appears on film because O’Bannon and the others thought it was “a bit too cold-blooded”.
• According to Ronald Shusett, back when the movie was originally being produced by Dino De Laurentiis, Shusett said that di Laurentiis had planned to shoot the ending completely different from the original script, because he felt the concept of Mars getting air was just “too difficult to visualize”. This didn’t sit well with Shusett, and the two had many arguments over it, even escalating to the point that Shusett had threatened to cancel the movie altogether, stating that he’d rather not see the movie get made if it’s not in the way he intendeded it to be made. Di Laurentiis eventually saw the error in his judgment when he suggested to director Richard Rush about altering the ending, to which Rush told him that he was “full of shit” and convinced him not to cut or alter the ending. Di Laurentiis even approached Shusett, apologizing for giving him such a hard time and saying “Ron, you so stubborn I kiss you in the mouth! You save me!” Di Laurentiis never did get to produce the movie, because his production company went bankrupt shortly after, and the project ended up being sold to Mario Kassar and Carolco (at the request of Arnold Schwarzenegger).
• On three separate occasions, if you pay close attention, various characters give the ending of the movie away: 1) When Bob McClane pitches the Secret Agent Ego Trip to Quaid, he tells him that by the time his trip is over he’ll “get the girl, kill the bad guys, and save the entire planet!” 2) When Dr. Lull tosses Ernie a computer chip, he looks at it and says “That’s a new one! ‘Blue Sky on Mars’.” And finally 3) When Quaid threatens to shoot Dr. Edgemar in the Hilton suite, Edgemar describes the events that will happen almost verbatim throughout the rest of the movie.
• There are a few references to the fate of Benny the cab driver. Twice Benny is nearly killed by the giant drill machines. When he is exposed as a traitor, Benny tries to kill Quaid with a drill machine. Quaid then kills him by stabbing him with a portable drill.
• Director Paul Verhoeven wanted to make the ending of the movie completely ambiguous so as the audiences would still not know even at the end of the movie if it was all a dream or if it did really happen. According to Verhoeven himself, he believed the ending was in fact a dream, but at the same time, he also said that the casting of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the lead role was also leaning towards reality, as most audiences who go to see a Schwarzenegger movie would be in favor of a ‘reality’ ending as opposed to a ‘dream’ ending.
• Regardless of whether people believe the movie as a whole is a dream or reality, according to Paul Verhoeven, the first 20 minutes or so of the movie (from the beginning up until the point where Quaid first undergoes the implantation of his Rekall vacation implant) is all reality.

Talking Points:

• The Use of Miniatures
• The Violence (especially compared to the new one)

Critic Notes

• Positives: Crass, Violent, Gratuitous, but in a good way
• Negatives: Mediocre, Pointlessly Violent

What We Learned:

• When hiking on mars, best to watch where you are walking.
• Guns on mars… also a really bad idea
• A man is defined by his actions not his memories
• Monologuing will get you nowhere..excepted sucked out into a vacuum

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: Classic Schwarzenegger movie. I always enjoyed watching this one but it’s never one on top rewatching movies. Good for a rent here and there.
Ray: Throw Schwarzenegger and Verhoeven in a room together.. and this is what you get, Classic Scwarzenegger one liners and Verehoeven violence I only wish the once X-Rated version was available somewhere. I have seen this movie more times than I’d like to admit.
Steve:

The Present: Total Recall (2012)

Rotten Tomatoes 31% Rotten 50% Audience

Director: Len Wiseman

Starring: Colin Farrell, Bokeem Woodbine, Bryan Cranston, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel

Trivia:

• Colin Farrell previously appeared in Minority Report, which was also adapted from a Philip K. Dick short story, and had originally been developed as a sequel to the original film version of Total Recall.
• Tom Hardy and Michael Fassbender were considered for the role of Quaid.
• Kate Bosworth and Diane Kruger were considered for the role of Lori, and Eva Green, Rosario Dawson and Paula Patton were considered for the role of Melina. Eva Mendes was considered for both roles.
• According to Ethan Hawke, his character has a lengthy monologue that lasts around five pages in the shooting script. However, his scene will not be in the final cut and will be part of the film’s viral marketing.
• The first film that married couple Len Wiseman and Kate Beckinsale have worked on together that isn’t Underworld related.
• The one shot fight scene was performed by Colin Farrell himself and was shot 22 times before Farrell did it perfectly.
• The front desk clerk at Rekall tells Quaid, “We can remember it for you.” The film is loosely based on a short story by ‘Phillip K. Dick’ called, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.”
• Actor Colin Farrell actually spent a night on the set because he wanted “to see what it would be like to wake up in the future”.
• While building the set for Total Recall, the builders spent $10,000 a week on wood screws alone.
• When Quaid retrieves his safe-deposit box, bills with the picture of president Barack Obama can be seen.
• When Quaid attempts to pass through the security check at the entrance to UFB, he is wearing a holographic necklace that produces the image of an Asian man’s face. Moments before, a woman with a chubby face, wearing a yellow coat, can be seen. The woman was the image produced by Quaid’s holographic necklace in the 1990 original.
• The bank that Douglas goes to is called the First Bank of New Asia. New Asia was the original title for “The Colony”, but was changed to “The Colony” in order for people to get the impression that it was more of a melting pot.
• While riding The Fall, Quaid is reading “Ian Fleming’s 007: The Spy Who Loved Me”.

Talking Points:

• Comparisons
• Original Film co.

Critic Notes

• Positives: Pretty, Production design worthy of blade runner, Enjoyable but brainless.
• Negatives: Toned down, dumbed down version of the original, Seen it all before, Shiny but not fun, Too much action not enough mind games

What We Learned:

• Dubstep is alive and well in the future
• Don’t mess with your mind
• It’s each mans quest to discover who he is.
• The heart wants to live in the present
• Never underestimate the power of one man
• remember to have fun

Trailer:

Recommendations :
Jeff: In interesting different retelling of the Total Recall story, really shows how the location doesn’t really matter for telling the story. I really liked Colin Farell better than Arnie but Arnies version was still good.
Ray: Pretty to look at, and much more faithful to the source material. I liked it, but I think id have liked it more if I had never seen the 1990’s one. If your a big fan of the old one.. you may want to skip this until you can rent. If you have never seen the old one, then this one will probably be very entertaining.
Steve:

The Future: Sinister

Release: October 5, 2012

Director: Scott Derrickson

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, James Ransone

Summary:

Found footage helps a true-crime novelist realize how and why a family was murdered in his new home, though his discoveries put his entire family in the path of a supernatural entity.

Talking Points:

• Can we still call it a “found footage” movie?

Trailer:

Excitement:
Jeff: You know, I’m really getting tired of these type of movies. It’s another spin on the hold haunting story but it’s really not my thing. I’m sure Steven will still put it on the list though.
Ray: Looks scary, but not sure I’d run out to see it. I enjoy my scary movies much more at home in an intimate setting.
Steve:

The Past:

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The Present:

The Future:

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