Movie Connections
 

You watch enough movies, you start recognizing people. Sometimes obscure connections pop up. I love those.

That latest I ran into while Mrs. Z and I were watching Key Largo (first time for both of us). Even though I barely remember the show, I noticed that the Osceola brother with the speaking part was Jay Silverheels who played Tonto on The Lone Ranger.

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In You've Got Mail, the cashier that doesn't want to let Kathleen pay with credit card is the first part for Sara Ramirez who plays Torres on Grey's Anatomy.

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My favorite - Owen, the truck-driving country boy with the nasal issue in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is Dylan Baker - the slimy lawyer in Disclosure and the department store owner in Simply Irresistible. It's hard to believe the guy who played Owen could play those other parts.

Anyone else?

I'm terrible at this, but Carl the janitor from The Breakfast Club is at the blues club in Weird Science, where Anthony Michael Hall does a great drunk scene.

I guess this game is meant for the small time character actors, not somebody like that guy who played Han Solo and then Indiana Jones?

No way! Is that true?

Generally - unless you happen to be watching re-runs of The Virginian (60's western tv show) and you happen to spot him in an episode.

So, you mean like when Robert Redford was in that episode of Twilight Zone? Those are okay?

Carl the Janitor from the Breakfast Club also played Nick Knight's partner, Detective Schanke, on Forever Night.

It's true. The game is for small time character actors.

How 'bout commercial guys? Like this guy. He was in the Capital One, 'Whats in your wallet' commercials and now he's doing movies - like Get Smart.

Oh yeah. But you have to name the episode.

In general, if you're watching a movie/tv show and sit up and say, "Holy shit. That's the guy/gal from xxxx." Then you've got an interesting movie connection.

It was Nothing in the Dark.

Oh, so like in order to play I have to rely, not on my general knowledge of trivia, but actually be watching something and go ... oh, oh, that's that dude?

Now I have to go watch it.

Try to avoid descriptions of the episode. I originally had typed a great big spoiler about the episode, which is what prompted me to look up the title.

Was watching a cheerleader movie yesterday called "Fired Up" (highly recommended BTW), and noticed that the cute lead boy was in an episode of "Cold Case" a while back. He played the back-in-time version of the boyfriend of a murdered transgender girl.

There were a few other actors I recognized, but I can't say from where without looking them up...would that be cheating?

One of my best friends is watching his entire library of DVDs as a series, linked through common actors. He keeps a journal of the sequence.

Thanks for not spoiling. I watched it on Netflix and enjoyed it. There is a part toward the end where he winks at her. Very Redford moment.

No, no. Post anything here you think is interesting. Those are the moments that I was thinking of when I started the thread is all.

The blond male lead is now on ncis-LA. The South Asian is on rules of engagement. The lead female is/was in the event (tv series). The adult woman is sarah palin (not really).

Thanks, Spexx. :)

Oh! I do know who the adult woman is for real...she was James Caan's daughter on Las Vegas.

This one surprised me. I was rewatching the first few episodes of Sex in the City on On Demand, and barely recognized a familiar face. Timothy Oliphant (from Deadwood and now Justified) played the "younger guy" Carrie picks up in a 20-something nightclub. Clip en Francais:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28WAGkKXdtI

Who was also in a bunch of Old Navy ads years ago.

Just discovered this tonight. Sam Rockwell who played bad guys in Charlie's Angels and Iron Man 2 also plays Guy Fleegman in Galaxy Quest.

Isn't that just the cutest face? How can he play bad guys?

The same James Cromwell who played Farmer Hoggett in Babe (someone who inspired 'I'd like to adopt him as my grandpa' thoughts) played the bad guy in L.A. Confidential.

How about when I re-watched "apocalypse now" and noticed a tiny one line part that this young kid had and he ended up being the guy who was in the Indiana Jones movies and Star Wars?

Can that count?

Also a 12 year old lawrence fishburne

I reckon it can.

"Have you a valediction, boy-o?"

Question: Danny Devito's character in LA Confidential says a number of times throughout the movie "on the QT"...does anyone know what he's referring to?

On the QT=quiet talk, subrosa, down low, hush hush, low down, etc.

Thanks 3F. Over a decade of wondering cleared up. :)

Or when Shatner did that easily parodied Nightmare at 20000 feet episode? :)

I liked the one he did with the fortune telling machine in the diner (Nick of Time) better.

I watching Mad Men, series 1, episode 1 last night. Kristen Schaal who played Mel in Flight of the Concords played the part of a telephone operator for the agency.

Really? You watching Mad Men? Does you liken it?

Srsly,
Mel was great in Flight. That was an excellent show. My kids were calling themselves Rhymenocerous and Hiphopopottamus for a while.

I can't watch Mad Men at all because that was my dad's profession through the 60's and 70's. It's really, really too close to home.

So far, I'm only up to episode 3 and the copy I've got is a dodgy pirated one, so the sound quality isn't always the best. Can I ask which bit of it specifically is too close to home? Draper and the other executive's lifestyles/attitudes/all of the above? If the attitudes displayed by the women about the other women and also, the men's attitudes to women are close to what it was really like at that time (and I'm guessing they are from your post), then I am thanking Germaine Greer and her generation.

Hard to put my finger on it exactly. My dad, who apparently was the quintessential party animal, told me he finally got out of the business because he saw too many of his friends die of cirrhosis of the liver.

Typically, accounts came and went based on how much of a good time you could show people and how much sunshine you could blow up their asses.

After he passed away, his sisters made a few cryptic remarks about how marriage and a family slowed him down a bit.

His charm and charisma went up to 11.

Part of what I find hard about the show is the moral/ethical darkness. I was too young (dob 1960) to really have much of an idea about what was happening, but for some reason, the show is too intense.

Maybe it's like thinking about your parents as real people who get drunk and have sex or whore around like the 20 somethings they were.

It's funny how every generation thinks they invented sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.

After the war my dad went to NYU and lived in the village with beatniks and proto hippies. I can only imagine...

I've been watching Mad Men on Entertainment on Demand (free) and only missed the first couple episodes. I'm always late to the party for good shows.

I think Mad Men is one of the best shows EVER. I like it almost as much as Six Feet Under and that's saying a lot.

Oh, and Flo from Progressive Insurance plays a part on Mad Men. It took me a minute to place her when I saw her, but yep!

http://blogs.amctv.com/mad-men/talk/...he-progres.php

Oh, and Peggy Olsen is the bomb!

I'm still on Season 1. Last night I watched the episode where Draper's brother comes to the agency hoping to re-establish contact with his long lost brother and later Draper goes to his lodgings and pays him off so that he'll disappear. I found this much more disturbing than the multiple infidelities. Obviously, the makers of the show have not provided a lot of detail to keep people wondering about Draper's past so that they'll continue to keep watching.

To me the whole thing seems very foreign-both the time period and the world that it is set in.

In terms of finding movies/series difficult to watch, I found the Australian movie Little Fish (former drug addict tries to make good, but is drawn back in to contact with her previous lifestyle when an old boyfriend reappears) starring Cate Blanchett exceedingly disturbing as although it's not a world that I've ever inhabited, I imagine that it's not one that you have to try very hard to find.

Can we extend the game?

Which sets have you seen pop up in two or more movies/TV series?

Different Strokes, The Nanny and The Cosby Show all used the same set. The staircase, kitchen door, sofa and father's den all were in exactly the same place.

Also, putting my observation skills to excellent use, I've noticed that in a number of movies/series set in NY, the characters go and look at an apartment which is apparently in a much sort after apartment block on the top floor of one of the older NY apartment blocks. The windows are basically floor to ceiling and lead on to a balcony and the main room is very long. I think that they've used this same set on Sex and the City (first movie-the apartment that Big and Carried buy before they get married), Mad Men (the baby faced executive and his wife buy it even though it's above their budget as the wife has her heart set on it and he doesn't have the heart to tell her they can't afford it) and Did you hear about the Morgans (the apartment that the two characters move into after patching up their marriage and adopting a baby)?

Here's one I just found out today. Lumiere, the candelabra in Beauty and the Beast was voiced by non other than Jerry Orbach, the Law and Order guy.

Mrs. Z. and I also noticed Baker as a doctor in a Season 7 episode of House.

I'd forgotten about this thread. The actress who plays Peggy Olsen, a character on Mad Men, has a commercial about tylenol or some such pain relief. She looks younger than she does in Mad Men, and I don't know if that's just because they make her look older on MM or if it's just an older commercial that they revived because of her popularity from the show.