9 EASTER EGGS FROM FILMS YOU DIDN'T KNOW HAD EASTER EGGS BECAUSE YOU DON'T REALLY KNOW WHAT AN EASTER EGG IS

1. The Simpsons Movie: Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks makes a guest voice appearance in this feature length outing from the Simpsons... AS HIMSELF. Easter egg!
No?


2. Underground: Miki's Cameo

 

What about this? Towards the end of Emir Kusturica's black farce "Underground", keep an eye open for the actor playing the actor chosen to play Miki Manojlovic's hilarious black markeeter "Marko" – it's actually Miki Manojlovic, the actor who plays "Marko"!
Is this more the kind of thing?


3. 2001: A Space Odyssey: Leonard Rossiter

 

Leonard Rossiter?


4. The Godfather Part II: Brando Nod



Robert De Niro won an Oscar for his performance in Coppola's acknowledged masterpiece. But did you know that his character's name – "Vito Corleone" – is a nod to the actor MARLON BRANDO, who played a character with exactly that name in "The Godfather Part I"?


5. Ten Little Indians: Who Did It?

 

Hang around for the final scene of this Agatha Christie thriller, where it's disclosed who actually committed the murders.


6. The Spy Who Loved Me: Post Credit Sequence

And be sure to stick around for the end of Roger Moore's second outing as James Bond, or you'll miss a spectacular TWO-HOUR-LONG post-credit sequence (!!!!!) in which the secret agent saves the world from a megalomaniac who steals nuclear submarines.


7. Labyrinth: WHAT did they say?!!!!

When the film begins, turn the volume up and you'll be able to hear what the characters are saying.


8. Performance: Borges on the Brain

 

Eagle-eyed fans of Jorge Luis Borges will also receive a nice surprise at the climax of  Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's psychedelic gangster fantasy "Performance", when a blink-and-you'll-miss-it image of the celebrated writer appears behind an exploding mirror, during the tracking shot down the bullet hole in Mick Jagger's punctured skull, and also throughout the rest of the film when all the characters kept quoting Borges. 
Is that one? That's definitely one!


9. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Blast from the Past

Author Hunter S. Thompson called Terry Gilliam's adaptation "an eerie trumpet call over a lost battlefield", and many assumed the film's giant lizard scene was taken directly from the book. IN FACT, Gilliam himself confesses he included the sequence as a small homage to Whoopi Goldberg's 1995 straight-to-video, dinosaur/futuristic-cop buddy movie "Theodore Rex"!

Which is why it's shit.

A history of the water

More flotsam from the devising process for shunt's "The Boy Who Climbed Out Of His Face". The first line is taken from Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" which was meant to be one of the show's sources, and which opens a little further down the Thames. The final line is from Charles Kingsley's "The Water Babies", which was meant to be the other source. The rest is based on the timeline of Greenwich history that's pasted along the railings leading to the jetty upon which the show was performed.

 

A history of the water

This too has been one of the dark places of the earth.

The first stirrers are giant mammals. Facilities in those days were scarce or non-existent.  They wait for the intended replacements. Finally they sink.

A new gang.

When asked if they had come together, if anyone had been there to ask if they were together, they would have said yes. The first crude attempt at an apparatus is made. The size of a small shrine, it has no moving parts. They wait for the intended replacements.

A new gang. More stirring.

There are cesspits filled with fish. A waterside wall encloses the Northern settlement, protecting it from sea-faring marauders. Forests are managed. Straight wood is generated by planting trees close together. Curved wood encouraged by planting trees far apart. Hundred-metre-long fish traps span the water.

A new gang.

More stirring. The first wharf is recorded. A new apparatus is attempted, in the shape of a bridge, but the builders do not allow for the flow of tides so “bridge shooters” must be employed to navigate the rapids. They wait for the intended replacements.

A new gang. The beginnings of encroachment.

Waterfront property increases. Building into the water becomes commonplace. Water-bearers wear pointed shoes stuffed with moss. Pilgrims cast metal badges into the water.

A great frost.*

A new gang.

Another apparatus is attempted.  Water is pumped through pipes made from a series of hollow elm trunks. There are fewer than twenty public taps and it is forbidden to approach them with a weapon. “Plashy places” are avoided by the strategic placing of cloaks. A mermaid is discovered, a comb in one hand, a looking glass in another. A plague. More stirring. They wait for the intended replacements.

A new gang.

They live on boats to avoid the plague. Shipping thrives. Gibbeting sites are marked out where bodies of pirates are hung in chains until three tides have passed over them. Further encroachment. There is a five pound reward for any information concerning what’s happened to all the swans. A time-ball is installed. A certain flush with every pull. A man walks underwater for twenty feet wearing a soft apparatus covering his face, with two small bull’s eyes to see.

Its eyes are the colour of a peacock’s tale.

* Tissa David's animation for PBS' "Simple Gifts" (1977) - a passage from Virgina Woolf's "Orlando" narrrated by Hermione Gingold. That's some classy programming, PBS! I'd love to know if Sally Potter saw this before making her own adaptation.

starwarsbreak

Treats! That Steve Soderbergh sure can make movies, huh? You may know this already, but it turns out he learnt his craft watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with the volume and colour turned down, and Trent Reznor's Social Network soundtrack playing over the top. "What does this remind me of?" I pondered as I watched the new cut, and it hit me: Auralnauts' reworking of the Star Wars prequels. Their (His? Her?) best known work is probably this brilliant shred of the original throne room scene minus John Williams' score. You may know this too.

But did you know that they (she? he? heshe?)  also produced three brilliantly redubbed, fifteen-minute stoner-skewed cuts of the later films, arguably improving them, and finally letting one appreciate all of the terrific work that went into these terrible works? It seems the missing ingredient was fun; put that back in and the films look great.

If you got down to that, here's episodes 1 and 3.

You Don't Have To Be Mad To Work Here

Here's a little something for your peripherals:

Rules for Replacements

Okay, let's write a bit about shunt.

Much of "The Boy Who Climbed Out of his Face" was devised in the old Guardian Building in Farringdon. You knew this because the word "Guardian" was still readable in the shadows on the lobby wall, like the shadow around a stolen painting in some old farce. In the first two weeks of rehearsals we spread ourselves about a bit, finding whatever rooms were free and making up material to show each other, as is usual. Then we all watch it. And it's great, really great - in fact it constitutes some of the happiest memories I've had of watching theatre; I laugh a lot. Of course far more stuff is made than ends up useful to the final piece, but seeing what you've got when you lose that stuff is also a kind of making, and the stuff you've made and lost was still great to make, because you could take it in any direction you wanted, and that was interesting, and you were getting paid. And of course you can always put the flotsam on a blog.

I knew that in the first room which the audience entered there'd be three monitors, a long desk, and a table, and so, in the hour assigned to come up with something for this room, I thought I'd try and make an idea of something to be playing on those monitors - something which might suggest to the audience that they were replacements*, something which might indicate some standards of behaviour expected of them, and something they probably wouldn't be paying much attention to. And I knew we'd be wearing masks, so I made the headgear out of gaffer tape and a photocopy stuck to the wall of - so I was told - Antonin Artaud. I'd also just downloaded Trent Reznor's soundtrack to the film "The Social Network", which is what you can hear playing. It's a great default soundtrack - which reminds me of what I should post next...

* "There's genuinely an assumption made about the audience... And actually the shows that haven't gone so well, or maybe taken longer to resolve, have been ones where we haven't had complete clarity of what the fuck the audience were doing."  This interview with David Rosenberg, given a couple of years ago, is great.

This Is Why Gerald Should Be Supervised

Here's something else I never got round to plugging: A one-take wonder from Johnny Burns and Pier van Tijn, and my first experience with an armourer.

SPOILER ALERT: This was actually meant to have been a much longer film in which I was just an extra, but when they told me to "have fun with the character" I went and murdered a large number of the leading players in the establishing shot, forcing Pier and Johnny to think on their feet and ultimately to settle upon the solution you see above, which I think turned out beautifully. Watching it again, I wish I'd kept a bit more still administering the coup de grace but, oh well, it's done now.

"Putting Gaston in his Place": Attitudes towards Animism, Predeterminism and Liminality in that youtube video

 Here's a very charming video of a theme park actor enjoying four minutes of actual acting. I know, from working in the London Dungeon, that in a job like this – normally all character and no drama – a heckling child who totally buys into it can be water in the desert.

  #NOTALLMEN

  But the real reason I'm posting this video is because of  the comment Neil "Ned Mond" Edmond made below, which I think is brilliant and useful:

"What I mainly like about this is that the girl's relationship with the characters and narrative matches what I hope eg. a pre-Christian norseman's relationship with a god might have been: The story is both finished and ongoing, and intervention is meaningful even when the result is predetermined."

See also: playing with Star Wars figures.

How I Plug

Well, "Exciting Space Adventures" are all well and good, but what have you been up to?

    What do you mean? Who are you?

You did another series of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, didn't you?

    Oh! Yes! Yeah, but I assumed anyone who read this blog would already know about –

 

Can that still be heard?

    Yes. Absolutely. It's up on, erm – Oh, some episodes have gone now – But there's still some left on iplayer. Yeah, it's great. So good. Listening back, I feel I could have maybe toned it down for some of the sketches, but –

 

You're not happy with your work on it?

    No no no! It's – Not at all. It was really – Oh, and the Quasimodo sketch is up now on something called Radio 4 in Four.

 

The Jake Yapp thing!

    Oh. No.

 

Have you heard the Jake Yapp thing?

 

    Yes. 

 

It's great.

    Uh-huh.   

Nice picture.

     Oh yes! We got pictures done by Steve Ullathorne.

 

What was that like?

 

    What? Um... Yeah. It was really fun. I think the original shot of John drawing a beard on his own reflection is maybe more original, and better suited for press, but it –

 

You'd rather not appear in the publicity?

    No! No, it's great! A huge compliment. And if you buy the CD you can see some of our feet. I just –

 

You didn't post a link to the CD.

    Oh. Sorry.

 

HOW much?!

 

    I mean, it's probably cheaper on amazon, but I didn't want to –

 

And I presume it's also available in the BBC shop.

    Apparently not... But yeah, no, I was so lucky. Nice to feel part of a gang.

 

And you did another shunt show?

 

    What? Oh...

 

Is that right?

 

    Sort of. Ow.

 

 

The Boy Who Climbed Out Of His Face – The Build by Floro Azqueta

 

Okay. You've written a lot about shunt on this blog. Want to talk about it?

    Um. Wouldn't you rather hear another Exciting Space Adventure?

 

Do you not want to talk about theatre any more?

    No! No no! Actually there's a few interesting things from the rehearsal I'd like to put up. And I did Ring. Again. And I've done – Er, actually I've done a couple of shows, as a part of the London Horror festival. Just one-offs.

 

Where can we see them?

    Um. They're – They've – They happened. Back in October. Yeah! But no, I had great fun doing –

 

Okay. Where can we see you next?

    What? Oh! I'm in a panto. Well, it's more of a musical. A company called the Mighty Fin do one nearly every year or so, and Susannah Pearse writes the songs, and John Finnemore's in it as well, which is actually how we met, and it will be brilliant. Yes. You can get tickets... Oh wait, you can't. It's sold out.

 

Okay.

    But there's 17 tickets still available for the dress rehearsal.

 

Should I bother to ask what it's called?

    I mean... It's in the link. I just thought –

 

Okay. Well, thanks very much –

    Oh! AND, I've popped my panel show cherry! Yes, I was invited to take part in the excellent transatlantic comedy podcast "International Waters". It went online on Monday, and you can hear me laughing my "dad laugh" on it, and plugging stuff even more poorly than I've just done here. Thank you, and MERRYCHRISTMAS!

 

 Fredandsharonsmovies.com  are still open for business, don't forget.