Spotting bloopers in movies

Marisa Mohd Isa
New Straits Times
12-02-2002
Spotting bloopers in movies
Byline: Marisa Mohd Isa
Edition: Computimes; 2*
Section: Outlook Web Watch

IN the recently-released horror flick The Ring, the heroine accesses some very important information supposedly on the Internet and the audience is shown scenes of her surfing several Web sites. However, if you were to take a closer look at the uniform resource locator (URL) of the Web site on the address bar, you will see that it shows "C:\windows98\mydocuments\ etc.html" instead of an actual Internet address. What does this mean?

Well, simply put, the filmmakers probably used a document that they had saved earlier in the computer, and not really searched the Net as they had intended to show. The filmmakers would probably call this nitpicking, but some eagle-eyed viewers actually make it their business to point out such bloopers.
Some fans even maintain Web sites dedicated to tracking such goof- ups and here we will visit two of the most popular sites.

You will find one of the best sites featuring movie slip-ups at Movie Mistakes at http://www.moviemistakes.com. I find it simply amazing that films as newly released as Die Another Day and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets already have 42 and 70 bloopers listed respectively. It takes a really diligent person to spot some very minuscule inconsistencies between scenes.

Movie Mistakes is run by Jon Sandys, with help from contributors from all over the world. The site averages three million hits each month and the traffic increases each time a blockbuster is released. The site's popularity has surprised even its owner who insists that he started it because he was a bored teenager.

So how does Movie Mistakes work? Well, it gives you several options to view over 17,000 mistakes from 2,159 films. You can browse the films alphabetically in the All Films section or pick your favourite films in the Top Films category. If you're a regular visitor to the site, you can simply keep abreast with the developments by accessing the Updates section.

I enjoyed browsing through the list of slip-ups from my favourite movies. For instance, despite being a huge hit, Gladiator contains some noticeable oversights. In one crucial battle scene, Movie Mistakes claims that a gas cylinder can actually be seen in one of the overturned chariots.

In addition, if you were to look closely at the scene in which Russell Crowe's character, Maximus, feeds a horse with an apple, you will see a crewman in blue jeans standing between the hero and the horse.

Also enjoyable are the Trivia and Misconception segments presented for each movie. Trivia lists some little-known facts about the actors or scenes in a particular film while Misconception attempts to explain some of the mistakes listed.

I like this segment because not all the bloopers listed for a movie have been verified. In other words, although something may seem like a mistake to one viewer, another viewer may have a reasonable explanation for it.

If you're a die-hard movie fan, take a look at the explanations and see if you can refute them or come up with something better.

Another must-visit site is Blooper Files at http:// www.blooperfiles.com. This site does one better than Movie Mistakes in that it actually presents video captures of some of the bloopers. For the movie Forrest Gump, for instance, we are shown two consecutive scenes of Forrest's visit to his friend Jenny's apartment. The first video capture shows an iron lying flat in the background while the next shot shows it standing on its heel. How sharp-eyed can one get?

That's not all. Both Movie Mistakes and Blooper Files encourage movie fans to submit slip-ups in their favourite films. So if you spot any, you may want to fill in the electronic form in the sites with all the relevant details.

Blooper Files even has a monthly contest in which submitters can win cool prizes like CDs, digital versatile discs and hard-to-find promotional products. Some of you may already have the talent of spotting amusing slip-ups in films, so why not participate.

At the end of the day, filmmakers hope that they have succeeded in entertaining their viewers.

Unless the mistakes made in a film are really glaring, I think they can be seen as a sort of a side-entertainment for fans. And judging from the popularity of the sites mentioned above, I think many people feel the same way.

Illustrations/Photos:
Under watchful eyes: Die Another Day (top) and Harry Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets may be shown just recently, but that didn't stop
some viewers from spotting mistakes already.; Slip-up: In Forrest
Gump, audiences are shown two consecutive scenes of Forrest's visit
to his friend Jenny's apartment. In one scene, the iron behind Jenny
is lying flat and in the next scene, it is standing on its heel.

(Copyright 2002)