Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Jaws helped turn summer into blockbuster season
Universal made a beach thriller into a reason to spend summer indoors. The 1975 hit combined a wide release with heavy promotion, showing studios that…
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An inflatable cinema brought moviegoing to high-altitude Ladakh
Picture Time installed a portable theater in Leh in 2021, roughly 3,500 meters above sea level. An inflatable structure housed a screen, seats, and sound…
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Why Ireland banned Monty Python's Life of Brian
Ireland and several towns in the UK banned Monty Python's Life of Brian, a comedy about a reluctant messiah, after religious groups objected. The bans helped…
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The Karate Kid sparked a dojo boom
After the film’s release in the 1980s, martial arts enrollments surged as kids were inspired by its tournament story.
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How The Hunger Games sparked an archery boom
After the film's 2012 release, archery ranges across the United States reported a surge in teenage girls signing up for lessons.
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Malaysia banned Zoolander over its assassination plot
The 2001 comedy sends a brainwashed male model after a fictional Malaysian prime minister. That premise kept the film out of Malaysian cinemas. A joke about…
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Moviegoers once tossed peanut shells on the floor
Before popcorn took over, moviegoers cracked peanuts during silent films and left the shells on the floor, making theaters sound like a herd of elephants.
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Top Gun filmed its fantasy inside real Navy facilities
The 1986 film was made with extensive U.S. Navy cooperation, including naval bases, aircraft and carriers. That access helped turn a fictional pilot's story…
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When Project X parties left the screen
The film's premise inspired copycat parties in which teens broke into vacant homes, caused millions of dollars in property damage and fought riot police.
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Why the USSR pulled an American farmers' film
The USSR initially welcomed an American film about impoverished farmers as an indictment of capitalism, then pulled it from theaters. The farmers' cars…
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When Hollywood wasn't allowed to let villains win
For more than thirty years, movie-crime rules required criminals to be arrested or killed before the credits, so crime couldn't pay on screen.
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How Free Willy helped return a real orca to the wild
Public outcry over the film helped fund a campaign to relocate its real-life orca star, Keiko, to the wild waters of Iceland.
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AMC floated texting-friendly screenings—and quickly backed down
In 2016, chief executive Adam Aron discussed the idea of accommodating phone use in some screenings or sections. Audience backlash led the company to abandon…
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How a movie helped unseal JFK records
Oliver Stone's 1991 film about JFK's assassination sparked public uproar that helped prompt Congress to pass the JFK Records Act, which ordered millions of…
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Ikea turned Paris's Olympia into a bedroom for a night
For a 2010 promotional event, guests watched entertainment and films from double beds installed inside the famous venue. The furniture was both the seating…
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When movie theaters battled giant feathered hats
Theaters resorted to lantern slides asking patrons to remove their bird-decorated hats so people behind them could see the screen.
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The Exorcist's spider walk reached cinemas decades after the original release
The shot was left out of the 1973 film and became part of the expanded version released in 2000. Digital work helped make the effect usable by addressing…
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When police raided cinemas for movie reels
Officers sometimes seized reels from projection booths while audiences were still sitting in the dark.
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Keanu Reeves played bass in touring rock band Dogstar
In the 1990s, Reeves played bass in Dogstar, an alternative rock band that toured internationally and opened for Bon Jovi and David Bowie.
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Wahlberg swapped a Yankees cap for a generic hat
The Boston native refused to wear a Yankees cap, saying it would hurt his credibility back home. The production used a generic hat instead.
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Only one person dies in the original First Blood
In the 1982 film *First Blood*, Rambo wounds and disables his pursuers rather than killing them. The only death comes when a pursuer falls from a helicopter…
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Pulp Fiction crossed the Atlantic in handwritten notebooks
Tarantino worked on the script during stays in an Amsterdam apartment without a phone or fax. He returned to Los Angeles with a dozen school notebooks full of…
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The real Soup Nazi banned Seinfeld's writers
The character was based on New York soup vendor Ali Yeganeh, who banned Jerry Seinfeld and the writing staff from his restaurant after the episode offended him.
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Batman’s animated shadows started on black paper
Painting on black paper let artists build Gotham's backgrounds from darkness, giving the series its film-noir look.
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