Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Movie explosions require fire departments, city fees and local permits
You cannot simply detonate a massive fireball in the middle of a major city without dealing with a profoundly annoying amount of municipal paperwork. Creating…
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Why awards shows hire people to fill empty seats
To ensure the auditorium always looks completely packed for the cameras, producers hire random people to warm the chairs whenever a star goes to the bathroom.…
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Why comedy writers save their worst jokes
The relentless pressure of churning out weekly humor means a writer can never afford to throw a truly terrible pun away. Professional joke writers maintain…
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Why stunt performers still lack an Oscar category
Despite literally setting themselves on fire to make a movie watchable, the people executing the action scenes are completely shut out of the major prestige…
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Music videos strictly film artists in extreme slow motion
Looking brooding and majestic while a sports car burns in the background requires completely abandoning natural human movement. To achieve that smooth, highly…
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The Wild West's movie towns were reused endlessly
Every rugged cowboy staring down a sheriff in a dusty street is standing in the exact same fake town used by a hundred other cowboys before him. Studios…
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The movie hitman who killed 84 people
If you ever take the time to actually tally the body count in modern revenge films, the numbers rival small military operations. A single sharply dressed…
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Children's authors hate their own film adaptations
You would think getting a massive paycheck from a studio would make a writer happy, but literary creators absolutely despise what producers do to their work.…
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Who really writes famous memoirs
When a famous athlete or politician suddenly releases a profound, articulate 300-page book, they almost certainly did not type a single word of it. Elite…
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Why slasher movies kill someone so quickly
Nobody buys a ticket to a brutal teen-massacre film to watch an hour of deep, nuanced character development. Writers are strictly instructed to violently…
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The first feature film came from Australia
Despite what California studio executives desperately want you to believe, the multi-million dollar cinematic empire did not start in America. The very first…
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Stunt drivers undergo extreme physical conditioning
Driving a car in a straight line is easy, but flipping it eight times through a fireball requires a spine made of absolute steel. Precision drivers endure…
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James Bond's creator also wrote about a flying car
The exact same mind that created the most ruthless, womanizing secret agent in history also penned a whimsical tale about a magical flying car. The stark…
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The one-page-per-minute rule of screenwriting
Creativity in screenwriting is entirely bounded by a rigid mathematical formula dictated by impatient producers. If a screenplay deviates from the universal…
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Where Hollywood stunt drivers practice their drifts
Learning how to drift a heavy sports car backwards at high speed requires an absolutely massive slab of totally empty concrete. Because renting professional…
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Your favorite comedian may be buying their jokes
That spontaneous, brilliant observation your favorite comedian just made about airline food was likely purchased for a flat fee from a stressed writer in a…
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The fake punch that landed a movie star in intensive care
Macho posturing inevitably leads to severe internal organ damage when two massive muscular men decide to hit each other for real. A legendary boxing movie…
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Why concert halls hand out cough drops
The elite patrons of high-society string quartets possess an absolutely terrifying intolerance for basic human respiratory functions. Some prestigious concert…
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Comedians test new jokes in tiny clubs
Before an arena tour sells out in minutes, elite comedians quietly sneak into obscure, tiny venues to read their raw, unfunny ideas from a crumpled notebook.…
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Why orchestras make musicians audition behind a curtain
To completely eliminate the rampant, embarrassing biases of elite musical directors, modern orchestras require candidates to play behind a thick curtain.…
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Action stars train in real judo for fight scenes
Pretending to throw someone through a glass table requires a shocking amount of actual martial arts mastery. To make modern combat scenes look visceral,…
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Movie love scenes are often filmed far apart
That tear-jerking confession of absolute eternal love was likely delivered to a piece of bright green tape stuck to a heavy camera stand. Due to rigid…
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The fake name that means a writer disowned a film
When a studio completely butchers a writer's work into an unrecognizable nightmare, the writer can invoke a specific clause to entirely erase their identity…
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A movie's box office may include empty seats
When a terrible movie miraculously reports a record-breaking opening weekend, it is usually because a massive corporation quietly purchased thousands of empty…
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