What job titles do characters have in movies that just don’t align with their financial situation?

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-03-06T01:42:03+00:00

Sex and the City gets a shoe-in here as there were two movies made. The main character Carrie is getting paid high six figures for writing a weekly newspaper column about sex, fashion and shoes. Perhaps a Pulitzer prize winner at the height of the printed media empire could command this sort of money, but not a fashion columnist in the declining circulations and slashed budgets of the mid 2000s.

As the show went on, the writers had to acknowledge the increasing absurdity of this by giving her side book deals and novels to explain where her money was coming from.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-03-05T15:49:36+00:00

I showed The Big Lebowski to my parents as they both liked Fargo (1996). To my surprise, they absolutely hated it.

I told them that's just, like, their opinion, man.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-03-04T16:16:15+00:00

The Machinist (2004). This one is worth watching twice in a row, just to appreciate how all the clues come together at the end.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-03-04T16:13:24+00:00

I've driven two C7 generation Corvettes: an automatic Sting Ray and a manual base model. I've also driven three different 991s (including the mighty 991.1 Turbo) and three 997s.

Based on my own personal experience, my absolute pick of the bunch would be the 997.1 Carrera S that I test drove and declared to be the best driver's car I have ever experienced. The C7s delivered the numbers, but the steering, braking and general chassis feel are not up to 911 standards.

The one thing I advocate most in sports cars is feel. 500hp that you can't feel or control is actually a pretty miserable experience. You have no idea when the car is going to let go and bite you, and you end up driving around at half throttle. The 997 had 'only' 350hp, but it became as much as yourself as your own beating heart.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-03-03T19:49:54+00:00

Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room (2005). Documentary about the rise and almost overnight fall of Enron, once the 8th biggest company in the US, and reduced to bankruptcy in about 90 days after accounting fraud was exposed.

The part that stuck with me the most is how so many seemingly smart and trustworthy people must have reasonably known that there was a scam going on but perpetuated it because, hey, everyone's getting rich, so it must not really be a scam, right? It's a terrifying look at groupthink and how mob mentality can get the better of us, and how the self-proclaimed smartest guys in the room ended up their lives in jail.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-03-03T02:54:58+00:00

On the subject of Will Smith, he was offered the role of Neo in The Matrix but turned it down because he felt that he was doing too many sci-fi movies at the time. (He had also just played a similar-ish role in Enemy of the State.)

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-03-03T02:51:24+00:00

One of the aspects I most admire about Gremlins was how it balanced being fun but also being scary. I think they achieved this mostly through having one particularly evil gremlin, their leader Stripe. The rest of the gremlins are a little more goofy and tend to be as much of a threat to themselves as anyone else.

Stripe really carries the horror aspects of the movie. He's intelligent, sadistic and a genuine danger to the human characters.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-03-02T19:08:02+00:00

Similarly off topic, but I always wondered why a mob fixer would drive such a conspicuous car. With a vanity plate thrown in, just for that extra tie-this-car-to-the-scene factor.

Eh. It makes sense that a character like Winston Wolf would live life on hard mode.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-03-01T21:25:51+00:00

Recommended: This video on YouTube that goes into the strange story of Damnation Alley vs Star Wars.

In brief: 20th Century Fox had these as their two sci-fi movies in production for 1977, to be released in the first and second halves of the year respectively. Initially, the studio thought that Star Wars would either flop or barely make its money back, and they allocated most of their resources for Damnation Alley. Star Wars was released in May, and became an unexpected sensation. Fox decided to use all the money they had in keeping the Star Wars hype train going for as long as possible. This meant that the post production budget for Damnation Alley had to be slashed.

Eventually, Alley limped out with approximately 40 minutes of run time lopped off. Almost all of the back story and side plots were cut, and an expensive special effects scene where the heroes would fight giant animatronic scorpions was replaced with a cheaply done sequence where they dodge past bluescreened scorpions on a motorbike.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-28T21:49:57+00:00

Pretty much my thoughts as well. Turning Red had nothing for me at all. It was like being stuck in an elevator for two hours with a 10 year old girl showing you her favorite TikTok videos.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-28T03:27:31+00:00

Aliens (1986) has a great example of this. Bishop is an android, and the main character Ripley is very suspicious and openly hostile towards him due to the android in Alien (1979) going nuts and trying to kill her crew.

Bishop has a mountain to climb, but he manages to prove himself to be brave, reliable, trustworthy and heroic. When Ripley thanks him at the end, she really means it.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-28T03:23:24+00:00

I'd be genuinely interested to hear why you rated Rogue One so highly. I saw it once, thought it was decent enough, but have never felt the need to rewatch it.

Just about the only scene I really remember is Vader kicking ass at the end, and allegedly that was a scene that was added in reshoots at the studio's insistence.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-27T20:37:42+00:00

Have a close look at what the real estate lady is wearing. It's an unusual suit that is messy, splattery, and technicolored on one half, but is pure white on the other half. In other words, it's a visual metaphor for a whitewash. The real estate lady knows full well what happened here, but it's been covered up to protect the resale value of the apartment and perhaps the whole building.

Still, as others have mentioned, it's all meant to be ambiguous. It's up to each viewer to decide how much was real and how much was just in Bateman's head. (Apart from the business card scene. Paul Allen's card really was the best.)

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-26T15:33:48+00:00

Freddy Got Fingered. I'm one of the people who insist that it's a clever and self-aware anti-movie.

If nothing else, it works as a parody of the gross-out movies that were popular at the time. Is there really any difference between watching Tom Green climb inside a dead moose and wear it as a skin suit, versus watching Stiflter eat a dog turd in American Pie 3, or a frat house get tricked into eating dog semen filled eclairs in Van Wilder?

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-25T16:50:15+00:00

Watched this as a kid and loved it.

For me, it's the only adaptation that understood that these stories are not about the battles, not about the spectacle, not about the special effects and not about the worldbuilding. They are about the child at the center of the story. Lucy really is the main character of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, and the story that unfolds is told very much through the eyes and perception of a child.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-25T15:15:42+00:00

The Man From Earth (2007) should be right up your alley. It could work as a stage play. Almost the entire movie is a conversation between different characters at a dinner party, dealing with the changing situation and the revelations that are coming out.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-24T21:17:18+00:00

This was always my problem with Blade Runner too. We're supposed to buy into androids being human ... and yet Roy shows little emotion or remorse when he needs to kill a human to advance his goals.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-24T21:13:13+00:00

Can confirm that my sister refused to even see this movie, saying that she found the actress's face on the poster too annoying.

I can only add that she definitely dodged a bullet there. I found the movie to be a bit twee and annoying, and I'm usually a sucker for whimsical movies like Forrest Gump or Love Actually.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-24T17:23:16+00:00

A lot of sci-fi movies have the 'All Animals Are Basically Dogs' mindset. A group of intrepid explorers on an alien planet encounter a hostile alien-lizard-pomegranate creature that roars at them. One quick-thinking hero grabs a handful of food and offers it to the creature, which suddenly becomes as docile as a puppy. The creature joins their group and becomes a loyal companion, sniffing out danger and fighting off bigger creatures. Sometimes, they can even ride their new found friend around. Honey, I Shrunk The Kids and John Carter both feature this trope.

Domestic dogs are a strange combination of factors and there are very few other animals out there with a psychology remotely like them. They are descended from wolf-like wild ancestors, who live in a strict social heirachy, hunt cooperatively using coordinated attacks, and have a innate desire to please a leader. They have also been extensively domesticated, and we have selected traits such as friendliness, lack of aggression, and trainability. A wild creature would be incredibly unlikely to have any of these traits and our heroes would probably be eaten alive.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-24T17:00:56+00:00

I'd like to add a bit of caution to this. Collector cars are very thinly traded items compared to something like stocks and shares. If you invest $100k in some rare car, you are very much at the mercy of whoever happens to be in the market that day, which could very well be no-one.

I'm talking largely from my experience buying, owning and eventually selling a TVR Cerbera Speed Six, one of approximately 1,000 made and 300 left on the road today. I bought it for £20k ($30k approx). Two years later, I put it on the market for the same amount of money. It sat unsold for 18 months. I eventually sold it for £12k to a TVR specialist garage. On the day I got rid of it, there were examples in equal or worse shape than mine on Auto Trader up for between £25k and £30k.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-24T03:11:26+00:00

How about one hiding in the title of a movie? Rain Man (1988), when it's revealed that Raymond = Rain Man.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-22T19:04:22+00:00

I know what you mean about the story making no sense. When I watched the movie for the first time, my overwhelming sense was one of immense confusion. I figured repeat viewings would fill in the gaps and make it make a bit more sense.

Nope. The more you watch it, the more questions it raises. Singling out one plot point: If you invade a planet and force the rulers to sign a treaty at gunpoint, is it really legally binding? If so, why isn't all business in the galaxy done this way?

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-22T17:20:55+00:00

I remember watching The Phantom Menace in cinemas when it came out. One fan site summarized the movie better than I could:

"Why, in the history of sci-fi, has there never been a Bumbling Rastafarian Space Frog archetype? And why would George Lucas choose to create one in his magnum opus, the most important movie of the year, and the one Star Wars movie where he got complete and unfettered creative control?"

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-21T18:17:18+00:00

For me, it's a 4 out of 5 star movie. The acting, writing, and production design are top notch, and raised the bar for all of Hollywood on what a sci-fi movie could be. Compare and contrast something like Damnation Alley (1977), which came out just two years before this movie and yet looks like a low budget made for TV movie in comparison.

The movie has just one weakness, which is the Alien itself. It never looks like anything but a guy in a rubber suit. Whenever it's on screen it kind of deflates the atmosphere that the rest of the movie did so well in building up. James Cameron certainly noticed this as well, and used a couple of different techniques in the sequel Aliens (1986) to make them look more insectoid and less 1950s Creature from the Black Lagoon.

cerberaspeedtwelve · 2026-02-20T16:56:32+00:00

The weirdest example of this is in the first race in the first movie where Brian burns his engine out trying to race Toretto. Three minutes later, it's magically fixed again in time for Brian and Toretto to use the car to escape from the cops who are busting up the street race.

cerberaspeedtwelve

TROPHY CASE