Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2009 September 3

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September 3

Twist ending

Hello. I recently watched a film called The Village and I was disappointed by the ending. Without spoiling the plot for anyone who hasn't seen it, the ending of the film basically means that the film was not about what the viewer believed it to be about and it was not about what the advertising suggested it was about. So I basically paid to hire a film that was meant to be about one thing, and I spent time watching it thinking that it was about that thing, and then it turned out to be about something else. In this situation are there grounds to complain and who would you complain to? I know that it might sound trivial, because it only cost £3 to hire the DVD and I only spent about an hour and a half of my time watching it, but I feel that it is the principle. It is a bit like going into a burger bar and ordering a beef burger, but then getting a chicken burger, you have only lost a couple of pounds, but you have not got what you paid for. I feel that they could have taken some kind of action to reduce the risk of disappointment, without giving the plot away (perhaps a message at the start saying something like "Warning, this is film not about what it originally appears to be about, nor what the advertising suggests it is about").

It wouldn't hurt to ask them. But it's not the video store's fault if the movie had a misleading title. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

How could the end of the film change the whole meaning of what came before it? You mean that the last ten percent can completely change the meaning of the first ninety percent? Bus stop (talk)

You'll need to watch the movie. Or read a synopsis. It does cast the preceding couple of hours in a different light. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

In England such things are covered under the Sale of Goods Act 1979, which requires the goods be "satisfactory" (what used to be called "of merchantable quality"). But really, for a professionally made and marketed film, that's mostly down to "the dvd wasn't scratched" and the like. I have heard of people leaving films (in the cinema) and demanding their money back due to the film being so bad. In practice the only promise made to you about The Village was that it was a mystery film of professional quality with that Phoenix bloke in it, and that it was 89 (or whatever) minutes long. You got that; "I didn't like it, and it's not what I was expecting" is a very far cry from "I was sold something materially very different from this". -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 00:13, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If I'm understanding correctly, he didn't buy it, he rented ("hired") it. If he had bought it, and it had a physical defect, obviously he could return it. But not just because he didn't like it. That's a "let the buyer beware" situation. If you buy (or rent) a piece of entertainment (such as DVD or CD) it's assumed you've got some clue what you're getting yourself into. Then your best hope is to try to recoup some of what you spent, on eBay or a garage sale or something. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Moreover, the director and screenwriter of The Village has established a track record of making movies with twist endings. A little research into the director and screenwriters for a movie can help eliminate surprises like this. Michael Slone (talk) 00:21, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Quite. In any commecial transaction, there's always the assumption that the parties have done some kind of dilligence in checking that what they were getting is what they wanted. So if you rented Chainsaw Abomination IV for your sundayschool group, you really can't complain that it was unsuitable. If, however, you rented Miracles of the Bible and got some film about guys getting chopped up with chainsaws, then you do. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 00:27, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what this means, but it might have something to do with this question. Bus stop (talk) 00:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Surely the film was about a village set in the modern age from the very beginning - it was YOU who thought it wasn't. The film should sue you. Juliankaufman (talk) 21:00, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

There are no "spoilers" in wikipedia. If anyone's interested, the ending is given away in the article The Village (2004 film). The film sounds derivative, somehow. In fact, it sounds like a plotline that appears in various episodes of The Twilight Zone. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:39, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Wikipedia is loaded with spoilers. But due to some supposed consensus, we are not to warn users when they're coming. --Nricardo (talk) 00:52, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I meant to say that there are no spoiler tags in wikipedia. There was a big fuss about that a couple of years ago and they basically went away. Now the entire plot line, including surprise endings, is fair game. I recall how disappointed I was to read the ending of Titanic. I thought for the film version, they might turn it into a happy ending, like with The Natural. I would say how Titanic ends, but that would be giving it away. Then I'd be sunk. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:57, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

While I certainly feel for you, it sounds like for 90% of the film, you *were* satisfied. Unless the entire movie was a dream, like an entire season of the TV Series "Dallas" turned out to be (not to mention the entire series Newhart), it sounds like the writers would expect you to reasonably be satisfied. (And with the Newhart example, it was basically that they made fun of themselves in the last episode, a play off of the Dallas debaucle.)Surprises are common in movies, just as in life. Maybe more dramatic - one normally does not find that they dreamed an entire series of events. But, they still exist, and are a normal way to express oneself as a writer - see the site on TV Tropes mentioned elsewhere. So, if you tried to argue principle, they would probably argue back, "This is completely normal." (Of cours,e having not seen it myself, I'll acknowledge that it could be a dream, which does make it a little more agonizing. But, even that can make you think, like the final episode of St. Elsewhere can make one think about just how amazingly creative on the inside someone with autism can be, even if they can't express it, from what I understand of theshow's finale; I never saw the show myself.)Somebody or his brother (talk) 01:52, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

A final word of advice:don't rent The Sixth Sense. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:29, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Or The Empire Strikes Back for that matter. APL (talk) 15:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Your complaint is slightly reminiscent of Psycho (1960 film). If you see the old trailers and posters for this film you'd be convinced that Janet Leigh was the female lead.

To be honest, your complain seems weaker. You're not complaining that you paid to see a particular actress who later turned out to have little screen-time. You're complaining that while the quality of the film was what you expected, the story did not go the way you were expecting. Specifically you're complaining that a mysterious village turned out to be mysterious for unsatisfying reasons? I think you can chalk this up to nothing more than "I didn't like that film".

This is sort of the nature of storytelling. APL (talk) 15:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Funny you would mention Psycho, since it's one I thought of for the section just above. There were several Psycho films. Did any of them ever actually use that word in its many incarnations? There were Psycho II, Psycho III, Psycho IV - A New Hype, Son of Psycho, Psycho Meets Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and Abbot and Costello, Psycho Forever, and many others I'm sure you'll recall. They were all top-notch films. Well, maybe not all. Some of them, you might as well stick a knife in them. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 21:38, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Chess: Steinitz--von Bardeleben at Hastings 1895

Chess: Steinitz--von Bardeleben at Hastings 1895 (see side box)

Why 22...Kf8? I think is it a bad move as it loses the queen. Why not 22...Kxe7 or even Qxe7?

--Masatran (talk) 07:35, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If you follow the link below the sidebox you mention to Hastings 1895 chess tournament, there are several lines of analysis explaining why both your suggested moves are easy wins for white. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The Pack. Theatre of Hate. Spear of Destiny. Kirk Brandon.

Dear Sir.

I recently looked myself up on your, and I must say brilliant Wikipedia. Unfortunately on the subject of myself and my several bands and history of I was left a bit clueless as to why or how someone wrote it. Its mostly wrong I'm afraid. Whoever wrote it has a vastly different idea on my history. It would have been better to have got in touch personally.

Nevertheless, please continue with the great and enormous work that you do.

Yours Sincerely

Kirk Brandon 3/9/2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.237.90 (talk) 09:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello Kirk. It's great that you're taking an interest in the articles about you, but this isn't really the place for such discussions – you've stumbled upon the reference desk for general knowledge queries. If you find inaccuracies in an article then the best place to raise them is the talk page of the article itself (accessed via the 'Discussion' tab at the top of the article). However, you seem to be under a misapprehension regarding the way Wikipedia works. It's a collaborative project between thousands of individuals, all of whom are at liberty to change any article at any time. There is no single Wikipedia "authority" who will get in touch with you regarding the articles about you. If these articles are not of a very good standard then that is simply because no-one has taken it upon themselves to improve them. Of course, articles are meant to be accurate, but sometimes inaccuracies creep in. The way in which we try and avoid those is by insisting that everything here is referenced, i.e. it comes from a reliable third-party source such as a book or newspaper. Sadly, this doesn't always happen. If something in an article is unreferenced, and therefore unverified, someone would be within their rights to delete it, although that's a bit extreme for my liking – the better alternative is to leave a tag on the article (or a statement within it) saying that it needs references.

Finally, the other important point is that, unfortunately, you as the subject of the articles are not supposed to change them yourself simply based on your knowledge and memories. That may sound daft, but the principle of independent, verifiable sources is a key one. Of course, if you have access to newspaper and magazine articles about yourself which give the correct information, then please use them to improve the articles. "Do You Believe In The Westworld?" was a great song, btw. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:52, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

This article was specifically for people who have articles written about them. WP takes biographies of living people very seriously and if you have a complaint about your article, there is contact information at the link I provided (and links from there), including email, snail mail, etc.). Matt Deres (talk) 16:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Michael Jordan

To whom it may concern:

My name is Michael Perry and I'm looking for an contact email address to Michael Jordan. I have a business proposal that I would like for him to consider.

Please get back to me at your earliest.

Michael Perry

<email redacted>—Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.210.130.121 (talk) 13:30, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

You won't be able to email him directly. The best chance you have is contacting his agent or management. Maybe someone on here can find that information for you, although I would say that if you're not already an established and reputable company, the chances of your "business proposal" even being read by his management, let alone considered, are zero. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 15:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Help to identify this song / track

Hello, Sharekhan.com is an indian stock market service provider and they have generally put up a music track on their customer care number when the caller is waiting. The customer care number is : +xxxxxxxxxxxxx. Can anyone help to identify the name of the song or album.

Thanks a lot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.161.236.98 (talk) 15:27, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Telephone number removed. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 13:57, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

It's unlikely anyone on this desk is going to call that number for you. We don't know that it's correct, it will cost us money and what if we get through to a real person rather than a queue? If you're really that interested, I can only suggest that you record the music off of the phone somehow and then link here to an mp3 of it. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 15:40, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Or (and this is about the fourth time I've said this in the past week or so), if you have access to Shazam, you might be able to identify it through that. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 15:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Looking for the names of two old PC space games

Hello, i'm sure you all know the feeling when you're trying to remember the name of an old film or game.

Well there are two PC games i'm trying to remember the names of. -Both of them are 2D games set in space, from around the mid-1990s -Both were real time -Both of them had multiplayer options -I have no idea what they were called. There are so many space games with almost the same titles.

The first game put you in charge of a mothership. You could change the sprite of the ship, and one of the choices was a smiley face. The area of space you were in was divided into squares. I think there were four quadrants, but it might have been further divided than that. You flew around space finding planets. You could strip them of resources with your tractor beam (there may have been a sucking sound) and carry them back to your home planet, where you could sell the resources for credits. You could buy extras for your ship like missiles or more storage space. You could install bases on planets and contribute credits to their growth. You could also drop bombs on planets. The objective was to defeat the enemy mothership.

The second game also put you in charge of a mothership. This was definitely more of a RTS. You could build structures in space to create more spaceships for your fleet. I remember there were four "races" to choose from which were red, blue, purple, and green. The races had different build options and I believe that some races could build targets for their ships to improve themselves. The maps were quite busy with nebulae and asteroids.

I hope my descriptions aren't too vague. I'd really appreciate any help in my quest! 77.167.189.35 (talk) 20:07, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The first sounds vaguely like "Gazillionaire", but I could be mistaken on that one. --Jayron32 21:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The first game is Warpath, see http://www.synthetic-reality.com/warpath.htm --145.102.9.85 (talk) 12:25, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

... and I'm not that sure about the second one, but your description reminded me of Star Command: Revolution [1]--145.102.9.85 (talk) 12:38, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Second one could be Master of Orion. Doesn't quite seem right, though. APL (talk) 13:21, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Warpath and Star Command :D Thanks to everyone that helped me out! 77.167.189.35 (talk) 17:53, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

harrison Ford

How many submarine movies has Harrison Ford been involved with? Is K-19 the only one? Googlemeister (talk) 20:53, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe so. He has played (usually American) military personel in other films, such as Force 10 from Navarone and Apocalypse Now, but I am fairly certain that K-19 is the only submarine movie he has been in. He did play Jack Ryan in several movies, but Alec Baldwin played Ryan in The Hunt for Red October, so he "missed the boat" on that one. (hardy har har). --Jayron32 21:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

He vas amongst der finalists for die role, but he got das Boot. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 21:39, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Good example of a gag that works only if you don't speak German. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 22:06, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know. I speak a bit of German and found it rather punny. Dismas|^(talk) 22:43, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Or puny. Jayron's joke was pretty good. MIne were kind of sub-standard. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:52, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Ja! I heard they were going to have a sequel, Das Reboot. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:08, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Come to think of it, pedantry rarely is the right response to a gag. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 23:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Or anything else. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 23:08, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Not a submarine film, but in Raiders of the Lost Ark, he sneaks aboard a Nazi sub on the way to the climactic scene in the movie. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Where "aboard" means he's on the outside of the sub. Good thing it never needed to go below periscope depth during the trip... --Anon, 07:30 UTC, September 4, 2009.

Now that you mention it, that was left unclear (as with some other things in the film - and as with the serials it imitated). But he was wearing a German submariner's uniform at the submarine's destination. So he might have boarded and taken the place of a German, although the likelihood of his getting away with that stretches credibility about as much as hanging onto the sub's periscope for several hundred miles. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots

In Mad Magazine's "Inbanana Jones", they show Inbanana riding off on top of the sub and one character says to the other: "Isn't that a sub? Won't it go underwater?" The other replies, "Oh, nobody will notice except you, me, and about three million viewers. What does it matter?" (Just Googled and you can buy that mag here.) -- kainaw™ 12:42, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Mad doesn't miss anything. Another part I wondered about was the famous scene of him being dragged under the truck and using his whip to crawl back to it. I know how they did that stunt, but one thing they left out is how he managed to let go of the whip, grab the bumper of the truck, and retrieve his whip. However, my second favorite moment in the film (after the confrontation with the swordsman), was when a fly crawled into Belloq's mouth. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:48, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I vaguely recall someone telling me that the book version explained the submarine issue. I do recall that subs of that era submerged only when necessary. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:31, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

U-boat#World_War_II agrees with you. Now, how he ended up in a German submariner's uniform... 152.16.59.102 (talk) 04:08, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

That's amazing. After 30 years of wondering (not continuously, I assure you), it makes reasonable sense that he could simply ride on top of the sub and presumably stay undetected. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:36, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

As to the uniform, my recollection is that after the sub arrives at its destination, there's a bit where he's standing on the top of the sub and knocks out a German to steal his uniform only to find it doesn't fit. If he's later wearing one that does fit, presumably he got it the same way. By the way, note that U-boats of that era did not have snorkels, so they normally ran on the surface whenever there was a reason not to; then they could use diesels instead of their limited battery power. --Anonymous, 21:37 UTC, September 5, 2009.

Ellen DeGeneres Show on Fiver

Hi, I was just wondering whether anyone knows about what has happened to the Ellen DeGeneres show on Channel Fiver. It would usually show at 6am in the morning in the UK but today, it's suddenly no longer showing. Is it coming back?

Also, if anyone then can help to guide me where I could possibly watch it elsewhere over the Internet etc. There is another channel in shows in the UK, but I unfortunately don't have it. Wiki.user (talk) 20:58, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

vandalism deleted83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:40, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I'm sure that took you a long time to think up. 81.155.26.19 (talk) 22:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Why would those who were opposed to lesbian-haters ban it? Or for that matter those who hated anti-lesbians? DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:09, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Wow, Ellen DeGeneres is a lesbian? Who'd a-thunk? Of course, I'm kind of out of the loop on current events. I just heard this morning that Lindbergh had landed safely in Paris. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:15, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

That story went on to add that Brittany was very jealous. I didn't understand that part. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:16, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Normandy gets more publicity? —Tamfang (talk) 19:09, 28 September 2009 (UTC)