I’m going to try something a little different. This is a true blue trivia quiz, but with facts you might want to learn after watching Gothika. Some will be about film, but some will be about just general stuff I gleaned from perusing the Gothika wiki page for a big. Let’s go!
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) On the soundtrack of Gothika the song Behind Blue Eyes is, in actuality, the cover version recorded by Limp Bizkit. Yeah … it hit number 11 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. Gross. Who performed the original version of Behind Blue Eyes?
2) Produced by Dark Castle Entertainment (a division of Warner Bros.), Gothika was the fourth feature film produced by the new studio (and only the second co-produced with Sony). The other co-production was also a BMT film starring Tony Shalhoub, Shannon Elizabeth, and Matthew Lillard with a similar gothic vibe. What was that BMT classic?
3) Gothika is somewhat notable as the first major feature film Robert Downey Jr. booked after his second stint in court ordered rehab. So bad was his reputation productions would withhold part of his salary (40% in the case of Gothika) as part of the bonding. RDJ’s first Oscar nomination was for Chaplin, and he recently won for Oppenheimer, but he was also nominated as a Supporting Actor for a 2008 film. Which film?
4) In Gothika, the eeeeeeeeevil murderer that Miranda glimpses in a dream has a tattoo of the Anima Sola on his chest, meaning Lonely Soul. The image depicts a soul in what location? Outlined at the Second Council of Lyon and the Council of Trent, its existence is one of the major disputes between different sects of Christianity.
5) Now you might think Gothika is a sequel to the film Gothic from 1986. It is not. That film is about a visit by Mary Shelley to an estate on Lake Geneva where two major monsters of both literature and film, Frankenstein’s monster and the vampire, were created. Who’s estate was that?
Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: Gothic (1986) played a bunch on TV in the 90s. On October 22, 1993 it didn’t quite go head to head with primetime Showtime, but it did overlap with this listing:
What is this movie?
Answers
1) Who? Who?! Well yeah, the Who did. Don’t worry the original version hit 34 on the Billboard Top 100, whereas the Limp Bizkit version only hit 71. Phew. There is justice.
2) You know it was Thir13en Ghosts! And guess what? The Ghost Ship with the Most Ship was the one just preceding it. They were, indeed, very into the ghostly vibes when they started.
3) Tropic Thunder, for playing the dude playing a dude playing another dude. It is one of those parts people say wouldn’t be made today. But I don’t buy that. I think you absolutely could get away with that part in a modern comedy … the actual issue is that comedies like that are no longer released to theaters and so there is no way RDJ would have managed to even be considered for a nomination. He lost to Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight by the way. What a year!
4) Purgatory baby! That’s right, the Anima Sola is supposed to represent the ability to aid souls trapped in purgatory through the power of prayer. Catholics tend to accept purgatory, although a lot of the Eastern sects reject the concept of purification through fire. Most protestants though either don’t accept purgatory as a place of repentance or have a separate idea typically called Hades where souls wait for Last Judgment.
5) It was Lord Byron, and the party was apparently nuts. This could be apocryphal, but I always heard his doctor John William Polidori would get them a bunch of opium and they would go crazy and tell stories and it is completely believable when you realize that Shelley created Frankenstein right off the dome.
Bonus NYTimes Listing Answer: Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. It was a huge bomb, and shared a director with Free Willy, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, and (crazy enough) the hugely successful Lonesome Dove miniseries.
Alright … I think that was hugely successful. I really like this style. I’m going to continue it for a while.
Bad Movie Twins 