Interesting Facts

According to linguists Carmen Fought and Karen Eisenhauer Disney films are dominated by men when it comes to dialogue. (Pocahontas, Mulan and The Little Mermaid were all named after the main female character, but that didn't help: In Pocahontas 76% of the dialogue was from the men, it was 77% in Mulan  and 68% in The Little Mermaid. Beauty and the Beast had male characters speaking 71% of the time, while in Aladdin it was 90%. Early Disney films such as Snow White had fewer speaking roles but spread them equally between male and female characters, and in Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty women seemingly had more dialogue than men. To be fair it's not just Disney. In the film The Avengers, none of the female characters talked to each other at any point.)

Sales of games in the UK beat film and TV for the first time in 2011. (According to the Electronic Retailers Association (ERA) video game sales hit £1.93 billion in 2011, the biggest ever in the industry's history. By comparison DVDs and other video formats created just £1.80 billion in revenues and music just £1.07 billion. I love the way they say "just" - you know just a couple of billion.) Source

According to file-sharing blog Torrent Freak, the action film Fast Five was the most pirated film of 2011, having been downloaded illegally 9.2 million times. (The Hangover II was second, followed by Thor, Source Code and I am Number Four. I can only say that it just shows people who pirate films don't seem to have very good taste.)

There have been 16 film versions of the book, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte . (Including 5 silent films made between 1915 and 1926, to the latest film which comes out this year (2011). 1915: Jane Eyre starring Louise Vale. 1915: A version was released called The Castle of Thornfield. 1918: A version was released called Woman and Wife, directed by Edward José, adapted by Paul West, starring Alice Brady as Jane.1921: Jane Eyre starring Mabel Ballin and directed by Hugo Ballin. 1926: A youth version was made in Germany called Orphan of Lowood. 1934: Jane Eyre, starring Colin Clive and Virginia Bruce. 1943: I Walked with a Zombie is a horror movie loosely based upon Jane Eyre. 1944: Jane Eyre, with a screenplay by John Houseman and Aldous Huxley. It features Orson Welles as Mr. Rochester, Joan Fontaine as Jane, Agnes Moorehead as Mrs. Reed, Margaret O'Brien as Adele and Elizabeth Taylor as Helen Burns. Joan Fontaine had earlier starred in Rebecca, directed by Alfred Hitchco...

According to research carried out by internet consultancy firm Envisional, the number of illegally downloaded films in the UK has gone up nearly 30% in five years. (According to their research, in 2010, the top five box office films in the UK were illegally downloaded a total of 1.4 million times. I just wonder where they get the patience to wait for the download! Or is it the fact that people are downloading these films that my internet is so slow?)

Dame Elizabeth Taylor died of heart failure on 23rd March 2011. (She was definitely an interesting person, right from the start. She was born with scoliosis, or curvature of the spine, and suffered back problems all her life. She had both hips replaced and beat skin cancer,a brain tumour, diabetes, seizures and a stroke. She endured an estimated 70 illnesses and had 100 operations, 20 of them major surgery; she estimated she had almost died four times. She made 50 movies and won two Oscars. She got married eight times (twice to Richard Burton) and had ten grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. She leaves a fortune of 360m, and a legacy of having raised Aids awareness around the world. The New York Times paid tribute to her by admitting that she had actually outlived the person who wrote her obituary by six years.  For whatever reasons, she will be remembered.)

The strict anti-smoking laws in Wales meant that special effects had to be used on the set of the film "Mr Nice". (The film tells the story of Howard Marks (Mr Nice), an amateur drug smuggler from a more innocent time. It's based on the book of the same name and of course involves lots of smoking of various substances, but they had to use special effects machinery to simulate the actual smoking because in Wales it is illegal to smoke on a movie set. How times have changed.)

The Southern Sky Column Mountain in Zhangjiajie, Hunan province, China will now be known as the Avatar Hallelujah Mountain. (It is supposedly being renamed because it inspired scenery in the fantasy blockbuster. Avatar has become the most popular film ever in China, making $80m (£50m) at the box office so far. Call me a cynic, but I think that the main reason for this is because you can't easily rip a 3D film.)

Avatar has become the fastest movie ever to achieve $1bn (£625.6m) in ticket sales around the world. (Distributors 20th Century Fox say it has earned more than $350m (£217m) in the US alone, and more than $670m (£415m) in the rest of the world. That's in only 17 days. I haven't been to see it yet, I'm waiting for the hype to blow over.)

Aberystwyth, is going to screen the classic Monty Python movie "Life of Brian". (I can hear all the Annoying Mouses out there going "Well that's not interesting". But it is, because 30 years ago this Welsh town banned the film. No one thought to revoke the ban because few people realised it still stood, and now there'll be a one-off screening for charity at Aberystwyth Arts Centre. It should be a good night as Michael Palin and Terry Jones are expected to attend.)

Bond star Daniel Craig is said to owe Dakota Blue Richards £200, his Golden Compass co-star,after starting a swear box on set. (Serves him right, swearing on a kid's film set, whatever next.)

In the UK a giveaway DVD in a newspaper costs as little as 16p to produce, including rights, materials and manufacture. (These things are often given away in the Sunday newspaper. Recent titles have included East is East, Cabaret and even episodes of Fireman Sam.)