Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2009 December 24

= December 24 =

Looking for an Australian movie...
Hi All,

I'm loooking for the name of an Australian movie from, I think, the 90's. It starred an unknown, as in not a star or actress, aboriginal girl/young woman whose character dealt with prejudice. I saw it on TV but I'm pretty sure it was a feature film. I've looked through WP's film lists and some for Aussie feature films but no titles leaped out at me. It could have been late 80's or early 2000's but it was awhile ago, most likely mid 90's. Any ideas? Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.234.6.220 (talk) 00:21, 24 December 2009 (UTC) PS, it was not the rabbit-proof fence —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.234.6.220 (talk) 00:30, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The Fringe Dwellers? Nanonic (talk) 00:49, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's it. i looked at IMDB and another site re the film and actresses. As I recall the girl was the lead character but most other characters/leads were white, Fringe has 3 sisters and several other aboriginal leads. It really focused on this girl, she was probably pre-20's in age. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.234.6.220 (talk) 01:20, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...on perusal of the movie at several other sites I think this is it, thanks so much Nanonic! 64.234.6.220 (talk) 03:26, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Most
Which book/movie/video game series has the most installments? jc iindyysgvxc  (my contributions) 07:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Star Wars or Star Trek books? Choose Your Own Adventure books? There are hundreds of those. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:12, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Can you better define "installment"? Would the above mentioned Star Wars or Star Trek books be considered installments?  If you're definition is simply "same format as the original work", I'd say that the James Bond films probably win on the film side of things.  Dismas |(talk) 11:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Not even close. Hell, there are twice as many Charlie Chan movies as James Bond. Luckily, Wikipedia has an article on everything!Matt Deres (talk) 14:26, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * According to our article, the German Perry Rhodan series has over 2,500 published installments. Deor (talk) 19:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe the Dragonlance book series?Lolita chan (talk) 19:05, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Naming of football clubs
My local football team Barrow (England), are commonly called Barrow AFC? However most teams are not commonly called, for example, Liverpool FC, just Liverpool (even though Liverpool FC may be their official title).

I have two questions, first, why are some teams Association Football Clubs (AFC) and some Football Clubs (FC)? and secondly, why do some teams have 'Whoever' AFC/FC in their titles but others are just 'Whoever'? I hope that makes sense. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Super73 (talk • contribs) 08:19, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * In the case of Barrow, it seems that the local rugby team (originally rugby union, later rugby league, now known as Barrow Raiders), were originally formed as Barrow FC in 1875. Barrow AFC were not formed until 1901.  At the time, the word "football" did not specifically mean "soccer" - association football - and equally often referred to rugby football.  Later on, when the latter sport became more generally known as "rugby", new soccer clubs were more likely to use the title FC, rather than needing to differentiate themselves specifically as AFC.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:44, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * And your second part about some teams not using their "FC/AFC" title are just media/fans choice... They are still officially "FC/AFC"'s but just not referred to as such...  Sometimes Manchester United are sometimes just refered to as "United" on television programmes, dropping the "Manchester" part entirely...  This does depend on the audience however...  Gazhiley (talk) 11:53, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * And let's not forget that Man U's full name is "Manchester United Football Club". Most teams have "Football Club" or a slight variant in their full name; it tends to get dropped when there is another identifier like "United", but left in when there isn't another part of the name to differentiate them from other clubs/the town itself. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:21, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Not any more. When the Glazers took it over, it was changed to just Manchester United... Check their Crest - it no longer features the words Football Club... Gazhiley (talk) 12:29, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * A slightly different case is Toronto FC, who play in the North American Major League Soccer. Their full name as far as I can tell is "Toronto FC" - not an abbreviation for anything (because Football Club would imply Canadian Football). But then the names of Major League Soccer clubs is a bizarre mix anyway, with some names following the North American sports teams tradition (Los Angeles Galaxy) and some reusing names of famous European soccer clubs (Real Salt Lake). DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:25, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * And Chivas USA takes their name from C.D. Guadalajara. Woogee (talk) 19:28, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The "A" may not stand for "Association" - maybe "Athletic", as in AFC Bournemouth. The A in "AFC Wimbledon" appears not to stand for anything - unless anyone knows different! --TammyMoet (talk) 20:17, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Quite often it's because of multiple teams (playing different sports) with the same or similar name (e.g., just a town name). In the case of Barrow, the Barrow Raiders rugby league team was originally called Barrow FC, so it made sense for the football team to be Barrow AFC. The same is probably true in many places where there's some vying for dominance among a town's preferred sport, as is the case in northern England with football and rigby league. BTW, I remember Barrow being in the league proper (old Division 4) when I was a wee kid, and would love to see them back again some day! Grutness...wha?  22:06, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Gif backround
I did research on this, but I have been unable to find an answer, I was wondering if anyone knew the film that the following clip uses: funnyjunk.com/funny_gifs/1724/bullet+bill/. There is a http://www. before that url, I typed it this way to avoid tripping up a spam filter.—  Dæ dαlus Contribs 09:18, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_gifs/1724/bullet+bill/ Cannot see any clip, just a photo. 78.146.200.137 (talk) 12:06, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I see it. It's an animated .gif.  But I don't know where the clip is from. Dismas |(talk) 12:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I think, before Bullet Bill makes his appearance, that it's from District 9. Can anybody verify that that's Johannesburg?  Woogee (talk) 19:30, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Death rates in the most profitable movies
I seem to remember a recent Reference Desk question about the number of people killed in two popular movies. I cannot find that question again, but I was surprised to see that the death-rate for Raiders Of The Lost Ark was something like 70 people. I do not know if that was just spam.

My questions are: 1) what are the death rates for the most profitable movies? 2) Are there any very succesful movies that do not involve death or the fear of death? 3) Are there any very succesful movies that do not involve any danger?

I'm starting to think that movies supply a taste of the primeval dangers that we seldom experience in modern life. 78.146.200.137 (talk) 12:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The question that you're referring to is up the page a couple days. Here is a direct link.  As for the answer to your questions...  You can see a list of the highest grossing films at our article List of highest-grossing films.  The source which was used at the earlier Indiana Jones question was moviebodycounts.com.
 * Films labelled as "chick flicks" (article?), often don't have any fear or death. Many comedies fit this as well.  Off the top of my head, I don't recall any "fear of death" in Office Space and that has become rather successful as a cult film.   Dismas |(talk) 13:08, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd venture that chick flicks are more likely to have fear of death than many action movies, and it seems like main characters are more likely to die in chick flicks. Action movies might have characters in deadly situations, but we're more likely to have main characters convey an actual fear of death (which might be justified) in a chick flick. 86.176.48.114 (talk) 00:09, 29 December 2009 (UTC)


 * It's just a few sections up, under "Indiana Jones". "...movies supply a taste of the primeval dangers that we seldom experience in modern life", is close to something Alfred Hitchcock used to say, that when we see movies (like the ones he made, for example) we feel good, because we realize how much better off we are. Deaths in movies are often either villains or their army being killed off, as if they were robots. The Star Wars series has a lot of this kind of thing. Presumably we're supposed to feel happy when a Galactic Empire soldier is killed, and sad when a Rebel soldier is killed - or when any "good" character dies. An extreme case could be The Ten Commandments, which is fair to label as a popular movie, which of course killed the entire ancient Egyptian army when the Red Sea closed in around them (but not the Pharaoh himself, because he's a character in the film rather than just an anonymous soldier). That's probably what led to Gene Wilder's line in Blazing Saddles: "I must have killed more men than Cecil B. DeMille." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

The results for the top ten highest grossing films. Number of deaths follows the title, rank order in death league in brackets.

1 Titanic 307 (8)

2 The Lord of the Rings The Return Of The King 836 (1)

3 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest 90 (73)

4 The Dark Knight 36 (?) (Death of one of the leading actors).

5 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ? (?)

6 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ? (?)

7 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ? (?)

8 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ? (?)

9 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 468 (6)

10 Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 34 human, 134+droids (?)

The highest in the death-league is second-highest in the grossing league. It is disapointing that the public still seems to have the same tastes as they did in the times of the bloody Roman gladiatorial shows. 78.146.60.228 (talk) 16:07, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Except these are only movies (and plays, if you count Shakespeare, for example). Most civilized humans have a much different reaction to "deaths" in movies than to deaths in reality, or at least can separate the two. The real-life death of Heath Ledger would be an example of that situation. Errol Flynn "killed" Basil Rathbone at least twice, in different films of course. Jack Nicholson has "died" in several movies, yet there he is at the Oscars and the Lakers games every year. Generally, players we're "supposed to care about" don't die unless it's for a specific reason that's part of the story. Hence the jokes about Star Trek (lampooned in Galaxy Quest) about an actor with a one-time small part as an anonymous crew member who of course is the one who gets killed by the aliens. Also, technically wouldn't the number of deaths in Titanic equate to the number of real-life deaths? Where did they come up 307? Did someone count the number of apparent on-screen deaths? Likewise for The Lord of the Rings. Does your source say how they determined those numbers? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:30, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * We do get plenty of real-life death every day in tv news. We are still like the audience at the Coliseum. 92.24.73.139 (talk) 14:23, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * And Gandalf died and came back in ROTK; did they remove a tally mark for that or what? And are they only counting humans? Orcs? Witch-kings? If you count the fell beast that Éowyn beheaded, do you also count the fish that Gollum caught and ate? Hmm, that was the other movie, though. I share BB's suspicion about these numbers. Matt Deres (talk) 17:47, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * These questions are fully explained at the movie body count site mentioned above. They only count visible, on-screen deaths. Off-screen deaths, and things like planet explosions with millions of deaths, such as in the latest Star Trek, don't count. They do tally animal deaths, but don't include that in the overall number. They even break it down by how many things each major character kills. John Rambo in the latest Rambo has the highest individual kill total that I noticed at a quick glance. —Kevin Myers 18:27, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Seems to me that in the original Star Wars, the Death Star destroyed an entire planet, and Obi-Wan commented on thousands and/or millions of souls being extinguished (or something like that - it's been awhile). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:06, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * By the same reasoning,l the death count in the new Star Trek film is over 6 billion, according to what's said on-screen. Grutness...wha?  21:56, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * And by that reasoning, over 6 billion are killed in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galazy when Earth is destroyed. -- k a i n a w &trade; 22:06, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Come to think of it, in The Lathe of Heaven (film), one of the chief protagonists situations results in the extinction of nearly every human on earth - the figure 6 billion is specifically mentioned. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:17, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * In Star Trek Generations, entire solar systems are destroyed, so presumably many billions of humanoid aliens are killed, more than in the new movie. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I remember that an old edition of Guinness Book of Records had Red Dawn as the most violent film. Probably there are decency-in-the-media groups counting expressions of violence in film. From the RD article:
 * At the time it was released, Red Dawn was considered the most violent film by the Guinness Book of Records and The National Coalition on Television Violence, with a rate of 134 acts of violence per hour, or 2.23 per minute.[2] National Review Online has named the film #15 in its list of 'The Best Conservative Movies'.[3]
 * The NCTV or the NRO can helpyou find violent movies.
 * --Error (talk) 01:57, 30 December 2009 (UTC)