Netflix's "Stranger Things" is nothing short of a nostalgia-fueled phenomenon.
Not only has the show captured the hearts and minds of its '80s-loving viewers, it's turned its young cast into breakout stars. But the real standouts on "Stranger Things" are the show's characters: Barb, Eleven, Mike, Dr. Brenner, Nancy, Steve, and so many more.
Which "Stranger Things" character are you? Take the quiz below to find out.
No one expected much from "Jeepers Creepers" when it was released 15 years ago this week, on August 31, 2001. It was a low-budget horror film with no star power, being released at the bitter end of the summer dog days.
Yet, it made a star out of Justin Long, made a success out of director Victor Salva, and, with its record-breaking box-office, made Labor Day weekend into a prime spot for launching horror movies. Most of all, it introduced the Creeper, a winged monster that feasts on human flesh, and the star villain of a franchise whose long-awaited third installment is finally due in 2017.
Even after two hit movies, the Creeper remains shrouded in mystery. But here are some of the startling facts behind the film that brought him to life.
1. Is the Creeper legend based on a true story? Salva has said it's a complete fiction, but the movie's first 20 minutes bear a striking resemblance to a 1991 episode of "Unsolved Mysteries," centering on the case of Dennis DePue, a Michigan man who allegedly killed his wife in 1990 and dumped her body behind an abandoned school.
The "Jeepers" opening and the eyewitness account of a couple cited on the show share such details as a traveling man and woman playing license-plate name games, their pursuit by a mysterious vehicle (a van, not a truck) on an otherwise deserted highway, a derelict building (a school, not a church), and bloody bed linens. Even individual shots from the film seem to resemble similar shots from the TV episode. Compare and decide for yourself.
2. Justin Long had impressed Salva with his performance in "Galaxy Quest," but what won him the lead role of Darry was his audition. Salva said it contained none of the false bravado and machismo the director had seen in other male actors who were teens or young adults. Salva knew Long could appear funny or genuinely frightened, depending on what the scene needed.
3. Both Long and Gina Philips, who plays Darry's sister, Trisha (above), have said that Salva's screenplay was so scary that they had to put it down after reading the first 20 pages or so and come back to it hours later.
4. Long and Philips are supposed to be college students, but while Long was 22 at the time of filming, Philips was already 30.
5. MGM wanted more bankable names to play the two leads, but Salva's longtime mentor and producer, Francis Ford Coppola, used his clout to stick up for Salva's casting choices.
6. The Creeper's truck was every bit the jalopy it appears in the film. The exhaust system didn't work, and after every take, the driver had to open the door to let out a cloud of smoke.
7. Jonathan Breck scared the filmmakers enough during his audition to win the part of the Creeper. He mimicked the moments where the Creeper gets in the faces of terrified potential victims and starts sniffing them to see if they have any body parts he wants to consume. You can watch part of his successful audition here.
8. Salva likes to make Hitichcock-style cameos in his films. In the sequence where you see psychic Jizelle's record collection, there's a photo of a young man wearing a necktie; that's Salva's high school senior photo. You can also see Salva's head among the bodies of the victims in the Creeper's House of Pain.
9. The movie was shot in northern Florida, around Ocala. The highway where much of the film was shot didn't appear deserted enough, so Salva got local homeowners to uproot their mailboxes temporarily.
10. The church above the Creeper's lair was a real abandoned church that, after the movie's success, became a tourist attraction until, in a life-imitates-art moment, it mysteriously burned down a few years ago.
11. To Salva, Florida seemed like the jungle. The director, who weighed 400 pounds at the time, found the heat and humidity unbearably oppressive, though he noted that Breck had it worse, having to endure the weather from under mounds of latex. There were so many noisy insects that during outdoor shots, a crew member had to fire a pistol before cameras rolled in order to silence the bugs long enough to capture a take with audible dialogue.
12. When you hear the Creeper whistling the Johnny Mercer standard that gives the movie its title, the whistling voice actually belongs to the movie's editor, Ed Marx. His rendition of the tune was just supposed to be a place filler until Salva could find someone whose whistling he liked better, but he never did.
13. The roadside diner was a set built for the film, but it looked real enough that passers by would try to stop and get food and gas.
14. The house where the cat lady (Eileen Brennan) lived was the home of an actual cat lady, though the film's felines were provided by an animal trainer. Initially, Salva had planned for a more extensive sequence inside the house, but budget cuts forced him to trim the scene. 
15. Once Salva arrived in Florida, he discovered that $1 million worth of his financing had fallen through, and he was forced to cut some 20 pages of script from the end of the film. There would have been a fiery climax where Darry manages to get behind the wheel of the Creeper's truck and drives it into an oncoming train in a suicidal attempt to destroy the creature.
16. After budget cuts, Salva was left with $10 million to make his movie. When it premiered, it grossed $15.8 million, a record for a four-day Labor Day weekend. Ultimately, "Jeepers Creepers" earned $37.9 million in North America and a total of $59.2 million worldwide.
17. While Long had a cameo in 2003's "Jeepers Creepers 2," Philips chose not to return after Salva minimized Trisha's role in the script. The sequel broke the Labor Day record set by the first film, with an $18.4 million debut. It made a total of $63.1 million worldwide.
18. As early as 2009, Salva was floating the idea for a third "Jeepers," one that would bring Philips' Trisha back in the lead.
She was to have grown into a successful businesswoman who marshals her financial resources to combat the Creeper and stop him from targeting her now-teenage son. "Jeepers Creepers 3: Cathedral" finally went before the cameras this spring, though reportedly with a much-revised screenplay and a smaller role for Philips. It's due in theaters next year.
Before she died in 1977, Joan Crawford reportedly said that, if a movie were ever made from her life, Faye Dunaway was the only actress who could do the role justice. But "Mommie Dearest" was certainly not the biopic she had in mind.
Based on the 1978 memoir by Joan's daughter, Christina Crawford -- a controversial best-seller -- the 1981 film portrayed Joan as an alcoholic, a compulsive clean freak, and an abusive parent. And Dunaway's operatic performance, widely ridiculed when the film was released 35 years ago this week, tarnished not only Crawford's reputation but Dunaway's as well.
"Mommie Dearest" was actually a box office hit, though more for its over-the-top theatricality than its harrowing drama or truthfulness. Today, it's acknowledged as a camp classic and we celebrate its 35th anniversary with these facts every movie fan should know.
1. Anne Bancroft was initially cast as Joan, but she dropped out because she didn't like the screenplay. Back in 1963, when Crawford failed to get the Oscar nomination she expected for "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", she offered her services as a surrogate for the several East Coast-based women up for Best Actress, should any of them win. Bancroft did win (for "The Miracle Worker"), and Crawford accepted the statuette on her behalf at the Hollywood awards ceremony.
2. Campaigning for the part, Dunaway showed up at producer/co-screenwriter Frank Yablans' house dressed and made up as Joan and nearly gave him a heart attack.
3. "We all had a good time making it," Yablans said in 2006. "This was a really happy set." No one else associated with the film seems to agree with him.
4. Rutanya Alda (above, right), who played Joan's long-suffering assistant, Carol Ann, came out with her own tell-all book last year about the production: "The Mommie Dearest Diary: Carol Ann Tells All." She has nothing but praise for Dunaway's performance, but she says the star would routinely upstage her. She also says Dunaway held nothing back during the knock-down, drag-out sequence where Joan attacks Christina, Carol Ann, and a visiting journalist.
5. Alda claims Dunaway was a terror to nearly everyone on the set, even to veteran, multiple-Oscar-winning costume designer Irene Sharaff, who came out of retirement to swathe Dunaway in period glamour. Sharaff walked off the film, for the first time in her 45-year career, out of frustration. Alda quotes Sharaff as saying, "You can enter Faye Dunaway's dressing room, but first throw a raw steak in there to distract her."
6. The notorious wire hanger scene is even worse in the film than in the book. In the book, Christina says Joan beat her for having wire hangers in her closet, perhaps because, when Joan was a girl, her mother had to work at a dry cleaner's, and the star hated being reminded of her former poverty. In the movie, which omits that bit of backstory, Joan actually beats Christina with one of the wire hangers.
7. After shooting that sequence, Dunaway was so hoarse from screaming that she lost her voice. She would go on to summon a vocal coach to set: Frank Sinatra. The legendary crooner, who had just co-starred with Dunaway in "The First Deadly Sin," spent 15 minutes showing her some vocal exercises that would ultimately restore her voice.
8. Other curses befell the production. Pages from Dunaway's script went missing on more than one occasion, and so did some of her costumes. An entire reel of film went to the developer and came back blank.
9. A pharaoh's throne from the 1956 classic "The Ten Commandments" found its way into "Mommie Dearest." Paramount set designers painted it white and included it among the furniture at the Crawford mansion.
10. The kitchen set, where Christina's soap opera "The Secret Storm" is filmed, may look familiar to some viewers. It's the same set on the Paramount lot used for the kitchen of the Cunninghams' house throughout the run of "Happy Days."
11. "Mommie Dearest" cost a reported $5 million to make. It grossed $19 million in North America and another $6 million overseas.
12. After a month of release, Paramount recognized that viewers were coming to see "Mommie Dearest" for its camp value and treating it like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," shouting back dialogue and even bringing their own cans of cleanser and wire hangers.
Over Yablans' objections, the studio changed the ad campaign accordingly. The new posters featured Dunaway's line (already a catchphrase) "No wire hangers, ever!" They also depicted a wire hanger dangling from the movie's title. And they had a new slogan: "Meet the biggest mother of them all."
13. An Oscar winner for 1976's "Network," Dunaway may have been hoping for another nomination for playing Joan Crawford, but while she did come in second for Best Actress at both the National Society of Film Critics and New York Film Critics Circle, "Mommie Dearest" was destined to sweep the Razzies instead.
Along with Dunaway's Worst Actress prize, the movie also won Worst Picture, Worst Director (Frank Perry), Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting Actor (Steve Forrest, as a composite of Joan's boyfriends), and Worst Supporting Actress for Diana Scarwid, who played the older Christina. Scarwid beat her two nominated co-stars, Alda and Mara Hobel (the younger Christina), for the dubious honor.
14. Twins Cindy and Cathy Crawford, Joan's youngest children, didn't like the movie, and not just because they were written out of it. They disagreed with Christina's portrayal of Joan as a monster. "Christina says Joan was rotten, and I say she was a good person," Cathy said at the time of the movie's release. "She was tough on us, sure. You'd get a swat once in a while, but none of the physical beatings -- the coat hangers!"
15. Even Christina doesn't like the film, having called it "an enormous lost opportunity." When it came out in 1981, she complained that it should have been made more from her point of view than her mother's. "They made a Joan Crawford movie," she said. Nonetheless, she's introduced "Mommie Dearest" in person at numerous screenings over the past 35 years.
16. Christopher Crawford, depicted in the movie as having been strapped into his bed by his mother -- the film doesn't explain that this was Joan's attempt to curb his sleepwalking -- seems to be the only one of Joan's four children who felt "Mommie Dearest" accurately portrayed his childhood. As he said of the movie upon its release, "I lived it."
17. Now 75, Dunaway prefers not to discuss "Mommie Dearest," but earlier this month, she told People she had hoped the movie would provide a "window into a tortured soul, but it was made into camp."
Of the impact the film had on her reputation, she said, "I think it turned my career in a direction where people would irretrievably have the wrong impression of me, and that's an awful hard thing to beat. I should have known better, but sometimes you're vulnerable and you don't realize what you're getting into," Still, she said, she stood by her acting choices in "Mommie Dearest." "You can't be ashamed of the work you've done. You make a decision, and then you have to live with the consequence."
25 years ago, Terry Gilliam's wildly visual "The Fisher King" premiered on September 27, 1991.
The fantastical, New York-set film stars Jeff Bridges as a Howard Stern-like shock jock who inadvertently inspires a listener to go on a shooting spree. Robin Williams steals the movie, though, as a man who lost his wife in the shooting tragedy -- now reduced to a raving homeless man obsessed with finding the Holy Grail. Mercedes Ruehl won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a kooky video store owner and Williams was nominated for Best Actor.
In honor of this exceptional film hitting the quarter century mark, here are some things you probably didn't know about the film.
1. It was the first film by Gilliam (left), who co-directed "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," that didn't feature any of his fellow Monty Python members.
2. James Cameron was reportedly considered to direct, but instead did "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." Years later, Gilliam would blast Cameron, saying that mega-million movies like "Avatar" make it harder for smaller filmmakers to succeed.
3. As Gilliam said in a 2011 American Masters interview, he was inspired to cast Jeff Bridges after seeing him in "The Fabulous Baker Boys," but Bridges spent most of his meeting with the director trying to get Gilliam to cast someone besides him. He even brought a list of his friends who should do the part instead.
4. When Bridges showed Gilliam a book of photographs by Joel-Peter Witkin with "missing limbs and heads that have been chopped open," he was convinced Bridges had the necessary darkness for the role. "It's the most disturbing, horrifying, beautiful, magical photographs I'd ever seen." the director recalled on American Masters. "Here's this sweet all-American lad in the depths of all this. I thought, 'Wow. You impress me.'"
5. Gilliam told American Masters in 2011 that he and Williams were the "hot air that flies off into the stratosphere" and that Bridges was "the guy who anchored the movie." Added Williams, "Even playing an out-there drunk, he's still the voice of sanity. Especially with me being the voice of insanity."
6. Robin Williams helped turn things around on a particularly tough evening. Recalled writer Richard LaGravenese: "I remember one night in particular, filming the Chinese restaurant scene. It was about five in the morning, and we'd been there since seven the night before. Everyone's energy was drained. Suddenly, Robin did twenty minutes of nonstop impersonations and comedy. I remember one of the grips turning to me with tears in his eyes, he was laughing so hard. Everyone was rejuvenated and juiced. Then Terry turned to me and said: 'Thank God for him.'" (Gilliam would share his own, slightly-different account of this to The Hollywood Reporter.)
7. Producer Lynda Obst recalled another night when Williams came to the rescue: "We were shooting the scene where he waltzes in Grand Central Station through all the extras. Commuters would be arriving at 5 a.m. We were so late, we couldn't break for the extras to have water. The AD was so freaked out, he threw down his walkie talkie and quit. So as Robin's waltzing in this heavy costume, he's grabbing water on the sidelines and handing to all the extras when they were hot, tired, crowded, and ready to faint. We could never have wrapped that scene -- which might be the best one in the movie -- without his spirit."
8. One of the men who attacks Jeff Bridges at the beginning of the film is played by Dan Futterman, who went on to play Robin Williams' son in "The Birdcage."
9. In college, Mercedes Ruehl wrote a thesis about T.S. Eliot's poem "The Wasteland", which features the Fisher King, so she had had a good feeling when she saw the script for the "The Fisher King."
10. The night of the Oscars, Ruehl was trapped in traffic and nearly missed her own category, as she told Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee in 2009. Since the show is live, she couldn't be seated until they went to commercial break. "Luckily," she said, "Jack Palance started doing those pushups and it gave me a few minutes to get my equipoise back."
11. Ruehl also revealed that she nearly fell when going up the stairs to accept her Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but someone from the audience came to her aid -- Warren Beatty!
12. You might have missed singer Tom Waits (above) as the beggar in the wheelchair at the train station.
13. Howard Stern reportedly asked to be a consultant on the film since they were basing Bridges's character on him. But since the studio wouldn't pay him, he refused to share tapes from his show with the production.
14. The day after Williams's death, Jeff Bridges was doing a press conference in New York for his film "The Giver." He opened by paying tribute to his late friend:
"I remember pulling up to the boathouse where we had our party and I look out I say, "Is that Robin? Is that his ghost? No, it's Radioman." [Radioman, a homeless movie fan, has appeared in dozens of films in New York.] "It brought back all of these wonderful feelings of what an amazing time we had shooting 'The Fisher King.' Bridges said that, when he hugged Radioman, "I felt Robin's spirit, as I'm feeling him now in this room with us."
For better or worse, when many Americans think of Australia, they think of Paul Hogan and "Crocodile Dundee."
After all, the Australian travel pitchman cleverly designed the movie (released 30 years ago this week, on September 26, 1986) as part travelogue, part send-up of popular stereotypes. The comedy's plot -- about a fabled Australian outdoorsman and a New York newswoman who survive the challenges of each other's jungles -- and Hogan's winning performance made "Crocodile Dundee" the most successful imported film in U.S. box office history.
Still, as many times as you've watched Hogan cheerfully flash that giant Bowie knife, there's plenty you may not know about "Crocodile Dundee." Here's the behind-the-scenes story, and it's no croc(k).
1. Hogan came late to show business. He was a 32-year-old rigger and painter on the Sydney Harbor Bridge when his mates dared him to try out for an Australian TV talent show. He won and was soon writing and starring in his own sketch comedy show.
2. After a decade of small-screen success, Hogan and his behind-the-camera team decided to make a movie, something none of them had ever done before.
3. The real-life Crocodile Dundee was an Aussie named Rod Ansell, a hunter who, in 1977, famously survived seven weeks in the wild while stranded in a remote corner of Northern Australia. When he came to Sydney to talk about his adventure, he appeared on a TV interview barefoot and stayed in a luxury hotel, where he slept on the floor and was mystified by the bidet.
4. Hogan and his co-screenwriters clearly drew much of Mick Dundee's character and exploits from Ansell. The character was also a canny brand extension of the character Hogan had played in Australian tourism commercials, the ones that had made him moderately famous on this side of the Pacific for his offer to "slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for you."
5. Linda Kozlowski, the lone Yank during the Australian portion of the shoot, was a Juilliard classmate of Val Kilmer's who'd appeared on Broadway with Dustin Hoffman in "Death of a Salesman." Nonetheless, the 26-year-old was largely unknown on either side of the ocean before she landed the role of reporter Sue Charlton.
6. The wilderness section of the movie was shot in Kakadu, a national park roughly the size of Germany. The only crocodile Hogan and Kozlowski ever tangled with was the mechanical croc built for the film (above). Nonetheless, the animatronic prop was realistic-looking enough that someone reported the crew to the authorities as suspected poachers.
7. Hogan got a lot of comic mileage out of the bidets in the Plaza Hotel during the Manhattan section of the film. In real life, however, there are no bidets at the Plaza.
8. There were two versions of "Crocodile Dundee": an Australian version, and an international version. In the latter, the incomprehensible Australian slang dialogue was snipped out, resulting in a cut 10 minutes shorter.
9. In America, distributor Paramount advertised the film as "'Crocodile' Dundee," with extra quotation marks to make clear that it was a movie about a man nicknamed "Crocodile," not a movie about a crocodile named Dundee.
10. The film cost about $10 million to make. Not only did it become the biggest domestic hit in Australian history, but it was a smash all over the world. In the U.S., it earned $175 million, making it the second-highest grossing film of 1986, behind only "Top Gun."
11. Hogan, Ken Shadie, and John Cornell were nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. They lost to Woody Allen (for "Hannah and Her Sisters"), but Hogan did win a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy Motion Picture.
12. "Crocodile Dundee" made Kakadu into a popular tourist attraction. The film's success prompted developers to build a hotel there shaped like a crocodile.
13. Hogan and Kozlowski fell in love for real on the set. She continued to play love interest Sue in sequels "Crocodile Dundee II" (1988) and "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles" (2001). Unfortunately for the couple, Hogan was already married, to Noelene Edwards, whom he first wed in 1958, the year Kozlowski was born. They had five children together, divorced in 1981, and remarried in 1982. Their second split was considered one of the ugliest celebrity divorces in Australian history.
Shortly after their second divorce became official in 1990, the 50-year-old Hogan married the 32-year-old Kozlowski. They had a child of their own, son Chance. They divorced in 2014.
14. At one time in the early 1990s, Paramount was considering a crossover sequel with one of its other big 1980s franchises: "Crocodile Dundee Meets Beverly Hills Cop." Fortunately, Eddie Murphy nixed the idea.
15. Now 76, Hogan is the subject of a forthcoming small-screen bio, an Australian mini-series starring Josh Lawson (known to American audiences from "Anchorman 2") as Hogan. The mini-series will be called "Hoges," which is the nickname Hogan is known by Down Under.
It's been 15 years since the release of "Zoolander" (on September 28, 2001), but being really, really, ridiculously good-looking never goes out of style.
Ben Stiller's fashion industry satire remains a fan favorite (even if this year's sequel "Zoolander 2" tarnished the brand a bit). As many times as you've watched David Bowie (RIP) referee that epic walk-off between Stiller's Derek and Owen Wilson's Hansel, there's a lot you may not know about "Zoolander." So put on your best Blue Steel and read on for the behind-the-catwalk dish.
1. The character of Derek Zoolander originated in 1996, when Stiller's friend Drake Sather told him he wanted to cast him in a short satirical film about male models, commissioned for the VH1 Fashion Awards.
"I said, 'That's ridiculous,'" Stiller recalled in 2013, "and Drake said, 'Yeah, that's why I want you to do it." The short was a hit, so Sather and Stiller made another one the following year. These gave Stiller the blueprint for the film. The character's last name is a blend of Mark Vanderloo and Johnny Zander, both prominent models at the time.
2. Stiller named "Zoolander" villain Mugatu after a white-haired, ape-like monster from the original "Star Trek" series. The tufts of curly white hair on Will Ferrell's head are also inspired by the venomous creature.
3. Ferrell won the antagonist role when frequent Stiller collaborator Andy Dick had a scheduling conflict, having been booked to star in a TV project that ultimately failed to materialize. Dick did have enough time for a cameo as Olga the hairdresser.
4. Future "True Blood" and "The Legend of Tarzan" star Alexander Skarsgård made his American film debut as Meekus, one of Derek's ill-fated, gasoline-spraying male model friends.
The Swedish actor was visiting his dad, actor Stellan Skarsgård, in Hollywood when he was offered the chance to audition for the bit part. He read with Stiller, won the role, got flown to New York ("Business class!" he marveled.), and shot the sequence. Returning to Sweden, he told his friends what a "piece of cake" Hollywood movie acting was. It took him a few thousand more failed auditions, he recalled while promoting "Tarzan" in June, to set him straight.
5. Should moviegoers have known that Meekus and his ridiculously good-looking pals were doomed? The license plate on their Jeep reads, "RFK 575," the same as on similarly fateful vehicles in the original "Final Destination" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight."
6. There were other future stars in "Zoolander." One was Mark Ronson, playing a DJ years before he became famous for spinning platters in real life.
7. Justin Theroux (above) was a little-known actor when he played a small role in "Zoolander" as the dreadlocked, breakdancing, evil DJ. (Yes, those are his own moves.) He'd later collaborate again with Stiller on the screenplays to "Tropic Thunder" and "Zoolander 2," in which he'd reprise his evil DJ role.
8. Mugatu's homeless-themed "Derelicte" show was a spoof of a fashion line unveiled by John Galliano in 2000.
9. Stiller had a Zoolander moment for real during the scene where David Duchovny explains the conspiracy. He asked, "Why male models?", and after Duchovny's lengthy explanation, Stiller forgot his next line, so he just asked, "Why male models?" again.
10. In one scene, Wilson's Hansel wears a jumpsuit with a name tag that reads, "Kumar." This is supposedly an homage to actor Kumar Pallana, the Wes Anderson regular. Stiller and Wilson acted opposite him in Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaums," released three months after "Zoolander."
11. "Zoolander" was one of the first films forced to make changes in the aftermath of 9/11, which occurred less than three weeks before the film's scheduled release date. Aside from digitally editing out images of the Twin Towers, the filmmakers went ahead with the release as planned.
"I could never think of a reason that we shouldn't release the movie at that time," Stiller said in 2013, "other than it might not do that well, which to me wasn't the right reason to not release it."
12. "Zoolander" cost a reported $28 million to make and earned back $45 million in North America and another $16 million abroad.
13. The unflattering references to Malaysia got "Zoolander" banned in that country. Elsewhere in Asia, the references were changed to "Micronesia."
14. A surprise "Zoolander" fan is artsy director Terrence Malick. The "Tree of Life" director reportedly considers the comedy one of his favorite movies, and he even programmed it into a festival slate at the Philbrook Museum of Arts in Tulsa in 2013. Stiller learned of Malick's fandom and recorded a special video greeting in character for the director's birthday.
15. It took a while for "Zoolander" to be appreciated as a cult hit, thanks to cable and home video. Stiller has said that's why it took so long to get a sequel greenlit.
He first announced a follow-up in 2008, but it took until February of 2016 for the film to hit theaters. "Zoolander 2" was a critical and commercial dud, but that hasn't stopped Stiller and Wilson from starring in "Zoolander: Super Model," a cartoon that sees Derek and Hansel becoming superheroes. It debuted in August on Netflix in the U.K.; no word on whether we'll ever get to see it here.
"Scream: The TV Series" returns for a second season May 31. And Season 1 arrives on DVD May 10 from Anchor Bay Entertainment and Dimension TV.
Trivia is a movie lover's best friend. Seriously, have you ever been to a dinner with other movie lovers chattering about everything from new releases to which movies Johnny Depp is in to how amazing the Marvel Phase 3 movies are going to be? As you might expect, when movie lovers decide to procreate, a whole new generation of movie know-it-alls is born. But they don't get that way on their own.
Oh, no. Family game night is how those little kids blossom from an obsession with "Zootopia" to growing up and watching nothing but Wes Anderson movies. What? You thought showing them movies all the time was enough of an education? No way. You've got to shovel as much movie trivia into their lives as possible. This is where family game night comes into the equation: to groom those kids to be future pub night movie trivia champs.
Movie Trivial Pursuit
Trivial Pursuit is an oldie but goody and totally worthwhile to play with your family. There are multiple movie-centric editions from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy to various Star Wars versions and even an all-encompassing silver screen classics subsidiary pack. By rotating through the different editions, you ensure that your kids will become mini Trivial Pursuit movie masters in all facets. Sure, you could play one version until everyone in the family knows all the answers by heart, but making sure you switch it up on a regular basis ensures that your kids -- and you, for that matter -- don't get bored with the game.
Movie Jeopardy!
Remember those games you used to play in school to study for science or history tests? The teacher would create all these questions about the curriculum and you'd study your bum off so your team would win? Well, you can do the same thing with facts about movies. For the "Jeopardy!" format, frame questions in the form of statements, like "In the movie "Toy Story," this character is Woody's best friend." Who is Andy? Correct! How about "In "Marvel's The Avengers," this is the place where our heroes eventually reunite to save the day." What is Stark Tower? Ding-ding-ding! It's like you're back in Mr. D's eighth grade history class learning about the Civil War, except the questions and answers are about Marvel's "Civil War," not the American one.
Guess That Movie From the Still
Here's a different angle on movie trivia if your family gets tired of straight-up facts about movies. Choose different scenes from popular movies and let players use a bell to signal that they have the answer. For instance, in what movie can you see Judy Garland dancing down a yellow brick road? Ding-ding! "The Wizard of Oz" -- obviously.
Make It a Costumed Movie Theme Night
Throw a movie trivia party with your parents, your friends, and your kids' friends; then assign each person a different character from a film. When party night rolls around, everyone shows up in costume and in character and then has to guess which movie every other character is from. Imagine a little Holly Golightly ("Breakfast at Tiffany's") sharing a snack with a pint-size version of Neo ("The Matrix") and fellow movie buffs trying to outdo each other's outfits. Sounds like it could be an out-of-the-box movie night of delights.
Name That Line
Sure, there are always guess-the-movie-from-the-still games, and most movie trivia games include lines from movies, but isolating lines is its own brand of fun. Collect some of the best known lines from movies, such as "Say hello to my little friend" from "Scarface" or "Just keep swimming" from "Finding Nemo," and have the players guess which character and movie the lines came from. Want to make it even more amusing? Require the player reading the lines to do so in the proper accent of the character. Like what would Austin Powers be if he said "yeah, baby" without the fake British accent? Nothing, that's what.
Sources
When "
1. Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were still busy investigating Watergate when Robert Redford first called them to ask about buying the movie rights to their story. The suspicious scribes dismissed the actor's call because they assumed they were being pranked by a staffer on Richard Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP).
3. Indeed, the producers went to extreme lengths to make the movie feel authentic. The Post wouldn't allow the production to film in its newsroom, which would have been disruptive, so the filmmakers spent $450,000 recreating the newsroom in a Hollywood soundstage. Art directors visited the real newsroom and took photos, measurements, and even a brick from the lobby. They replicated out-of-date DC phone books and bought desks from the same supplier the Post used. They even got Post reporters to send them boxes of their own trash, to make the fake newsroom look realistically messy.
5. The identity of Deep Throat, the key informant named after the then-popular porn movie, remained a secret known only to Woodward, Bernstein, and Post editor Ben Bradlee. (They kept the secret for 33 years, until former FBI deputy director W. Mark Felt outed himself in 2005.) Woodward did help the filmmakers cast 
7. The movie is so spare and documentary-like that David Shire's musical score doesn't kick in until about 28 minutes into the film.
9. The movie was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture (which it lost to "
Hard to believe it's been 15 years since "
1. Helen Fielding's worldwide bestseller started out as a series of columns in Britain's Independent newspaper that loosely fictionalized the romantic misadventures of Fielding and her thirtysomething pals. Fielding acknowledged that she lifted her storyline from "Pride and Prejudice." "Jane Austen's plots are very good and have been market researched over a number of centuries so I decided simply to steal one of them," Fielding joked. "I thought she wouldn't mind, and anyway, she's dead."
4. Zellweger finally won Maguire over, convincing her that her salty, Texas-bred sense of humor helped her empathize with the earthy Bridget. But when her casting was announced, many Brits were outraged over the idea of an American playing such a quintessentially English character. To learn Bridget's British accent, Zellweger enlisted Barbara Berkery, the dialect coach who had guided 
6. The willowy actress also had to pull a "
8. At the time he was cast as cad Daniel Cleaver, Hugh Grant was known for stammering nice-guy roles in such Curtis comedies as "Four Weddings" and "
It's been five years since the release of "
1. "Scream" was originally a screenplay by 
3. Horror master 
5. The menacing phone voice of Ghostface in all the movies belongs to Roger L. Jackson, who also voices the villainous chimp Mojo Jojo on "
7. With the success of "Scream," the sequel was rushed into production, shooting in July 1997 for a release date that December. The haste led to a leak of the script, forcing Williamson to rewrite on set and change the identity of the killers.
9. Cox and 
11. Williamson proposed a second trilogy in 2008, but only got as far as "Scream 4." (Blame that film's less-than-expected box office for why the fifth and sixth films never materialized.) Weinstein instead decided to launch the MTV series in June 2015. Craven's death in August 2015 probably puts the kibosh on any more "Scream" movies.
13. The "Scream 4" filmmakers initially offered 
15. The Ghostface mask was designed by retailer Fun World in 1991, inspired (aptly) by Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream." It was also inspired by a figure from Gerald Scarfe's artwork from Pink Floyd's "The Wall" album and some ghost figures in an old Betty Boop cartoon.
Twenty years ago this week, four teenage girls dabbled in magic powers and unleashed forces more powerful than they could have imagined. We're not just talking about the plot of "
1. Star 
3. 
5. 
7. The knife fight between Tunney and Balk won the MTV Movie Award for Best Fight, beating such experienced big-screen fighters as Jackie Chan (in "Police Story 4") and Jim Brown (in "Mars Attacks").
10. A year ago, 
Released 20 years ago this week (on May 10, 1996), "
1. The "Twister" screenplay is credited to "
3. 
5. Tensions flared between de Bont and cinematographer 
7. Much of the film was shot in Wakita, Oklahoma, where producers purchased and then leveled eight blocks of existing houses, as well as flattening 30 homes built for the shoot. According to the 
9. "Twister" was nominated for two Oscars, for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound. It was also nominated for two Razzies, including Worst Supporting Actress (for Gertz, pictured). The Crichtons won the Razzie for Worst Written Film Grossing Over $100 Million.
You can pinpoint the moment almost precisely when "
1. "Bridesmaids" came about because of Wiig's cameo as a hostile TV producer in Apatow's "
4. Future "
6. Early drafts of the script featured a bachelorette party sequence in Las Vegas, but just three weeks before shooting, producer Apatow nixed the scene, complaining that there had been too many recent movies (notably, "
9. At the 2012 Oscars, "Bridesmaids" received two nominations, for Best Original Screenplay and for Best Supporting Actress, for McCarthy.
Could there be a more quintessentially 1980s movie than "
1. The film originated as "Top Guns," a 1983 article by Ehud Yonay in California Magazine. It profiled the Navy pilot training center at Miramar, in San Diego, and featured aerial photography by a Top Gun pilot. Co-screenwriter Jack Epps Jr. researched the script by attending Top Gun classes and getting flown around in an F-14.
4. 
7. The F-14 planes and other naval aircraft -- along with their fuel, their pilots, and support staff -- cost the production $7,800 per hour in rental fees. Even more expensive was the aircraft carrier. During one sequence, the carrier captain had to change course, altering the angle of light for the shot. Told it would cost $25,000 to turn the ship around, director 
10. "Top Gun" also became an early top-seller in the then-new videocassette market, as it was one of the first films priced to sell (at just $20), not just to rent.
13. Did all that male bonding, towel-snapping, and shirtless volleyball-playing make "Top Gun" 
Before 1996, "Mission: Impossible" was a long-since-cancelled TV spy series, beloved by Boomers but forgotten by anyone younger. Today, of course, it's a popular Tom Cruise movie franchise, known for its twisty plotting and jaw-dropping stunt sequences, whose five installments to date have grossed $935 million in North America and $2.8 billion worldwide.
1. "Mission: Impossible" marked Cruise's debut as a producer. In a deal that would become his then-customary contract, he took no money up front but negotiated a lucrative percentage of the theatrical and video gross profits, reportedly as high as 22 percent. Cruise reportedly pocketed an estimated $70 million for the first "Mission."
3. When Jim Phelps (
5. The exploding fish tank stunt was reportedly Cruise's idea. De Palma tried to shoot it with a stunt double, but the results were unconvincing. So that's really Cruise you see as he flees from 16 tons of rushing water.
7. Even so, much of that sequence was filmed in front of a blue screen on the James Bond soundstage at Pinewood Studios. But the scene where the helicopter blast hurls Ethan onto the surface of the train (above) still involved flinging Cruise himself through the air.
9. The opening sequence in Prague marked the first time a major Hollywood production had filmed in the Czech capital since the fall of communism. Unfortunately, Cruise and his fellow producers felt gouged by the local authorities when they rented the historic Lichetenstein Palace as an exterior location and were charged 10 times the fee they expected. City authorities claimed the lower-quoted price had never been an authorized offer.
11. "Mission: Impossible" was the first film to open on more than 3,000 screens. (3,012, to be exact.) It earned $181 million in North America and $458 million worldwide.
13. One original element from the show that remained intact was Lalo Schifrin's iconic, pounding theme song, which De Palma used over the opening credits. But the film closed with a new version by U2 members Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. Their pop instrumental became a top 10 hit worldwide and was nominated at the 1997 Grammys, where it competed against Schifrin's own new recording of the song.
15. "Mission: Impossible" establishes Ethan for the rest of the franchise as a spy who prefers deception and disguise to violence. In this film, though not in future installments, he never gets involved in a gunfight; in fact, he never even fires a weapon. And the body count for the entire film is just seven casualties.
At this point in its run, the X-Men franchise must be imbibing a little of Wolverine's healing factor.
1. 
4. This sequel is one of the major reasons leading to Marvel's decision to reveal Wolverine's origin story in the comic book, "Origin." Many within the publisher feared that the movies would end up revealing this murky period of Wolverine's past before they got the chance.
7. 
10. This prequel started life as a Magneto-centric story in the vein of "
13. Wolverine's apartment in 1973 is decorated with many references and homages to his Japanese travels, including samurai swords and a photo of Mt. Fuji. Even the red and yellow color scheme pays tribute to his 1980's-era costume from the comics (a costume that he has yet to actually wear in the films).
When it was released 10 years ago (on May 26, 2006), "
1. After directing the first two "X-Men" movies to critical and commercial success, Singer famously dropped out of the third movie to make "
3. One star who was thrilled Ratner was on board was 
5. Like the other stars of the first two movies, Patrick Stewart wasn't contracted to do a third. But he signed on for "Last Stand" anyway, not knowing that his character, Charles Xavier, was going to be killed off.
7. How much time passed between Jean Grey's death in "
9. One of the film's most noteworthy effects, considered groundbreaking at the time, was the digital facelift used to make Stewart's Professor X and 
It's hard to imagine being nostalgic for a midlife crisis. Nonetheless, it's been 25 years since 
2. When Crystal was a kid, his dad ran a popular Manhattan record store and knew a lot of jazz musicians, and seven-year-old Crystal had no less than Billie Holiday for a babysitter. He sat on her lap when he went to see his first movie, the classic 1953 Western "
4. 
6. Crystal's softball team pal and "
8. "City Slickers" cost a reported $27 million to make. It earned $124 million in North America and a total of $179 million worldwide.
10. When his "City Slickers" performance won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor -- 38 years after his previous nomination, for "Shane" -- Palance famously wowed the Academy Awards audience and host Crystal with a celebratory round of one-armed push-ups. Turns out the 73-year-old was re-enacting the display he'd given to the film's insurers to prove he was fit enough to play Curly.
1. Hughes (pictured left) wrote the script in a week, trying to get it done before the onset of a Writers Guild strike.
3. Hughes refused to cast his regular leading lady 
5. Ferris and Cameron's camaraderie came easily to Broderick and Ruck, who had co-starred on Broadway in "
7. Some of the parade scenes were staged for the film, but the close-ups of Ferris performing "Twist and Shout" required Broderick to crash an actual parade, Ferris-style.
9. The film cost a mere $5.8 million to make. It earned back $70.1 million to become the 10th-biggest hit of 1986.
What's left to say about "
1. Indiana Jones's name really did come from the dog -- the dog owned by George Lucas's then-wife, Marcia. That Indiana had also been the inspiration for Ford's "
3. The giant boulder was made of plaster, wood, and fiberglass and weighed 300 pounds. It could have seriously injured anyone in its path. Spielberg agreed to let Ford film the stunt himself, from five different angles, each shot twice. Of Ford's ability to outrun the boulder, Spielberg later said, "He won 10 times and beat the odds. He was lucky, and I was an idiot for letting him try."
4. 
5. Yes, 
6. Spielberg had sketches drawn of Toht (
7. The gag where Toht wields what looks like a torture device, but turns out to be a coat hanger, is a joke Spielberg recycled from "1941." He filmed a similar scene with 
8. The food poisoning that afflicted nearly everyone on the Tunisian set (but not Spielberg, who brought his own canned Spaghetti-Os and bottled water from London) resulted in the improvisation of one of the most famous "Raiders" scenes, the one where Indy faces down an Egyptian swordsman.
9. For the Well of Souls sequence (above), shot on a British soundstage, the producers rustled up 2,000 snakes, but they weren't enough to cover the floor. Scouring pet shops across Europe, the filmmakers found thousands more; different accounts say there were ultimately between 6,500 and 10,000 snakes in the scenes, plus lizards and lengths of rubber hose.
10. Much of the truck-chase sequence involves Ford himself being dragged behind the vehicle. "I'm sure it's not dangerous," he said of the stunt. "If it was dangerous, they would have waited 'til we got more of the movie done."
11. One way Spielberg saved money was by incorporating stock footage. Shots of the passenger plane in mid-flight came from 1937's "Lost Horizon," and a 1930s street scene came from 1975's "
12. Also borrowed was the German submarine (above), which had been rented from the makers of the then-recent "
13. 
14. Toht's melting face was made of a combination of gelatin, colored yarn (to simulate muscles and veins), and alginate (what dentists use to make impressions) -- all molded over a skull made of stone. It took 10 minutes to melt under the onslaught of propane space heaters and a hair dryer; the footage was then sped up.
15. A fan theory -- mentioned prominently in "