Straight Outta Music

Walk The Line (2005)

• Directed by James Mangold
  • Copland
  • Girl Interrupted
  • 3:10 to Yuma
  • The Wolverine, executive producer of Logan
  • Indiana Jones and Dial of Destiny
• Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Patrick, and Ginner Goodwin
• Box office of 186 million and budget of 28 million.
• Trivia
  • The film has its origins in a 1993 episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. That year, Cash was a guest star on the show, where he and June Carter became friends with Jane Seymour, the star of the show, and Seymour’s ex-husband James Keach who was directing the episode. By the mid-1990s, Cash had asked Keach to make a film of his life; he and Seymour began the process with a series of interviews.
  • Reese Withespoon won an Oscar for her role
  • Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon performed all of the songs themselves, without being dubbed. They also learned to play their instruments (guitar and auto-harp, respectively) from scratch.
  • The scene in which Johnny Cash pulls the sink off the wall was not scripted; Joaquin Phoenix actually pulled it off the wall.
  • Kathy Cash, Johnny’s second oldest daughter with his first wife, Vivian, walked out of a family screening of the film five times. She felt Phoenix and Witherspoon performances were “Oscar-worthy”, but that her mother, Vivian, was cast in an unfair light. Also, she did not feel there were enough scenes of Johnny interacting with his children, and that the film portrayed her father too harshly. When her half-brother, John Carter Cash (an executive producer of the film) was asked about her reaction, he responded that the movie was intended to tell the love story between his mother and father.
  • Towards the end of the movie, Johnny tells his dad to tell the girls about the flood. This is a reference to a real incident in Johnny Cash’s childhood when the family farm flooded that he wrote and sang about in his famous song “Five Feet High and Rising”.
  • Due to the similarities between his lifestyle and Johnny Cash’s, Joaquin Phoenix was hospitalized after filming.
  • The biggest grossing musical biopic until Straight Outta Compton (2015).
  • Roger Ebert was genuinely surprised to learn that it wasn’t Johnny Cash’s voice that he heard on the soundtrack but Joaquin Phoenix’s.
  • Johnny Cash really did propose to June Carter Cash on-stage. It happened in February 1968, at the London Ice House, a hockey arena in London, Ontario, in the middle of a performance of “Jackson”. She accepted, and they married a week later.
  • Cash used his stardom and economic status to bring awareness to the issues surrounding the Native American people. Cash sang songs about indigenous humanity in an effort to confront the U.S. government. Many non-Native Americans stayed away from singing about these things.
  • In 1966, in response to his activism, Cash was adopted by the Seneca Nation’s Turtle Clan. He performed benefits in 1968 at the Rosebud Reservation, close to the historical landmark of the massacre at Wounded Knee, to raise money to help build a school. He also played at the D-Q University in the 1980s.[79]
  • In 1970, Cash recorded a reading of John G. Burnett’s 1890, 80th-birthday essay on Cherokee removal for the Historical Landmarks Association (Nashville).

The Buddy Holly Story (1978)

• Directed by Steve Rash
  • 1987 Can’t Buy me Love
  • Son In Law
• Starring Gary Busey, Dan Stroud, Maria Richwine, and Charles Martin Smith.
• Budget of 1.2 million and Box office of 14 million
• Trivia
  • Film Won an Oscar for Best Music
  • According to Little Richard, the Apollo theater performance by Buddy Holly and The Crickets in front of an all-black audience is pretty accurate. Holly and his band were booked “sight unseen” because the owner thought they were black. The audience was shocked to see white performers on stage, but they embraced Holly and his band.
  • The actors did their own singing and played their own instruments live during the filming of the production numbers. This included the film’s main players Gary Busey, Don Stroud (I)’, and Charles Martin Smith.
  • Buddy Holly’s widow, Maria Elena Holly, controlled his estate as executor and administrator. She, producer Fred Bauer, director Steve Rash, and executive producer Edward H. Cohen agreed that no big-name star could play Buddy because the film’s emphasis would shift toward the star. The actor had to be able to perform professionally in the numerous music sequences. Unlike most music-oriented films, all music would be staged, performed, and recorded on the film’s soundtrack.
  • Paul McCartney, who is a huge Buddy Holly fan, used to hold an annual “Buddy Holly Birthday Party” in New York, and would always showcase this film during the party. The Beatles were named in tribute to The Crickets, the band Holly performed with. McCartney bought the copyrights to Holly’s published songs in 1977
  • According to director Steve Rash’ and actor Gary Busey, the scene at the roller rink after the band’s first rock number in which the extras clapped and cheered was an unexpected reaction to their performance. As you can see in the film, Busey, Charles Martin Smith, and Stroud sort of lose their place and start nervously laughing
  • The family’s truck shows the last name “Holly”. The family’s actual surname is “Holley”, Buddy’s name was misspelt on a record contract.
  • According to director Steve Rash, most of the performances were done in one or two takes. This led to some “happy accidents” of realism. For instance, Gary Busey refers to handwritten lyrics on his guitar when singing “Mockingbird Hill”, and flubs some lyrics performing “Maybe, Baby” on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948). Buddy’s performance with Eddie Cochran was actually a rehearsal that the director decided not to film again, and Busey’s guitar cord got wrapped around his leg during the final concert.
  • Actor John Wayne used the phrase “That’ll be the day,” several times in the classic Texas-based 1956 western The Searchers (1956). It became a catch phrase among Texas teens and Buddy Holly wrote a song to cash in on it: “That’ll Be The Day.”
  • Contrary to what is shown in the film, Buddy Holly did not punch out the music producer in Nashville. In reality, Buddy, along with his singing partner Bob Montgomery, spent a few months in Nashville writing and recording songs. Although they ultimately got nowhere, their compositions were covered by other artists. Buddy’s most prominent song from his time in Nashville is “Blue Days, Black Nights”. It was after returning to Lubbock from Nashville that Buddy Holly and Bob Montgomery went their separate ways and Buddy formed The Crickets and went into Rock N Roll.
  • Madman Mancuso, played by comedian-impressionist Fred Travalena, is based on a true story about Hall-of-Fame DJ Dick Biondi. Travalena even managed to look and sound like the real Biondi himself.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

• Directed by Bryan Singer
  • X men series
  • Art Pupil
  • The Usual Suspects
• Starring Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Allen Leech, Joseph Manzello, and Gwilym Lee.
• Budget of 52 million and box office of 911 million.
• Trivia
  • The film won four Academy Awards for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing and Best Actor in a Leading Role – Rami Malek.
  • Queen’s set at Live Aid is widely regarded as one of the best live performances in rock-and-roll history. In a 2005 Channel Four poll of over 60 artists, journalists and music industry executives, Queen’s Live Aid (1985) performance was named ‘The World’s Greatest-Ever Live Performance.’
  • During the recording session for Bohemian Rhapsody, John Deacon says, “I do have to say, the tape is wearing out. It can’t take much more.” The band did 180 vocal overdubs on the song. The consequence of so many overdubs is that the tape started to wear thin to the point of transparency. In Brian May’s words, “This ‘legendary’ story, which people think we made up, is true: we held the tape up to the light one day-we’d been wondering where all the top end was going-and what we discovered was virtually a transparent piece of tape. All the oxide had been rubbed off. It was time to hurriedly make a copy and get on with it.”
  • In reality, Paul Prenter was finally ousted from Freddie Mercury’s circle in 1986 after it was discovered that Prenter had decimated Mercury’s Stafford Terrace apartment by throwing an out-of-control party there without Mercury’s knowledge.
  • Freddie Mercury’s vocal range stretched to three octaves, though it was rumored that it spanned four. In 2016, a group of biophysicists and medical researchers concluded that his vocal cords moved faster than the average singer’s. His vibrato measured in at 7.04 Hertz, while standard vibrato frequency falls between 5.4 and 6.9 Hertz.
  • Rami Malek sent a video of himself singing to Queen. When he finally met them, they hadn’t watched it because it hadn’t been downloaded properly. Malek saw firsthand their initial reaction to his singing.
  • Mary Austin and Freddie Mercury were engaged at one point. They remained so close that Mercury entrusted much of his estate and his London mansion, Garden Lodge, to her in his will. His song “Love Of My Life” was dedicated to Austin
  • Although Smile front man Tim Staffell did quit the band, leaving an opening for a lead vocalist, Freddie Mercury was not unknown to Brian May and Roger Taylor as depicted in the film.
  • At the time of Live Aid (1985) in July 1985, Queen’s fortunes had taken a huge dip in the U.S. for several years. Despite still being hugely popular and selling loads of records and regularly charting in their native UK and Western Europe & Australia, by 1985 they were seen as a spent force in the States with so-so album sales. The band themselves may not have helped matters, having appeared in drag for Queen: I Want to Break Free (1984), a video which many conservative broadcasting networks in the United States found offensive, including MTV, who refused to show it. The song therefore only reached number 45 in the US charts but reached the top 10 in most European countries (it reached number three in the UK where the BBC had no problem showing the full video to a young audience on its flagship Top of the Pops (1964) TV show which was broadcast on Thursday early evenings). ‘Controversies’ such as these and Freddie Mercury’s increasingly flamboyant displays of ‘campiness’ seriously hurt their US image. Although celebrated as one of the greatest live performances ever, Queen’s performance at Live Aid did nothing to help their career in the US, where their next album, “A Kind of Magic,” only peaked at number 46 and failed to produce a Top 40 single. Queen’s popularity in the US was not revived until Wayne’s World (1992) famously used “Bohemian Rhapsody” and made it a hit again, by which time Freddie Mercury had already died.
  • Sacha Baron Cohen was the original choice to play Freddie Mercury, with Stephen Frears to direct. Frears left the project due to creative differences with Brian May and Roger Taylor, who control the band’s music and film rights. The deal with Baron Cohen fell apart after May objected to the project being a biopic of Mercury only, not the rest of Queen. May felt it should focus on the other members and the aftermath of Mercury’s death. They didn’t like the original draft by writers Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson. Baron Cohen considered it a historically accurate, outrageous portrayal of Mercury that does not shy away from Mercury’s rough edges, including his well-documented homosexual encounters and promiscuity. May felt Baron Cohen was too much of a comedic actor to play Mercury well.
  • Freddie Mercury’s speech about not wanting to be pitied is based on real events. In reality, some years after the Live Aid, the band had sat together and were casually chatting about daily stuff. Freddie Mercury jokingly said “You guys think you have problems” and pulled up his pants, showing them a scar that had formed in his lower leg. He then went on to tell the band (much like depicted in the film) about his disease, and how he sternly refused to be pitied, and that he wanted to spend the rest of his time making music.He also asked them to keep it a secret, and although many people suspected it in his final year due to his extreme weight loss, he didn’t publicly announce it until one day before his death.
  • The audience of about 72,000 people at Wembley was created using cutting edge digital techniques which allowed the VFX team to perform crowd duplication on a massive scale and at a high level of detail so that repetition of audience members is virtually imperceptible and the crowd can be seen to move and clap differently to each Queen song.
  • A recurring joke in the film involves the song “I’m In Love With My Car.” The film actually downplays the friction this song caused within Queen. Brian May and John Deacon considered the song sub par, but songwriter Roger Taylor insisted on its inclusion on the album. Taylor then went further and locked himself in a cupboard until the band agreed to use the song as the B-side to the “Bohemian Rhapsody” single – which later exacerbated the in-fighting as “Bohemian Rhapsody” was a massive hit, and its B-side generated a massive royalty windfall for Taylor.
  • When Ray Foster (Mike Myers) is dubious about releasing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as a single, he states, “What about ‘I’m in Love with My Car’? I love that! That’s the kind of song teenagers can crank up the volume in their cars and bang their heads to… Bohemian Rhapsody will never be that song.” This is an ironic nod to the iconic scene in the film, Wayne’s World (1992) where Myers and Dana Carvey famously head bang in the car to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’
  • Steven Spielberg, apparently didn’t recognize his Jurassic Park (1993) star Joseph Mazzello in his role as Queen’s bassist John Deacon, according to the actor himself. In a commentary on IGN, Mazzello talked about how Spielberg is one of the people he still keeps in contact regularly from his early acting career. And in talking about their strong connection as friends, he told this story of deception via his acting prowess in Bohemian Rhapsody. “Steven is the person I probably keep in touch with the most. This past year we’ve been exchanging a bunch of letters. Like literally still handwritten letters, which is amazing. Just talking about whatever: our careers, and [how] he saw [Bohemian Rhapsody], and he apparently didn’t recognize me, because I had the wig on and had a British accent. He leaned over to his guest, and was like, ‘Who is that? Who is that actor?’
  • Lady Gaga (real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta) based her stage name on the song “Radio Ga Ga.”
  • Joseph Mazzello has said that “Bohemian Rhapsody” was the very first song he downloaded on Napster.
  • Elton John and Freddie Mercury were very good friends in real life but John admits himself he was seething after seeing Queen’s Live Aid set go down so well with the audience and on TV. Apparently he stormed up to Mercury after the band came off and only half jokingly said “You absolute bastard, you totally stole it. Nobody will be able to beat that” much to Mercury’s pleasure.
  • At one point, Freddie mocks the rest of the band, saying that without him, they’d all be in mundane jobs. Particularly, he claims that former astrophysics student Brian would be Dr. Brian May, having written a paper that no one would read. In reality, Brian May received a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College London in 2007. In the same scene, Deacy tells Freddie, seemingly for the first time, that he studied electrical engineering. In reality, John Deacon created the Deacy Amp that Queen used throughout their career.
  • The movie veers the furthest from reality in the build-up to their 1985 performance at Live Aid. There’s a dramatic scene where Freddie Mercury reveals that he’s signed a solo deal behind their back for $4 million and that he wants to take a long break from the band. The others are absolutely livid and they all go their separate ways. The truth is that everyone in the band was burned out in 1983 after being on the road for a solid decade. They all wanted a break. The movie makes it seem like they didn’t speak to Freddie for years, but they actually began work on The Works in late 1983 and were never estranged.
  • The 1980’s Pepsi logo emblazoned all over the Live Aid scenes is historically accurate. In 1985, Pepsi agreed to be the major sponsor of the concert. They helped cover the costs of building the stage, and paid for crowd control and security. Pepsi also provided the crowds, bands, and backstage crew with facilities and refreshments. The BBC, which provided the worldwide television feed and radio coverage, had a strict policy of avoiding showing any commercial sponsorship. They agreed to turn a blind eye to the product placement due to the unique historic and humanitarian nature of the concert. Wembley Stadium was made available free of charge to Live Aid for the duration of the concert by the owners. The concert promoters and all the bands worked for free.

Straight Outta Compton (2015)

• Directed by F. Gary Gray
  • Friday
  • Set It Off
  • The Negotiator
  • The Italian Job
• Starring O’Shea Jackson Jr, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Neil Brow, Aldis Hodge, and Paul Giamatti.
• Budget of 28 million box office of 201 million
• Trivia
  • The actors re-recorded NWA’s entire Straight Outta Compton album (with producer Harvey Mason Jr.) to help them get into character.
  • The letter that the FBI sent to NWA can be seen at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.
  • When Ice Cube is complaining to Bryan about not yet having received his money, he exclaims that he has a baby on the way. Cube was in fact talking about O’Shea Jackson Jr., who was his first born in 1991. (Meaning that O’Shea Jr was talking about himself during this scene.)
  • The original cut of the film was 3 hours and 30 minutes. The cut scenes included Dr. Dre’s infamous beating of journalist Dee Barnes, the incident where Dre was shot four times in the leg, and a graphic flashback of his younger brother’s death
  • The actual scratching when Dre is on the turntables was done by DJ Jazzy Jeff.
  • Eazy-E and M.C. Ren were the only members of NWA who belonged to a street gang. They were both members of the Kelly Park Compton Crips, a Crips sect in the Kelly Park neighborhood of Compton. They were friends long before NWA was formed and they gangbanged and sold drugs together before venturing into music.
  • The movie inspired Dr. Dre to secretly record his first album in 16 years, set to release on August 7th, 2015. The album’s name is “Compton: A Soundtrack” and he tweeted it is his “grand finale.”
  • Eazy-E’s son Lil Eazy-E had auditioned for the role of his father but according to Ice Cube it just didn’t work out. Lil Eazy was upset at first, but eventually became involved in coaching actor, Jason Mitchell, who portrays his father in the film.
  • O’Shea Jackson Jr. prepared for 2 years to portray the role of his father, partially because Ice Cube didn’t want the appearance of nepotism in casting.
  • Dre breaking down from hearing his brother’s death was one of the first scenes shot. According to F. Gary Gray, the real Dr. Dre broke down and left the set after the second take.
  • C. Ren, real name Lorenzo Patterson, a.k.a. The Villain In Black, was a fan favorite and major contributor to the songwriting talents of NWA with group member Ice Cube. When Ice Cube left NWA, M.C. Ren took over primary songwriting duties. Despite his popularity and success in the group, he was oddly relegated to being somewhat of a background character in the movie. This has angered some fans, including upsetting M.C. Ren himself, although he has additionally stated that he strongly supports the movie and its cast.
  • Eazy-E released Dr. Dre from his contract after the beating he received from Marion ‘Suge’ Knight. Afterwards, he sued for breach of contract, citing the beating as duress. He and Dre settled by giving E a cut of the profits from each of his records. E would later say in both his own rap lyrics, and a guest appearance on Arsenio Halls talk show, “Dre’s day is Eazy’s payday.”
  • Despite being a founding member of NWA, Arabian Prince’s contribution to the group has been ignored in the movie, and his character has a brief, uncredited cameo in the film. While going on record that he personally harboured no ill will towards the producers, Arabian Prince did note that it led to numerous inquiries and interview requests as to the possible reasons for such a revisionist approach. According to Arabian Prince, “Maybe for 50% of the [movie] scenes, I was there in real life, on stage, or in the studio. A lot of N.W.A’s early music production was done with my equipment.”
  • Was the highest-grossing music biopic until 2018 when Bohemian Rhapsody grossed over $901 million.
  • O’Shea Jackson Jr. had to consume 1200 calories a day and lost 15 lbs in 22 days.
  • In the director’s cut, DJ Yella is watching a pornographic video in the tour bus beside M.C. Ren. This is a nod to Yella’s successful adult film career as a director and producer of over 300 films.
  • Dre is shown writing the famous synthesizer line from “Nuthin’ But A G Thang”, however the synthesizer along with the rhythm track were sampled from Leon Haywood’s song “I Want’a Do Something Freaky to You”. Then again, Dre was known to replay elements of songs that were to be sampled.
  • Ice Cube isn’t actually from Compton; he is from Baldwin Hills.
  • In September 2011, John Singleton, Craig Brewer and Peter Berg were reportedly in talks to direct the film. In April 2012, F. Gary Gray was selected to direct.
  • Former WWE wrestler and Snoop Dogg bodyguard “Brodus Clay” Tyrus was considered for the role of Marion ‘Suge’ Knight.
  • Jerry Heller later said that one of his greatest regrets was dissuading Eazy-E from killing Marion ‘Suge’ Knight.
  • In real life, Ice Cube purposely chose not to see Eazy-E in the hospital nor go to his funeral. The last time he saw him alive was at a nightclub in New York where they buried the hatchet and forgave each other. He wanted his last moment with E to be a positive one.
  • Dre tried to visit Eazy-E in the hospital as he was dying of HIV to reconcile with him but he fell into a coma before Dre could get there and has publicly stated that it’s weighed heavily on him since.
  • Jerry Heller has stated that the falling out between himself and NWA depicted in the film is almost completely fictional but refuses to go into what actually happened between himself and Eazy-E towards the end of their working relationship, stating “Eric isn’t here to tell his side, so why should I?
  • During the party at the hotel, when the group scares away the jealous boyfriend with guns, Ice Cube closes the door as he pushes the girl out, saying “Bye, Felicia.” This line is an homage to the same line uttered by Ice Cube in Friday (1995).
  • While it is widely believed that Eazy-E contracted AIDS due to his promiscuous sexual behavior, there is also a popular conspiracy theory that he actually got it from Marion ‘Suge’ Knight. The belief is that during the brutal beating depicted in the film, Knight also punctured him with a contaminated syringe. Knight himself made comments to this effect on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show; whether they were sincere or made in jest is not known. Lil’ Eazy believes this to be the case. Lending further support to the story is that fact that despite fathering seven children with six women and never undergoing treatment for the disease, none of his children or their respective mothers ever contracted the virus. Another revelation comes from the documentary “For The Record: The Story of Latinos in Hip Hop”: rapper Kid Frost (who was friends with Eazy-E) confirmed that Eazy-E got the HIV virus from tainted needles when he was injured while riding a quad runner dirt bike. Frost explained how someone can die of an AIDS-related illness in just two weeks. The entire interview can be seen on the YouTube channel “For the Record.”
  • Ice Cube is seen writing the script to Friday (1995) typing the line “You got knocked the fuck out!” said famously by Chris Tucker (Smokey), which was later used throughout the rest of the movie series. Friday (1995) was also directed by F. Gary Gray. He can also be seen wearing the same outfit used in the movie Friday in two scenes: the scene where he is typing the script, and the scene where the news reports about Eazy-E having AIDS.
  • During a visit to the hospital, Yella brings Eazy a cassette copy of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s new album, and predicts that people would like it and that it would be huge. That “new album” he’s referring to is Bone Thugs’ second record “E. 1999 Eternal”, which wouldn’t be released until four months after Eazy’s death; in fact, the album (including the #1 hit “Tha Crossroads”) is not only a tribute to him, but reached #1 on the charts and went platinum four times. More importantly, in addition to signing the group to Ruthless, Eazy was responsible for Bone Thugs’ early success, which spawned the hits “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” and “Foe tha Love of $” from their 1994 EP “Creepin on ah Come Up”.

What’s Love Got to Do with it (1993)

• Directed by Brian Gibson
  • The Juror
  • Poltergeist II
  • Styx Music Videos
• Starring Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, and Raeven Kelly
• Budget of 15 million and Box office of 39 million
• Trivia
  • Laurence Fishburne turned down the role of Ike Turner five times. When he learned that Angela Bassett had won the role of Tina Turner, he changed his mind.
  • Laurence Fishburne sang Ike Turner’s parts.
  • Angela Bassett lip-synched all of the songs in this movie; Tina Turner sang all the tracks herself. Bassett herself admitted that she can act and dance, but isn’t much of a singer.
  • In the film, Ike is the father of Tina’s first child, Craig. In real life, Tina dated Raymond Hill, saxophone player for the Kings of Rhythm, before she met Ike. Hill was Craig’s biological father; Ike adopted Craig when he and Tina got married. The movie also portrays Ike Jr. and Michael as the oldest of the four boys. In real life, Craig was the oldest, followed by Ike Jr. and Michael (Ike’s children with Lorraine Taylor), then Ronnie Turner, Ike and Tina’s only biological child.
  • Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett previously played a (separated) couple in Boyz n the Hood (1991).
  • Second film to receive Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress, in which both leads are of African descent. The first film to achieve this feat was Sounder (1972) 21 years prior. It would not occur again until Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) 27 years later.
  • Eddie Murphy and Ernie Hudson were considered for the role of Ike Turner.
  • During the divorce scene when Tina’s lawyer gets up and tells the judge that she’s willing to give up everything in the divorce, there’s is no explanation in the scene to why she made that decision, However in the trailer there’s a clip of Tina consulting with her lawyer by saying, “I’ll give it all up just release the claim of my name.” that clip didn’t make it into the film.
  • In an interview, Tina Turner stated that she wished the film had contained more truth, but the studio felt that the public would not believe everything that actually happened to her.
  • Both Halle Berry and Whitney Houston were in the running for the role of Tina Turner.

The Doors (1991)

• Directed by Oliver Stone
  • JFK
  • Natural Born Killers
  • Platoon
  • Born on The Fourth of July
• Starring Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, Kyle MacLachlan, Frank Whaley, Michael Madsen, and Kevin Dillon.
• Budget of 38 million and Box office of 34 million.
• Trivia
  • The surviving members of The Doors claim that Val Kilmer did such a good job playing and singing as Jim Morrison that they could not distinguish his voice from the real Jim Morrison.
  • Robby Krieger, the guitarist in The Doors, insisted that the scene showing the band rehearsing “Light My Fire” makes this clear that he, not Jim Morrison, composed the song.
  • Closeup shots use Val Kilmer’s voice, long distance shots use Jim Morrison’s voice.
  • Ray Manzarek turned down Stone’s many requests to help in the movie. Manzarek has since said that the movie is a horrible account of the history of the band.
  • Prior to production, Val Kilmer lived and breathed Jim Morrison for nearly a year, dressing in his clothes and hanging around his old haunts on Sunset Strip. Morrison biographer Jerry Hopkins says that he saw Kilmer one day when meeting Oliver Stone for lunch, using a payphone in the restaurant, and was so convinced that the first thought that entered his head was, “I’d forgotten how tall Jim was.
  • Val Kilmer broke his arm badly when he performed a jump from the stage into the crowd. The stuntman failed to catch him, leaving Kilmer with an abnormal growth on his right elbow. The growth is clearly visible in Heat (1995), when McCauley discovers Shiherlis sleeping in his living room and begins briefing him on their itinerary.
  • Billy Idol’s role was originally much bigger. Before filming, Idol was injured in a serious motorcycle accident that left him unable to walk. Every time he appears in the movie, he is either on crutches, sitting, or lying down.
  • In the scenes in which Jim Morrison was stoned, Val Kilmer wore special contact lenses that made his pupils look dilated.
  • The poem that Jim Morrison reads at the opening is actually two selections from his book of poetry “An American Prayer”: “Awake Ghost Song” and “Awake”. Jim gives the same book to his bandmates at the movie’s ending. The surviving members of The Doors recorded the musical version of “An American Prayer” several years after Morrison’s death.
  • Prior to the audition, Val Kilmer memorized the lyrics to all songs written by Jim Morrison. He also sent director Oliver Stone a video of him performing a few Doors songs, which Stone claimed hurt Kilmer’s image as Morrison.
  • Morrison’s grave in Paris, France, is reportedly the city’s fourth most popular attraction after the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and the Louvre.
  • Throughout the entire film, a man with a shaved head is frequently seen in passing, and in the final concert scene he follows the band in an impromptu parade. He even tips his hat to Morrison in the street. This was intended as a representation of Death following Morrison. The actor who played Death was Richard Rutowski, a close friend of Oliver Stone’s. He wrote the screenplay for Natural Born Killers.
  • In the 1997 documentary, The Road of Excess, Stone states that Quinlan’s character, Patricia Kennealy, is a composite, and in retrospect should have been given a fictitious name. Kennealy in particular was hurt by her portrayal in the film and strongly objected to a scene in the film where Morrison states that he did not take their Wiccan marriage ceremony seriously.

La Bamba (1987)

• Director Luis Valdez
  • Zoot Suit Play
  • Cisco Kid Tv Movie
• Starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Esai Morales, Elizabeth Pena, Rosanna DeSoto, Danielle Von Zerneck, and Joe Pantoliano.
• Box Office Budget of 6.5 million and Box office of 54 million
• Trivia
  • According to Lou Diamond Phillips in the VH1 documentary Behind the Music Behind the Music: The Day the Music Died (1999), Ritchie Valens’ sister was on the set the day they shot the “coin toss” scene, in which Ritchie wins the chance to fly on the plane with Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper. Ritchie’s sister began to weep uncontrollably during shooting. When Phillips tried to console her, she hugged him and sobbed “Why Ritchie? Why did you get on the plane?”
  • The band playing the traditional folk version of the song “La Bamba” at the club in Tijuana is Los Lobos, which performed all of Ritchie Valens’ music for the movie. The guitar player next to the bass player is David Hidalgo, who provided Lou Diamond Phillips’ singing voice.
  • The club where Ritchie Valens is nervous about performing before an Anglo crowd is Cowboy Palace in Chatsworth, California. The bar is still in business.
  • The Big Bopper and Waylon Jennings, who was Buddy Holly’s bass player at the time, traded seats. The Big Bopper got on the plane, Waylon took the bus. Before the plane took off, Buddy said to Waylon “I hope you freeze your ass on that bus”. Waylon jokingly responded “Well, I hope your plane crashes”. That remark haunted Waylon for years.
  • The house that Ritchie Valens buys his mother in the movie is across the street from the house that Ritchie Valens bought his mother in real life.
  • This movie is often thought of alongside The Buddy Holly Story (1978), but La Bamba (1987) is far more accurate. For example, in the Buddy Holly Story they imply that the bus had broken down, when in fact it was the heater that had broken down. However, Buddy Holly’s main reason for chartering a plane was primarily because he had run out of clean laundry and wanted time to get to a laundromat before the following evening’s show. As for the coin toss, which took place in a dressing room at the Surf Ballroom, a video of the loser of Ritchie Valens’ toss, Tommy Allsup, is available online, during which he describes exactly what happened. Allsup, who was the last surviving member of the Winter Party Dance Tour, passed away on January 11, 2017 at age 85
  • It could be argued that the Winter Dance Party Tour that Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and J.P. Richardson (known as The Big Bopper) were performing in was just as responsible for their deaths as the plane crash that killed them. Buddy Holly would never have chartered the flight had it not been for the unpleasant and exhausting conditions of the tour, which was very poorly planned with absolutely no regard for logistics. Rather than circling the upper Midwest in a logical geographical sequence and allowing enough time between concerts for adequate rest and travel, many of the venues were scheduled within one day of each other, and as far as five or six hundred miles apart. This demanded all-night travel on inadequately heated buses, many of which had to be replaced. The tour did not use a road crew to help with loading and unloading baggage and instruments nor were the buses suitable for winter travel conditions as they were reportedly refurbished school buses that were considered unsuitable for students. Furthermore, as the interstate highway system had not yet been completed, the travel took place on local two-lane roads which made frequent stops and did not allow for faster driving speed.
  • Bob Keane defended his home studio by saying that he had a good tape deck and a couple of good mics. This is true. He was using an Ampex 601-2 stereo reel-to-reel machine and a pair of Neumann U-47 condenser microphones. This model of recorder was introduced just a couple of years earlier and sold for the modern equivalent of about $10,000. The microphones, which are still on the market, sell for $4,200 each. It should be noted that thanks to the innovative recording techniques pioneered by Les Paul (who also invented his namesake guitar) it was possible to modify the stereo deck to create multi-layered recordings. The basic track could be recorded on one channel and, when played back at the same time another part is being performed, the two could be “bounced” to the second channel. The first channel could then be erased and a new layer could be recorded on it while adding the content of channel two. This way, a two-track machine could produce recordings of more than two tracks. This would later be emulated by the Beatles, some of whose increasingly elaborate arrangements were recorded on a basic four-track recorder.
  • Connie Valenzuela: the elderly woman is Ritchie Valens’ real life mother sitting near Ritchie Valens at the first family party. The resemblance between mother and son is unmistakable. She passed away on October 18, 1987, three months after the movie’s release.

Selena (1997)

• Gregory Nava
  • Boarder Town
  • My Family
  • Tale of Destiny
  • El Norte
• Starring Jennifer Lopez, Edward James Olmos, Jon Seda, Constance Marie, Jackie Guerra, and Lupe Ontiveros
• Budget of 20 million and Box office of 37.5 million
• Trivia
  • Mexican actress Salma Hayek was invited to test the role of Selena by Esparza. Hayek turned the role down; she said she felt it was “too early” to base a movie on Selena and that it would be emotional because Selena’s death was still being covered on U.S. television. Abraham discovered an actress in Los Angeles and wanted her for the role as Selena, despite her inability to convince the casting crew.[9] He later had a change of heart when American actress and dancer Jennifer Lopez had showed up for the audition.
  • Salma Hayek was considered for the role of Selena Quintanilla-Perez, but she refused because she wanted to play Frida Khalo in Frida (2002) and did not wish to play two different Mexican heroines. Jennifer Lopez would call Hayek’s claim “an outright lie” in a Moveline interview.
  • Jackie Guerra wanted the part of Suzette Quintanilla so badly that she lied at her audition, saying that she was an experienced drummer, when in fact she had never played the drums. When the truth was revealed, Suzette Quintanilla herself gave Guerra private lessons.
  • To prepare for her role, Jennifer Lopez lived with Selena Quintanilla-Perez’s family.
  • When Jennifer Lopez signed on to play Selena, she expected to be providing her own vocals. However, it was felt that since the movie would be released so soon after Selena’s death, her fans would not approve of hearing any voice other than hers. So, Lopez was coached to lip-sync instead of being provided the vocal coaching she expected, although she did sing the intro to “Como La Flor” in the Monterrey concert scene.
  • Jennifer Lopez became the highest paid Latina woman in Hollywood history by playing Selena Quintanilla-Perez, earning a then-unheard of $1,000,000.
  • In the scene where Chris Perez (played by Jon Seda) first appears, the close up of his hands playing the guitar are in fact the hands of the real Chris Pérez.
  • Rob Reiner was approached to direct, but was then turned down after the critical and box-office failure of North (1994).