SCHINDLER’S LIST—THE INVISIBLE SHAVER THAT WAS PASSED AROUND

Well, what do you know, we have another of Steven Spielberg’s films here. Schindler’s List was indeed, to some degree, one of Spielberg’s greatest films. And we muscled through watching it uncolored just to see what all the fuss was about, only to come out indubitably changed by the experience. One somewhat inexcusable Spielbergian blunder, however, were the women in the concentration camps. How on earth, one reasonably asks, were they able to find the time to shave their legs and armpits while wasting away in a place that can only be described as hell on earth.

JULIUS CAESAR—BULLET BRAS

We don’t care how rich the women who hob-knobbed with Julius Caesar were—we’re certain that they weren’t rich enough to have been able to acquire bullet bras. And the simple reason for that is that the technology to create one hadn’t been invented yet. We’re talking about ancient Rome, after all, which was 2,000 years before bras became a thing. But I suppose this film having been released in the ‘50s means we need to cut it some slack—I mean, it did, to its credit, win a slew of awards.

MY GIRL—THE MOOD RING

My Girl, the wonderful coming-of-age comedy and drama that starred Anna Chlumsky and Macauley Culkin was funny, sweet, and a box office success. However, we know—oh, boy do we know—how nitpicky some viewers can get. Specifically, there was one scene where Chlumsky’s character was showing off her mood ring. The thing is, the scene was set in 1972, a full three years (stop the presses!) before the galactically inconsequential object had been invented. Yeah, it’s not such a big deal, really; we don’t have enough moral bankruptcy to raise a howl about it, that’s for sure.

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY—BABY’S DIAPER

Another of Jane Austen’s novels that have been adapted to the big screen, Sense and Sensibility is nothing short of a classic. It also starred such luminaries as Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, and Kate Winslet. But one scene that was particularly egregious was where a baby can be seen wearing diapers as insurance against poo-poo spillage. Diapers, after all, didn’t exist in the 1800s when the film was set. Some form of the diaper was being used in the 1800s, to be sure, but what was used for the baby in the scene was undoubtedly modern.

SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN—THE IMPOSSIBLE PINK DRESS

This 1952 musical has an aggregate score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. There are only a few films with that high of a score on the review site, and, to the film’s credit, that score is testament to how beautiful the film is. That and the fact that it’s garnered so many awards leaves little room to doubt just how much of a classic this film is, and how influential it had been to filmmakers long after it was released. Of course, it’s not perfect, not least because Debbie Reynolds (played by Kathy Selden) had a pink, 50s-style dress on for one scene, despite that the film was set in the ‘20s.

THE DOORS—RAY BANS DIDN’T EXIST

This biographical film about the life of The Doors frontman Jim Morrison featured Val Kilmer playing the inimitable rock star. The film, unfortunately, bombed at the box office. To make matters worse, Morrison’s descendants hated the film and accused it of taking all manner of liberty in its presentation of Jim’s rock and roll lifestyle. But despite all that, it’s grown a cult following after its release, for which Kilmer’s performance deserves all the credit. Nevertheless, those Ray Bans we see Kilmer wearing weren’t introduced until the ‘80s, 10 years after the film was set.

THE WEDDING SINGER—BARRYMORE’S 90S HAIRCUT

There is absolutely no doubt about what era the producers of The Wedding Singer wanted the movie to be set in. In the first ten minutes of the film alone, we get 80’s cultural references galore. But one might be excused for thinking the characters abruptly jumped back to the late ‘90s because of Drew Barrymore’s hair since its style was created more than a decade after the time the film was set. In any case, this film was one of the biggest investments Sandler made in his career—it made $123 million at the box office on an $18-million budget.

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK—PERIOD-INAPPROPRIATE HAIR SITUATION

The events of the film were set in the 1900s, but most of the women’s hairstyles put them squarely in the ‘70s. Not only that: we can see, for some scenes, that the girls’ undergarments are modern, totally unlike anything that would have been typical for women in the 1900s. Also, one scene on the background shows a television antenna atop the roof of a house—we’re pretty sure the denizens of the 1900s had absolutely zero access to televisions at the time. There are actually a dozen other mistakes in the film that we needn’t mention, but they tell us that the investment money redirected to the costume designer of this film would have been better spent elsewhere.

THE INFORMANT—THOSE NIKE GOLF SHOES

This is not a biggie, but it still counts as a costume blunder, so we’re mentioning it here. Anyway, in The Informant—the American biographical comedy and crime film starring Matt Damon—one sees a bunch of actors playing golf sporting Nike Golf shoes that hadn’t been introduced until three years after the time the film was set. Three years isn’t so bad, actually, but movie viewers can be particularly scrupulous when it comes to details like this. Damon deserves credit for his dedication to the role, though; apparently, he gained 30 pounds just to look more like Mark Whitacre, who was the man that he played in the film.

THE LAST SAMURAI—CRUISE’S ARMOR WAS ANCIENT

Edward Zwick’s period piece, The Last Samurai, starred Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe. It was basically about an American soldier who, to some degree, develops a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome after being kidnapped by a band of Samurai Warriors. The film did well in the US and did even better in Japan, where it was mostly shot. But Japanese film critic Tomomi Katsuta pointed out that Cruise’s armor wasn’t exactly period-appropriate, because, as it happens, the design was 250 years prior to when the film was set, and the samurais fighting alongside Cruise would have found his armor a little too outdated.