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The Sting

Mar 15

25 Times the Oscars Got it Wrong — A THREAD
With hindsight, the Academy’s track record looks rough. We’re getting close to the point where they’ve made more mistakes than correct calls.
Here are 25 jaw-dropping decisions that have aged like milk
#Oscars #Oscars2026
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1. How Green Was My Valley Beat Citizen Kane (1941)
The Academy’s always been swayable: cash, lobbying, and whatever decision “looks good” socially. William Randolph Hearst, Kane’s real-life inspiration, went to war on it, banning mentions in his newspapers and trying to bury the film
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It was also a battle between old Hollywood's John Ford and young upstart, Orson Welles, who was mostly viewed as arrogant (not that Ford was a bed of roses). The world was at war, so the Academy decided to favour earnest comfort over the more cynical Kane
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The Sting

@TheStingisBack

Mar 7

Highlander 40th Anniversary - A THREAD
This fantasy-adventure pairs immortal swordplay with 80s style, a killer soundtrack, and quotable one-liners. It’s a definitive cult classic. Other Highlander threads might appear today… but there can be only one.
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This breathtaking opening shot, sweeping across a packed wrestling arena before locking onto Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert), was a technical milestone. It used the then‑revolutionary Skycam: a computerised camera suspended on four wires. Unhappy with the wobble, director Russell Mulcahy added helicopter rotor SFX to subtly justify the vibration. It’s actually two shots, with the cut 'hidden' by a camera flash. It sets the intent: Highlander was going to be different.
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The sparks in the opening swordfight weren’t added in post. Wires ran up the actors’ sleeves to car batteries: one sword had a positive charge, the other negative. When the blades hit, they completed the circuit and created real electrical arcs. The swords heated up so fast they could only do a few takes before the grips became too painful to hold.
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The Sting

@TheStingisBack

Feb 7

BLAZING SADDLES — A THREAD
Mel Brooks’ quintessential Western parody turns 52 today. So let’s do that voodoo that you do, so well, and celebrate one of the greatest comedies ever made with some facts, jokes and a few farts around the campfire.
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MALCOLM X INSPIRED BLAZING SADDLES
The idea originated with Andrew Bergman, who named his character after Malcolm X. “I wrote a first draft called Tex-X,” he said. “Alan Arkin was set to direct, and James Earl Jones to play the sheriff. Then it all fell apart.”
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"Work, work, work"
Mel Brooks jumped onboard. “We called in Norman Steinberg and Alan Uger, a Jewish comedy team, and Richard Pryor, a black person of outré imagination. Then we turned on the tape recorder and started bullshitting. Pryor wrote the Jewish jokes, the Jews wrote the black jokes. Nine months later, we had a finished script.”
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The Sting

@TheStingisBack

Oct 22, 2025

First Blood is 43 years old today - MINI THREAD
Couldn’t pick just one clip, so here are 5!
‘Jail Break’: Sylvester Stallone was so sure this movie would ruin him, he tried to buy and destroy the negatives after seeing a rough cut. Thankfully, he didn't.
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'The Jump': Unlike later Rambo films, First Blood has only one death (Galt, played by Jack Starrett, aka Blazing Saddles’ frontier gibberish guy)! Stallone broke a rib on one of these branches, that reaction is real.
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"I made him." Stallone barely says 100 words in First Blood, thankfully he's surrounded by some of the best character actors in the business. Brian Dennehy and Richard Crenna are both fantastic. So many great lines in just this short scene.
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The Sting

@TheStingisBack

Sep 19, 2025

Fawlty Towers is 50 years old today.
10 BASIL FAWLTY MOMENTS - A THREAD
John Cleese's tour-de-force performance as the perpetually neurotic hotelier Basil Fawlty is a comedy masterclass. Not a moment is wasted in 12 perfectly crafted episodes.
"Don't mention the war."
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Fawlty Towers is 50 years old today.
Communication Problems - 19 February, 1979
"I expect to be able to see the sea."
"You can see the sea. It's over there between the land and the sky."
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Fawlty Towers is 50 years old today.
The Germans - 24 October, 1975
The fire drill is a microcosm of the entire series. How one simple mistake can build to absolute pandemonium.
"I don't know why we bother, we should let you all burn."
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The Sting

@TheStingisBack

Sep 2, 2025

Movie Presidents - MINI THREAD
Whether from The White House, Oval Office, Capital Hill, Air Hangars, or Futuristic Prisons, movie Presidents have always loved giving a good speech. So, here are 10 movie Presidents laying it down. Read on...
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Independence Day (1996)
Bill Pullman - President Thomas J. Whitmore
"We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate, our independence day."
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Mars Attacks! (1996)
Jack Nicholson - President James Dale
"I want the people to know that they still have two out of three branches of the government working for them, and that ain't bad."
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