Crazy Movie Coincidences

As the nightmarish Disneyland ride has taught us, it’s a small world. But just how small? I see coincidences in my life popping up all the time, where two things that ostensibly have nothing to do with each other end up sharing a common factor after all. This is most notable in my movie collection. I collect a lot—and I mean a lot—of DVDs, and when you buy as many movies as I do, you begin to detect strange patterns. Here are three such examples:

1) The Sixth Sense and Superbad

Years ago, I watched both the 1999 supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense and the 2007 raunchy teen comedy Superbad back to back on my DVDs. These are two films that could not have anything less in common—or so I thought. In the writer-director commentary for The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan mentions that he auditioned numerous children for the lead role of Cole Sear, the creepy kid who “sees dead people,” with the scene when he pushes the quarter across the table to Bruce Willis and says, “Some magic is real.” (Incidentally, I just got the reference of the character’s last name since he is a “seer” of dead people, or maybe I’m thinking too much.) Shyamalan goes on to say how dismayed he was with most of the kids’ terrible reads of his script. He said there was one actor, now famous so he wouldn’t reveal his name, who played the scene for laughs. Shyamalan made note that his particular audition was a painful process for the writer-director.

After listening to this commentary track, I popped in Superbad to listen to its own commentary track featuring one of its stars, Michael Cera. In his commentary, he mentions that he had many terrible auditions before landing plum roles in Hollywood. He then revealed he auditioned for the kid who sees dead people in The Sixth Sense, but he played his audition in a comedic fashion, clearly not understanding the tone of the film. He said when he finally watched The Sixth Sense in theaters, he was shocked that the scene where the kid pushes the quarter across the table was so intense! So Cera gave himself away in a different commentary track as the terrible kid actor Shyamalan was bemoaning during his commentary track. This has been another entry in Perone’s Believe It Or Not.

2) Southside With You and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Here is another pair of movies that have absolutely nothing in common. One is a light romantic biopic about former president Barack Obama courting his future wife Michelle on their first date during the summer of 1989 (and yes, the film’s setting is one of the reasons why I bought the DVD), and another is a goofy, screwball comedy from John Hughes about a teenager ditching high school with his best friend and girlfriend, all on his parents’ dime. One movie came out in the ‘80s; the other only takes place in the ‘80s. What could these two mismatched movies have in common? Well, a lot, as it turns out.

I bought these two movies at the same time. Being a self-described ‘80s nerd, I of course had already owned Ferris Bueller, but I wanted to upgrade to the Special Edition version with all the extra bells and whistles that the barebones original DVD didn’t include, though, bizarrely, the new version didn’t have the John Hughes commentary track, the only special feature from the original DVD. I watched both Southside With You and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off back to back, and as I watched them, I was congratulating myself for possessing such eclectic taste. After all, as I already described above, both movies are miles apart both in content and tone, and both were now in my collection. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that these movies had more in common than at first glance. First of all, they both take place in the city of Chicago. Second of all, they both take place during the course of one day, more or less in real time. And finally, and most coincidental of all, they both feature a scene in the same Chicago art museum! As I was listening to the audio commentary on Southside, writer-director Richard Tanne made the exact same comparison, saying he was actually inspired by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when he wrote and directed the film. Of all the thousands of films that have been made, what are the chances that these two would have a connection? As I mentioned up top: Small world!

3) Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut and Oh, God! You Devil

Years ago, I rented Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. This movie was the intended version by the original movie’s director who shot both films simultaneously, the late, great Richard Donner. (Superman and The Goonies are masterpieces, and the Lethal Weapon series wasn’t too shabby either, despite the unfortunate presence of Mel Gibson.) Richard Donner, or Dick Donner to his friends, famously had the sequel to the blockbuster Superman taken away from him and handed to the much lesser Richard, Richard Lester. So this Superman II I rented was, as the DVD’s cover proudly proclaimed, “The Version You Have Never Seen!” I copied my rental disc onto a blank DVD for future viewings and returned the original.

Around the same time, I rented Oh, God! You Devil, which I still feel is criminally underrated. Though every critic in the world will disagree with me, it’s the best in the Oh, God! series. I always found the story of a struggling musician who makes a deal with the devil to become rich and famous, only to lose his family, profoundly moving. (Maybe it’s because I used to be in a ska/punk band that couldn’t get arrested.) Also, George Burns has a ball in a dual role as both God and The Devil (named Harry O. Tophet in the movie), and the two standout rock songs featured in the film are some of the most memorable I’ve heard on a soundtrack. Plus, the haunting piano ballad the lead character composes still gives me goosebumps. That character is played by Ted Wass, who would go on to play Blossom’s Dad on T.V. Similar to Superman II, I copied my rental onto a blank DVD and returned the original. But this is not the coincidence I’m referring to. Recently, I tried watching both of these movies on my homemade DVDs, and the last half hour of each movie failed to play, I suppose because those blank DVDs were basically garbage, so I didn’t get to see the endings, despite knowing the stories’ outcomes anyway. But this still isn’t the coincidence I’m talking about. (Don’t worry; I’m getting there.)

I ended up buying both movies on DVD recently so I could complete my collection. As I was listening to the DVD commentary for Superman II, Richard Donner mentions that Gene Hackman, who played Lex Luther in the ‘70s and ‘80s Superman films, was a wonderful actor. Even when this commentary was recorded 20 years ago, he was considered a living legend. Hopefully, that doesn’t change soon, though the man is getting on in years. Donner goes on to mention how he stole the Mel Brooks yuk-fest Young Frankenstein with his hilarious role as the blindman.

After watching Superman II, I popped in my newly bought copy of Oh, God! You Devil. There’s a scene where Blossom’s Dad visits his agent, and on the wall of his office, for absolutely no reason, there’s a framed photograph of Gene Hackman. But not just any photo of Gene Hackman. He’s in his costume and wig from his role as the blindman in Young Frankenstein! I almost fell off my couch. What is that picture even doing there? And right after the ghost of Richard Donner was just talking about that exact actor in that exact role in the other movie’s commentary! Was the inclusion of this pic in the third Oh, God! movie an in-joke? The guy who owns the office is supposed to be one of the worst talent agents in the business, so it doesn’t make sense that he was representing Gene Hackman, one of the greatest American actors to ever grace the silver screen. Maybe it was the agent’s wishful thinking to land someone like him? I don’t know. All I know is that it was one of the craziest movie coincidences I’ve ever encountered.

Have you ever had an eerie experience like this? Let me know in the comments. Despite popular opinion, the comments section on my blog does exist!

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In other MTP/Déjà View news, I was interviewed once again by my local newspaper, The Islip Bulletin, in recognition of the novel’s recent award wins, particularly its First Place award in The 2024 Spring BookFest Awards in the category of Young Adult Literary and Coming of Age. You can see a photo of the article below:

My publisher wrote a brief press release about my interview that you can read at the following link:

While I’m on the subject, I may as well mention, since I failed to before (at least in this blog), that my publisher also wrote a press release about the recent First Place award win Déjà View received. You can read it here:

MTP

P.S.: Next week: After posting one or two blogs a week for the past 2 months, I’m taking another break!

P.P.S.: Déjà View is now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble:

• Amazon