Pbenjay's Blog

I was walking past a local bakery yesterday and they had chocolate  covered Easter Egg cakes in the window.  I know they weren’t left overs so maybe their regular customers were not ready to give up on these delicious treats and then again, religious observance of this holy day includes the following week until the Sunday of Mercy which is the following Sunday.

Of course the title of this blog  is a trick question because the rest of the query should read “…in movies”?  That’s right, Easter eggs in movie terms means something very different from the colored hard-boiled eggs we hunt for on Easter Sunday.  In fact an Easter egg in a movie is…well let me first tell you about the origin of the term as it applies to movies.  One day the cast of The Rocky Horror Show decided to hold an Easter egg hunt.  Some of the eggs were not found, until a couple of them appeared in some of the movie frames!   So now, in movie terms, Easter eggs are those hidden jokes and messages and finding one or more of them gives us the opportunity to point it out to other people to make ourselves look really smart.  Here are 10 you probably overlooked yourself!

I’ll Have A Grande Americano

There’s a Starbucks coffee cup in every scene in Fight Club. 

Considering the movie is focused on analyzing how we are being duped by giant corporations, Director David Fincher decided it would be fitting  to include a Starbucks coffee cup in every single scene in the movie.  Some of them might be difficult to find, but I assure you they are there.

The DHARMA Initiative Logo Appears At The Beginning Of Cloverfield.  

If you’ve watched even one season of LOST, you know what the DHARMA logo looks like.  Odd that it should show up in the movie, Cloverfield or maybe not considering  director J.J. Abrams was a man involved with both Lost and Cloverfield.  So it may come of no surprise that he slipped the DHARMA Initiative logo into Cloverfield, ’cause DHARMA probably had something to do with that giant lizard monster coming out of the ocean, huh? It’s always easier to blame DHARMA. Anyway, check out the opening sequence for the movie and you’ll catch a glimpse of that now very iconic logo.

Hello Buzz!

Buzz Lightyear Can Be Glimpsed In Finding Nemo.

Both Pixar and Disney are reknowed for their obsession with easter eggs – Yep, that’s him there, thrown amidst a pile of other toys in the dentist’s office. This begs the question, of course: is this the same Buzz Lightyear that we’ve come to love, or another model with his own life and history and everything? Does this, in fact, foreshadow future Toy Story installments where Buzz Lightyear somehow winds up in Australia, and the other toys have to come rescue him? No, it doesn’t, and that’s why I don’t work at Pixar.

There’s An “O. Penderghast” Sign Visible In Friends With Benefits.

During the scene where the lovely Mila Kunis is waiting at the airport, you’ll see that the name on one of her signs is “O. Penderghast.”
Who’s that, you’re wondering? The detective from Psycho? Uh, no. It’s the main character from the much better movie Easy A, which was also directed by Friends With Benefits director Will Gluck. Emma Stone played the character Olive Penderghast in that movie, so here’s a nice bit of meta self-reflection from the movie’s director, when he was, you know, working from a much better script, though – to his credit – it was devoid of any Kunis nudity, so I understand his motives.

There’s A Xenomorph Skull In The Trophy Room In Predator 2

Predator 2 is the sequel to Predator, and the sort of sequel that fans like to forget about. It doesn’t star Arnold Schwarzenegger, it isn’t very good, and Danny Glover is the main character – not a sidekick or anything. It might also, indirectly, be the one movie responsible for hellishly bad spin-off flicks like Alien vs. Predator, because – look – there’s a Xenomorph skull in the Predator’s trophy room, which kind of (almost definitely) implies that these two alien beings are part of the same universe.

Jack Burton’s Vest

Jack Burton’s Vest From Big Trouble In Little Is Hanging On The Wall In Death Proof

Quentin Tarantino’s movies are renowned for their intricate references and homages to movies from across the span of time, though this one likely went over your head unless you happen to be a dedicated fan of John Carpenter’s brilliantly underrated B-movie extravaganza Big Trouble In Little China. Carpenter’s movie starred Kurt Russell, of course, who played ironic John Wayne-like hero Jack Burton. Russell also stars in Death Proof as Stuntman Mike, a murderous psychopath with a car crash fetish.
During the scene set in the Texas Chilli Parlor towards the beginning of the movie, then, keep your eyes peeled for this wonderful easter egg that acknowledges the fact that Kurt Russell is in a freakin’ Tarantino movie. That vest hanging on the wall admist all the other memorabilia? That, my friend, is Jack Burton’s iconic Asian-themed vest from Big Trouble In Little China. Being a trucker and all, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine Burton pulling over for a beer at this, uh, “fine” establishment.

Han’s Full Name Is Revealed As “Han Seoul-Oh” In Fast Five

The character is called Han and is of Asian descent, it made super-natural sense that the Fast and Furious writers would give him a surname that plays homage to the iconic character of Han Solo from Star Wars, as played by Harrison Ford.  Anyway, this character started out being known as Han Lue, back at a time when somebody hadn’t made the obvious and undeniable connection between the words “Solo” and “Seoul” (capital of South Korea, if you’re wondering), and then we were gifted with this little easter egg-ish moment where we were given the chance to glimpse Han’s surname on one of Fast Five‘s many computer screens. 

X Marks The Spot

X Marks The Spot To Imply Death Or Impending Doom Throughout The Departed

Remember how in Howard Hawks’ original 1932 version of Scarface the director included a bunch of Xs in lots of the scenes to imply that a character was going to end up die? Well, Martin Scorsese was apparently inspired by this little trope when he came around to making his own Oscar-winning crime masterpiece in The Departed: Scorsese opted to use an “X” as his own motif for implying that certain character wouldn’t be so lucky.

 There’s A Hidden Waldo In A Single Frame Of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto

For some totally bewildering, unexplained reason, Mel Gibson decided that – for a singular frame at this part of the movie – he’d include a shot of human being dressed as Waldo (the famous stripy-clad fellow whose job is to make himself hard to spot in all those kids’ books). Yes, in this very serious and gruesome scene, Gibson opted to have somebody dress up like Waldo and lay on top of all the dead bodies. That was how he spent a brief period of time and money on the set of his movie. Doing this. It was so important that it had to go into the movie.

Tony Stark Rethinks His Life After Eating A Burger In Iron Man – Just Like Robert Downey Jr. Did For Real

Here’s an incredibly dense and somewhat insane easter egg that will probably blow your mind in eight or nine ways (though probably just one, to be fair). Think back to the first Iron Man movie, when Tony Stark manages to break free from that terrorist-filled cave and gets rescued. You’ll remember that the first thing that Tony wants having survived such an ordeal is an American cheeseburger. Nothing strange about that, right? It’s at this point, though, cheeseburger on his mind, that Tony decides to change his ways and re-evaluate his life.
Without the right context, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is just another scene in another movie. But when I tell you that it was a Burger King which made a real-life Robert Downey Jr. change his own life in the pre-Iron Man days, things start to get a little bit meta. Yes, according to Downey, it was a Burger King that gave him the inspiration to re-think his position (he was a drug addict at the time) and start afresh. This isn’t some strange coincidence by the way – it was implemented purposely by Downey Jr. as a reference to the bad times.