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This Was The Unlikely ’80s Flick That Inspired Oscar-Nominated Film The Holdovers

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Oscar-nominated film The Holdovers starring Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa is a drama film that, according to the Motion Pictures Association “delves into themes of depression, loneliness, loss, and regret.”

The Guardian described it as: “a masterclass in melancholy” and The Independent said that the film was: “a warm, sentimental comedy made for life’s curmudgeons.”

It may come as a surprise, then, that the film wasn’t inspired by similarly melancholic films but instead by a classic ’80s action flick.

The film that inspired The Holdovers

Speaking to the Hollywood Gold podcast, producer David Hemingson said that the film was inspired by, of all things, Die Hard!

Interestingly, both films are perhaps unlikely Christmas films but the thing that ties the two is actually the emotion in them both.

Yes, really.

In the podcast, David discussed trying to not commit the “cardinal sin” of being boring in film and creating the perfect blend of emotion and action with a sprinkling of keeping the stakes high.

David said: “I was thinking, how can I make this an action movie but an emotional action movie?”. He added: “you gotta keep it interesting, keep the stakes high. As emotional as you can get with the characters, but credibly, and drag it out of them.”

He went on to say that in real life, many of us aren’t willing to offer up our pain, our fears, our emotions freely but in a time of crisis, it’s more likely. To keep the story authentic and the characters realistic, the crises they faced throughout the film were what spurred on the emotional outpours.

He quoted legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick saying: “it’s always the feel of it, never the think of it.”

Once they’d nailed this balance, the producers and writers took around 18 months to make the celebrated film.

The Holdovers is in selected cinemas now.

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This Scene Was Cut From Lilo & Stitch For A Very Dark Reason

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22 years since its first release, Lilo & Stitch is still a beloved family film and now it’s hard to walk through a Primark without seeing hundreds of items of Stitch-based merchandise.

But who can blame us? The tale of found family, friendship and coming-of-age resonates with all different kinds of people.

However, it turns out that the Disney film included a scene that, while very much in the spirit of the film’s mischievous nature, could have been extremely distressing if it had been included in the final cut.

The scene they had to cut from Lilo & Stitch

So, spoilers ahead, but the film culminates with an air chase between two alien spaceships while Stitch and the gang try to save Lilo, if you remember. It’s chaotic and silly, just like the rest of the film.

However, there was one part of the chase which involved one of the aircrafts being a 747 commercial aircraft that crashed into multiple buildings throughout the scene, according to Vox.

Following the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, animators and scriptwriters changed the scene entirely, due to how distressing it may have been for viewers.

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In the original cut, Stitch was joyriding in a 747 but in the final version, it was an alien craft and instead of weaving through, or indeed, crashing into buildings, the animators instead opted for Hawaiian mountains.

“Americans became highly sensitive to anything that bore even a slight resemblance to the attacks,” journalist Lindsay Ellis wrote on Vox. “Children’s shows like ‘Power Rangers,’ ‘Pokémon’, and ‘Invader Zim’ had episodes taken off the air due to scenes where buildings and cityscapes were destroyed.”

With the perspective that we have now, the deleted scene, featured in Vox’s video, is incredibly unsettling. It’s strange to imagine a time when hijacking could ever have been a lighthearted part of a children’s film.

Lilo & Stitch is available on Disney Plus.

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