Recursion

Awards:

Charlie Kaufmuller Award for Acting Excellence as Charlie Kaufmuller (2003)

The Reverse Mary Sue Self-Hater of the Year (2003)

Nickelodeon Kids' Absolute Last Choice Award (Worse Than Spanking, 2004)

Trivia:

This film is the fourth and least-successful collaboration between director Sprite Johnzon and Charlie Kaufmuller. Their previous projects include Remake, Repeat, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Mace Windu's Gambit.

During editing Kaufmuller and Johnzon took a day off and returned to find that the 3 hour running time had been cut to 18 minutes after the assistant editor mistook repeating scenes for alternate takes.

Albert Brooks took time out from filming Story of My Life, his eighth vaguely comedic film based around his life, to star as Dulam Slomath. This severely delayed an NPR piece about his movie.

Tilda Swinton was so convincing as Paul Giamatti that she successfully impregnated Giamatti's wife of nine years. Their daughter, Charlie Kaufmuller, went on to finish the movie.

Distributor Warner Brothers was successfully sued by Fox Searchlight for copyright infringement based on Fox's 2001 Kaufmuller-penned Rehearsality, which is nearly shot-for-shot identical.

Sundance raves failed to translate into boxoffice success for Recursion. Most audiences mistook the film for a series of projector failures and demanded their money back. Those who understood what was happening became even angrier. Two NYU film students were beaten to death at an advance screening and a Denver woman detonated a homemade bomb at an opening night showing in Colorado. Fortunately, no one else was nearby when the bomb exploded.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Peeper Rodriguez as Charlie Kaufmuller notes that he died in an earlier scene when actually Tilda Swinton died in that scene after being cast as Paul Giamatti as Charlie Kaufmuller.

Crew or Equipment Visible: Sprite Johnzon can be seen in the background during the sixth wedding scene being helped into his Sprite Johnzon suit by two Charlie Kaufmullers.

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Charlie Kaufmuller remarks after watching the video he finds in the woods that, "Everyone will want to watch this movie." In reality, not even the actors portraying cast and crew members have sat through an entire screening of this film.

Factual Errors: The sun, during a super nova event, would not gradually kill off groups of people one cast of a movie-within-a-movie at a time. A super nova of our sun would bring a halt to all movie-within-a-movie productions roughly simultaneously.

Anachronisms: Characters repeatedly refer to events occurring later in the movie as if they have already happened, which causes certain events to not happen. This, in turn, causes them not to mention the events in the preceding dialogue.

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Near the end of the third act you are visible in reflection on the glass behind Charlie Kaufmuller. You are presumably filming this scene in the movie as you appear to be holding a camera. You were included in the film intentionally.

Quotes:

Charlie Kaufmuller: This script is killing me, Dulam.
Dulam Slomath: Everything is killing us all, Charlie. Why don't you go for a walk in the woods and clear your head.
Charlie Kaufmuller: The woods? I hate the woods. The woods scare the shit out of me.
Dulam Slomath: Everything scares the shit out of you, Charlie. Life does.

Emma Neet: Charlie, why can't you just admit you love me!? Put down that script for five damn minutes and talk to me like a human being!
Paul Giamatti: I'm in the woods here. I feel like I'm almost there. Don't stop believing in me now.
Emma Neet: That's not how it went!
Charlie Kaufmuller: Cut! You need to read the lines how they're written, Emma!

Peeper Rodriguez as Charlie Kaufmuller: I want to hire you to play me in a movie I'm making.
Charlie Kaufmuller: What's it about?
Peeper Rodriguez as Charlie Kaufmuller: It's autobiographical. It's about me making a movie.
Charlie Kaufmuller: That sounds very interesting. What is the movie called?
Peeper Rodriguez as Charlie Kaufmuller: It is very interesting, thank you. It's called...(turns towards camera) this movie you are watching.