History questions
- Which queen had the shortest reign of Henry VIII’s six wives? Ann of Cleeves
- 2/ In 16th-century Japan, who was Yasuke?
- Who wrote the 12th-century account Historia regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain), which is often credited with making the legend of King Arthur popular?
- It is thought that Harriet Tubman directly rescued around 300 people from slavery and gave instructions to help dozens more. But in which conflict did she become the first woman to lead an armed assault?
- In which country is the Bay of Pigs?
- Which medieval queen was married to both Louis VII of France and Henry II of England?
- Who was the first human to journey into space?
- Whose body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey, more than two years after his death, to be ‘executed’ for treason?
- Who ultimately succeeded King Alfred the Great as ‘king of the Anglo-Saxons’?
- By what nickname is Edward Teach better known?
- Julius Caesar was assassinated on 15 March 44 BC, a date now often known by what term?
- Where did the Great Fire of London begin, on 2 September 1666?
- What German dance, which sees partners spinning together in close contact, was condemned as depraved when it was first seen in Regency society?
- Which king preceded Queen Victoria?
- Guy Bailey, Roy Hackett and Paul Stephenson made history in 1963, as part of a protest against a bus company that refused to employ black and Asian drivers in which UK city?
- Who famously duelled Alexander Hamilton on 11 July 1804, resulting in the founding father’s death?
- What, in the 16th and 17th centuries, was a ‘drunkard’s cloak’?
- What is considered the world’s oldest writing system?
- Who was the mother of Emperor Nero and the wife of Emperor Claudius?
- Which pioneer of hair products became America’s first black female millionaire?
- What was Mary Anning (1799–1847) famous for?
- Who gave Queen Elizabeth I the soubriquet ‘Gloriana’?
- Although never taking her seat, who was the first woman to be elected to the houses of parliament?
- Where was Napoleon Bonaparte born?
- Can you name the five beach codenames used by Allied forces on D-Day?
- Where was the first British colony in the Americas?
- In August 1819, around 60,000 peaceful pro-democracy protestors were attacked in an open square in Manchester. This event was known as…
- Which rock band formed in 1994 takes its name from a term used by the Allies in the Second World War to describe various UFOs?
- In which year did Emily Wilding Davison die as a result of a collision with King George V’s horse during the Epsom Derby?
- In medieval history, what was a ‘schiltron’?
- Which English king died in 1066, leaving no heir to the throne?
- Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and…? Who was the third astronaut involved in the Apollo 11 mission that landed on the moon?
- What was Matthew Hopkins famous for in the 17th century?
- In what century did the Peasants’ Revolt take place?
- During the US civil rights movement in the 1960s, who said: “We declare our right on this earth…to be a human being…by any means necessary”?
- Who was the wife of the future Henry VIII’s older brother, Arthur?
- What is trepanning?
- In which decade did the potato famine strike Ireland?
- Who led the Scottish army to victory over the English at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314?
- What were the four humours that the ancient Greeks believed made up the body and determined illness?
- Who sent the Spanish Armada to England in 1588?
- Which English king built castles in the 13th century to help conquer Wales?
- The Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into law by which US president in 1882?
- Which 19th-century Englishwoman became the first qualified medical doctor?
- Which part of Berlin was enclosed by the wall?
- Which prominent Kurd, born in Tikrit, united Muslim forces against the crusaders in the 12th century?
- Which rebellious leader of the Catuvellauni tribe was caught and taken to Rome in AD 50, then pardoned by Emperor Claudius?
- Which American president was in power during the ‘Black Thursday’ Wall Street crash?
- At what famous French landmark was the document signed which set out the terms of ‘peace’ following the First World War?
- Where were Charles I’s headquarters during the Civil War?
- Who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914?
- Who was the last king of the Plantagenet line of monarchs?
- The controversial film Birth of a Nation, which was released in 1915, was used as a recruiting tool for which organisation?
- What was Eleanor Roosevelt’s maiden name?
- Who was the last tsar of Russia?
- During 1963, in Washington DC, Martin Luther King Jr gave his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech on the steps of which famous landmark?
- Which monarch appointed Pitt the Younger to the office of prime minister in December 1783?
- Anne of Cleves
- Yasuke is known as the first foreign-born samurai in 16th-century Japan
- Geoffrey of Monmouth
- Harriet Tubman served in the America Civil War
- It was the site of a failed attempt by a group of Cuban émigrés, with the backing of the US government, to invade the island in 1961.
- Eleanor of Aquitaine
- Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, in April 1961
- The body of Oliver Cromwell was exhumed in 1661.
- Edward the Elder, son of Alfred and Ealhswith of Mercia
- Edward Teach is better known to history as the notorious 17th-century pirate ‘Blackbeard’
- The Ides of March
- In Thomas Farriner’s bakery on Pudding Lane (though technically the bakehouse was not located on Pudding Lane proper, but on Fish Yard, a small enclave off Pudding Lane)
- The Waltz
- King William IV (who was Victoria’s uncle)
- Bristol | Read more about the Bristol bus boycott
- Aaron Burr, the sitting vice president of the USA | Read more about the Hamilton-Burr duel
- The drunkard’s cloak was a form of humiliating punishment used in the past for people who were perceived to have abused alcohol
- Cuneiform, an ancient writing system that was first used in around 3400 BC
- Agrippina the Younger
- Sarah Breedlove – who later became known as Madam CJ Walker
- Collecting fossils, she was a palaeontologist
- Edmund Spenser, in his epic poem ‘The Faerie Queene’
- Countess Markievicz
- Corsica
- Utah; Omaha; Gold; Juno and Sword
- Roanoke (and read more about its disappearance)
- The Peterloo Massacre
- The Foo Fighters
- 1913
- A battle formation that consisted of soldiers with long spears placed into circular, tightly packed formations
- Edward the Confessor
- Michael Collins
- He was a witch-finder
- The Peasants’ Revolt took place in 1381, in the 14th century
- Malcolm X
- Catherine of Aragon
- The drilling of holes in the head and scraping or cutting of the skull
- 1840s
- Robert the Bruce
- Blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile
- Philip II of Spain
- Edward I
- Chester A Arthur
- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
- The west
- Saladin
- Caractacus
- Herbert Hoover
- The Palace of Versailles
- Oxford
- Gavrilo Princip
- Richard III. He was defeated at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 by the army of Henry Tudor
- The Ku Klux Klan
- Roosevelt
- Nicholas II
- The Lincoln Memorial
- George II
Film
In a 2014 interview, Daniel Craig said that his James Bond characterization is darker in tone because who put paid to the zaniness that was earlier prevalent in the franchise?
Mike Myers (referring to Austin Powers’ movies, of course
In the world of cinema, a Dutch angle is one where a camera is set at an angle and is usually used to film shots to convey a character’s emotional angst. Because he employed this technique too many times during the shooting of The Third Man (1949), the crew allegedly presented the director Oliver Reed what object to encourage him to use more traditional shooting angles?
Spirit level!
What influential 1960 film, known for its ambiguous final dialogue, gets its title from how the protagonist Michel dies while on the run from the police?
Breathless directed by Jean-Luc Godard
In the 2014 zombie comedy Life After Beth, a character takes offense when asked about zombies just because she is from what country?
Haiti
Composer Frode Fjellheim was praised by Norway’s president in a New Year’s speech for his contribution to what 2013 hit film that amply features elements of the country’s native culture?
Frozen
Name the 2000s movie from the clues.
1. The title has a country that is not in the continent where the movie plays.
2. It netted a Best Actor Oscar for the lead.
3. Symbolically, the theatrical release poster has the credits set in an X symbol.
The Last King of Scotland (2006)
The X refers to the Saltire found on Scotland’s flag.
In a 1997 short film Doodlebug, a man in a seedy apartment is attempting to squash what looks like a tiny insect. It is subsequently revealed that the ‘insect’ is in fact a miniature version of the man himself who is engaged in the same action. The movie ends with a logically satisfying turn of events. This was directed by whom, who went on to use a loosely similar Russian nesting doll theme for his 2010 blockbuster?
Christopher Nolan
What popular internet site known for its aggregated rating was criticized by a film critic as the internet’s revenge on individual expression?
Rotten Tomatoes
The camera technique of panning and zooming on still photographs often seen in documentaries has come to be known as the effect of what documentary filmmaker?
Ken Burns
If you see the name of the organization American Humane Association in the credits of a movie or a television show, what 4-word phrase are you also most likely to see?
“No Animals Were Harmed”
What 1956 film was to be called The Reno Brothers when a hit song passing the one million sales mark was noticed by the producers causing a change in the title?
Love Me Tender
It was Elvis’ debut, of course.
Reginald Rose was once part of a jury that debated a manslaughter case for eight hours. This incident inspired him to create what drama that has seen multiple adaptations?
Twelve Angry Men
In 2010, China’s state-run distributor withdrew what blockbuster from the country’s theaters presumably because its themes mimicked real-life forced relocation of people by corporations?
Avatar
In the 1983 thriller WarGames, the protagonists prevent nuclear war by directing a computer to play what game against itself?
Tic-tac-toe (Noughts & Crosses)
What classic of world cinema tells the story of the Ekdahl family while focusing on two siblings?
Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander
Producer Laurie David said that she created her well-recognized 2006 documentary after watching whose slideshow at a global warming town-hall meeting in 2004 in New York?
Al Gore’s (An Inconvenient Truth)
The Sapphire Affair of 1962 connected with the Cuban Missile Crisis was the basis of what similarly titled 1969 Hitchcock thriller?
Topaz
In what film does General George Marshall read the Bixby letter, a real-life missive sent by Abraham Lincoln to a bereaved mother of five sons, before flagging off the titular mission?
Saving Private Ryan
The events of the 1995 drama Before Sunrise in which Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy spend the night walking around a city is set on what day/date during which literature fans do something similar?
Bloomsday (June 16)
During the production of the 2004 movie Troy, Brad Pitt suffered an injury of what body part?
Achilles tendon!
Introducing what eventual Best Picture winner at the 76th Academy Awards ceremony in 2004 did host Billy Crystal quip that it received eleven nominations, one for each ending?
Return of the King
What 3-word term is given to the genre of kitschy Italian films of the mid 20th century that sought to emulate the historic epics of Hollywood like Spartacus?
Sword-and-sandal
Which nation launched the “Heart of Eurasia” campaign to counter the cultural learnings from a 2006 movie?
Kazakhstan (Borat)
In 2013, in a gruesome incident in Italy, a mob boss was fed to pigs by a rival while he was still alive. Several newspapers reported this while evoking a scene from what 2001 movie?
Hannibal
The 1994 book Lost Moon is the basis of what subsequent year’s Hollywood hit?
Apollo 13
Which British producer of newsreels and documentaries whose work is synonymous with footage of the World Wars released its entire collection on YouTube in April 2014?
Pathé News
What actor is associated with the ad-line “Shrimp on the barbie” which he used to promote his country’s tourism?
Paul Hogan (Australia)
In which 2008 movie of Clint Eastwood are the Hmong people prominently featured?
Gran ToriIn Caddyshack, Bill Murray as Carl Spackler fantasizes winning the Masters golf tournament while comparing himself to which character in his monologue?
Cinderella
In The Motorcycle Diaries, at what location does Che Guevera muse how a civilization capable of creating such beauty could be destroyed by the creators of the urban decay of a nearby city?
Machu Picchu
The 1952 movie Bwana Devil that had on its poster the lines “A lion is in your lap!” and “A lover is in your arms!” is known for sparking what craze?
3-D
The 1968 comedy short-film The Dove in which the protagonist plays a game of badminton with death is a parody of whose films?
Ingmar Bergmans’
Each year the National Film Registry selects up to 25 films for preservation in the United States Library of Congress on the basis of 3 parameters of significance.
What are the three adjectives used as the parameters?
Culturally, historically, or aesthetically
Writing about a 1980s Oscar snub, what two movies was Roger Ebert referring to when he mentioned the irony of a movie with white people in a land of blacks winning and one with black people in a white land losing?
Out of Africa and The Color Purple
A 1999 movie starring Peter O’Toole as Father Damien had the name of what island of the Hawaiian archipelago as its title?
Molokai
What phrase used by Jack London in John Barleycorn to describe alcoholism was later referenced in Dumbo when the elephant hallucinates after drinking water spiked with champagne?
Seeing pink elephants
In the 2010 movie Devil, a group of people each with their own secret are trapped in what location?
Elevator.
Barton Fink, The Shining, The Lost Weekend, and Adaptation are some of the movies in which the protagonists are struggling from what?
Writer’s block
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Gangs of New York
In the 19th century, New York saw a lot of crime perpetrated by several gangs. Scorsese’s 2002 movie is loose adaptation of a 1928 non-fiction book by Herbert Asbury.
(Acknowledgement) -
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
A planned sequel has the name of the sword in the title.
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Meet the Parents
In the climax, Ben Stiller’s character repeatedly shouts the word “bomb” while being detained by airport security.
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Babe
He said “I decided that to be able to talk about this [movie] with conviction, I needed to become a vegetarian.”
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Life Is Beautiful (1997)
He was convinced to stay by his wife Kate Capshaw.
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All the President’s Men
Based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two journalists investigating the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post. Ford’s pardon of Nixon is said to have played a major role in his defeat in the 1976 presidential election against Jimmy Carter.
(Acknowledgement) -
MASH (“Suicide is Painless”)
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The Planet of the Apes
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The Incredibles
It was written and directed by Brad Bird.
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Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood)
He is Joe in A Fistful of Dollars, Manco in In For a Few Dollars More and Blondie In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
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Merchant Ivory Productions
Ruth won Oscars for A Room with a View (1985) and Howards End (1992) and was known for her long collaboration with Merchant Ivory.
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The Wages of Fear
It was directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot also known for Les Diaboliques.
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The Motorcycle Diaries
The character is of course Che Guevara.
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When Harry Met Sally
That scene of Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal!
(Acknowledgement) -
Solve and come up with a movie.
Life of Pi
Laughing/spotted – hyena, ‘person of the forest’ (Malay) – orangutan, “Eye of the ___” (Survivor) – tiger.
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Indonesia
The story is about a love affair set in Indonesia during the overthrow of President Sukarno.
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Sidney Poitier (inspiring Six Degrees of Separation)
He was an American con artist who gained infamy in the 1980s after milking a group of wealthy New Yorkers out of thousands of dollars by convincing them he was Sidney Poitier’s son. His story became the inspiration for a play by John Guare and later a movie starring Will Smith and Donald Sutherland.
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Mulan
China had threatened to curtail business negotiations with Disney over Kundun and, as the government only accepts ten Western films per year to be shown in their country, Mulan‘s chances of being accepted were low. Finally, after a year’s delay, the Chinese government did allow the film a limited Chinese release.
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Steadicam
It essentially combines the stabilized steady footage of a conventional tripod mount with the fluid motion of a dolly shot and the flexibility of hand-held camera work. While smoothly following the operator’s broad movements, the Steadicam’s armature absorbs jerks, bumps, and shakes.
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Lady Godiva
Diana Dors was considered the English equivalent of the blonde bombshells of Hollywood.
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What is the only movie on IMDB.com that is rated out of 11 stars instead of the standard 10?
This Is Spinal Tap
To understand why, you must watch the movie!
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He lives by the following three rules.
Danny Ocean (Oceans Eleven and the sequels)
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Roger Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit
The film combines live action and animation in a big way.
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Australia
The term Stolen Generations refers to the forcible separation of native children from their families. Lousy Little Sixpence was the first film to deal with the Stolen Generations. It is now standard fare in educational institutions, and has been highly influential, including on the Australian Prime Minister’s apology to the Stolen Generations, more than a quarter of a century after the film’s release. The extent of the removal of children, and the reasoning behind their removal, are contested. Documentary evidence, such as newspaper articles and reports to parliamentary committees, suggest a range of rationales.
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Oliver Stone talking about JFK
Upon it’s theatrical release, American newspapers ran editorials accusing Stone of taking liberties with historical facts, including the film’s implication that President Lyndon B. Johnson was part of a coup d’état to kill Kennedy. The Warren Commission was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1963 to investigate the assassination of JFK.
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Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989)
The movie tells the story of a neighborhood’s simmering racial tension, which comes to a head and culminates in tragedy on the hottest day of the summer.
(Acknowledgement) -
Vertigo (1958)
Kim Novak portrays two women that the hero cannot reconcile: a virtuous, blonde, sophisticated, sexually repressed ‘Madonna’ and a dark-haired, single, sensual ‘fallen woman.’
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Waking Sleeping Beauty
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Clues from what 1995 movie game?
Jumanji
It is about a supernatural board game that makes wild animals and other jungle hazards materialize upon each player’s move.
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Who’s missing in the second list?
Corleones (from The Godfather)
The real-life names are the five original Italian American Mafia crime families that are known in popular culture as ‘the Five Families’ which have dominated organized crime in the United States since 1931.
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Metropolis directed by Fritz Lang
Describing his first impressions of the city, Lang said that “the buildings seemed to be a vertical sail, scintillating and very light, a luxurious backdrop, suspended in the dark sky to dazzle, distract and hypnotize.”
(Acknowledgement) -
The 1985 Japanese comedy Tampopo was publicized as not sphagetti, but what type of western?
Ramen
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The Fugitive
Harrison Ford jumps into the water after being cornered by Tommy Lee Jones.
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Wooden eye
They are from the Pirates of the Caribbean film series.
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The Exorcist (1973)
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Wilhelm scream
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Five cents (nickel) and hence ‘Nickelodeon’
They found great success with their operation and their concept of a five-cent theater showing movies continuously was soon imitated by hundreds of ambitious entrepreneurs, as was the name of the theater itself. Statistics indicated that the number of nickelodeons in the United States doubled between 1907 and 1908 to around 8000, and it was estimated that by 1910 as many as 26 million Americans visited these theaters every week.
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The Godfather
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Death Wish
It stars Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, a man who becomes a vigilante. The film was disliked by many critics due to it advocating vigilantism and unlimited punishment to criminals. Yet, it was seen as echoing a growing mood in the United States as crime rose during the 1970s.
(Acknowledgement) -
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
The villain Buffalo Bill is the combination of Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, and Gary Heidnick.
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Clue – record disappointment. What’s the missing 1962 film?
Lawrence of Arabia (Peter O’Toole’s eight acting Oscar nominations)
He holds the record for most competitive Academy Award acting nominations without a win. He has won four Golden Globes, a BAFTA, and an Emmy, and was the recipient of an Honorary Academy Award in 2003 for his body of work.
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Caddyshack
In the movie Bill Murray plays the character of Carl Spackler. The movie of course revolves around golf.
(Acknowledgement) -
Springtime for Hitler
It is from the comedy The Producers (1968) that tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a sure-fire Broadway flop.
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Nanook of the North by Robert J. Flaherty, the first documentary
Flaherty captured the struggles of the Inuit Nanook and his family in the Canadian arctic. But Flaherty has been criticised for deceptively portraying staged events as reality. Much of the action was staged and gives an inaccurate view of real Inuit life during the early 20th century. In Inuit mythology, Nanook is the master of bears and decided if hunters deserved success in finding and hunting bears and punished violations of taboos.
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Lester Burnham from American Beauty
‘Look Closer’ is the tagline of the movie and Humbert Humbert is the principal character and narrator of Lolita.
(Acknowledgement) -
Peter Sellers (6), Alan Arkin (1), Roger Moore (1), Steve Martin (2)
Inspector Clouseau (The Pink Panther films)
The numbers indicate the number of films the actors played him in.
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Pan’s Labyrinth
At its Cannes release, the film received a 22 minute standing ovation.
(Acknowledgement) -
Hugo
These automata are still in working condition (they can be seen at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire of Neuchâtel, in Switzerland) and are capable of drawing figures as complicated as the drawing depicted in the film. Many nuances such as the head following the pen as it was drawing and dipping the pen in ink were also present in the automata in real life.
(Acknowledgement) -
Magnificent Desolation
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The Pursuit of Happyness
In the film, ‘happiness’ is misspelled as ‘happyness’ outside the daycare facility the son of Will Smith attends.
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Burkina Faso
The most prestigious award given out at the festival is the ‘Étalon de Yennenga’ (Stallion of Yennenga), named in reference to the legendary founder of the Mossi empire.
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Umberto D.
Umberto’s attempts to find shelter is one of the most heartbreaking stories ever filmed and an essential classic of world cinema.
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Casablanca (1942)
The English equivalent is of course White House. In the words of critic Howard Koch, Rick gambled “on the odds of going to war until circumstance and his own submerged nobility force him to close his casino (partisan politics) and commit himself-first by financing the Side of Right and then by fighting for it.”
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Orbital satellite
The match cut helps draw a connection between the two objects as exemplars of primitive and advanced tools respectively, and serves as a neat summary of humanity’s technological advancement up to that point.
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An American Werewolf in London
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“Shawshank”
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Martin Scorsese
She has edited all of Scorsese’s films since Raging Bull and won for Raging Bull, The Aviator and The Departed.
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It was a campaign to preserve what nine letter symbol?
Hollywood sign
Alice Cooper led the campaign. The new letters were 45 feet (14 m) tall and ranged from 31 to 39 feet (9.4 to 12 m) wide. The new version of the sign was unveiled on Hollywood’s 75th anniversary.
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Alien
Giger won an Academy Award for Best Achievement for Visual Effects for his design work on the film Alien.
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James Dean (in East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant respectively)
The hit song, also called “James Dean” was by The Eagles from their 1974 album On the Border.
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Rififi
The plot revolves around a burglary at a jewelry shop. The film was re-released theatrically in 2000 and is still highly acclaimed by modern film critics as one of the greatest works in French film noir.
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House of Sand and Fog
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A Swedish publication review of what 2011 movie end with the declaration ‘Hollywood wins’?
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The comparison was with the original Swedish version.
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Snow White
In the movie there is a scene in which the Wicked Witch immerses an apple in poisonous brew. Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence.
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The Lion King
The main setting in the film is The Pride Lands.
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Dorothy Lamour
She is best remembered for appearing in the Road to … movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. The role that made her a star was Ulah (a sort of female Tarzan) in The Jungle Princess (1936). She wore a sarong, which would become associated with her.
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Think of a film series and fill-in the missing two names in this unique list.
___ ___, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell, ___ ___
Chris Columbus, David Yates (directors of Harry Potter film series)
Chris Columbus directed the first two movies and David Yates did the last four.
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The Wicker Man
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Sacheen Littlefeather
She represented Brando and his boycot of the Best Actor Oscar for The Godfather (1972), as a way to protest a siege at Wounded Knee and Hollywood and television’s misrepresentation of American Indians.
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Romancing the Stone
The film was followed by a 1985 sequel, The Jewel of the Nile.
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Giallo
The term stems from the origin of the genre as a series of cheap paperback novels with trademark yellow covers.
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Poster designs
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Cremona
The town is strongly associated with violin making.
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The Accused starring Jodie Foster
Foster was awarded the 1988 Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as the victim of a rape. The movie is based on the real-life gang rape of Cheryl Araujo in Massachusetts in 1983 and was one of the first Hollywood films to deal with rape in a direct manner. The movie also starred Kelly McGillis.
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Criterion Collection
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Can you name either of the films or the actor-directors?
Ordinary People (Robert Redford) and Dances with Wolves (Kevin Costner)
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Tora! Tora! Tora!, that dramatizes the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
Tora is translated in the Japanese as “tiger”, hence making the code for achieved surprise “Tiger, tiger, tiger.” The film is famous for Yamamoto’s quote likening the attacks to “awakening a sleeping giant”, although it may have been apocryphal.
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Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)
Several of his films were filmed there, among them Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Persona (1966), Hour of the Wolf (1968), Shame (1968), The Passion of Anna (1969), and Scenes From a Marriage (1972). The Bergman Festival is a weeklong tribute to the filmmaker held on the island every June.
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HAL 9000, the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey
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Mona Lisa Smile, starring Julia Roberts
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Big by Penny Marshall (that starred Tom Hanks)
Her other major features include Awakenings (1990), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, A League of Their Own (1992), Cinderella Man (2005) and Bewitched (2005).
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The Day After Tomorrow
In 2008 Yahoo! Movies came out with a list of Top 10 Scientifically Inaccurate Movies and this movie took the 5th spot.
(Acknowledgement) -
The Departed
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Matchstick Men (2003)
Con artists are also referred to as matchstick men because they create temporary personas that are fleeting and simple. Lowry is famous for painting scenes of life in the industrial districts of Northern England during the early 20th century. He had a distinctive style of painting and is best known for urban landscapes peopled with human figures often referred as mentioned.
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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
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Splendor in the Grass
It stars Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood, was written by William Inge and was directed by Elia Kazan (note: In Wordsworth’s poem, splendor is spelled as splendour).
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Hollywood Walk of Fame
There are more than 2000 stars symbolizing five categories within the entertainment industry that are placed at 6-foot intervals.
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Tangled, referring to Rapunzel
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Kenneth Branagh (who directed Thor)
He is best known for Henry V, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing and Love’s Labour’s Lost.
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Calcutta
It is also the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal.
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Black Swan starring Natalie Portman
Dancer Sarah Lane served as a “dance double” for Portman in the film and stated that out of all the dancing that was in the movie, only 5% was performed by Portman. This claim was disputed by Darren Aronofsky, the director of the fim.
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Apocalypse Now
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Leonardo DiCaprio
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Last Tango in Paris
It was directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and portrays Brando, a recent American widower who takes up an anonymous sexual relationship with a young Parisian woman played by Maria Schneider. Schneider died in Feb 2011.
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He was a voice-over artist who recorded more than 5,000 film trailers.
For a time, LaFontaine had a near-monopoly on movie trailer voiceovers. Some notable trailers include Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Shrek, Friday the 13th, Law & Order and Batman Returns.
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John Wayne
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Wayne 13th among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time.
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Das Boot
It was written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen.
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Monty Python’s Life of Brian, also known as Life of Brian
It tells the story of Brian Cohen (played by Graham Chapman), a young Jewish man who is born on the same day as, and next door to, Jesus Christ, and is subsequently mistaken for the Messiah.
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The Great Escape
Tom, Dick and Harry are the names of the ‘escape routes’ in the movie.
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Kennedy’s assassination
It was felt that the public would not be in a mood for a black comedy so soon. One line in the movie – “a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff” – was dubbed to change “Dallas” to “Vegas,” Dallas being the city where Kennedy was killed. The original reference to Dallas survives in some foreign language-dubbed versions of the film, including the French release.
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Kill Bill
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The Guns of Navarone
The campaign followed the surrender of Italy in September 1943, and the allies wanted to use the captured islands as bases against the German-controlled Balkans. The Allied effort failed, with the whole of the Dodecanese falling to the Germans within two months, and the Allies suffering heavy losses in men and ships. The operations in the Dodecanese, lasting from 8 September to 22 November 1943, resulted in one of the last major German victories in the war.
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The NeverEnding Story (from Germany)
It is based on the novel of the same name written by Michael Ende. The majority of the story takes place in the parallel world of Fantastica (referred to as Fantasia in the films), a world being destroyed by the Nothing, which represents and constitutes people’s lack of imagination in the real world. The first protagonist is a young warrior, who is asked by the Steward of The Empress of Fantastica, to set off and find a way to stop The Nothing.
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Inception
In the movie, it is explained that normally-impossible structures can be created within lucid dream worlds. It is also used as an example of realization, as one character uses it purposefully to get behind a guard, then forces himself to realize it is an illusion and thus creates a sheer drop in front of him which he then throws the guard off of.
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Good Bye Lenin!
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The Exorcist (the prequel was Exorcist: Dominion)
After the film was completed under Schrader’s direction, the production company, Morgan Creek Productions/Warner Bros. disliked the resulting film and had it re-shot under director Renny Harlin; it was released as Exorcist: The Beginning in 2004. Scharder is best known for writing the De Niro classic Taxi Driver.
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Terminator played by Arnold Schwarzenegger
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The Last Picture Show
It was directed by Peter Bogdanovich, adapted from a semi-autobiographical 1966 novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry.
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The Bodyguard
The soundtrack features three other hit singles for Whitney Houston: “I Will Always Love You”, “I’m Every Woman”, and “Queen of the Night.”
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Dance marathons
It is an event in which people stay on their feet for a given length of time. It started as a popular fad in the 1920s and 1930s, when organized dance endurance contests attracted people to compete to achieve fame or win monetary prizes.
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“___ ___ ___ ___ ___. The rest of you are just visiting.”
“The United States of America”
Although it is a fictional film loosely based on real events, it is advertised as telling the untold story of the birth of counter-intelligence in the Central Intelligence Agency. The film’s main character, Edward Wilson (portrayed by Matt Damon), is loosely based on James Jesus Angleton and Richard M. Bissell.
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It’s a Wonderful Life (or) The Silence of the Lambs
James Stewart as George Bailey and Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life; Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.
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The Social Network
The film focuses on the tumultuous early years of Facebook, which was founded in 2004.
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Mrs. Miniver starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon
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Terms of Endearment
The movie takes place about fifteen years after the original following the characters from 1988 to 1993.
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Peter O’Toole
He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most competitive Academy Award acting nominations without a win.
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Between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center
The title of the movie is taken from the police report that led to the arrest (and later release) of Petit, whose performance had lasted for almost one hour.
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Horror
Hammer films had low budgets, but nonetheless appeared lavish, making use of quality British actors and cleverly designed sets. During its most successful years, Hammer dominated the horror film market, enjoying worldwide distribution and considerable financial success. The term “Hammer Horror” is often used generically to refer to other films of the period made in a similar style by different companies, such as Eros Films, Amicus and Tigon.
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Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears
It won the Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film in 1980.
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Leo Tolstoy
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Roman Empire!
Corman has apprenticed many now-famous directors, stressing the importance of budgeting and resourcefulness.
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Carmen Miranda (1909-1955)
She is often associated with her signature fruit hat outfit that she wore in the 1943 movie The Gang’s All Here.
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Pleasantville
It stars Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon.
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Gattaca
The film presents a vision of a society driven by liberal eugenics.
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A.I. Artificial Intelligence
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If you are given the words – City Slickers and push-ups, can you name the person?
Jack Palance
Four decades after his film debut, Palance won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1992 for his performance as cowboy Curly Washburn in the 1991 comedy City Slickers. Stepping onstage to accept the award, the intimidatingly fit actor looked down at the Oscar host Billy Crystal, and joked – mimicking one of his lines from the film – “Billy Crystal … I crap bigger than him.” He then dropped to the floor and demonstrated his ability, at age 73, to perform one-handed push-ups. This has been part of Oscar lore ever since.
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Doctor Zhivago (1965); Lara is the film’s heroine
While working on the soundtrack for Doctor Zhivago, Maurice Jarre was asked by director David Lean to come up with a theme for the character of Lara, played by Julie Christie. Initially Lean had desired to use a well-known Russian song but could not locate the rights to it, and delegated responsibility to Jarre. After several unsuccessful attempts at writing it, Lean suggested to Jarre that he go to the mountains with his girlfriend and write a piece of music for her. Jarre says that the resultant piece was “Lara’s Theme”, and Lean liked it well enough to use it in numerous tracks for the film.
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The Hurt Locker
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The 400 Blows
Directed by François Truffaut, it is one of the defining films of the French New Wave. On the first American prints, subtitler and dubber Noelle Gilmore gave the film the title Wild Oats, but the distributor did not like that title, and reverted it to The 400 Blows, which led some to think the film covered the topic of corporal punishment.
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Walkabout
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Red Curtain trilogy
Strictly Ballroom is based on the David and Goliath Bible story; Romeo + Juliet is based on the Shakespeare play of the same name; and Moulin Rouge! is based on the operas La Traviata and La Boheme. Each film has a thematic device through which the story is told. In Strictly Ballroom, this is the dancing, in Romeo and Juliet it is the poetry, and in Moulin Rouge! it is the music. All films use techniques seen within the Western, Musical and Romantic-Comedy movie genres. The style is meant to be heightened, and non-realistic, so that at all times the audience are aware that they are being entertained in a theatrical way.
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Gordon Gecko from Wall Street
Gekko was portrayed by actor-producer Michael Douglas, in a performance that won him an Oscar for Best Actor. In 2003, the AFI named him number 24 of the top 50 movie villains of all time. Gekko has become a symbol in popular culture for unrestrained greed (with the signature line, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good”), often in fields outside corporate finance.
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Sweden
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In what 1949 classic English comedy from Ealing Studios does Alec Guinness play 8 roles?
Kind Hearts and Coronets
It is loosely based upon the novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal (1907), by Roy Horniman. The title derives from Tennyson’s poem Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1842): “Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.”
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France
Followed closely by Italy (10 wins and 27 nominations). Note: Previously, this site listed Italy over France as the answer.
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Fernandel
In 1930, Fernandel appeared in his first motion picture and for more than forty years he would be France’s top comic actor. His horse-like teeth became part of his trademark.
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In the Valley of Elah
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My Own Private Idaho from “Private Idaho”
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Godzilla movies
The classic Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1954; released in the U.S. in 1956) would spawn a series of sequels, adding up to 28 films by 2004. In addition to other sci-fi thrillers such as The Mysterians (1957) and Matango (1963), Tanaka produced films directed by the acclaimed Akira Kurosawa. Their film Kagemusha (1980) was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar and took the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
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The English Patient (1996) and Amadeus (1984)
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The Battle of Algiers
The film depicts an episode in the war of independence in then-French Algeria, in the capital city of Algiers. It reconstructs the events of November 1954 to December 1960 in Algiers during the Algerian War of Independence, beginning with the organization of revolutionary cells in the Casbah.
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Can you connect Jack Nicholson and the piano works?
The pieces in his 1970 movie Five Easy Pieces
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Cast Away starring Tom Hanks was filmed here
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Cutthroat Island
Cutthroat Island had a budget that approached $100 million and the total U.S. gross was approximately $10 million; it contributed to the demise of ‘Carolco Pictures.’
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Antonio Banderas
He voiced Puss in Boots in Shrek, that’s why!
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As The Last Samurai
The film’s plot is based on a story by John Logan which is set in the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion led by Saigō Takamori. The historical roles in Japanese westernization by the United Kingdom, Germany and France are largely attributed to the United States in the film, and characters in the film and the real story are simplified for plot purposes. While it is not an accurate source of historical information, the film illustrates some major issues in Japanese history.
(Acknowledgement) -
Up Series
The children were selected to represent the range of socio-economic backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the explicit assumption that each child’s social class predetermines their future. Every seven years, the director, Michael Apted, films new material from as many of the fourteen as he can get to participate. Filming for the next installment in the series, 56 Up, is expected in late 2011 or early 2012.
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When he visited Turkey in 2004, screenwriter Oliver Stone apologized for what specific reason?
For his movie Midnight Express that shows Turkey in bad light
Stone admitted that he overdramatized the script. Midnight Express was adapted from the book by Billy Hayes, an American who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempting to smuggle hashish out of Turkey, and eventually escaped.
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In the 1949 movie The Third Man, this is a famous dialogue. Fill in the missing words.
“The cuckoo clock”
Graham Greene, on whose book the movie is based, has conceded that this remark was not his own invention, but rather Orson Welles’ contribution to the script. Welles himself admitted that he was inspired to his speech by a much smaller and older quote that implied the same from a Hungarian play.
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David Chase, the creator of which super-hit TV series called the movie Goodfellas his inspiration?
The Sopranos
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Dirty Dancing
The film’s popularity has also caused it to be called “the Star Wars for girls.”
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Hattie McDaniel
She played ‘Mammy’ in Gone with the Wind. As a partially-seen character in the cartoons, she was famous for never showing her head (although it is briefly visible in Saturday Evening Puss and Mouse Cleaning). Mammy’s appearances have often been edited out, dubbed, or re-animated as a slim white woman in later television showings, since her character is a mammy archetype now generally regarded as racist.
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My Big Fat Greek Wedding
It became a sleeper hit and grew steadily from its limited release. An independent film with a meager $5 million budget, it ultimately grossed over $368 million worldwide.
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The Terminal
Nasseri’s life at the airport ended in July 2006 when he was hospitalized and his sitting place dismantled. Towards the end of January 2007, he left the hospital and was looked after by the airport’s branch of the French Red Cross; he was lodged for a few weeks in a hotel close to the airport.
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Biltmore Estate near Asheville, North Carolina
This location was chosen by Ridley Scott to signify the huge personal wealth of the character Mason Verger. It built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1888 and 1895 and occupies 175,000 square feet. Still owned by Vanderbilt’s descendants, it stands today as one of the most prominent remaining examples of the Gilded Age.
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Spirited Away (2001-Japanese release)
It is also the first anime film to win an Academy Award, and the only winner of that award to win among five nominees (in every other year there were three nominees).
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The Sound of Music
The soundtrack album of the film was also included in the stockpile of records held in 20 underground radio stations of Great Britain’s Wartime Broadcasting Service, designed to provide public information and morale-boosting broadcasts for 100 days after a nuclear attack.
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The Shining (1980)
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Summer of ’42
It tells the story of a boy in his early teens on his 1942 summer vacation where he embarked on an ill-fated, one-sided romance with a woman whose husband had gone off to fight in World War II.
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21 Grams
MacDougall weighed dying patients in an attempt to prove that the soul was material, tangible and thus measurable. These experiments are widely considered to have had little if any scientific merit, and although MacDougall’s results varied considerably from 21 grams, for some people this figure has become synonymous with the measure of a soul’s mass.
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In The Matrix films, the hovercraft of Morpheus is named after which ancient ruler of Babylon?
Nebuchadnezzar
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Jackie Coogan
As a child star (famous in The Kid with Chaplin), Coogan earned as much as $4 million, but the money was taken by his mother Lilian and step-father Arthur Bernstein for cocaine and heroin. He sued them in 1935, but only received $126,000. The legal battle did, however, bring attention to child actors and resulted in the state of California enacting the California Child Actor’s Bill, sometimes known as the Coogan Bill or the Coogan Act. This requires that the child’s employer set aside 15% of the child’s earnings in a trust, and codifies such issues as schooling, work hours and time-off.
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Peter Sellers
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The Chronicles of Riddick
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Emerald
Even if you haven’t see the film, just the fact that it is set in Columbia should give you a hint that it is an emerald.
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Reds
The film centers on the life of John Reed, the Communist, journalist, and writer who chronicled the Russian Revolution in his book Ten Days that Shook the World.
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The Interpreter
There are strong parallels between the movie and the real country of Zimbabwe. Among others, the name of the fictional country of Matobo is an apparent reference to the name of the Matobo National Park in Zimbabwe.
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The length of its run in cinemas (weekly for over 30 years) combined with its considerable total box office gross is unparalleled by any other film. The Museum Lichtspiele in Munich, Germany has been screening the movie without interruption since September 19th, 1975, and is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. The Oriental Theatre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has the longest running United States engagement, having shown the movie since January, 1978.
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On which 1953 film poster are Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr sharing a passionate kiss on a beach?
From Here to Eternity
The famous beach scene was lampooned in the movie Airplane!, where Robert Hays’ and Julie Hagerty’s characters become covered in seaweed.
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Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
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Gone with the Wind
He was referring to the stereotypical portrayal of black characters in the film.
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The Endless Summer
When the movie was first shown, it encouraged many surfers to go abroad, giving birth to the “surf-and-travel” culture, which prizes finding “uncrowded surf”, meeting new people, and finding the perfect wave. It also introduced the sport, which had become popular outside of Hawaii and the Polynesian Islands in places like California and Australia, to a broader audience.
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Cabaret
It lost to The Godfather. In 2006 this film ranked #5 on the American Film Institute’s list of best musicals.
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Carl Sagan
According to an unsourced anecdote in The Independent, Sagan “responded by saying that he wanted editorial control and a percentage of the film’s takings, which was rejected.”
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What military doctrine is central to the plot of the 1964 Stanley Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove?
MAD or Mutually Assured Destruction
It is a doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by one of two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender. It is based on the theory of deterrence according to which the deployment of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in order to prevent the use of the very same weapons. The strategy is effectively a form of Nash Equilibrium, in which both sides are attempting to avoid their worst possible outcome – nuclear annihilation.
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Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mocking Bird) and Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs)
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In the movie Rain Man, what airline does Raymond insist on flying as it has a perfect safety record?
Qantas
While the airline’s safety record is respected around the world, the safety fact is that the company has never lost a jet airliner and not any kind of plane. Between 1927 and 1951, Qantas had eight fatal accidents with the loss of 62 people. Half of these accidents occurred during World War II, when the Qantas aircraft were operating on behalf of the Royal Australian Air Force.
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Who took the place of Marilyn Monroe and what is the novella/movie?
Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Wisp-thin Hepburn as Holly, carrying a cigarette holder, is considered one of the iconic images of 20th century American cinema.
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Barry Lyndon
Ryan O’Neal stars as the title character. Although the film was only a modest commercial success at the time, and had a mixed critical reception, in recent years it has come to be regarded not only as one of Kubrick’s finest films, but also as a classic of world cinema.
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Spoiler alert. Skip this question if you haven’t seen The Shawshank Redemption.
Raquel Welch
Andy Dufresne first starts his task when he has the poster of Rita Hayworth on his cell wall.
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Volunteers
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“gay”
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The Blair Witch Project
Contrary to popular belief, however, the majority of the film was not filmed in Burkittsville, and the events depicted in the film and the legend of the Blair Witch itself were entirely fabricated by the producers themselves. The majority of the film was shot in the state of Virginia, with parts filmed in Maryland.
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What chilling 1968 film is set almost entirely in Bramford apartment building in New York City?
Rosemary’s Baby
Outside shots of the movie’s Bramford apartment building were in fact The Dakota, the future home of the main lead Mia Farrow’s friend John Lennon, and his wife and son, Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon. Director Roman Polanski filmed the exteriors at the Dakota; however, the interiors were created in a Hollywood soundstage. The building does not allow filming inside.
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Tataouine in Tunisia was the setting for many scenes in the movies of which blockbuster franchise?
Star Wars franchise
Four of the Star Wars films (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope) were partly filmed here. George Lucas notably usef the name ‘Tatooine’ for the home planet of Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker.
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The Devil Wears Prada (the character of Miranda Priestly was played by Meryl Streep)
Although the movie is set in the fashion world, most designers and other fashion notables avoided appearing as themselves for fear of arousing the wrath of the powerful Anna Wintour. Wintour later overcame her initial skepticism, saying she liked the film and Streep in particular.
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Almost Famous
It was written and directed by Cameron Crowe. The film is semi-autobiographical, as Crowe himself was a teenage writer for Rolling Stone. The film is based on Crowe’s experiences touring with rock bands The Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
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You may be one if you know this answer! What is the only Hitchcock film to be remade by himself?
The Man Who Knew Too Much
The remake is in colour and stars Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. Hitchcock considered his remake to be superior, saying that the 1934 version was the work of a talented amateur, while the 1956 version was the work of a professional.
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The samurai in The Seven Samurai
It is usually regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, and is one of a select few Japanese films to become widely known in the West for an extended period of time. It follows the story of a village of farmers that hire seven masterless samurai warriors to combat bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops.
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Lawrence of Arabia
It is unique in being the only film to win the Best Film award without containing a single female speaking role.
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In which award winning 1990 movie is much of the dialog in the Lakota language?
Dances With Wolves
It is a 1990 epic film which tells the story of a United States cavalry officer in the 1860s who befriends a band of Sioux, sacrificing his career and ties to his own people.