Second try at the new Quiz format. Let’s see what we can learn from watching the watchers!
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) In The Watchers, Mina is put in charge of delivering a Queen of Bavaria Parrot through a spooky forest to a zoo near Belfast. What was the capital city of the old Kingdom of Bavaria?
2) M. Night Shyamalan is obviously most notable for his career as a writer-director of such films as The Sixth Sense. But he did have a more normal screenwriting career prior to that hit. In addition to uncredited rewrites on She’s All That, he also wrote the screenplay for a part-animated part-live action 1999 film featuring the voice of Michael J. Fox. What film?
3) Young Hearts Run Free, a sweet 1976 disco single by Candi Stanton is featured in the film. It was also covered by Kym Mazelle for what 1996 film which, while the storyline is classic, featured anachronistic songs like this one?
4) Dakota Fanning was a real deal child actor back in the day. Man on Fire, I Am Sam, The Cat in the Hat, War of the Worlds. The list goes on. In the late 2010s her career slowed somewhat, but she’s back on the scene with an Emmy nomination for Supporting Actress in a Limited Series for what adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel?
5) The bad guys in the film are supposed to be fairies (at least in some ways). One of the more famous instances of fairy lore entering real life was the Cottingley Fairies. A famous author was one of the leading supporters of the hoax, notable mainly for a series of works, in addition to some science fiction (like The Lost World). Who was this author?
Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: We talking about Watchers (1988)? … We aren’t. Well that played on May 17, 1990 at 9:30 on Cinemax. And it was up against this film on HBO?
What is the film?
Answers
1) Munich, which is also the third largest city in present day Germany (Berlin and Hamburg are larger). The city is probably most famous (in America) for being one the centers of Oktoberfest.
2) Yeah, he wrote the adaptation of the book Stuart Little, which also happened to be the final film role for the Golden Girl Estelle Getty. If you ever need to identify the film remember that Hugh Laurie, Geena Davis, and Jonathan Lipniki played the members of the Little family, and Nathan Lane voiced the family cat.
3) That film is Romeo + Juliet by Baz Lurman. And yeah, the scene really has to be seen to be believed. The cover is short in the movie, but quite something else.
4) That adaptation is Ripley which is based on The Talented Mr. Ripley. Amazingly, I discovered a few fun facts about that series. One, there are actually five Ripley novels (Ripley Under Ground, Ripley’s Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley, and Ripley Under Water are the other four). And two, there are actually five films based on these books (Purple Noon, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, The American Friend, and Ripley’s Game).
5) It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Unfortunately the tale, in at least some tellings, is somewhat sad. Doyle had become a spiritualist in the 1910s and that belief was evidently strengthened by the many deaths of World War I, including his son. It was actually only one of the hoaxes he was involved with, he apparently was likely the culprit of the Piltdown Hoax as revenge on scientists for debunking a psychic he liked!
Bonus NYTimes Listing Answer: Stir Crazy. It was directed by Sidney Poitier amazingly … his directorial filmography isn’t all super impressive, he also directed Ghost Dad.
Hell yeah, now you are an expert on … a bunch of random stuff. Just as intended.
Bad Movie Twins 