NUTS4R2’s Cryptic Movie Quiz - Christmas 2020

Annual Cryptic Movie Quiz

So here we are again already. Time for this year’s Cryptic Movie Quiz for the festive period.

How you solve it...
Peruse the grid above and you’ll see spaces for 14 movie titles running horizontally and, below this intro, are the cryptic clues to assist you in working out what these 'non-Christmas' movie titles are. To help out, I’ve filled in a line of letters vertically downwards spelling out MERRY CHRISTMAS... so you have a letter in its correct position for each of the titles. Please don’t forget to click on the grid to see a larger version of it and maybe print it off to help yourself.

Email your answers to me at nuts4r2@hotmail.com before January 9th 2020 to get your entries in. A few days after that, I’ll stick up the name of the winner (or winners, if it’s a tie or a group effort), along with all the answers, here on my blog.

By way of an example, here’s a question from last year’s quiz, followed by the answer...

Example question:
Ellie isn’t around as this pachyderm takes over from Peter Lorre as a Fritz Lang serial killer.

Example answer:
A pachyderm could be an ELEPHANT. Take ELLIE or ELE out and you’re just left with PHANT. If it replaces Peter Lorre in the title role of the serial killer in Fritz Lang’s M, you get "As M". So the answer when you put it all together is Don Coscarelli’s classic horror film PHANTASM.

Or just check out the January solution pages from the last few years to get a feel for how to put these things together. If you keep checking back at the comments section below, I will probably put the odd extra clue down there every now and again to help you out through the Christmas period.

Full marks are rarely scored by everyone so... if you’re feeling a bit stuck, there’s still everything to play for. Send me what you’ve got anyway.

I hope you enjoy playing. Make sure you have lots of fun this Christmas period, drink responsibly and play irresponsibly but, don’t catch Covid. And here are the questions...

1. I’m calm as Godzilla.

2. More than nine aliens.

3. Miss Te Kanawa and her friend Harry.

4. How hard was this aquatic bird?

5. Many stories but, not completely cryptic.

6. This is the hundredth rash I’ve got from those reversible rats!

7. I guess that’s what you get to bug you when you scramble to harm!

8. Famous Liverpudleon percussionist gets weaponised.

9. Artifical Intelligence gets all backwards with fives.

10. Sheriff Ross, go back and get your men.

11. Not a very heavy home.

12. Oh no! Kim’s red!

13. It’s only half okay. Why Dan?

14. Get Frank something to hold his beer in.

Coronavirus At The Movies

 
The Movies Have Got It Covid

Warning: This article gives away the endings to Wonder Woman, Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

Over the last six months of pseudo lockdown, I’ve been writing and editing a monthly Pandemic newsletter which I send to a small circle of friends to help keep them occupied and smiling through these trying times. Normally I don’t repeat content from here that I’ve included there and vice versa but, I thought the following article which I wrote for inclusion in the final issue (volume 2 starts up when we hit the second wave of Covid), number 6, last week might interest some of my blog readers too so, here’s the article I wrote speculating how cinema content might be shaped in the Covid and post-Covid world. I hope you like it.

It’s been suggested to me recently that, once movie production gets going again properly, it’s doubtful that the future of film will be reflective of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic. The argument is that people will not want to see depictions of social distancing on screen and, instead, will want to see a world untouched by the disease that has been, err, plaguing us these last six months or more. Audiences go to the cinema for escape, after all.

I'd have to say that... I think it’s probably quite dependent on how long this ‘new normal’ will be with us but I don’t think that people who are working on any form of art... be it film, fiction or music (to name but three), will be necessarily falling over themselves to provide people with a Covid-free environment in their work. Also, the fact that it seems people can get reinfected just a few months after having the symptoms, possibly prompting four times a year vaccines* if, indeed, an effective one can be found, is also going to be a factor in this. I think we could be stuck in this for a while and I fully expect our films to represent this. Even those set in alternate fantasy versions of our current reality such as the DC and Marvel universes, for example.

One of the things you need to remember is that a lot of fictional creators tend to base their stories in a world of historical accuracy. Unless they’re set in the past or in some remote fantasy land such as Middle Earth or Cimmeria, they’re going to want to base their story in the real world as much as possible. Why? Well simply because conforming to a facsimile of the real world helps make the fantasy they are weaving... be it superheroes, spy stories or even romantic comedies... more believable. If the audience can buy into the physical, psychological and sociological environment in which certain characters are interacting with each other, then it makes the story they are telling more credible.

Historically there are plenty of things which buy into the time period of when they are set and in which great pains are taken to explain certain historical inaccuracies conjured up by the subject of their stories.

Take the comics of DC published during the Second World War, for example. The DC characters were so powerful that kids would wonder why they didn’t just go over to Germany and stop the war. A good point... Superman would have finished the war in one afternoon.  So the writers came up with (or is that fell back on?) the artefact which Hitler himself listed among his occult obsessions. In the DC comics, Hitler absolutely had possession of the Spear Of Destiny (the spear that allegedly pierced the body of Christ on the cross), an artefact which has been used over and over again in genre fiction and movies since... well, for a long time. Because of the strange properties of the Spear Of Destiny, the readers were told, the superheroes couldn’t go near Hitler because the Spear would negate their super powers. And so, the comics could go on publishing superhero tales without the question of quickly ending the war ever coming up. A useful side step.

And we’ve seen things using historical context time and time again at the cinema. Take the recent Wonder Woman movie, for example. This was set in the First World War and, because it was Diana’s mission to end that war by destroying her war god brother, the film-makers brilliantly made sure that the day that she does this also coincided with the day the armistice was signed. So in the real world about her, the war was over but... we flies on the wall know how it really ended... right? Wink. A nice solution to what could have been a huge fantasy versus reality problem. One which allowed the fantasy world of the character to play out in a relatively accurate historical backdrop without the two elements ever fighting one another. Nice work.

Of course, some writers and directors don’t care about historical accuracy... or so it seems at first. Look at the two Quentin Tarantino movies Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, for example...

I work in an educational establishment and I can’t even begin to tell you the horror stories of the genuine historical ignorance of a large number of the students making their way through colleges and universities across the country. It’s astonishing and I can tell you now that there are a lot of people of a certain age (and younger, now) who believe that Adolf Hitler met his death by being machine gunned down in an exploding cinema and... that’s how the Second World War ended, didn’t it? Because that’s what happens at the end of Inglourious Basterds so, it must be true, right? That was set in World War II. Now, I’m absolutely all for artists doing what they want in movies but, when something presents itself as historically accurate then I think they should just have a little warning put in at the beginning of the film saying that the outcomes of this film are in no way representative of real life. Because, you know, a lot of people think these things actually are.

Similarly, even though the ending Tarantino was going to go for was obvious even before I took my seat at the cinema to see Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, there are a fair few people of, again, a certain age, who think Sharon Tate went on to have a long, prosperous career as a Hollywood actress. I guess at least some of the people who go on to explore her post-Manson body of work will hit a wall of truth when it comes to the IMDB, at least.

The thing is, though, even these flights of fancy on the parts of Tarantino are taking a lot of time to paint that fantasy into a world which is backed up by the time in which they are set. Sure, the outcome is different but all the window dressing of 1940s Germany and 1960s Hollywood is brought into play to make his fantasies credible. So, really, he’s doing exactly the same as most filmmakers do these days... setting the story in a historically accurate environment.

Which brings me back to Covid in the movies (and other art forms). If this thing truly does last less than a year then I think the virus and the distancing will, at the very least, be used to have a scene or two with ‘light hearted social distancing’ scenes used to show, say, a development through time for a romantic relationship. “Oh, look guys, now they’re in the 2020s and they’ve got that kooky social distancing going on!”

At the worst... which I’m guessing is where we are at (the news hasn’t been very encouraging of late), I think we’ll be seeing the long term effects of social distancing and coronavirus in movies for a long time to come. Because, for one thing, it demonstrates what the audience are living themselves and thus adds credibility to the story line (whether you want to see it or not) and two... because if you’re forced to film scenes in a socially distant manner then, surely, it will be easier to do that if the scenes you are doing that with are having socially distant content?

So yeah, I’m sorry to say that, in terms of the virus and its more visible side effects, I think art will be imitating life just as much as it always does in the future and, since coronavirus is such an important part of our everyday lives currently, I don’t see us escaping that anytime soon.

*has been suggested at time of writing

NUTS4R2's Cryptic Movie Quiz - Christmas 2018

Annual Cryptic Movie Quiz

Merry Christmas everybody.

Once again it’s time for my Cryptic Movie Quiz for the festive period.

If you look at the grid above you’ll see spaces for 14 movie titles running horizontally and, below this intro, are the cryptic clues to help you work out what these non-Christmas movie titles are. To help you out, I’ve filled in a line of letters diagonally downwards spelling out MERRY CHRISTMAS... so you have a letter in its correct position for each of the titles. Please don’t forget to click on the grid to see a larger version of it and maybe print it off to help you.

As usual, depending on my finances after Christmas... I’ll probably award a small, strange or possibly customised prize (customised if I know you from Twitter) to the person with the most correct answers, pulled from a hat in the unlikely event of a draw (that's never happened yet).

Email your answers to me at nuts4r2@hotmail.com and, since I posted this a little later this year, you have until the end of January 6th 2019 to get your entries in. A few days after that, I’ll stick up the name of the winner (or winners, if it’s a tie or a group effort), along with all the answers, here on my blog.

By way of an example, here’s a question from last year’s quiz, followed by the answer...

Example question:
Saw her feller.

Example answer:
Another way of saying 'saw her feller' might be... spied her man. So... SPIDERMAN was the answer to the clue.

If you keep checking back at the comments section below, I will probably put the odd extra clue down there every now and again to help you out through the Christmas period.

Full marks are rarely scored so... if you’re feeling a bit stuck, there’s still everything to play for. Send me what you've got anyway.

I hope you enjoy playing and, above all, have fun this Christmas, drink responsibly and play irresponsibly. And here are the questions...

1. How old is this special elevation in the road to lift your vehicle off the ground?

2. Tie someone up and then recite the letters of their current state in the right order.

3. They sliced and scrambled Reg up and added something to stop him being odd.

4. I go with the French green.

5. The fourth guy along in the alphabet.

6. You just make your way up to the top of that chopping instrument.

7. Like if a distorted, reduced version of a Woody Allen title character came from a continent bounded by Europe and the Arctic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.

8. Observing a nasty shade of angry and then getting into an argument at the place which is conducive to your good health.

9. Presumably this is where the alphabet lives.

10. Raise an unrelated child on the last day of the working week.

11. Backslang for an Emu to a ‘t’.

12. The final thing needed to hold up the 13th letter of the alphabet.

13. A terrible, common serifed font is where it’s at when James, The Black Dahlia writer, drinks a malt beverage containing about 6 percent alcohol by volume.

14. After the sixth we have a pinnipedia.

Again... good luck and best wishes to you for the season.

Greatest Movies of 2017

 
NUTS4R2s Best
Movies of 2017

Unlike many years, I won’t make any apologies this time around for my top movies list being dominated by product made in the USA. Of my 26 favourite 2017 movies here, around 16 of them were made with American dollars and that’s absolutely fine by me when their contribution to cinema this year has been so great. In my Christmas Day post (here) I touched on the fact that this year has seen the poorest cinema box office since the 1980s. And yet, I find I’ve been to the cinema way more than I have on many previous years. Admittedly, there were a fair amount of bad movies too but even this list has some really great films left out.

What we have here are films which got a UK cinema release (of some kind) in 2017 but I’m pretty sure a couple of those may not get a general release over here until next year (if at all). Similarly, some of the films on this year’s list opened in some other countries in 2016 but this is the first time we’ve had a release of them over here. This does create the odd anomaly. For instance, Alice Lowe’s brilliant Prevenge (reviewed by me here) was released earlier in the year but I already had it pretty high up in my best films of 2016 list because I’d seen an early screening at the London Film Festival. So... yeah... I’m not putting the same movie in a list two years running.

Anyway, that’s enough of my caveats... here’s the list in ascending order with number 26 being the least of my best picks and number one being the absolute bees knees. Enjoy!

26. War For The Planet Of The Apes USA
The latest and possibly last in a trilogy of rebooted Planet Of The Apes films had an emotional storyline, some good action and a fine score by Michael Giacchino. My review for this one is here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/war-for-planet-of-apes.html

25. Their Finest UK
Beautifully heart rending British movie about a lady screenwriter doing her bit for the propaganda of the Second World War on the home front. A real tear jerker, this is reviewed by me here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/their-finest.html

24. Wind River UK/Canada/USA
An FBI agent and a tracker try to solve a murder mystery on a snowy, Native American Indian Reservation. Harsh, bleak and somewhat beautiful with two of Marvel’s The Avengers team as the main protagonists. My review for this one is here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/wind-river.html

23. Shin Godzilla Japan
Just like the latest Star Wars movie, this film is somewhat disappointing in places with long, dull stretches in between the good stuff. That being said, it’s nice seeing The Big G back on screen with a new Japanese incarnation and with a surprise arsenal up its scaly sleeve. It also has one of the best scores of the year so, even during the boring bits, you can tap your toes along with the on screen shenanigans. My review for this one should be out sometime in the next week.

22. Elle France/Germany/Belgium
This tale of slow burn revenge by a somewhat questionable character who comes from a background of deviant violence is a far cry from some of the other films I’ve seen from Paul Verhoeven. Isabelle Huppert is exceptional, as she generally is, in this interesting study of a powerful, female cat playing with her cornered mice. My review of this one here... http://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/elle.html

21. The Handmaiden aka Ah-Ga-Ssi South Korea
This stylish and relocated adaptation of Sarah Walter’s Fingersmith was sexy and suspenseful, with all of the elegance in shot composition that you would expect from a director like Chan-wook Park. My review can be found here... http://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/the-handmaiden-aka-ah-ga-ssi.html

20. Star Wars - Episode VIII - The Last Jedi USA
Much as I love the films of the director responsible for this, after viewing it a second time I can confirm, at least in my own mind, that this is a bit of a dull and disappointing misfire of a Star Wars movie. However, there is some really good stuff going on too and I enjoy watching this with an eye on what it might potentially have been, rather than what it is. It’s enjoyable enough, though, to warrant inclusion in this list, I feel. My review of this one is here...
https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/star-wars-episode-viii-last-jedi.html

19. Colossal Spain/Canada
One of those films that changes tone drastically about half way through, Colossal starts off with a wonderful idea about waking up to find that you’re manifesting as a giant monster in another part of the world before going into far more serious social commentary. My review of this little gem is here... http://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/colossal.html

18. Most Beautiful Island USA
Wonderful film about a twisted ‘job offer’ given to an immigrant trying to survive in modern America, inspired by the writer/director/star’s own experiences. My review of this film, which I’m hoping will get a wider release sometime soon, is here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/most-beautiful-island.html

17. Kong - Skull Island USA
For once, a modern made King Kong movie which manages to look beyond the admittedly fantastic origins of the character and do something different with it. Stay past the credits to see exactly where this franchise is going and for a clue as to why the opening credits here looked very similar to another monster movie that was released a few years ago. Reviewed by me here... http://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/kong-skull-island.html

16. Daphne UK
Slice of life movie about a young woman dealing with the world around her, this is exactly the kind of film which British cinema does so well. I reviewed this one here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/daphne.html

15. Personal Shopper France/Germany/Czech Republic/Belgium
Oliver Assayas’ take on ghosts with two mysteries at its heart - one a murder mystery and the other a metaphysical riddle, is definitely worth a look if you can do so without expecting the genre conventions of either of those kinds of movies to be given any play. I reviewed this quite recently here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/personal-shopper.html

14. Ghost In The Shell USA
I enjoyed this live action version of the famous Manga much more than the original Anime (when I eventually saw it... a review I wrote for that will see the light of day soon, I hope). Riveting but with something of a rushed ending, the film was much closer, for me, to the beauty of Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner than the film which actually was a sequel to that classic (and which I certainly hadn’t expected to be absent from this list but... yeah, that one missed the mark for me). My review of this live action version is here... http://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/ghost-in-shell.html

13. Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool UK
Absolutely first rate look, from Bond movie production company EON Films, of the last years of the life of famous noir actress Gloria Grahame. Annette Bening and Jamie Bell positively shine. I reviewed this one here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/film-stars-dont-die-in-liverpool.html

12. Happy Death Day USA
This is basically a slasher movie remake of Groundhog Day, using the central idea of that film and grafting it onto the ‘teenager in peril’ genre. It even goes as far as to reference that film in its dialogue towards the end of this one. Way better than I thought it would be, the film is one of many this year to benefit from a score by Bear McCreary. My review can be found here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/happy-death-day.html

11. Blade Of The Immortal Japan/UK
Takashi Miike’s 100th feature film is a bloody ronin flavoured tale of revenge based on a manga with the levels of extreme violence you would expect from this director... especially when he occasionally dips his toes into chanbara. You can read my review of this one here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/blade-of-immortal.html

10. Patti Cake$ USA
All I will say is about this one is that I certainly wasn’t expecting to be inspired enough by a movie that I wrote my entire review as rap lyrics. My rap for this one can be vocalised by you here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/patti-cake.html

9. Ingrid Goes West USA
A funny but also concerning look at the lengths some people will go to, to be around those who are popular. If it isn’t on instagram then... did it really even happen? Only Ingrid would know. My review is here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/ingrid-goes-west.html

8. The Love Witch USA
I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as Ana Biller’s previous feature, VIVA but, it was still a pretty cool movie and aesthetically ‘right up there’ compared to many movies made this year with strong and colourful compositions to offset the near perfect levels of irony in the film. I reviewed this one here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/the-love-witch.html

7. The Villainess aka Ak-Nyeo South Korea
I only saw this a few days ago but it’s pretty much this year’s best action spectacle (even beating out Atomic Blonde in the hand to hand combat stakes, as far as I’m concerned). It’s also a remake of Luc Besson’s phenomenal Nikita but, it’s certainly one of the more successful ones of that much remade classic. My review of this can be discovered here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/the-villainess-aka-ak-nyeo.html

6. La La Land USA
As my initial review would seem to indicate, I didn’t react that well to this movie the first time I saw it. Then, when I heard the music again, it caught up with me with a bang (luckily while I was still able to get a few more screenings in at the cinema before it left town). This one is a great modern musical which I intend to watch a fair few times more in my lifetime. That initial, somewhat downbeat review, is here... http://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/la-la-land.html

5. Brigsby Bear USA
Well, there are two films in this list which starred Mark Hamill and, believe me, this is by far the better of the two. This film starts off a little like Dogtooth but then goes in its own, much different direction. Truly great movie which deserves to be seen more than it has so far... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/brigsby-bear.html

4. Miss Sloane USA
Wow. This is exactly the kind of movie that the Americans really know how to do right, It’s somewhat predictable but that journey to the ending is absolutely fantastic and, frankly, I wouldn’t have wanted it to end any other way. Jessica Chastain should have won an Oscar for this performance. Truly astonishing work in this one from everybody. I reviewed this in awe here... http://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/miss-sloane.html

3. A Ghost Story USA
This surprising movie about the afterlife of a silent ghost who is basically a walking sheet was truly entrancing, inventive and had an absolutely pitch perfect ending. My review of this one is here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/a-ghost-story.html

2. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women USA
The story of the creator of both Wonder Woman and the lie detector, this tells of a man and two women in the 1920s - 1940s, living in a fetishistic threesome lifestyle with their various children (by the same father). It has an absolutely brilliant script, three amazing central performances and was written by a director who really knows what she is doing. The dialogue practically sings. I wrote about this one here... https://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/professor-marston-and-wonder-women.html

1. Wonder Woman USA/China/Hong Kong
I can’t say enough good things about Patty Jenkin’s absolute masterpiece of modern super-hero cinema. This isn’t just the greatest super-hero movie ever made (which it certainly is), it’s also one of the 10 greatest films of the decade as far as I’m concerned. There’s so much going on in this movie on every level that, when I think about the coordination that must have gone on for this to happen, my head hurts a bit trying to figure out how Jenkins could have held all those juggled balls in motion without dropping any. Every time I revisit this, my tear drenched eyeballs see something new and the nuances of the performance and direction/editing/scoring/costume/set design just leave me in awe of this cast and crew. Absolutely phenomenal and all involved deserve Oscars for this artistic triumph. I am so going to be watching this pretty much once every year for the rest of my life, I suspect. My initial, “what did I just see” review is here where, frankly, I don’t gush enough... http://nuts4r2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/wonder-woman.html

And so that’s this years list. I realise there are some big omissions which people might get angry about (and which won’t do much for my credibility) but I hope I’ve been as uncompromising in my choices here as I try to be with everything else on this blog. I’m also encouraged that over half of them are pretty much about strong women and wonder if this is a trend which will continue. I hope you enjoyed reading this (if you made it this far) and I hope next year’s cinematic offerings are even half as rich as this years. Keep reading and watching.