Monday Morning Quarter-Baking: Movie Games

By J. Goodman

Last week, MMQB was on hiatus. The Quarter-Baking Gods didn’t feel fit to filter their message through me, their Earthbound medium. I prayed and communed all week and still nothing. But my penance was received and this week we’re back hitting you with a fresh, barely worth considering idea.

I like movies. I like movie trivia, movie games, movie quotes and, especially, movie games about movie trivia and quotes. There are a couple games that I play with friends (they are great at parties and road trips!). The first one we simply call the Movie Game. It’s a modification on your standard 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon style game. For example, take a group of people (at least 2), one of them begins with either an actor/actress or a movie. For example, Kevin Costner (you have to start with someone/something that people know. The next person names a movie starring Kevin Costner, i.e., Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. The next person names someone else who starred in Robin Hood, i.e., Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. The next person names a movie starring her, i.e., Scarface, and so on and so on. You keep playing until you stump someone. Pretty easy game and loads of fun.

If you feel that you’ve mastered that version or are simply over-matched, here’s a variation we’ve been known to play and might be easier for some folks because you don’t need to know the names of obscure actors. In this version, you take an actor/actress, e.g, Nicole Kidman, and you go around naming as many of her movies as you know. The first person might say, Days of Thunder, the next person could say, The Others, and on and on until people are stumped and fall out. Last person standing wins.

Those are my two go-to movie games with friends. But sometimes you want to mix things up and try something new. Here’s one I just quarter-baked:

It’s simple. And it involves quotes. Someone starts by naming a movie, and each person needs to recite a quote from the movie. If you don’t know one, you’re out. After you go around once, you move to the next person who names another movie. So if I start off with Die Hard, then you could say, Lady, does it sound like I’m ordering a pizza? The next person could say, Why don’t you smell what you shoveling. And the next person could say, Hans, Bubby, I’m your white knight. When all’s said and done, you go to the next movie, e.g, The Planet of the Apes. But after, Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape, and You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!, everyone else is stumped. They lost.

When it’s down to the last two, the battle of wits has begun. Can you name a movie that your opponent can’t quote, but you can (you have to be able to quote the movie in order to win)?

How well can you quote?

Test yourself.

Challenge your friends.

P.s. I introduced Dre to this game over the weekend and we had a metric ton of fun playing it - his words, not mine. But we developed a wrinkle to really up the fun factor.

Every few rounds we upped the number of quotes you needed to know per movie. So after you do the one quote thing, you jump to two, after a few more successful rounds, you go up to three quotes, and on and on. Like reverse-limbo, how high can you go?

I know, this just got serious.