Questions from the Blood Simple to the Die Hard . . . by Donald Clarke

QUESTIONS

1. What, according to Mary Poppins, helps the medicine go down?

2. Which "robots in disguise" are making their way back to cinemas this summer?

3. In which 1980 film did all work and no play risk making Jack - and "Jack" -- a dull boy?

4. The fellow who slices Jack Nicholson's nose. The sinister man in the back of Robert DeNiro's cab. Michael Dorsey's agent. Mr Brown. Who were we looking at in each case?

5. Kevin Costner, Robert Redford and Clint Eastwood all did what to whom?

6. What connects the following films: The Vanishing, The Ten Commandments, The Man Who Knew Too Much?

7. Why might Wayne's World remind you of John Carpenter's Halloween?

8. Joan Fontaine in Rebecca. Paul McGann in Withnail and I. Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars. Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch. Who is the odd one out?

9. Who played the German motorcyclist who Steve McQueen unseats with a tripwire in The Great Escape?

10. First comes a sighting. Then an observation of physical evidence. This is followed by an observation of one or more occupants. What phrase - familiar to the film enthusiast - might we use to describe the last of these?

ANSWERS

1. A spoonful of sugar.

2. Transformers.

3. The Shining.

4. The director. The question concerns cameos by the directors of Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Tootsie and Reservoir Dogs.

5. They all beat Martin Scorsese to a best director Oscar.

6. They were all remade by the same director.

7. Michael Myers was the name of the killer in Halloween. Mike Myers was the star of Wayne's World.

8. Clint Eastwood. None of the other characters were referred to by name in the respective films (though McGann is described as Marwood in the script of Withnail and I). Eastwood is, contrary to frequent assertions otherwise, addressed as Joe in A Fistful of Dollars.

9. Steve McQueen.

10. Close Encounters of the Third Kind