Xan Brooks 

Film in 2009: were you paying attention?

Do you know your Che from your Chéri, your Avatar from your Aliens in the Attic? Tackle our bumper end-of-year quiz to find out whether you're a cinephobe or an Oscar contender
  
  


  1. How many Oscars did Slumdog Millionaire win at the 81st annual Academy Awards?

    1. Six

    2. Seven

    3. Eight

    4. Nine

  2. In Lars von Trier's Antichrist, Willem Dafoe took a walk and met a fox. What did the fox say to him?

    1. "Woman rules"

    2. "Chaos reigns"

    3. "Now I wanna be your dog"

    4. "Sausages!"

  3. Hollywood studio Warner Bros sought to gain a foothold in the lucrative Bollywood market by co-producing a big budget Hindi film. Its title?

    1. Saawariya

    2. My Name is Khan

    3. Chandni Chowk to China

    4. Kambakkht Ishq

  4. At the request of the US authorities, Roman Polanski was arrested at the Zurich film festival in September. Why was Polanski attending the event?

    1. He was invited to the festival as the winner of the "Golden Icon Award"

    2. He was attending the premiere of his latest movie, The Ghost Writer

    3. He was attending the event to present a lifetime achievement award to Jean-Luc Godard

    4. He was in town to drum up funding for his proposed next picture, Rosemary's Adolescent

  5. Who said: "Good morning, my little chicks and cocks"?

    1. Malcolm Tucker in In the Loop

    2. Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

    3. Brüno, in Brüno

    4. Quentin Tarantino, announcing this year's Oscar nominations in Hollywood

  6. Name the director of the Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In

    1. Michael Stenlund

    2. Stefan Andreasson

    3. Anders Mankell

    4. Tomas Alfredson

  7. "I think this might just be my masterpiece." Who said it?

    1. Michael Jackson in This Is It

    2. Brad Pitt in Inglourious Basterds

    3. Michael Moore, promoting Capitalism: A Love Story

    4. Danny Boyle, accepting the best director Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire

  8. What were the opening and closing night films at the 2009 London film festival?

    1. Up in the Air and Nine

    2. Sherlock Holmes and Where the Wild Things Are

    3. Fantastic Mr Fox and Nowhere Boy

    4. Dead Man Running and Law Abiding Citizen

  9. "When all the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies." So says the rabbi in the Coen brothers' A Serious Man. But who (or what) is he quoting?

    1. The Gemara component of the Talmud

    2. The opening line of the Saul Bellow novel The Adventures of Augie March

    3. Jerry Lewis's catchphrase at the start of his annual charity fundraising telethon

    4. The Jefferson Airplane song Somebody to Love

  10. Which Hollywood film featured a character who constantly boasted that he'd been "struck by lightning seven times"?

    1. Avatar

    2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

    3. Funny People

    4. Year One

  11. According to the Forbes list, who was Hollywood's most "overpaid star" in 2009?

    1. Nicole Kidman

    2. Tom Cruise

    3. Will Ferrell

    4. Jack Black

  12. What is "Girls and Suitcases"?

    1. The working title of the film that would later be released as An Education

    2. The alternative Chinese title of The Reader

    3. The film-within-a-film in Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces

    4. The film that Brittany Murphy was midway through shooting at the time of her death in December

  13. Melissa Leo caught pundits flat-footed when she was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar. Name the film she was nominated for

    1. Sin Nombre

    2. Crazy Heart

    3. Goodbye Solo

    4. Frozen River

  14. It was a busy 12 months for Nicolas Cage. But which of the following stories is NOT true?

    1. He was rescued by the coast guard after overturning his jet-ski while vacationing in Maine

    2. He was chased by the IRS for unpaid back taxes totalling an alleged $6.5m

    3. He was given an honorary knighthood ("Sir Nicolas Cage of Camelot") by the manager of the Camelot Castle hotel in Cornwall

    4. He turned on the Christmas lights in Bath, shouting to onlookers that he was "feeling kind of ELECTRIC right now"

  15. What won the Palme d'Or at the 2009 Cannes film festival?

    1. Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon

    2. Marco Bellocchio's Vincere

    3. Jacques Audiard's Un Prophète

    4. Jane Campion's Bright Star

  16. Name the unlikely double act that helped produce The Young Victoria

    1. Sir Richard Attenborough and Abel Ferrara

    2. Sarah Ferguson and Martin Scorsese

    3. Ken Loach and Paris Hilton

    4. Harvey Weinstein and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex

  17. Just who (or what) is Shane Hurlbut?

    1. He was the cinematographer famously bawled out by actor Christian Bale on the set of Terminator Salvation

    2. It was the pseudonym used by director Phil Traill, to distance himself from the flop Sandra Bullock comedy All About Steve

    3. It was the birth name of the actor Patrick Swayze, who died in September

    4. It is the title of a Hollywood comedy starring Robin Williams and Bill Cosby that was tugged from the release schedule following a reputedly disastrous test screening in June

  18. This was the year in which Tom Cruise finally revealed his great boyhood ambition: "When I was a kid I always wanted to ..."

    1. "... go to the moon"

    2. "... have sex with Marilyn Monroe"

    3. "... own one of those old flexible flyer swing sets. But, you know, one that really flew"

    4. "... kill Hitler"

  19. Three of the following movies earned upwards of $800m at the global box office in 2009. One fell shy. Spot the loser

    1. 2012

    2. Ice Age 3

    3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

    4. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

  20. "I'm so sorry, Anne [Hathaway], Meryl [Streep], Kristin [Scott Thomas] … Oh God, who's the other one?" An exultant Kate Winslet offers her sympathies to the losing nominees at the Golden Globes. But who was the other one?

    1. Penélope Cruz

    2. Marion Cotillard

    3. Angelina Jolie

    4. Cate Blanchett

Solutions

1:C, 2:B, 3:C, 4:A, 5:A, 6:D, 7:B, 8:C, 9:D, 10:B, 11:C, 12:C, 13:D, 14:A, 15:A, 16:B, 17:A, 18:D, 19:A, 20:C

Scores

  1. 0 and above.

    Yikes. Did you even visit the cinema at all in 2009?

  2. 8 and above.

    Not bad; middle of the curve. Chances are you saw three blockbusters and two art-house releases in 2009. You preferred the blockbusters

  3. 13 and above.

    Highly impressive. Not much got past you in 2009. But a few gaps in your knowledge keep you off the pinnacle

  4. 19 and above.

    Brilliant. Get thee to an Oscar
 

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