The Christmas Movie Quiz

Any day now, they will start.  TV networks will broadcast classic Christmas movies, and they won’t stop until Christmas is over.  There will probably even be a marathon of A Christmas Story, as there has been every year since ... please don’t ask me, because I can’t remember.

In order to prepare for this yearly film festival, I have prepared a little quiz that will make you aware of how much you need to bone up on your Christmas movie knowledge, so that you can get up and go to the kitchen at any time during any of the shows without missing anything important.

The Christmas Movie Quiz

1.       Home Alone:  What is the name of the kid who is left alone on Christmas?

a.       Buddy

b.      Ed

c.       Kevin

d.      Krampus

e.       That’s no kid.  That’s a miniature demon.

2.       Home Alone:  Why does _______’s family leave him alone on Christmas?

a.       He’s an obnoxious brat and they hate him

b.      They’re stupid

c.       He’s stupid

d.      They’re late leaving for the airport to go to Europe and, in their hurry, they leave him behind

e.       All of the above

3.      Elf:  What is the name of the man who was raised by elves at the North Pole?

a.       Buddy

b.      Ed

c.       Kevin

d.      Krampus

e.       That’s no elf.  That’s a moron in a green suit.

4.      It’s a Wonderful Life:  What is the famous quote about bells in this movie?

a.       Ring those bells!

b.      Who keeps ringing those stupid bells?

c.       This is the one that made me deaf.

d.      Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.

e.       Keep doing that, and you’ll be hearing bells!

5.      The Bishop’s Wife:  Why does an angel who looks like Cary Grant choose a name like Dudley?

a.       It’s his name

b.      Nobody knows

c.       Nobody cares

d.      He won that name in a lottery

e.       It’s a nice name and he likes it

6.      Miracle on 34^th Street:  Poll:  Is Mr. Kringle really Santa Claus?

a.       Oh, come on!  You always wanted to think he was!

b.      He thinks he is, and that’s all that counts.

c.       Of course he is.  His beard is real, and everything.

d.      Are you joking?

e.       Anything is possible, if you just believe.

7.      A Christmas Story:  What does Ralphie want for Christmas?

a.       A pair of bunny pajamas with feet

b.      Somebody to force-feed his little brother

c.       A supply of Lifebuoy soap

d.     A Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. 

e.       A football

8.      A Christmas Story:  What radio personality lets Ralphie down in a very dramatic way?

a.       The Lone Ranger

b.      Jack Benny

c.       The Shadow

d.      Little Orphan Annie

e.       Ovaltine

9.      The Polar Express:  All of the kids on the Polar Express are traveling to the North Pole in their pajamas.  Why don’t they put on their coats?

a.       Mom isn’t watching them.

b.      The train only stops long enough for them to run out the door.

c.       The look in the eyes of that scary conductor

d.      They don’t want to

e.       All of the above

10.  The Polar Express:  Who sings the theme song in this film?

a.       Some jerk

b.      A guy with a tenor voice

c.       Josh Groban

d.      Luciano Pavarotti

e.       A computer

Okay.  I have given you enough to get you started.  It is now up to you.

Women Are Like ... What Again?

This is the third installment in what is apparently becoming a series.

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Women and the Movies

Most of us enjoy a good movie.  The question is, what movie and why.

Science Fiction Action Movies

They have excitement, explosions, chases, fights, shooting, explosions, objects that can destroy the universe, people getting into cosmic messes in places far away from earth, and explosions.  Some of them also have ugly monsters who have a lot of fun making life impossible for humans.  Muscular, hunky robots are also common.  Sometimes they are the good guys, but to us Real Women who are heterosexually oriented that isn’t as important as the hunk factor.

A guy might suggest going to see the latest sci-fi action flick because he loves special effects, fights, explosions and monsters.  He imagines himself in the role of the hero, vanquishing evil all over the cosmos and protecting everyone from some painful annihilation dreamed up by an imaginative screenwriter.

The guy’s girlfriend will be happy to go with him, but her priorities will be checking out all the hot male stars and admiring the female lead for being able to fight and shoot like a man.  She will wish she looked as good as said female lead in those tight, body-hugging costumes.  Special effects and fights are entertaining, but she can take them or leave them.  The plot of the movie and the sexiness of the onscreen males are most important, especially if the plot includes romance or cute characters like Rocket Raccoon and Baby Groot in http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3896198/ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

James Bond Movies

These films are in a class of their own.  James Bond is the ultimate Sexy Hot Heavy-Breathing Inducing Movie Guy, whether he is played by Sean Connery or Daniel Craig.  The fact that he only hangs around with stunning women who look 500 times better than any of us doesn’t bother us heterosexual Real Women, because we all daydream about being Bond girls – at least the ones who don’t get killed.  Getting killed puts a real damper on the fun.

I mean, even Miss Moneypenney can’t get near him, and she’s not exactly ugly.  She just doesn’t look as good as Ursula Andress or Jane Seymour.  I think Mr. Bond should reassess his priorities.

James Bond is cool.  He never has to buy a car, courtesy of the British government, and he can drive like a maniac and never get a traffic ticket.  His cars have all kinds of gadgetry, and he’s so smart all it takes is one little demonstration session with Q and he is automatically quick acting and competent at all of them.  For those of us who must pour over instructions word by word to learn to operate a simple kitchen appliance, this is an incredible feat of genius.  I wonder if Q slips an instruction brochure under the driver’s seat, in case 007 forgets how to operate the cigarette lighter bomb or the exhaust pipe torpedo.

... or how to shoot a gun

James Bond can’t be bothered going undercover.  He announces his name out loud to everyone who can hear him: “Bond.  James Bond.”  That takes real moxie.  It’s stupid, but it takes moxie.

He likes his Martinis shaken, not stirred.  I don’t know the difference myself, but, when he isn’t killing someone or chasing A-list women, he has real class, at least when it comes to mixed drinks.

When offered a choice between Goldfinger or The Terminator on cable TV, a Real Woman is going to choose Goldfinger, unless a guy who is ready to defend it to the death has control of the remote.

Member of the Bond Girl
Gene Pool

Casablanca

Guys want to be like Humphrey Bogart.  Women want to be courted by him.  Guys wonder why the Ingrid Bergman character doesn’t leave Victor Laszlo and stay with Rick so the two of them can take up the great sex they had been having in Paris behind Victor’s back.  Women understand that the movie must end the way it does, but it’s just so ROMANTIC that way, especially for those of us who cry at sad movies.  After all, the problems of three little people aren’t worth … well, you know.[1]

This brings us to the subject of romantic movies in general.

Romantic Movies

Most Real Women are suckers for sappy onscreen romance, especially the kind that is not likely to ever happen in real life at any time, ever.  How many street hookers wind up with billionaire boyfriends?  Come to think of it, how many street hookers look like Julia Roberts and how many billionaires look like Richard Gere?[2]

Back in the 1920s, women were fainting with desire over Rudolph Valentino and sighing when he hooked up with an onscreen love.

Things haven’t changed much.

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[1] In case you have been living on another planet for the last several decades, that’s a quote from Casablanca.

[2] Pretty Woman, okay?  There.  I gave the proper credit.

Awful Lessons Taught by Familiar Stories

There are fairy tales, folk tales, books and movies that have become so familiar to us that they are programmed into our nerve endings.  In most cases, we are taught to see positive messages in these stories.  On the other hand, there are multi-layers in these familiar tales, and if we look deeper into them we find some lessons that are best left untaught.  Here is a partial list of these sneaky subliminal messages.

Batman:  You can always recognize an evil person because they are the weirdest looking bunch of psychopaths on the planet.

Beauty and the Beast:  Bestiality will be rewarded.

Cinderella:  Your most important measurement is your shoe size.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears:  If you are a cute little blonde kid, it is okay to wander into a house when the occupants are out, eat their food, mess up their furniture and sleep in their beds, then, when they come home and find you, run away without even offering to clean up after yourself.

Hansel and Gretel (a):  If you get lost in a forest, you won’t freeze or starve or be attacked by a wild animal.  You just have to stay away from evil, cannibal witches.

Hansel and Gretel (b):  If you don’t have any food in the house and your kids are pestering you because they’re hungry, it’s okay to send them out into the woods to pick berries, even if an evil, cannibal witch lives nearby.

... like this one

Jack and the Beanstalk:  Breaking, entering and burglarizing is perfectly okay, as long as the victim is a giant.

Old Yeller:  It’s alright to cry buckets of tears when Old Yeller gets rabies and the kid has to shoot him.  (Yes, this is a GOOD lesson.  I just want to see if you are paying attention.)

Rumpelstiltskin:  It’s okay to get someone to do all your work for you, then stiff him on his wages.

Shrek:  It’s a lot of fun to pick up random animals in the woods and fields and blow them up into helium balloons.

Sleeping Beauty:  It is perfectly alright to sleep for 36,500 days, and no, you won’t die of hunger and thirst in the process.

Snow White:  Necrophilia will be rewarded.

Star Wars (a):  Never try to kill a wicked monster who destroys whole planets because he might turn out to be your long lost father.

Star Wars (b):  A brave, intelligent, resourceful, valiant young woman like Princess Leia is appreciated, but she will never be invited to train as a Jedi because … well … she’s a woman.  She also needs a new hairdresser.

Superman:  Forget what you hear about journalists who go after stories with all the energy they have.  Big metropolitan newspapers hire mild mannered reporters.

The Lord of the Rings:  If you think you are being spied on by a huge, fiery eye, you are.

The Terminator:  A machine that used to be a murdering monster will make a great substitute father if you reprogram his brain.

The Wizard of Oz (a):  You can kill evil, green-skinned people by forcing them to bathe.

The Wizard of Oz (b):  It is worth it to risk your life for a great pair of shoes.

Ghostbuster Kitties

Cats can see ghosts.  Everyone knows this who has ever watched a cat stare at what appears to be a blank wall.  Yesterday morning, I went to an AMC Loews theater and saw the new Ghostbusters in IMAX 3-D.  It struck me that, in case of a ghost apocalypse, New York City would not need a team of humans armed with proton packs in order to annihilate the spectral assailants.  All you would need would be cats.  Lots of them.  New York City has cats.  Lots of them.

In spite of what everyone has heard, cats can be trained.  Aspiring cat trainers are recognizable by the scars on their arms, legs and faces and the little holes in their clothing.  It would be a simple process to take these scratched and bitten humans and train them to be cat whisperers.  Once this initial goal is achieved, the next step would be for the cat whisperers to gather all the stray cats in the city, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.  If music proves to be an effective feline attractor, I recommend The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Solomon Linda.  That song has an easy hypnotic effect.

Once a cat finds a ghost, it is imperative to get the cat to chase the offending spirit away.  Cats are notoriously averse to obeying humans.  It will have to be in the cat’s interest to attack a ghost.  I recommend using laser pointers.  The minute a cat spots an invisible entity and begins to stare at it, its cat whisperer can take the laser pointer and point the little red dot in the direction in which the cat is staring.  The cat will attack the red dot and, in the process, scare the invisible pants off the ghost, who will fly off into wherever startled spirits go.

I think I should present this plan to the office of the Mayor of New York City, once I have it perfected.  I wonder how a letter of commendation would look on my wall.