PROFESSOR LARRY GOPNIK’S POST-HANUKAH, PRE-CHRISTMAS, POST-SCHRODINGER, PRE-APOCALYPSE SLIFR HOLIDAY MOVIE QUIZ

Ladies and gentlemen, it has been a while since Miss Jean Brodie asked you firmly but politely to put your pencils down and seal off your answers to the last SLIFR movie quiz. But we here at SLIFR University know that even if you, as a student body, have not been as rigorously tested of late as you may have become accustomed to in previous sessions, your education has most certainly gone on, the inexorable accrual of knowledge and experience as impossible to deny as it is impossible to justify your outrageous tuition bills.

And after all, what is a ridiculously expensive education good for if not for flaunting all that knowledge, which probably seems at best trivial to those outside the grueling scrutiny of academia, in semester-ending exercises such as these exams? For those inside the confines of that intense world, the incessant intrusion of such a bombardment of book-learnin’ simply must coexist with the pleasures of art and music and the occasional bacchanalian beer blast. The awareness of this apparently paradoxical coexistence creates, for the distanced yet interested observer, a consideration of conditions that have become standard operational procedure for the typical SLIFR student, that is the condition of being simultaneously both dead-- crushed by oppressive forces within academia like, you know, Dean Wormer or somebody-- and alive to the possibilities of life opened up by exposure to the likes of Vermeer, Whitman, the Renoirs and, of course, a seemingly endless supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

We here at SLIFR U feel that there is no one better to guide you through the challenges of this year-end testing experience than one who is well acquainted with this sort of quantum physics-derived philosophical conundrum, the sort of challenge which you may face in this new quiz when forced to choose between two art film sex bombs of the ‘60s, or to justify wanting to put a ballpeen hammer upside the head of some guy in line at the hardware store when you overhear him start to diss Last Year at Marienbad, which just happens to be your favorite movie. Yes, there is only one man on the teaching staff here who we feel is up to that Herculean, or perhaps more appropriately that Schrodingeresque task. He is, of course, Professor Larry Gopnik, head of the mathematics department here at SLIFR U, an esteemed educator, master scribbler of figures, amateur philosopher and occasional dabbler in the niche arena of religion-based hauntings. Professor Gopnik has concocted, for your delectation and frustration, with all awareness toward the multiple religious festivals and perspectives being celebrated during this season, his very own Post-Hanukah, Pre-Christmas, Post-Schrodinger, Pre-Apocalypse Holiday Movie Quiz, which he assures us is imminently finishable well in advance of the end of the world.

The usual request applies as much to this quiz as to all the ones previous. For each query, copy and paste the question into the comments field and provide the question along with your answer, so the reader will be able to more easily track which question it is you are answering without having to constantly scroll back up to the top of the post. There are no other restrictions or guidelines. And there are, of course, no wrong responses. Short answers are, of course, quite acceptable, though the more detailed your answer, the more entertaining it is likely to be for the scholars who hold your grade, and thus your fate, in their hands. And if you have your own blog, please feel free to post your answers there and leave a link below to your own page.

So let’s get crackin’. Blue Books open, spit out your gum, sharpen your Metzenbaum scissors (we think outside the box here at SLIFR U), and for God’s sake, get that Schrodinger’s cat out of here! You may have as much time as you need to finish, or until that twister blows through town. Have fun!



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1) Favorite unsung holiday film

2) Name a movie you were surprised to have liked/loved

3) Ned Sparks or Edward Everett Horton?

4) Sam Peckinpah's Convoy-- yes or no?

5) What contemporary actor would best fit into a popular, established genre of the past

6) Favorite non-disaster movie in which bad weather is a memorable element of the film’s atmosphere

7) Second favorite Luchino Visconti movie

8) What was the last movie you saw theatrically? On DVD/Blu-ray?

9) Explain your reaction when someone eloquently or not-so-eloquently attacks one of your favorite movies (Question courtesy of Patrick Robbins)

10) Joan Blondell or Glenda Farrell?

11) Movie star of any era you’d most like to take camping

12) Second favorite George Cukor movie

13) Your top 10 of 2013 (feel free to elaborate!)

14) Name a movie you loved (or hated) upon first viewing, to which you eventually returned and had more or less the opposite reaction

15) Movie most in need of a deluxe Blu-ray makeover

16) Alain Delon or Marcello Mastroianni?

17) Your favorite opening sequence, credits or no credits (provide link to clip if possible)

18) Director with the strongest run of great movies

19) Is elitism a good/bad/necessary/inevitable aspect of being a cineaste?

20) Second favorite Tony Scott film

21) Favorite movie made before you were born that you only discovered this year. Where and how did you discover it?

22) Actor/actress you would most want to see in a Santa suit, traditional or skimpy

23) Video store or streaming?

24) Best/favorite final film by a noted director or screenwriter

25) Monica Vitti or Anna Karina?

26) Name a worthy movie indulgence you’ve had to most strenuously talk friends into experiencing with you. What was the result?

27) The movie made by your favorite filmmaker (writer, director, et al) that you either have yet to see or are least familiar with among all the rest

28) Favorite horror movie that is either Christmas-oriented or has some element relating to the winter holiday season in it

29) Name a prop or other piece of movie memorabilia you’d most like to find with your name on it under the Christmas tree

30) Best holiday gift the movies could give to you to carry into 2014

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