Quiz Time!
A little bit of festive fun
I wasn’t sure I was going to do this again this year, but with everything going on over the end of the year, I probably ought to prep something in advance for the last newsletter of 2024. To make things a bit more interesting, I’m basing this year’s quiz on the I have enjoyed section of the past year’s newsletters, so let’s see who’s been paying attention…
Your 2024 Christmas Quiz
Chloé Zhao’s Songs My Brothers Taught Me was a gem of a movie I stumbled upon towards the start of the year. She went on to win an Academy Award for Nomadland before helming which sorely underrated entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
The Midnight Sky is a Netflix movie adaptation of Lily Brooks-Dalton’s Good Morning, Midnight starring which nineties heartthrob in full-on beardy old tramp mode?
Alan Bates and Terence Stamp play two of the men in love with Julie Christie’s Far From The Madding Crowd, but who plays the third?
Bong Joon-Ho won internation acclaim with Parasite, but what was the name of his debut, which I was bigging up in February?
Who’s this?
William Powell and Carole Lombard starred in a 1936 screwball comedy about a dirty old tramp pulled out from the gutter to become a wealthy Manhattanite’s butler, but what was it called?
In April I was praising John Reynolds and Sunita Mani’s hipster sci-fi comedy Save Yourselves! Can you name the show Reynolds starred in with Arrested Development’s Alia Shawkat about a missing college student?
In Drive My Car, Hidetoshi Nishijima plays a theatre director in an adaptation of a Haruki Murakami story, but which play is he working on as he mourns the loss of his wife?
Hilo and Barry Ween creator Judd Winick is also known for his superhero comics, including successful runs on Green Lantern and Green Arrow, but from 2003 to 2007 he was writing which Batman-associated superteam? Clue: the team shares its name with a 1983 Francis Ford Coppola movie.
Who’s this?
“I agree with every rating of this movie. 1/2 star? Absolutely. Five star? Couldn’t agree more” - this totally correct Letterboxd review summed up the 2015 Gregg Turkington movie Entertainment. Name the Turkington alter-ego that he’s probably portraying in this movie.
Count Arthur Strong star Rory Kinnear plays multiple characters in Men, opposite the wonderful Jessie Buckley. Who directed it?
In July, I was raving about Japanese low-budget time-travel comedy River by Makoto Ueda and Junta Yamaguchi. River was made in 2023, but the two had already had success in 2020 with another head-scratching time-travel movie. Name it.
Easy one here - Jennifer Garner got to reprise her role as which Marvel character in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine?
Joyland in Great Yarmouth boasts the last remaining theme park ride of this type in the world - but which type?
1952 espionage thriller The Thief, starring Ray Milland, is notable for having no what?
In September this year, we bid a fond farewell to screen legend Dame Maggie Smith. Smith was one of the impressive ensemble cast in my all-time favourite movie, the Peter Ustinov-as-Poirot classic Death on the Nile, playing Bowers, the companion to Bette Davis’ formidable Marie Van Schuyler. In a memorable line, Bowers claims there’s only two things in this world she can’t abide, heat and…
Grandaddy released a new album in 2024, can you name it?
The brilliant Amber Midthunder plays a young Comanche woman in Prey, the 2022 instalment in which long-running franchise?
Who’s this, pairing up with Jayne Mansfield?
Answers on New Year’s Eve!
I hope you had a good 2024, and that your 2025 is an improvement. Thank you so much for your support. The little corner of Substack I inhabit may not be hugely populated, but you being here makes it all worthwhile, genuinely. Writing is, by its very nature, a potentially lonely occupation, so the opportunity to reach out to you every fortnight is a gift. I appreciate your reading and I hope I bring a small amount of interest and pleasure into your inboxes.
More of the same, and some new books, next year!
Greyskin (Deixis Press) and Playtime’s Over (Propolis) are both available direct from their respective publishers, as well as from all the usual places, online and off. You can also support my work by buying Ray Adams’ self-published books, or by simply buying me a coffee.
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I'm hoping for 5...