Auntie's Quiz O' the Week

[DickZ]

Thanks for your UN quizzz, Auntie. I'm still going downhill as a trend from the last quizzz, as I only got #s 4, 5, and 6. I should have also gotten #12, but I said Morocco instead of Algeria.

Maybe I should be embarrassed to say this in public, but as much as I've always wanted to read some of Hemingway's works, I still haven't gotten around to doing that yet. For Whom the Bell Tolls has been on the top of my list because I always admired the poet who came up with that phrase in the first place. I think his name was Don Johnne, or something like that.

[Niamh]

I got 2,3 and 9.

[DickZ]

As I'm sitting here with pins and needles waiting for Aunt Shecky's October 30-31 quizzz, I'm going to make a prediction that it will be associated with Thanksgiving or some other great holiday.

So I'm going to start studying all I can about Thanksgiving so I'll be ready when the quizzz hits the top of my desk and the teacher says "GO." Am I prepared - or what?

[AuntShecky]

Suffrage Succotash

This coming Tuesday, November 4, Americans will vote for a new President as well as numerous local, state wide and Congressional offices. (If nothing else, once Election Day comes and go we won't have to “suffer” through any more political ads.) But the electoral process served as inspiration for many works of literature; hence, the topic of this week’s quiz. Take the quiz early and often, and if you're unsatisfied with the results, we'll give you a recount! Ready to pull the levers?

1. What was the 1976 movie about the two reporters who covered (and uncovered) the Watergate scandal?

2. Name the acclaimed Robert Penn Warren novel about Willie Stark, a rural politician said to have been modeled upon Huey Long.

3. In 1939, Jimmy Stewart played a wide-eyed, fresh faced, soon-to-be-disillusioned Congressman in which Frank Capra movie?

4. Based on a novel by Richard Condon, this movie featured Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Angela Lansbury in a taut thriller about brainwashing and an assassination plot. Name the 1962 film directed by John Frankenheimer.

5. After a drunk sells his wife, his guilty conscience makes him reform so much that he rises to a high municipal political office. Does Demon Drink capture him again? Name this 1866 novel by Thomas Hardy.

6. During the Great Depression, the brothers Gershwin, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind collaborated on a play about a happy-go-lucky guy who becomes President largely because of his resonant name, “John T. Wintergreen.” So what was the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama? (Hint: the title comes from a line in “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”)

7. What was the 1972 movie starring Robert Redford as an idealistic young man running for the Senate?

8. What was Gore Vidal’s play about a Presidential Campaign whose title makes one think it’s about a wedding?

9. In 1975 Masterpiece Theatre aired a miniseries originally produced by the BBC about the women in the Pankhurst family and their fight for women’s right to vote. What was the title? (Hint: The title could have qualified it for the body parts quiz from a couple weeks ago.)

10. A teacher played by Matthew Broderick becomes increasingly irritated by Reese Witherspoon’s character, Tracy Flick, a ruthless and ambitious high school student who wants to be Student Council President. Name this 1999 movie.


Answers:
1. All the President’s Men 2. All the King’s Men 3. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
4. The Manchurian Candidate
5. The Mayor of Casterbridge 6. Of Thee I Sing 7. The Candidate 8. The Best Man
9. Shoulder to Shoulder
10. Election

[DickZ]

Gosh Auntie, I studied the wrong holiday!

And because of that, I only got numbers 1, 2, 3, and 7 right. I should have gotten number 4 as well, because I had the answer on the tip of my tongue, but couldn't get it off the tip and onto my quizzz paper.

And thanks for all your efforts in putting these quizzzes together. You spend a lot more time preparing them than our combined time spent in composing our responses. It doesn't hardly seem fair, somehow. Or maybe that should be hardly doesn't. I can never remember the rule.

And I'm certainly with you on how great it will be not to have to suffer through those TV commercials - or to have to take all those phone calls where you don't want to talk even to the people who are working for the party of your choice because even they are driving you nuts.

[Pendragon]

1,2,3, and 6. How do you come up with these toughies?

[Niamh]

I only got no.5!

[papayahed]

I only knew 5. 1,2,3,4, and 10.

[AuntShecky]

Oh, For Art’s Sake. . .

...and for Stlukesguild, the LitNets maven of the fine arts, to whom this week's quiz is dedicated.)

The answers all involve movies, music, and literary works about paintings and painters. Get the picture? Don’t worry if you color outside the lines.

1. Which Oscar Wilde novel concerned a reprobate who lives high while a portrait of himself deteriorates?

2. In the 1956 movie, Lust for Life, Kirk Douglas played which nineteenth century Dutch painter?

3. What's the title of Robert Browning’s famous dramatic monologue in which nobleman stands under a portrait of his late wife while talking about her to a visitor?

4. Mussorgsky originally composed a set of piano pieces which Ravel later orchestrated into a concert program. What was the title of this work which musically walks a patron through an art museum?

5. What was the title of Stephen Sondheim’s well-received Broadway musical about the French pointillist painter, Seurat?

6. What was the title of the 1965 Technicolor extravaganza about the painting of the Sistine Chapel in which Charlton Heston played an over-the-top Michelangelo and Rex Harrison was miscast as the Pope?

7. Who wrote “The Man With the Blue Guitar,” a modern American poem about a Picasso painting?

8. John Huston’s 1952 movie, Moulin Rouge, concerned which diminutive French post-impressionist painter?

9. Marcia Gay Harden won an Academy Award in 2000 for her acting this film, which also featured brilliant performances by Jennifer Connelly and Ed Harris in the title role. Name this movie about an abstract expressionist painter.

10. Name the one-word title of the 1998 Tony Award winning drama centered around three friends and a controversial painting consisting of a blank white canvas?

Answers
1. The Picture of Dorian Gray 2. Vincent Van Gogh 3. "My Last Duchess"
4. Pictures at an Exhibition
5. Sunday in the Park With George
6. The Agony and the Ecstasy (Moviegoers one surmises experienced more of the former than the latter.)
7. Wallace Stevens
8. Toulouse-Lautrec 9. Pollock 10. Art

[DickZ]

Great quizzz, Auntie, even though art isn’t my strong suit. Come to think of it, I don’t have any strong suits.

However, I was able to get numbers 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 right. I even knew van Gogh’s first name so I hope I can get some extra credit to make up for the questions I had no idea about.

I agree with your comment on number 6 – I loved the book, but couldn’t make it through the entire movie despite trying at least three times.

[Niamh]

I'm pathetic. I only got 1,6 and 8

[Nightshade]

I only got one and two

[Virgil]

I got five correct: 1, 2, 3, 6, 7.

[Niamh]

I got five correct: 1, 2, 3, 6, 7.

rub it in why dont ya!

[Pendragon]

1 and 2 How pathetic for me!