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Last Week's Quiz

Read This First

  • Submit your answers by 4:43am ET 3/18/24
  • Don't cheat. Cheating is bad. Using Google IS cheating.
  • Trivia graders don't care about spelling (but try your hardest)
  • No negative points for incorrect responses (so guess to your heart's content)
  • Email [email protected] for clarification on any questions

Every year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences celebrates the American film industry with The Oscars.

If you were to put aside professional football, it’s far and away the most watched television program in the U.S. year in and year out.



We here at Water Cooler are going to take a look way, way behind the scenes at the ten films up for the coveted Best Picture statue this year.

And the nominees are...

MISCELLANEOUS Q1. Cinematic Couples: “Barbie” - Among the many influences Greta Gerwig brought to “Barbie” was the idea of Barbie and Ken’s innocence being sacrificed to self-awareness. Gerwig says she was inspired by what couple found in Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and, you know, “Genesis”?



MISCELLANEOUS Q2. Sung's Soju: “Past Lives” - In a couple of heartache scenes, Hae Sung gets schnockered with his buddies on what appears to be soju. Sometimes made with cassava to cut costs, Korean soju is traditionally distilled with what grain that also fuels sake?



SCIENCE & TECH Q3. Body Books: “Poor Things” - The Frankenstein-like antics in the novel “Poor Things” are accompanied by fragments of images that author Alisdair Gray plucked pretty aptly from what body book that existed way before that Ellen Pompeo TV show?



SOCIAL STUDIES Q4. Racial Regulations: “Killers of the Flower Moon” - 2021’s House Bill 1775 came sweepin’ down the plain to regulate the discussion of race and gender in the public school classrooms of what state where the Osage murders in David Grann’s book “Killers of the Flower Moon” took place?



FINE ARTS Q5. Donne Detonation: “Oppenheimer” - Inspired by a John Donne poem and not a Cajun mix of onions, bell peppers and celery, Oppenheimer himself used what T-word as the codename for the test detonation of the first atomic bomb?



MISCELLANEOUS Q6. Italian Inspirations: “Anatomy of a Fall” - The bonkers Swiss courtroom gender-shaming prosecution in “Anatomy” was inspired by the nutty Italian courtroom prejudice in the real-life 2007 case against what American student?



MISCELLANEOUS Q7. Pet Puppies: “The Zone of Interest” - Probably the only adorable fact about “Zone” is that star Sandra Hüller’s own dog co-stars as the family pet. It’s a Weimaraner, a breed that hails from what modern day country?



SOCIAL STUDIES Q8. Diamond Desserts: “The Holdovers” - The characters of “The Holdovers” bond over a makeshift version of cherries jubilee, about 80-ish years after Auguste Escoffier invented that dessert for the 1897 Diamond Jubilee of what UK queen?



MISCELLANEOUS Q9. Notable Names: “American Fiction” - You don’t need to be an oracle to know that the family of characters we meet in “American Fiction” have what last name shared with real life Minnesota Attorney General Keith and “Invisible Man” author Ralph?



POP CULTURE Q10. Opera Origins: “Maestro” - At the beginning of “Maestro,” Leonard Bernstein is working on an opera that shares its name with what mostly silent 2018 John Krasinski and Emily Blunt horror movie?



TIEBREAKER American Amounts: Now that “American Fiction” joined the list, how many Best Picture Oscar winners and nominees have “American” in their titles?

Quiz is closed and your answers are now locked! Graders are grading and results will be sent on 3/18/24