FFWD Weekly
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Video Vulture by John Tebbutt For those of you who are sick of playing "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce another movie trivia game: Apartment Zero. The game gets its title and rules from the excellent 1988 film Apartment Zero, in which Colin Firth plays a creepy, movie-obsessed nut. The rules are simple: one player names three actors from a film, and the other player tries to guess the title. The actors named do not necessarily have to be the film’s stars – bit parts are equally admissible. Just make sure you can think of the names of three actors for the film you have in mind. ("James Woods, Deborah Harry and that chick from Street Legal," for example, is not a valid question.) Try it. Have fun. Here’s a few movies that work well: Q: Jim Carrey, Clint Eastwood and Bernadette Peters. A: Pink Cadillac (1989). Carrey appears briefly as a nightclub comic, doing an "Elvis as a Thalidomide baby" impression. Q: Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm and Harry Dean Stanton A: Alien (1979). Nobody ever guesses this one if you don’t mention Sigourney Weaver. Feel free to throw John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto and Veronica Cartwright in there, too. Q: Just about everybody A: The Player (1992). An ungodly number of stars had cameos in this Hollywood satire. There’s Whoopi Goldberg, Brion James, Vincent D’Onofrio, Dean Stockwell, Richard E. Grant, Lyle Lovett, Gina Gershon, Elliott Gould, Lily Tomlin, Bruce Willis, Julia Roberts, Karen Black, Gary Busey, James Coburn, Cher, Peter Falk, Jeff Goldblum, Malcolm McDowell, Rod Steiger, Martin Mull... (are you still reading? I’m just going to go on like this). If somebody stumps you at the Apartment Zero game, you might as well guess The Player – or It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Q: Mary Tyler Moore, Elvis Presley and Ed Asner A: Change of Habit (1969). Elvis’ last movie. Moore plays a nun in love with Elvis. Q: Regis Philbin, Tony Randall and Gene Wilder A: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972). Sketch comedy from Woody Allen. Also features John Carradine, Lynn Redgrave, Burt Reynolds and Woody. Q: Vincent Price, Dennis Hopper and Harpo Marx A: The Story of Mankind (1957). I love telling people the cast of this movie – they never believe me. In this all-star epic (which has its own chapter in Harry & Michael Medved’s book, The Fifty Worst Films of All Time), the "Spirit of Man" (Ronald Colman) is brought before the High Tribunal of Outer Space to stand trial for humanity’s crimes. The rest of the film is made up of historical vignettes, as Colman cites various heroes as part of his defense, while Lucifer (Vincent Price) points out the antics of humanity’s greatest villains. We get to see the Reader’s Digest-length versions of the lives of Cleopatra (Virginia Mayo), Joan of Arc (Hedy Lamarr), Nero (Peter Lorre), Sir Isaac Newton (Harpo Marx), Napoleon (Dennis Hopper), and Groucho Marx as Peter Minuit, the guy who bought Manhattan from the Indians for $24. Q: Donald Pleasance, Dame Edna Everage (a.k.a. Barry Humphries) and Little Nell. A: Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (1985). Australia’s then-prime minister shows up, too. The director of this embarrassing, tasteless comedy, Bruce Beresford, went on to make Driving Miss Daisy and Black Robe. Q: Burt Reynolds, Pandora Peaks and Ving Rhames. A: Striptease (1996). If your opponent doesn’t recognize the name of zeppelin-breasted stripper Pandora Peaks, be nice and use Demi Moore’s name instead. It’s not like you’re playing for money, or anything. WARNING: You’re going to have to admit that you’ve seen this movie.

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