movie trianagrams

Here's the whole list of movie trianagrams that ran in the National Post between Feb 4th and Feb 28th. Due to a mix-up, some editions of Feb 28th were missing the puzzle. They are included here as well as two bonus clues.

MOVIE TRIANAGRAMS

I have called this puzzle Trianangrams because it featured three words or names that that are anagrams of each other like “aspire,” “praise” and “Persia.” In this particular puzzle called Movie Trianagrams you must fill in the blanks for the missing words in the sentences, all that have movie themes. For example if the clue read

In his movie Jailhouse Rock _____ ______ the life of a _____-clad rock

star.

The missing words would be “Elvis””, “lives” and “Levis.” As an added

clue, you will find that the missing words become longer as the puzzle

progresses. In one case you are asked to fill in four blanks. Good luck.

1) ____ didn't think it was a big ____ that she shared the ____ with Roy

and Trigger in Bells of San Angelo.

2)Like Napoleon, actor Christopher ___ was ___ to see ____ but he never

made it to Corsica.

3) Producer of Fried Green Tomatoes Norman _____ didnt realize that the tea guy Grey was a ______ ______.

4)Even though there was nary a ____ on the scrubbed _____, Cinderella`s

evil step-sisters would not ____ scolding her.

5)Neither Patricia _____ nor Nathan ____ ever starred in a movie

directed by David _____.

6)In An Inconvenient Truth, Al ____ lambastes many an environmental

____ who denies global warming and ____ is endangering the planet.

7)Like other directors, Oliver _____ at the _____ of a scene takes _____

as to the position of cameras.

8) When she accepted an award for her role in On The Waterfront, Eva Marie ____ got a _____ on her _____ dress.

9)Unlike Fogg in Around the World in Eighty Days, (based on the book by Jules ____) I have ____ had the ___ to travel in a hot air balloon.

10)In the movie Misery, Kathy _____ plays the role of a ______ of a

woman who ______ a bedridden author.

11)After ____ bought her a horse, Sophia said, “What's the _____ , Carlo? We have no place to keep the _____.”

12)In The King's Speech Lionel Logue teaches the future King George VI how to cope with the ___ of cameras while talking to a ___ crowd and still maintaining a _____ mien.

13)In Fort Apache The Bronx, Ed ____ plays a cop that while ___ than many of his wacky colleagues, he falls into the ___ of bogus arrests in order to catch a cop killer.

14)In Music Box Jessica ____ plays a lawyer defending her father who is

accused of being a Nazi sympathizer. Eventually she is able to ___ than he

is no _____.

15) Bernadette _______ and Meryl _______ met at a _______ time to avoid fans likely to ______ them.

16) Tom had a tendency to _____ his words so I thought he said _____ as

in “Betty” where in fact he  said _____ as in “Hedda.”

17)_____ Boris Dvornik and Goran Visnjic are two ____ who were disappointed that they didn't meet ____ while filming in Havana.

18) In Waitress, Jenna (Keri Russell) is the ____ server in the restaurant

but she didn`t seem very _____ the day she forgot to clear the _______.

19)The _______ critic thought that the screen version of The _____

Cometh was rather ____ and lacked the passion found in the play.

20)We see the ______ side of Jodie _____ in Panic Room where she costars with _____ Whitaker.

21)In Interview with the Vampire, Lous de Pointe du Lac (Pitt) _____ Daniel Malloy (Chrisian _____) how he _____ his life at 24 and becomes a vampire.

22)Someone should have _____ Eduardo (_____ Garfield) in The Social Network that it was inevitable that he and Mark would ______ apart.

23)In Robin Hood, Robin (Crowe) _____ Marion (Blanchett) from her would-be ____ and thus    ______ her innocence.

24)Magnate and producer W.R. ______ had broken many _____ and

although he had many admirers in Hollywood he also had many _____.

25)Adam ______ claimed it was _____ to say he preferred Abby Van Buren over Ann _____.

26)Marilyn Monroe ______ to be _______ , if she was booed he would be

cast into deep _______.

27)In Remains of the Day, James Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) remarks that

he dislikes the ______ of many _______ and prefers a ____ and more low

key approach to life.

28)In Sound of Music, Maria ( Julie ______ ) a governess _____ into the life of Van Trapp and his seven children. As Capt. Van Trapp is a strict disciplanarian one day Maria says, “Captain loosen up, we are not their _____.”

Bonus Trianagrams

The Canadian fan base of the movie Clear & Present _____      _______ from Victoria, B.C. to         _____ , Nfld.

In a gripping scene in Incendies the misanthropic _____ Abou Tarek has just _____ the party line. He is devoid of humanity never having felt love or tasted a ______.

how Hollywood movies shape language

Ya think movies don’t shape language? Fuhgeddaboutit!

The 83^rd Academy Awards are being held this year on February 27^th and while the influence of movies on society is undeniable,(i.e., black movie presidents preceded Obama) their power to shape language is often forgotten. When Rhett Butler tells Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind (1939), “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” it marks the first time the word “damn” was allowed to be voiced either on the radio or in a film. Also popularized this same year was the expression, “Are you a man or a mouse?” asked of Jimmy Stewart by Carole Lombard in the movie Made for Each Other. This expression was probably influenced by John Steinbeck’s 1937 novel Of Mice and Men; Steinbeck, in turn, borrowed this title from a line in Robert Burns’ 1785 poem To a Mouse: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men.”


Even before the late 30s, however, expressions from movies were tunneling into our vernacular, albeit not always in the exact form uttered on the silver screen. The expression “Slip into something more comfortable” was originally rendered as “Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?” by the femme fatale played by Jean Harlow in the 1930 film Hell’s Angels. In Duck Soup released in 1927, Oliver Hardy says “here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into,” not “fine mess,” as it has more often been rendered. Credit Hollywood and not Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for penning “Elementary, my dear Watson.” The line was first used in The Return of Sherlock Holmes released in 1929 and became popularized through subsequent film versions starring Basil Rathbone.

Many expressions from movies display a cool insouciance or an attitude of defiance that explains why they so readily become buzzwords, particularly for young males. Some examples of such are “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse,” (The Godfather-1966); “Go ahead, make my day” (Sudden Impact -1983), and “You’re a funny guy. I like you .…That’s why I kill you, last.” (Commando-1985).

Also, movie dialogue actually helps us express ourselves. Let’s say you want to convey frustration. You could do no better than Peter Finch’s rant in the 1976 movie Network, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not taking any more.” Looking for a cheesy way to express love?, try “You are the cheese to my macaroni.” (Juno-2007) If you want a catchphrase that explains the need for an ambitious plan to have a large initial investment, try, “If you build it, they will come.”(Field of Dreams -1989) Movie phrases also provide us with shorthand expressions. In 1996, for example, Jerry Maguire gave us a pithy way of saying that rather than making things complicated, one should merely do what is required: “Show me the money.” Sometimes new expressions come into our vernacular from films regardless of the context of the film being lost. A case in point is Robert De Niro’s line from the 1976 film Taxi Driver, “You talkin’ to me?” is usually stated in a whimsical way. However, in the movie, De Niro plays a deranged taxi driver Travis Bickle who taunts himself in a mirror repeating in a belligerent mantra, “You talkin’ to me?”

Movies also have provided us with expressions that affirm our deepest desires. The line “There’s no place like home” was popularized in The Wizard of Oz. Thanks to the 1977 film Star Wars in which Ben ‘Obi-wan’ Kenobi tells Luke Skywalker, “May the force be with you,” heathens, like me, now have a secular blessing in our lexicon.

Ironically, a pair of movies featuring mobspeak help give us a crash course in semantics. In the 1990 movie Goodfellas, Tommy (Joe Pesci) asks for a semantic clarification after he is told by Henry (Ray Liotta) that he is “funny”: “Funny how? I mean, funny like I’m a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? … How da fuck am I funny? What da fuck is so funny about me?”

Another mob movie 1997’s Donny Brasco, features Johnny Depp in the title role as an undercover police officer taping the illegal activities of gangsters. He is asked by a fellow officer listening to the tape about the meaning of the ever-repeated expression, “fuhgeddaboutit,” and provides the following analysis: “ ‘Fuhgeddaboutit.’ It’s like if you agree with someone, like ‘Raquel Welch is one great piece of ass’- Fuhgedaddoutit! But then if you disagree like ‘A Lincoln is better than a Cadillac’? -Fuhgeddaboutit! But then if something is the greatest thing in the world, like those peppers-Fuhgeddaboutit! But it also means ‘Go to hell,’ like if I say to Paulie, ‘You have a one-inch pecker,’ and Paulie says, ‘Fuhgeddaboutit!’ Sometimes it just means ‘Forget about it.’ ”

And you thought television's The Sopranos popularized the term “fuhgeddaboutit?” Fuhgeddaboutit!

Howard Richler’s latest book is Strange Bedfellows: The Private Lives of Words

movie trianagrams-Natl Post

(The following appeared in the Natl Post on Feb 11th)

Misery loves company--and puzzles

Every Friday until the Oscar weekend of Feb. 27, we give you four movie-related sentences with three missing words. Puzzlers must fill in the blanks with words that are anagrams of each other. An example: "In his movie Jailhouse Rock _____ _____ the life of a ____- clad rock star." The missing words here would be "Elvis," "lives" and "Levis." Each week, the missing words will become longer as the puzzles become more difficult. Good luck!

1. In the movie Misery, Kathy _____ plays the role of a ____ __ of a woman who ______ a bedridden author.

2. After ____ bought her a horse, Sophia said, "What's the _____ , Carlo? We have no place to keep the _____."

3. In The King's Speech, Lionel Logue teaches the future King George VI how to cope with the ___ of cameras while talking to a ___ crowd and still maintaining a _____ mien.

4. In Fort Apache the Bronx, Ed ____ plays a cop that, while ___ than many of his wacky colleagues, nonetheless falls into the ___ of bogus arrests in order to catch a cop killer.

Answers to today's puzzles will appear in next week's Post Movies.
Answers to last week's puzzles:
1. Gore, ogre, ergo
2. Stone, onset, notes
3. Saint, stain, satin
4. Verne, never, nerve
Howard Richler, National Post


Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Misery+loves+company+puzzles/4262469/story.html#ixzz1DlGQQHoz

bird-brained lovers

(A version of this article appeared in the Feb 12th Globe &Mail)

Why lovers are bird-brained

by

Howard Richler

“On wings of love and fly to me my turtle dove.”
“As clear and pure as a turtle dove, and that is what fills me with love.”

I espied these two saccharine messages recently while perusing Valentine’s Day cards and had the humdrum epiphany that the turtle dove is the quintessential symbol for Valentine’ s Day. (Do not confuse the turtle dove with the reptilian turtle. The bird’s name in Old English was turtur, an onomatopoeic rendering of the bird’s coo.) Not only does “turtle dove” conveniently rhyme with “love,” but the turtle dove is also said to be a very solicitous partner that constantly dotes on its mate. This sense is reflected in the following passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses: “Take her for me... Yea, turtledove her.”

The turtle dove is but one example of the “animalistic” nature of romance. Lovers are referred to in other beastly ways such as “bunny,” “kitten,” “puppy,” “sparrow,” “sparling,” “lambkin,” “tiger,” and “stallion,” and are even compared to potentially disease-infested rodents, such as mice and squirrels.

The metaphorical use of animals to refer to lovers is a time-honoured practice. In his book The Lover’s Tongue, Mark Morton relates that the period from the 15^th to the 18^th century represented the apogee for the metaphorical comparison of one’s beloved with livestock: “People interacted with animals not just in their McNugget or Quarter-Pounder incarnations, but as fellow creatures, sharing the same plot of farmland, if not the same house.”

For example, in Shakespeare’s Henry V, the character Pistol exclaims, “Good bawcock, bate thy rage, use lenitie, sweet chuck!” “Bawcock” is a corruption of the French beau coq which means “beautiful cock” or more euphemistically “fine rooster”; “chuck” here is a variation of “chick.” In the Scottish poet William Dunbar’s 16^th century verse In Secreit Place This Hyndir Nycht, a woman in the poem addresses her lover thus: “My belly huddrun , my swete hurle bawsy” which translates as “My big lummox, my sweet unweaned calf.” I may never ever again be able to eat steak tartare without blushing.

Perhaps it would also be wise to avoid employing the term of endearment piggsneye, (especially if your beloved is kosher) used by Chaucer in The Miller’s Tale in 1388. The OED defines it as “one specially cherished; a darling, pet; commonly used as an endearing form of address.” It is a combined form of “pig’s-eye” and the OED relates that it “originated in children's talk and the fond prattle of nurses.” Its last recorded usage dates back to 1941 in C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters: “My dear, my very dear Wormwood, my poppet, my pigsnie.”

Of course, terms of endearment can transcend comparing your beloved to an animal. You can also employ nonsense rhymes such as “cutie wootie,” or “tootsie wootsie.” If you find these terms annoying, take solace that many others of this ilk are now archaic. In All's Well That Ends Well, Shakespeare refers to a husband’s “kicky-wicky” which transfers from its literal sense as a gray mare to a wife. Other rhyming terms that have similarly vanished are “gol-pol” (a woman with blonde hair), “crowdie-mowdie” (oatmeal and water eaten uncooked,) and the nonsensical duo of “slawsie gawsie” and “tyrlie myrlie.”

Equally grating are the variety of “–ums” words used as forms of endearment. These seem to have originated as terms for children (or cats) but were soon adopted by babbling, inarticulate lovers. Here we have the quartet of “diddums,” “pussums,”

“pookums” and “snookums.”

By the way, if you choose to call your beloved by some inane or bestial name this Valentine’s Day, please diregard everything I've written above.

Howard Richler's latest book is Strange Bedfellows: The Private Lives of Words.

National Post Movie Trianagrams

These quizzes appeared in the Natl Post On Jan 28th and Feb 4th. More will appear in the Natl Post every Friday until the Oscars.

Introducing a new puzzle feature to Post Movies: Howard Richler's Movie Trianagrams. Every Friday until the Oscar weekend of Feb. 27, we'll give you a series of movie-related sentences with three missing words. Players must fill in the blanks with words that are anagrams of each other. An example: "In his movie Jailhouse Rock _____ _____ the life of a ____-clad rock star." The missing words here would be "Elvis," "lives" and "Levis." Each week, the missing words will become longer as the puzzles become more difficult. Good luck!
1. ____ didn't think it was a big ____ that she shared the ____ with Roy and Trigger in Bells of San Angelo.

2. Neither Patricia _____ nor Nathan _____ ever starred in a movie directed by David _____.

3. Producer of Fried Green Tomatoes Norman ____ didn't realize that the tea guy Grey was a _____ ______.

4. Even though there was nary a ____ on the scrubbed _____, Cinderella's evil step-sisters would not ____ scolding her.
- Answers to today's puzzles will appear in next week's Post Movies.

 5)In An Inconvenient Truth, Al ____ lambastes many an environmental

____ who denies global warming and ____ is endangering the planet.

 

 6)Like other directors, Oliver _____ at the _____ of a scene takes _____

as to the position of cameras.

7) When she accepted an award for her role in On The Waterfront, Eva

Marie ____ got a _____ on her _____ dress.

8)Unlike Fogg in Around the World in Eighty Days, (based on the book by

Jules ____) I have ____ had the ___ to travel in a hot air balloon.

Super Football Trianagrams

The Superbowl is around the corner and it is time for all puzzlers to get their game faces on on see if they really know footballs  by competing in Super Football Trianagrams.

The puzzler has to fill in the three words in each sentence or phrase that are anagrams to each other. For example, if the clue read “On some  football  ___  players let off ____ by playing practical jokes on their  ____,"  you would have to fill in the words “teams,” “steam” and “mates.” As an added help to solve these football Trianagrams, I will tell you that the missing words get longer as the puzzle progresses. Good luck and may the cheeseheads prevail!

1)______ a teammate of ____ Longwell hadn't heard the ____ about his kicking a 54 yard field goal.

2)Wide receiver ____ Bennett thought the portrayal of King ______ didn't feel ____.

3)Placekicker Jason ____ felt that every ____ athlete should have a large ____ before a game.

4)    RB  _____ Washington  is not the ____  football player who   likes Letterman but doesn't have much use for ____.

5)QB Tony _____   was the only player in the locker  ______   who knew that Othello was a  ____.

6)The Buffalo hockey player exposed the gambling scheme of the Chicago football players. The headline read “ _____     _____       _____.”

7)One ____ that when he played at Georgia cornerback _____ Allen made his ____ of interceptions.

8)Tight end Chris ____ tried to _____ when knocked out of bounds so that he wouldn't bowl over his coach and ____ his leg.

9)Weighing 210 lbs. former running back _____ Holmes was hardly a ____ but he ran _____ with great _____.

10)Center ____ Sander's ___ that he hadn't held fell on deaf ears and his team was ____ with a 15 yard penalty.

11)As you'd expect wide receiver Miles ____ had heard about former QB Johnny _____ but he had never heard of diver Dmitri ____.

12)While in the huddle, QB _____   Walter  ____   the rookies not to ever let  their minds  ____.

13)At the sports celebrity dinner QB Richard  ____   met baseballers  _____   Pujols and Pat ____.

14)The _______ of Sports Illustrated reported that the _______   linebacker  had used an illegal _______.

15)Terrell Owens ______ to be _______ , if he was booed he would be cast into deep _______.