Storied Films: Stories within Stories Quiz

Answer: A drawing

When the search team opens the safe, they find only a drawing of a young woman wearing the necklace with the jewel that they are seeking. The sketch is dated April 14, 1912, the same day the Titanic struck the iceberg that caused it to sink. The woman in the sketch survived the disaster and hears about its discovery. She contacts the search team and recounts the story of her voyage.

"Titanic" was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won 11 including Best Picture. With an initial worldwide box office gross of over $1.8 billion, it was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark.

Answer: Peter Falk

At the beginning of the story, a young woman named Buttercup takes some pleasure in bossing a farm boy, who works on their farm, named Westley. Westley always complies using the phrase, "As you wish." She eventually realizes that this is an expression of love. We later hear the grandfather express the sentiment to his grandson by saying, "As you wish" deepening the meaning of the phrase.

Peter Falk is best known for playing the titular character in the television show "Columbo" (1968-1978, 1989-2003). He won four Primetime Emmy Awards for "Columbo" and was also nominated twice for Oscars for Best Supporting Actor for his movie career which ran from 1958 to 2009.

Answer: William Hurt

Molina recounts memories from one of his favorite films, a wartime romantic thriller, which we, as the audience, watch intermittently. The film within the film has parallels to Valentin and Molina. In addition to Hurt winning the Oscar for Best Actor, "Kiss of the Spider Woman" was nominated for three other Oscars including Best Picture. Hurt made his film debut in Ken Russell's science-fiction feature "Altered States" (1980).

He also received Oscar nominations for Best Actor for "Children of a Lesser God" (1986) and "Broadcast News" (1987). Raul Julia played the part of Valentin.

Answer: To find out the meaning of Kane's last word

One of the many reasons "Citizen Kane" is often considered the best movie in history (voted number one on the American Film Institute's surveys of the best films in both 1998 and 2007) is the interesting construction of the story. On his deathbed, Kane's last word is "Rosebud".

The newsreel's producer requests that a reporter try to find out the meaning of the word. This allows us to see different aspects of Kane's life through different perspectives, as the reporter interviews people who knew him, or reads their memoirs.

Answer: The affair in the past

The film is based on the novel of the same name by John Fowles from 1969. The characters in both affairs are played by Streep and Irons. By having the modern film be a version of the affair in the past, we can compare and contrast the societal norms of the present versus the past. The film was nominated for five Oscars including Best Actress for Streep.

Answer: Wallace Shawn

The film was written by and stars Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn as fictionalized versions of themselves sharing a conversation at Café des Artistes in Manhattan. "Wally" is a struggling playwright who hasn't seen his old friend Andre for several years. Andre relates some of his extraordinary experiences while he was out of circulation, going through a spiritual and existential midlife crisis. The film has an approval rating of 92% based on 25 reviews, with an average score of 7.8 out of 10, on Rotten Tomatoes.

Shawn's involvement with theater began in 1970 when he met Gregory, who subsequently directed several of plays written by Shawn. Shawn's first film appearance was in the Woody Allen film, "Manhattan" (1979). He has since remained quite busy acting in films and television as well as voice acting.

Answer: Clarence

The full name of the guardian angel is Clarence Odbody, who is played by Henry Travers. The film was produced and directed by Frank Capra and also stars Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore in the lead roles. The story is loosely based on the Charles Dickens novella "A Christmas Carol" (1843), which uses a similar supernatural literary device to show Scrooge the past, present and what the future holds in store if things don't change. "It's a Wonderful Life" was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, and has been recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best American films ever made on both their 1998 and 2007 surveys.

Answer: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Schwarzenegger plays a construction worker on Earth, who ostensibly receives implanted memories of an amazing adventure on Mars. He experiences his adventure occurring in his reality on Earth, when agents of a shadowy organization try to prevent him from receiving memories in which he himself was an agent on Mars. The screenplay is based on the 1966 short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick who also wrote the story on which "Blade Runner" (1982) was based. The film received mixed reviews. However, retrospectively it is now considered one of the better sci fi movies (number 43 on The Playlist website) and was rated Schwarzenegger's fourth best movie by Variety in 2022.

Schwarzenegger began his career as a bodybuilder, earning a Mr. Universe and seven Mr. Olympia titles. He then turned to acting and had with his breakthrough role in the sword and sorcery epic "Conan the Barbarian" (1982).

Answer: So the humans will accept being controlled

As Morpheus explains to Neo in the first movie, there was a war between humans and the machines which the machines won. In order to have an adequate power source, the machines built fields of pods which house humans generating bioelectric power. He tells Neo, "The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this (Morpheus holds up a battery)."

The franchise has been highly successful. As of 2023, there have been three sequels as well as animation, video games and comics and it has generated over $3 billion in revenue. The films have had a significant cultural and societal influence with their style, special effects (such as dodging bullets) and philosophical concepts especially regarding choice (i.e. the red pill or the blue pill).

Answer: The Everything Bagel

Our hero, Evelyn Quan Wang, is a middle-aged, Chinese American immigrant who runs a laundromat with her husband and they have a daughter named Joy. In the parallel Alphaverse, Joy is Joa Tupaki and she has created a black hole-like Everything Bagel - everything on a bagel which has collapsed in on itself.

The film is highly entertaining and was a great success at the 95th Academy Awards winning seven of the eleven awards it was nominated for including Best Picture. The actors playing each of the three main characters all won Oscars as well including Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn, Ke Huy Quan as her husband and Jaimie Lee Curtis as Evelyn.