Alphabet Movies - In a Word Trivia Quiz

Answer: Awakenings

Robin Williams plays Malcolm Sayer (the fictionalized version of Oliver Sacks) who cares for patients in an institution. The patients survived a 1917 to 1928 sleeping sickness epidemic, but were left in a vegetative state with no hope of cure. A new drug released in 1969, Levadopa, offers new hope, and Sayer is granted permission to administer it. Robert De Niro plays Leonard Lowe, the first patient to receive the drug, who finally wakes after spending decades in a coma.

After waking he struggles to deal with his new life and the lost years of his life.

Unfortunately, the effects are short-lived and the patients all return to their previously catatonic states. "Awakenings" was nominated for three Oscars: Best Actor, Best Picture and Best writing, but failed to win any of these categories.

Answer: Big

Josh Baskin (Hanks) is too short for the rides at a fair, and is humiliated when a girl he likes witnesses his rejection. In desperation, he makes a wish on a fortune telling machine to be big. Overnight his wish is granted, and he wakes the next morning in a man's body. With the help of his friend, he rents a cheap hotel room and finds a job at a toy company.
The most memorable scene in this film is when Josh and the toy company's owner play a duet on a giant keyboard.
"Big" was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor, Best Writing and Screenplay.

Answer: Contact

"Contact" the movie, is based on Carl Sagan's novel of the same name.
After contact from another life form is received, scientists realize they now have plans to build a giant machine. Unfortunately, the plans don't tell them what it will do, although they presume it is some sort of time travel capsule. After the first machine is sabotaged, Dr. Arroway (Jodie Foster) is selected to test a second machine that has been secretly built in Japan. After the test, Ellie claims to have traveled through a wormhole to another dimension and been gone for eighteen hours. People watching the test live see the capsule drop straight through the machine and crash into the ocean. So who is telling the truth?
After the spectacular non-event, Ellie is treated with contempt and ridicule, especially since the recorder on board the capsule recorded nothing. How then do you explain the fact that it recorded eighteen hours of nothing in a split second?

Answer: Dave

Bob Mitchell is a philanderer, who also happens to be President of the United States. Dave Kovic is an affable employment agent who bears a striking resemblance to President Mitchell. White House Chief of Staff Bob Alexander hires Dave to impersonate the President, to allow him some "personal dictation" time with his secretary. Disaster strikes when the President suffers a stroke and is completely incapacitated. Rather than allow Vice-President Nance (Ben Kingsley) to assume office, Alexander hatches a plot to elevate himself to the Presidency.

Answer: Entrapment

"Gin" Baker (Zeta-Jones) is an investigator, who moonlights as a thief. "Mac" MacDougal (Connery) is a master thief who has made a deal with the authorities to keep himself out of jail. Gin investigates an art theft and accuses Mac of the crime. However, she is the real thief, unaware that Mac has already stolen the painting from her. What follows is a convoluted tale of treachery and blackmail, with a smattering of trust, as they join forces in a multi-billion dollar heist.

Answer: Frequency

Caviezel plays a New York City cop who remains traumatised by his father's (Quaid) death thirty years before. After discovering his father's old ham radio, a rare atmospheric phenomenon causes a cross-time link to open, allowing them to talk to each other. Together they find a way to change the past and allow Caviezel to save not only his father, but also stop a serial killer from murdering his mother.
While the production proved popular with movie-goers, it was not so with the critics. It scored only one Oscar nomination, for best song, but unfortunately failed to win.

Answer: Gattaca

In the "Gattaca" future, children will be genetically altered at conception to create "perfect" humans. Those children born without these modifications are known as "in-valids" due to the high risk of diseases and imperfections they are at risk of. One such person is Vincent (Hawke) whose greatest wish is to be accepted into the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation.

Unfortunately, as an in-valid, the closest he gets to his dream is cleaning the floors. And acceptance into the program is through your DNA. Jerome Morrow (Law) is a genetic elite who, despite his pedigree, is always only second best.

When Jerome becomes paralysed, Vincent assumes his identity while Jerome provides him with enough genetic material to become part of the space elite. Cut from the final film is a segment listing all the people in history who have succeeded despite genetic deficiencies: Albert Einstein, Mozart and Lincoln to name a few.

Answer: Hook

Peter Pan (Williams) fell in love with Wendy's granddaughter and left Neverland for good. As he grew up, he forgot about his previous life and changed into a ruthless lawyer, who didn't know how to have fun. When Captain Hook (Hoffman) kidnaps his children in an act of revenge, Tinkerbell (Roberts) appears and takes him back to Neverland. Hook and the pirates want a war, but not with a burnt-out, grown-up with no knowledge of his real self. With Hook giving him just three days to get into shape, Peter needs to learn how to fight, fly and find his happy place in order to save his children. Steven Spielberg, a self-confessed Peter Pan fan himself, directed "Hook". Coincidentally, he also directed a school production of "Peter Pan" in his youth.

Although the critics gave "Hook" mixed reviews, the movie was a financial success and scored several Oscar nominations.

Answer: Inkheart

When Mo "Silvertongue" Folchart (Fraser) reads aloud to his baby daughter, from a story called "Inkheart", two villains and a fire-eater leap out of the book. Dustfinger the fire-eater (Bettany) wants nothing more than to have Mo read him back into the story, but the two villains, Basta and Capricorn, do everything in their power to stop this happening.

But true to Newton's laws of motion, when the characters came out of the book, someone has to go back in. And that someone is Mo's wife.

Answer: Junior

"Junior" features Schwarzenegger and DeVito as two scientists who develop a new drug (Expactane) to reduce the risk of miscarriage. Unfortunately, just as human trials are about to begin, their funding is cut off and their laboratory is handed over to Diana Reddin (Thompson). So Arbogast (DeVito) and Hesse (Schwarzenegger) steal what they think is an unwanted egg, fertilise it, and implant it into Hesse's abdomen for a three month trial.

The plan goes awry when the hormones Hesse is taking make him moody and broody, so instead of stopping the Expectane as planned, he secretly continues it. Further problems arise when Hesse falls in love with Reddin and later discovers that the "unwanted" egg, now growing in his abdomen, is hers.