Minute44 - Dan Schonhaar

Nottingham, 2004… a Thursday night in the Pit and Pendulum. Me and Gaz were sitting at a table down stairs and were talking about movies. I realised that we both had formidable movie trivia knowledge but wondered if there was any way we could test each other… and then, while Gaz stuffed his cake hole with spicy chicken nachos, I had the idea! The Hollywood game was born. Of course at this time it was crude but the more nachos Gaz ate, the more I worked out the intricacies of the game until I had the following:

Who starts is determined by a coin toss. The starting player must name an actor (a big A-List star for the initial turn, to get the game moving), the other player must then name a movie that the named actor was in as well as another actor from that movie. For example; if the starting player said “Brad Pitt”, the other player could respond with “Ocean’s 11 - George Clooney”. This then bounces back to the starting player who must do the same back, for example they could say “From Dusk Til Dawn - Juliette Lewis”

This passes back and forth until a player is stuck and cannot think of a response. At this time they would say “Point” to signify that the other player has won. Below is how a typical game would go.

Player A: Brad Pitt

Player B: Ocean’s 11 - George Clooney

Player A: From Dusk Til Dawn - Danny Trejo

Player B: Desperado - Steve Buscemi

Player A: Mr. Deeds - Peter Gallagher

Player B (now stuck): Point.

This means that player A wins that round and gets a point. Games can be played to best of 3 rounds or best of 5 or 7 or whatever, depending on the players skill. Higher skilled players play for far longer so less rounds is usually better.

It may be easy in some situations to just name an actor who is really obscure or who hasn’t been in much else but be careful because your opponent always has the right to challenge. If they challenge, you must be able to come up with an answer. If you cannot, your opponent wins. For example, in the above game, when player A said “Mr. Deeds - Peter Gallagher”, player B could have challenged. In that eventuality Player A would have had to think of another film with Peter Gallagher and an actor from that film. If Player A was unable to do this, Player B would have won that round.

The game is best played face to face to determine who buys the next round of beers but it can be played over MSN as well. However, if access to the Internet is available it becomes very easy to cheat. You obviously aren’t allowed to just look at IMDB because the game would go on forever. You can however, if you are unsure about who an actor is use a Google Image Search on his/her name. You can only use the first page of results. This will more than likely serve to jog your memory of who the actor is and if you’re lucky you might even see stills from a film they were in or a poster. Google Image Search is the ONLY on-line help you are allowed. If there is a dispute over whether an actor was in a particular movie IMDB can be used to settle the dispute. If it shows the player to be correct, then the game continues if not, they concede a point.

There are of course rules on who you can and cannot name. The actor you name must be presently alive and working and must be in English language movies (No bloody foreigners!!). Only cast, no crew. You can’t use an actor who has already been named in the same game. Sequels are allowed to be used as different movies, but remember, no re-use of actors names. Siblings can be used no problem (i.e. Luke and Owen Wilson).
There you have it folks, the Hollywood game in all it’s movie nerd glory! Enjoy.