Test Your Smarts: Culture Quiz 2008
Were you too busy following the Olympics or the election to keep up on all things cultural this year? Take the following quiz and see.
MOVIES
1) Which Oscar-winning playwright made his feature film debut as a director with In Bruges, starring Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes?
2) Which blockbuster gave rise to the derisive term “nuking the fridge�
3) MacGuff was the surname of which teenage film character?
4) Which French actor played Dominic Greene in Quantum of Solace and Jean-Dominique Bauby in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly?
a) Vincent Cassel
b) Samuel Le Bihan
c) Mathieu Amalric
d) Guillaume Canet
5) Paul Thomas Anderson loosely based his film There Will Be Blood on which Upton Sinclair novel?
a) Gold!
b) Oil!
c) Milkshake!
d) Greed!
6) Which actress starred onstage in “Intimate Apparel” and onscreen in “Doubt”?
MUSIC
7) What flavor was the chapstick that Katy Perry waxed lyrical about in her song I Kissed a Girl?
8) Shaffer Chimere Smith is the real name of which chart-topping R&B musician, who declared 2008 to be the Year of the Gentleman in the title of his latest album?
9) Reissued in June to great acclaim, what was the title of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson’s only solo album?
10) Which rapper duetted with Estelle on her number one single American Boy?
a) will.i.Am
b) Timbaland
c) Pharrell Williams
d) Kanye West
11) Which contemporary composer wrote Dr. Atomic, an opera about Robert Oppenheimer that finally reached the Metropolitan Opera?
a) Tan Dun
b) John Adams
c) Charles Wuorinen
d) Elliot Carter
TELEVISION
12) Which 30 Rock actress returned to Saturday Night Live to do an acclaimed impression of the vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin?
13) Which Showtime series stars Jason Isaacs?
a) Dexter
b) Brotherhood
c) Weeds
d) Californication
14) Which television program won the Emmy for Best Drama?
15) Which series that debuted in the autumn is the biggest new prime-time hit?
a) Fringe
b) Life
c) The Mentalist
d) Things I Know About You
16) Which prime-time show has NOT recently been cancelled?
a) Pushing Daisies
b) Dirty Sexy Money
c) Private Practice
d) Law and Order: Criminal Intent
STAGE
17) Which show won the most Tony awards this year?
a) South Pacific
b) In the Heights
c) Gypsy
d) August: Osage County
18) Which TV star abruptly ended his run in a David Mamet play on Broadway?
19) Which performer currently on Broadway came out in 2008 as gay?
a) Christopher Sieber
b) Daniel Radcliffe
c) Clay Aiken
d) Katie Holmes
20) Which two-time Oscar-winning actress announced her return to Broadway in 2009?
ANSWERS
1) Martin McDonagh
2) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
3) Juno
4) Mathieu Amalric
5) Oil!
6) Viola Davis
7) Cherry
8) Ne-Yo
9) Pacific Ocean Blue
10) Kanye West
11) John Adams
12) Tina Fey
13) Brotherhood
14) Mad Men
15) The Mentalist
16) Private Practice
17) South Pacific
18) Jeremy Piven
19) Clay Aiken
20) Jane Fonda
SCORING
1-5 correct answers: You’re reading this site and you still suck this bad?!?!
6-10: Decent, but maybe it’s time to renew your Entertainment Weekly subscription.
11-15: A fine score, but you’d have done better if you hadn’t missed all the pop-music questions (visit the iTunes store once in a while!)
16-20: When LemonWade goes public, you’ll be eligible for a dividend.
