Big Money Tuesday (Ides of March Edition)

We head into Week 2 of the JGTSpI tonight. We start out at O’Neals at 8 p.m. Been kind of hit or miss the past few weeks, with no clear cut favorite. One of the best spots to go if you’re looking to score a few points in the Invitational. $50 GC for the winner ain’t too shabby either. We move to City Tap House at 10:15 p.m. The Penn kids are back in town, so I expect a nice sized crowd tonight at the CTH. That said, it is also a good place to get your points on the board, as again there are no clear cut favorites. Winner walks with a $100 GC. In Manayunk, Mike Minion returns to the Terrace Taproom tonight at 8.

There is no quiz at the Raven with Koob and Kristy this week. I did play their quiz last night at the Khyber, and it was great. Furthermore, the Khyber menu is awesome now. The Fried Green Tomato BLT I got was quite honestly the best BLT I’ve ever had in my life. They’ll return next Monday at 8. Hope to see ya tonight!

Spring Invitational Scores Posted

Week One scores are posted. Teams in the yellow are in the top 10 (remember the Top 10 teams are in the running for a $100 bonus gift certificate). The other teams all scored points last week. No-one did the physical challenge, so I am leaving it up and also offering a 2nd physical challenge. That means that for one week only you can score an incredible 8 bonus points. That will not happen again. Week 2 begins tonight with an 80s quiz at the Khyber at 7 p.m. To be honest, that should be an easy win for anyone who gets a halfway decent team together. If you’re looking to play with the big boys, I recommend the Westbury at 9 p.m.

I Heart the 80s Quizzo Tonight

A couple of chances to earn points in the JGT SpI this evening (Scores being posted later today.) We start out at the Khyber, where Koob will be hosting an all-80s quiz! Should be a lot of fun, and a great way to earn points, as there is certainly no favorite yet at that quiz. On to the Westbury at 9 p.m., where Duane’s World and Group W will battle it out for Westbury supremacy and the rest of us will either a) pull off a Buster Douglas-like miracle and knock off the two favorites or, much more likely, b) gun for third and enjoy the Westbury’s incredibly awesome drink specials. It’s a win-win. Hope to see ya tonight!

Quizzo News and Notes

Week One is in the books, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get some points on the Big Board. You’ve got until Monday noon to earn some points in the JGTSpI via  Facebook physical challenge, getting your  picture taken in front of 4th Street Deli and posted online. After that, I’ll be posting scores after Week 1.

We’ve still got a long ways to go, so if you didn’t score in Week One, worry not. You will have plenty of time to get your team in the mix. Remember, in addition to a giveaway drawing among the Top 10 finishers, there will be a sweet prize for whichever team scores the most via physical challenges.

Next week, keep in mind that you can score points at Koob and Kristy’s quizzes, in addition to me and Mike’s. Koob hosts an all-80s quiz next week. The Khyber on Monday, the Raven on Tuesday. Anyone who wants to play on Monday night, let me know. I’m trying to put a team together at the Khyber.

Someone reminded me that I hadn’t posted Quizzo Bowl questions yet. I’ll have those posted on Monday. Also gonna have some pretty cool changes to the website in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.

Finally, here’s my latest podcast on Comcast with Lee. Pretty good stuff. Check it out. Have a great weekend everybody, and I’ll see you next week!

What was the Worst Best Picture Winner of All-Time?

As you’ve been reading throughout the week, I asked quizzo regulars Mike Minion, Junior, and Koob to submit their favorite and least favorite movies that won the Best Picture Award. They’ve all three agreed on Casablanca as one of the five best films to win Best Picture. (I disagree, btw. I think it’s way overrated.) There is also one film they all agreed was one of the worst: Dances With Wolves. All three of them hated this film. Of course, part of the reason they all hated it is that it’s a bad movie that knocked off one of the greatest films of all time. Here are their comments, as well as the one Best Picture winner Mike Minion refuses to watch.

Junior: This movie was the one which made Kevin Costner think he could do anything. I would have liked it a lot more if Costner wasn’t in it,  but he was EVERYWHERE!  Too earnest and self-conscious and self-satisfied.
Better Choice:  GoodFellas

Koob: This movie was just long, slow, and boring and it beat out Goodfellas which is one of my favorite movies of all time and probably my favorite Scorsese movie.
Mike: When Kevin Costner cares about a subject, he can make a decent movie. He likes baseball, so Bull Durham and Field of Dreams are pretty good. Apparently, he doesn’t care for oceans, the US Postal Service or Native Americans, as Waterworld, The Postman and Dances with Wolves are not. Three hours of Kevin Costner being “earnest” is about 173 minutes too long. To quote Lisa Simpson, “Poor Mr. Costner, he tries SO hard.” Even worse: it beat out Goodfellas for the award.
As for the movie that Mike won’t watch, because he’s ridiculously stubborn so principled: The only Best Picture I haven’t seen is Titanic, and I never will. I have seen the You-Tube version: The Titanic in 5 Seconds. Now, THAT I like. But when you take an engrossing tale of tragedy, heroism, cowardice, nobility and fate and ruin it with a sappy and impossible love story (steerage passengers did NOT look like Leo DiCaprio; they had bad teeth and smelled like yesterday’s catch), I just can’t get on board.
My take on Mike and Titanic: You had Gigi in your top 5, so who knows what you’ll like. Who knows? You might love Titanic. Personally, I don’t like it, but I don’t hate it either. Everything other than the dumbass love story is pretty awesome. But the love story is incredibly cliche and obnoxious.

Koob’s Worst Best Pics

Here’s Koob’s worst four Best Picture winners. Believe it or not, I’ve only seen one of them. It was Shakespeare in Love. I liked it, but it wasn’t great. Winner pics coming later this afternoon. Of course all three guys hated the same film. I’ll post it a little later today as well.
Ordinary People. Not a terrible movie and it was actually very well acted.  Timothy Hutton won a deserving Best Supporting Actor Oscar and Mary Tyler Moore and Donald Sutherland were both great as his parents.  It’s more on this list because it beat out Raging Bull which is a far superior movie.
Driving Miss Daisy – This was a pretty weak year for Best Picture noms.  Once again, not a terrible movie, and very well acted, but pretty cliche and forgettable when all is said and done.
Shakespeare in Love – A pretty forgettable romantic comedy with some good acting performances and some genuinely funny moments, but this was probably the biggest Oscar robbery of all time when this movie won Best Picture over Saving Private Ryan.
Million Dollar Baby. This might come as a surprise to some people, but I just did not like this movie at all.  I thought it was a pretty good underdog story with the gritty Hillary Swank convincing the crotchety Clint Eastwood to become her boxing trainer up until the last third of the movie which I don’t want to spoil in case you haven’t seen it, but it just seemed to be one of those plot twists that was manipulative just for the sake of being manipulative and making people cry.  At least this movie finally got Morgan Freeman a much deserved Oscar.

Junior’s Worst Best Pics

On Monday, Junior gave us his best Best Picture movies. Today we’re getting his worst. Junior was kind enough to not only post his worst Best Pics, but also provide a film that was nominated that year that should have won. The only ones I’ve seen are Crash and Last Emperor. Crash I commented about on Mike’s, and Last Emperor, I saw it a while ago and don’t really remember much about it. So obviously I didn’t think it was very good.

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.
Betty Hutton really grates on the nerves. Typical back-stage drama boredom with a circus theme. Embarrassing.

Better Choices: High Noon or The Quiet Man

THE LAST EMPEROR. Overlong and tedious. And it won everything it was nominated for…go figure. This was one of those films that the Academy honors to feel good about itself. High honors for high art. Yawn!!

Better Choices: Broadcast News or Fatal Attraction

CRASH. Even Jack Nicholson was surprised when he opened the envelope to announce the winner. The Academy is not brave enough to award a movie with a major gay theme. Crash was about self-involved Los Angelinos acting like idiots…..hey, wait a minute……..

Better Choices: Brokeback Mountain or Good Night, and Good Luck

The Worst of the Best:

OLIVER! Kids. English kids. Orphaned English kids. Dancing orphaned English kids. Singing and dancing orphaned English kids. Overblown production numbers. Bad English accents from authentic English performers. Cloying. Sickening attempts at pathos. Unsuccessful attempts at comedy. Well, it was 1968 and the Academy was definitely on a bad LSD trip when they awarded this piece of tripe.

Better Choices: The Lion in Winter or Romeo and Juliet