Graphic: Vulture; Illustration Mike Haddad
It’s a milestone moment: we just published the 100th Cinematrix. That little grid has given us the gift of regularly hearing from friends, co-workers, and strangers, all of them reaching out to argue for the inclusion of City of Angels in “Movies with Cities/States in Title” (absolutely not). Or to holler at us for forgetting that The Lone Ranger is not merely a descriptor but an official alias and thus should count for “Character Name in Title” (fair; we changed it). And to be clear, we love this. Even when it’s annoying, even when it’s a deluge (we’re sorry, all of you, that The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar was originally omitted), even when we have to acknowledge that we screwed up. The enthusiasm and competitiveness and overall level of politeness in the feedback you share with us has been heartening.
Over the course of publishing these 100 grids, and reading the notes you’ve sent us about them, we’ve seen trends emerge that are worth addressing—confusion about the game that we can easily clear up. So as we begin to plan our next 100 grids, what better time to pull back the curtain with a first batch of Clarifications & Corrections? We’ll share a bit about our process, correct misconceptions, and touch on a handful of the more inventive arguments that have been made on behalf of what our most engaged players believed to be a correct answer. It’s been a fun road to the century mark. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
Well, you tried. The category was “Number in Title,” and quite a few of you argued that Magic Mike XXL contains a Roman numeral. For one: No! XXL isn’t a valid numeral in the Roman system. For another, the “XXL” of Magic Mike refers the size of the guys’ big ol’ dicks. In that same grid, players argued that xXx: State of the Union should count because “xXx is a Roman numeral.” Except in this case it’s not: “xXx” is either a nickname for Xander Cage or a status of agent (“Triple X”). Heed the context.
The earliest—and most persistent—question among Cinematrix players is when articles such as “A,” “An,” and “The” count as part of a movie’s title. The answer: always. In the “[number] Words in Title” categories, every word counts. An American Tail is a three-word title. When it comes to “Movie Title Starts with a Vowel,” we count every letter. That means The Accused does not begin with a vowel, while A Simple Plan does.
This comes up a lot, so let’s lay it all out. In the “Based on a Book” category, here’s what we do count as books:
• Novels
• Nonfiction books
• Memoirs
• Novellas and short stories
• Graphic novels and comic books
• Children’s books
Here’s what we don’t count:
• Plays (all those Shakespeare adaptations)
• Magazine or newspaper articles (unless they were turned into a book)
So, superhero movies based on comics and comic-book characters/story lines: They count. 10 Things I Hate About You (based on Shakespeare) or Hustlers (based on a New York magazine article): Don’t count.
Whenever we have “Rotten Tomatoes Score” as a category, we invariably receive confused emails from players citing a movie’s Audience Score. Alas, we go by the critics’ score, a.k.a. the Tomatometer. Why? Because we are unrepentant elitists, that’s why. (Plus it’s all gamed anyway, right?)
When it comes to our “Starts with a Vowel” category, players love to make the case that Y should count as a vowel. Not to get grammar-nerdy, but the rule is “sometimes Y,” and it’s not based on whether you feel like counting Y as a vowel that day. It depends on how it’s being used. In words like you and yellow and yes, Y is acting as a consonant. Y acts as a vowel in words such as why, try, shy, tyrant, and cyst. With that in mind, Y is not acting as a vowel in, say, Kenneth Lonergan’s You Can Count on Me, so don’t try it for a given Mark Ruffalo square. (Don’t worry, Y Tu Mama Tambien is on our radar.)
We know that movies with upcoming premiere dates sometimes appear in the game menu, and we’re trying to minimize those cases, but nevertheless: Until the viewing public can watch a given movie, it isn’t eligible.
What is “F9“? Is that … a word? Two words smooshed together? Catalog shorthand? We needed to know for purposes of programming the “One-Word Title” category, so we asked the New York magazine copy desk for guidance; they told us to go away. As such, we defaulted to an imperfect system and decreed that if there are no spaces between a set of letters and numbers in a title, it’s one word. CB4, X2, JFK, 1917: All one-word titles.
Another reliable curveball for grids featuring the “Number of words in title” class of categories: is Kick-Ass one word or two? What about Face/Off? We once again checked with the copy team, and this time they had answers for us: A hyphenated title such as Spider-Man or Non-Stop counts as one word. However, words separated by a slash are two distinct words, meaning Victor/Victoria and 50/50 are considered two-word titles.
By far the most dorm-room conversation we’ve had in Cinematrix Slack. The category definition began with something along the lines of, “Any movie that doesn’t take place on Earth” and quickly devolved into a discussion spanning “non-Earth” planets, multiverses, other dimensions, and Narnia.
The intent of this category seemed clear to us: that the city or state in question refers to an actual geographic location. What we underestimated was just how many of you would want to use Billy Madison as your answer. Of course, “Madison” in that title doesn’t refer to the city of Madison; it’s his name. As I have become fond of saying when this complaint is raised: There is a city in Norway called “A.” (Well, actually, “Å”) Does this mean every movie title with “a” should count as a city? Obviously not. (This argument has been moderately persuasive.)
Overall, we fielded a lot of complaints about why such-and-such title with the name of a city in it should count. There was an entire subset of questions focused on New York City movies, forcing us to clarify that while “New York City” is a city, “Manhattan,” “Brooklyn,” “Queens,” “Staten Island” and “the Bronx” are boroughs: parts of a city, not cities themselves. (The King of Staten Island was another common wrong answer.) But those were the easy examples. Trying to parse California municipal designations alone nearly drove us to retire the category forever.
We’ve wrestled with the definition of “Character Name in Title” more than any other category. We tried to be very cut-and-dried and insist that it had to be a proper name. But then what about characters who have no names and only go by their moniker (Michael Fassbender in The Counselor)? And then the “moniker” floodgates opened. Should Joker count if the character’s proper name is “Arthur Fleck”? If “Batman” counts for Batman, shouldn’t The Dark Knight also? (Ditto Superman and Man of Steel.) How “official” does a moniker need to be?
The current category description currently reads:
Movies with a title that includes the first and/or last name of any character (human or otherwise) from the film. Characters who are unnamed but go by a moniker in the film’s credits (i.e., Michael Fassbender in The Counselor) would count. Superheroes or characters who go by aliases would count for either their human name (Bruce Wayne) or superhero name (Batman; the Dark Knight). However, a simple descriptor of a character (The Woman in the Window) or a collective (The Bad News Bears) would not count.
We’re going to lean on whether the movie title matches any character name listed in the credits, but the exact parameters are still being refined.
A frustrating wrinkle that you just have to chalk up to the idiosyncrasies of movie record-keeping. In short, for Cinematrix, we use the date when a given movie was released to the general public. Some other sites, most notably IMDb, date movies from their very first premiere, whether it’s at a film festival such as Cannes or TIFF, or some random screening room in Chicago. That’s why we heard from frustrated players who tried to use Love & Mercy (a 2015 release that premiered at 2014 festivals) or Crash, which is officially a 2005 film (Academy Award winner for the Best Picture of 2005, in fact) and is listed on TMDB as 2005, but is a 2004 film per IMDb because it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Short of convincing IMDb to change the way they have always listed movies, there’s nothing we can do.
As such, it should not have been her photo that appeared when you clicked on his name for a visual clue.
On a recent Comic Relief–themed grid, the presence of Billy Crystal and Robin Williams led many players to their 1997 comedy Fathers’ Day. But when typed into our drop-down menu, those players were faced with both Father’s Day and Fathers’ Day. There are several movies called Father’s Day, none of them important for you to know about. The Crystal-Williams movie, though, is called Fathers’ Day, for a simple contextual reason:
On our June 24 grid, the “Directed by an Oscar Winner” category crossed with the likes of Cameron Diaz and Idris Elba brought to mind any of several Ridley Scott movies. (Cinematrix has done more to elevate the profile of The Counselor than any of its marketing did back in the day.) The one problem: Ridley Scott has never won an Oscar. It only feels like he did. Didn’t Gladiator win Best Picture, you ask? It did, but Scott was passed over for Best Director in favor of Traffic’s Steven Soderbergh, and Scott wasn’t a listed producer on Gladiator, so the Best Picture statue eluded him as well.
In that same June 24 grid, “Directed by an Oscar Winner x Cameron Diaz” yielded a lot of incorrect guesses of Shrek. This makes perfect logical sense since Shrek won the very first Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2002. Thing is, directors Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jensen weren’t the recipients. While now the Animated Feature Oscar goes to the director and any listed producers, that was not the case back then. In fact, Adamson and Jensen are the only directors of a Best Animated Feature winner to have not been given the Oscar. That is, frankly, mean — to both them and you.
Per an email:
“Love playing Cinematrix every morning with my dad — just had a quick question about rules. Do uncredited cameos not count? I tried putting No Sudden Move for today’s Matt Damon x 80% Rotten Tomatoes spot and was told to try again even though he’s in a pivotal scene in that movie (coincidentally I had just listened to your This Had Oscar Buzz podcast episode on Let Them All Talk, so the Max Soderbergh movies were fresh on my mind).”
Yes, this uncredited cameo should have counted.
The 1989 Meryl Streep movie with the oft-parodied line “the dingo took my baby” was titled, here in America, A Cry in the Dark. In other countries, including the film’s native Australia, it’s called Evil Angels. This has tripped up many a Cinematrix player (as well as Jimmy Kimmel). Our U.S. title is so much better, but unfortunately TMDB, and thus our drop-down menu, lists the film as Evil Angels. The silver lining is that if you type in A Cry in the Dark, the drop-down will suggest Evil Angels for you. But unless you were aware of that as an alternate title, you wouldn’t know to pick it. Now at least you’ll be better prepared for future Meryl Streep (and Sam Neill!) grids.
As a major Mike Nichols fan, this one hurts. In an early grid with “Annette Bening x Directed by an Oscar Winner” as one of the squares, I omitted Regarding Henry as a possible answer. Except I didn’t miss it: I saw the title in Bening’s filmography and said to myself, “That’s a JJ Abrams movie. Moving along.” How foolish. Of course, everybody remembers Regarding Henry, the movie where Harrison Ford becomes an amnesiac and can’t remember his family, including his wife, Annette Bening. It was written by a young upstart named JJ Abrams, but it was directed by the legend and Oscar-winner Mike Nichols. Not gonna live that one down any time soon.
That’s very kind of you.
