Tom Cruise is an anagram of Costumier

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 10: Well done, you beat us!
3+ out of 10: We'd have won with you on our team!

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The left-fielder

The ones that got away

We're kicking things off this week with five questions of the form "name the movie". You're given the year a Best Picture Oscar-winning movie was released, and an actor who was in the movie (but not necessarily a main character).

1) 2006, Martin Sheen
2) 2001, Russell Crowe
3) 1998, Colin Firth
4) 1992, Morgan Freeman
5) 1988, Tom Cruise
6) Which shoe manufacturer sponsors Usain Bolt?
7) What nickname referred to American soldiers who served in Europe during the First World War?
8) Against which country did William of Orange lead the Dutch in the Eighty Years' War?
9) 2 point question: Excluding 2, what is the lowest jersey number a player for the New York Yankees can wear?

The answers

1) The Departed
2) A Beautiful Mind
3) Shakespeare in Love
4) Unforgiven
5) Rain Man
6) Puma
7) Doughboy
8) Spain
9) 11

Our excuses

1) An utterly dreadful round for us (these five questions made up half of it) on something a real quizzer would have memorized a long time ago. While I have spent more time than most looking at Oscar lists (mainly because so many quizmasters ask questions about them that inevitably wind up on the blog) my baseline movie knowledge is terrible. Add to this the sometimes confusing difference between when a movie came out and when it won an Oscar and we were always going to be in trouble. I thought Crash came out around 2006 (actually 2005 in the USA, 2004 elsewhere), which was the first of many guesses based on very vague ideas of release dates. I'll keep the rest of these answers brief.
2) I wonder if this was a deliberate trick, as Gladiator was an obvious guess for a Russell Crowe movie. That said, I was pretty sure Gladiator was 2000, not 2001, but we had nothing else to go with.
3) Guessing the year again, I thought The English Patient was a reasonable stab (turns out that was 1996, not 1998). We knew that starred Ralph Fiennes rather than Colin Firth, but "hey, it's a British dude, right?".
4) With few other ideas for a Morgan Freeman film from around that time we went with The Shawshank Redemption (1994).
5) Predictably, the further back we go the less accurate our guesses got. A Few Good Men this time did at least star Tom Cruise, but was a 1992 outing (and a nominee for that year's Best Picture, losing out to the previous question's answer).
6) After that movie marathon, you'd think a question about a sprinter would be a welcome change (eh? eh??). Alas, while I stuck down Puma as a first instinct, it was little more than a gut feeling, and we eventually talked ourselves into Adidas. This despite the left-fielder correctly remembering both Bolt and (Mario) Balotelli had even featured in an advert together, giving us a potential extra way into the question.
7) The left-fielder immediately said doughboy, the doctor and I both thought it was dogface. Turns out the latter, which we only vaguely knew from Countdown, refers to the Second World War, not the first. Lesson learned: trust the guy from the correct continent, not the guys guessing a word based on an anagram TV show they haven't watched in years.
8) It probably didn't help that 'William of Orange' makes one thing of William III, rather than the one in consideration here, but that's little excuse. I hadn't even heard of the Eighty Years' War, and it's particularly embarrassing to drop European history questions on quizzes here. France seemed the 'safety' play, with some brief deliberations about somewhere slightly further afield not fully pursued.
9) For the uninitiated, the Yankees (as is common in North American sports) periodically retire jersey numbers to honour particularly notable players. As can be inferred from the answer, the Yankees have retired numbers 1 through 10, with the exception of number 2 (which was worn by recently retired Yankees legend Derek Jeter). The left-fielder, as the name implies, likes his baseball, but even this was a tough ask. He narrowed it down to "higher than 6 because otherwise this question is lame, lower than 13 because Alex Rodriguez. Probably 7 or 9" which, while still wrong, is obviously a damn sight better than we'd have managed. (Although I was tempted to be That Guy and say '0', as I knew some players have taken that number.)

How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more points)? Would you have helped us win (3 or more points)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


My alternative questions
1) Deriving (loosely) from the Japanese for 'Sulfur Island', which island's name features in a 2006 Best Picture nominated Clint Eastwood-directed movie?
2) Named after its inventor (upon whose life A Beautiful Mind is based) what two-word term describes a situation in a non-cooperative game where no player can improve their position by changing their strategy?
3) Judi Dench won the Oscar for her (brief) portrayal of Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love. Which actress also notably portrayed the Virgin Queen that year, in the title role of another film nominated for Best Picture?
4) Which journalist and television personality's name is, somewhat appropriately, an anagram of 'Smearing Pro'?
5) Autism is one of three recognized disorders in the autistic spectrum. Another is the rather descriptive 'pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified', what's the third?
6) In theory, what is the shortest distance a runner could spend holding the baton in a 4x100m relay without being disqualified?

Question 7

7) How is Poppin' Fresh (pictured), the mascot of a baking products company, better known?
8) Which country enjoys a 'special relationship' with the Netherlands thanks to actions during the Second World War? Its forces led the liberation of the Netherlands, the country hosted the Dutch Royal Family in exile, and they even temporarily declared a hospital ward as extraterritorial to ensure a Princess born there would hold Dutch citizenship.
9) National Football League teams play 16 games in the regular season (that is, excluding the post-season playoffs). National Basketball Association and National Hockey League teams, meanwhile, play 82 games, but how many games do teams play in the regular season of Major League Baseball? Spot on gets you 2 points, within 10% gets you 1 point.

The answers

1) Iwo Jima (the movie being Letters from Iwo Jima)
2) Nash equilibrium
3) Cate Blanchett
4) Piers Morgan
5) Asperger syndrome
6) 80 metres (possible for the second or third runner; the changeover box is 20 metres, extending 10 metres either side of the 100 metre marks)
7) Pillsbury Doughboy
8) Canada
9) 162 (so 146-178 gets you 1 point)

How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!

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