Horizon 2013 MELA Finals

M.E.L.A
FINALS
YOGARSHI VYAS
FEAT. MAYANK MUJUMDAR

RULES
1. Welcome to the finals - where everything’s made up, but the
points do matter.
2. 5 rounds in the quiz – 2 written, 2 Infinite Pwnce and 1 LVC.
3. Blanks may/may not be indicative of the actual answer.
4. Guess!

WRITE HO!
• 6 xkcd comics with pop culture references to be identified.
• Differential marking in place : 5*(6-n) points for correct answer
– 25 if only 1 team gets it correct
– 20 if 2 teams get it correct
– Slow clap if everyone gets it

1. This term was used for the younger generation because it was believed
that the bad attention spans and lack of concentration in that section of the
society was caused by _______.

2. The first part of the dialogue is a tribute to 2001 : A Space Odyssey.
However, where would you come across GLaDOS, whom HAL proposes
a replacement for Dave?

3. The literary work referenced?

4. This strip was titled ‘With Apologies to ______ _____ ‘. FITB

6. Which iconic album cover has been referenced here ?

2. The first part of the dialog is obviously a tribute to 2001 : A Space
Odyssey. However, where would you come across GLaDOS, whom HAL
proposes a replacement for Dave.

4. This strip was titled ‘With Apologies to ______ _____ . FITB

Infinite Pwnce
• 12 questions on pounce.
• +10 for correct. +10/-10 for pouncing.
• Guess, you shall.

1.
• He was touted by his fans as the perfect actor for playing Cedric Diggory in the
Harry Potter movies, but Robert Pattinson got the nod for this role.
• He had been cast as the new Superman in Superman Returns, only to lose the job
to Brandon Routh when the project changed directors.
• Stephanie Meyer considered him to be the “perfect” Edward Cullen but by the
time the Twilight film franchise went on the floors, he was too old for the part.
• He also did a final screen-test for James Bond and was up against Daniel
Craig and Sam Worthington for the 007 role. But this time the studio ultimately
thought him to be too young for the part.
Identify this actor, whose repeated disappointments and close shaves with stardom
touted Empire magazine to dub him as ‘The Unluckiest Man in Hollywood’, and
who shall be seen in a landmark role in 2013.

2.
This is a scene from the opening credits of a 2009 movie and is said to be
a reference another momentous event in fiction.
Name the movie and explain what is happening here.
(larger image follows)

From Watchmen
The Nite Owl is saving Bruce Wayne’s parents

3.
When this octogenarian was asked about her reasons to do so, this is what
she had to say :
“I’m not the first one to do this! Besides, we have seen how things get
stolen or misplaced in India. Over the past years, famous paintings have
been stolen that have never been retrieved. Even Rabindranath Tagore's
Nobel medal wasn't spared. Not many people can claim to have held an
_____in their hands and I want that feeling to stay alive.”
Who and what did this person do last month that led to a lot of public
furore?

Bhanu Athaiya returning the Oscar to the Academy

4.
In 1990, Stiff Records, under the aegis of a fictional company called Magic
Records, released an LP titled ‘The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan’
which surprisingly sold over 30,000 copies despite its content?
What was the content of this LP?

5.
A recent petition directed at the White House to “Secure resources and funding, and
begin construction of a _____ ____ by 2016” was signed by almost 35,000 people.
Since the White House had pledged that it would respond to any petition that had
over 25,000 signatures, it came out with an official response to this titled “This Isn't
the Petition Response You're Looking For” which started as follows :
The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense,
but a _____ ____ isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:
• The construction of the _____ ____ has been estimated to cost more than
$850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand
it.
• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a _____ ____ with a
fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

6.
___ ___ _____, is a popular phrase used in North Bihar, now brought into public
conscience due to its use in the soundtrack of a recent movie. When the 16 year-old
singer was asked the meaning of her song she said, “___ ___ _____ matlab poora
satyanash”.
Generally, this phrase indicates anything going wrong or not being up to the mark.
What phrase ?

7.
The word ‘_______’ as in ‘What the _______’ or ‘hurts like the _______’
is actually a euphemism, or something like a minced-oath, for the word
devil having possibly originated via the word ‘devilkins’. William
Shakespeare used this in ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ as :
‘I cannot tell what the _______ his name is my husband had him of.’
Hence this word has nothing to do with the author of the same name.
What’s the good word?

8.

A sequence from the Alfred Hitchcock movie ‘Spellbound’. Who
designed the sets and the background for this particular sequence?

<video removed - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzxlbgPkxHE >

9.
Kerala-born theatre director Roysten Abel was touring with a performance
titled Jiyo , which featured several performances by out-of-work street
artists. While in Segovia (Spain) , he interacted with two artists from a
Muslim community in Rajasthan and was mesmerized by their music.
Their music became his obsession, and he amalgamated their music with
art inspired by the red-light areas of Amsterdam which turned their act into
a 45-membered production that debuted at the Osian Film Festival, New
Delhi in 2006.
What is this production called?

10.
• This is a recently discovered species of bee called the 'Euglossa
_______’. According to the biologist who discovered it, he named it so to
honor a popular television character and also because the bee had
tricked scientists for some time with its similarity to other species.
• An executive producer associated with the show the character appears in
said that ‘X would be honored to know that Euglossa _______ was
inspired by him. In fact, after ‘Mothra’ and griffins, bees are his third-
favourite flying creatures.’
• FITB!

11.
Who do we see in a cameo in this scene from Django Unchained?

<video removed - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vphc_iXtUOA >

Franco Nero, the original Django

FIR SE WRITE HO!
• 6 stamps related to the world of literature.
• Differential marking in place : 5*(6-n) points for correct
answer
–25 if only 1 team gets it correct
–20 if 2 teams get it correct
–Slow clap if everyone gets it

EXCHANGE SHEETS
ANSWERS FOLLOW

1.
Connect these movies with respect to the 2013 Academy Awards.
Be as specific as possible.

All previous winners for Best Supporting Actor award being
nominated this year, a first of its kind

2.
What catchy phrase, having no legal definition per se, is used by law
enforcement in the USA when announcing the name of someone involved
in a criminal investigation who has not been arrested or formally accused
of a crime?

3.
• This is the poster of a fantasy movie
that was to be produced by Vidhu
Vinod Chopra and was supposed to
star Amitabh Bachchan in the lead
role. However it is now gathering dust
due to financial issues.
• Which 1888 novel by Devaki Nandan
Khatri was the inspiration for this
movie?

4.
The largest of its kind is held twice a year in Tokyo and the second largest
in Angoulême, France.
However the third is the most well known among the lot, tickets for which
were sold out within 90 minutes of going on sale last Saturday, despite the
event still being 5 months away.
What event that sees almost 130,000 people gather every year?

5.
The name for this material comes from the French term for ‘chewed-
paper’. It is a composite material consisting of paper pieces or pulp,
reinforced with textiles and bound with an adhesive.
A very important component of decorative structures before the rise of
modern composites and plastics, this material still finds usage in low-cost
arts and crafts, as well as building large floats, theatrical sets and puppets
among other things.
Which material?

6.
Connect these three Led Zeppelin songs.

<audio removed – Ramble On and Battle of Evermore by Led Zepplin >

Hard-core believers would also like to add this song to the connect.

<audio removed – Misty Mountain Hop by Led Zeppelin >

Inspire by Lord of the Rings
Ramble On, Battle of Evermore & Misty Mountain Hop

7.
Two devices that cause temporal displacement have been mashed up to
create this image. Name both of them.

Dr. Who’s TARDIS
DeLorean from Back to the Future

8.
A certain Roderick Jaynes has been nominated for the Best
Editing Academy Award, twice, for ‘Fargo’ and ‘No Country for
Old Men’, but never won any.
If he had won, why would he have been not able to come and
collect it ?

Because he doesn’t exist!
Roderick Jaynes is a nom-de-plume of the Coen Brothers under which they edit
all their films.

9.
Which ‘interesting’ British ‘quiz show’ hosted by Stephen Fry,
currently in its 10th season, has each season themed around a
different letter of the alphabet, with every episode of that season
revolving around topics beginning with that letter? Thus the first
season is called Season A instead of Season 1 and the current
season is Season J and not Season 10?

10.
This 2013 comedy(or a montage of one tasteless sketch after another, depending on how you see it)
assembled one of the largest ensemble casts in movie history, viz. Halle Berry, Gerard Butler,
Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts, Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, Elizabeth Banks, Josh
Duhamel and dozens of other well known names.Despite them, this movie has now become a
strong contender for the title of Worst Movie Ever with a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Roger Ebert has said,“ there's camp-fun bad and interestingly horrible bad, and then there's just
awful. This is the "Citizen Kane" of awful.” Also the director “was going for a 21st century version of
The Groove Tube and “Kentucky Fried Movie," two very funny, very raunchy and very influential
sketch-comedy flicks of the mid-1970s. The only thing it has in common with those movies is it's in
colour.”
What disaster that released last month to widespread critical panning?

11.
This term took its name from a 1968 album with Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield,
and Stephen Stills. The coalition of Crosby, Stills & Nash (later Crosby, Stills, Nash
& Young) is another early example, given the success of their prior bands (The
Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and The Hollies respectively).
Music writers have also applied the term to groups that sold huge numbers of albums
and headlined massive concerts regardless of the previous fame of their individual
members, such as the band Led Zeppelin, wherein only Jimmy Page was well known
at the time the group formed.
The term is also used to describe existing bands whose members achieved individual
fame after the band's founding, such as The Beatles, Pink
Floyd, Queen, Genesis and Yes.
What term?

12.
This style of journalism is written without claims of objectivity, often including the
reporter as part of the story via a first-person narrative. It involves an approach to
accuracy through the reporting of personal experiences and emotions, as compared
to traditional journalism, which favours a detached style and relies on facts or
quotations that can be verified by third parties. Use of sarcasm, humour,
exaggeration, and profanity is common.
The term was first used in connection with the famous journalist-author Hunter S.
Thompson by The Boston Globe magazine editor Bill Cardoso in 1970.
What style of journalism, the first usage of which by Thompson himself was found
in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?

LVC
• 8 questions in this round, the answers of which are
all connected by a central theme.
• Non-exhaustive, but almost ordered list.
• +10 for individual correct answer.
• Points for theme indicated on the respective
slides.
• Constant -10 for incorrect theme guesses.

+50.
This song was originally recorded by singer-artist Cher for her second album, The
Sonny Side of Cher, which released in 1966 and since then it has been covered
innumerable times. However the most famous version of this song was released in
1966 itself on X’s album How Does That Grab You? and featured a guitar with a
tremolo(trembling) effect and melancholy vocals as compared to Cher’s original. This
version was languishing in popularity however, until it was used in the opening credits
of the 2003 release Y.

Identify the song, the singer X and the movie Y.

+45.
X had a bevy of nick-names.
The most famous of them all, _______ is short for Satchelmouth, and has many
possible origins. The most common tale that biographers tell is the story of X as a
young boy dancing for pennies in the streets of New Orleans, who would scoop up
the coins off of the streets and stick them into his mouth to avoid having the bigger
children steal them from him. Someone dubbed him "satchel mouth" for his mouth
acting as a satchel. Another tale is that because of his large mouth, he was nicknamed
"satchel mouth" which became shortened to _______.
Early on he was also known as Dipper, short for Dippermouth, a reference to the jazz
piece Dippermouth Blues. The nickname Pops came from his own tendency to
forget people's names and simply call them "pops" instead.
What famous nickname and who is the gentleman?

+40.
According to a famous urban legend, this fellow died in 1966 and was secretly replaced by a look-
alike.
On 17 September 1969, an article titled "Is X Dead?" was published in a student
newspaper in Iowa. The article described a rumour that had been circulating on campus that X was
dead. At that point the rumour included numerous clues from recent albums, including the "turn
me on, dead man" message heard when one of his songs was played backwards, as well as another
album cover which reportedly showed a ‘funeral procession’.
Before the end of October 1969, several records were released on the subject—including "The
Ballad of X" by the Mystery Tour, "Brother X" by Billy Shears and the All Americans, and "So Long
X" by José Feliciano. A parody of the whole issue was also included in a Batman comic in 1970
(image on next slide)
Rumours of whose death which continued to spread until a contemporary interview with X was
published in Life magazine during this period ?

+35.
This band began playing in Birmingham in 1978, where they would become the
resident band at the city's Rum Runner nightclub and started rehearsing and regularly
playing at the venue. There were many nearby nightclubs, and the one "significant"
one, where bands such as The Sex Pistols and The Clash played gigs, was called
Barbarella's. They would go on to name the band after the villain from Barbarella , a
French science-fiction film. The villain, played by Milo O'Shea, is named “Dr.
______ ______“ (both blanks identical).

Which band ?

+30.

Movie poster for a biopic based on whose life?
Adapted from her autobiography, the title of the film
comes from a very popular single by this artist.

+25.
Identify the singer whose cover of the Guns n Roses song won her a Grammy for
Best Rock Performance in 1999.

<audio removed – Sweet Child of Mine by Sheryl Crow >

+20.
Evita was a 1996 musical drama film was based on an Andrew Lloyd
Webber musical of the same name based on the life of former Argentinian
first lady, Eva Peron. Who starred in the title role, one of those rare
occasions where her movie outing has received critical acclaim?

She won a Golden Globe for this role and also earned a Guinness World
Record for the most costume changes in a movie – 85 in number, which
included 39 hats, 45 pairs of shoes, and 56 pairs of earrings.

+10
In an interview this artist said that the purpose behind the title A was to reflect her age
when she wrote this . She said, “I just kinda remember becoming a bit of a woman
during that time. And I think that is definitely documented in the songs”.
3 years later she said abut another titling : “B is different from A, it's about the same
things but in a different light. I deal with things differently now. I'm more patient ...
more forgiving and more aware of my own flaws ... Something that comes with age I
think. So fittingly this record is called B ... Like a photo album you see my
progression and change ... throughout the years. I tried to think of other titles but
couldn't come up with anything that represented this properly”.
What are A & B?

Nancy Sinatra’s Bang Bang in Kill Bill Vol. 1

+25.

Identify the singer whose cover of the Guns n Roses song won her a Grammy for
Best Rock Performance in 1999.

+20.
Evita was a 1996 musical drama film was based on an Andrew Lloyd
Webber musical of the same name based on the life of former Argentinian
first lady, Eva Peron. Who starred in the title role, one of those rare
occasions where her movie outing has received critical acclaim?
She won a Golden Globe for this role and also earned a Guinness World
Record for the most costume changes in a movie – 85 in number, which
included 39 hats, 45 pairs of shoes, and 56 pairs of earrings.

James Bond Themes
• Nancy Sinatra – You Only Live twice
• Louis Armstrong – On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
• Paul McCartney and the Wings – Live and Let Die
• Duran Duran – A View to Kill
• Tina Turner – Goldeneye
• Sheryl Crow – Tomorrow Never Dies
• Die Another Day – Madonna
• Skyfall - Adele

The End
feedback & suggestions here

/yogarshi @yogarshi

Horizon 2013 MELA Finals

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