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- CineQuote Newsletter #89
It’s CineQuote Cake Party Hysteria!
Did everyone crush CineQuote this week, or barring that, switched places with their long lost British twin and had THEM crush CineQuote for you this week? Either way, we think everybody deserves an easier week. Hopefully you’ll get what you deserve.
Funny little story about The Parent Trap before we get on with the weekly stats. Maureen O’Hara was a pretty big deal when she agreed to play the mom in this. Disney wanted to pay her less than her $75,000 asking price (~844k today), but she was a tough Irish oak and held firm until Uncle Walt gave her what she wanted. He also told her she would receive top billing, but in the end that went to Hayley Mills. BWAA-Oh! He got ya on the ol’ switcheroo, O’Hara! She vowed to never work with Disney again, and unless her estate agrees to harvest her image without her consent (and we all know that’s coming), she held firm on that as well and didn’t return to Disney before dying in 2015. In a couple years however, check out (the likeness of) Maureen O’Hara in Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu 2: Midchloric Groguloo.
Lastly, welcome aboard to all our new CQ Members! We’re so happy you signed up. Anybody else out there who is thinking about it, it’s 5 bucks a month, and the benefits (improved circulation, more blood flow, less headaches) are countless. Recently we unveiled the Triple Play for our Members to play! As promised here’s another one:
These are the Member-Exclusive mini games provide each week here in the Newsletter, so if you wanna be one of the coolest kids at the lunch table, click that profile tab and help support this plucky little underdog of a mobile game by becoming a Member for $5 a month (less than a quarter a day.) Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Alrighty. Let’s talk numbers:
Last Week’s Highlights
Highest Win Percentage89.0%  The Hunt for Red October (1990) | Lowest Win Percentage43.6%  Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002) |
89% of you may finally get to see Montana. We couldn’t quite crack the 90% threshold this week, but we’ll take what we can get nowadays. Director John McTiernan had a three movie run where he directed Predator, Die Hard, and then THE HUNT FOR THE RED OCTOBER. That right there should make him a first-ballot hall of famer in the action movie history books, even if he also directed Rollerball (whatever you do, DON’T WATCH the trailer for Rollerball listed here).
We heard “what the hell is this?” from a number of you on last week’s Sunday Stumper, and rightly so. KUNG POW: ENTER THE FIST is a strange one. Primarily using footage from the 1976 Hong Kong martial arts film Tiger & Crane Fists along with new footage shot by the director Oedekerk, who is also digitally inserted over the original actor in many scenes, to create an absurd, unrelated plot. Yes. It’s a cult movie, but not unheard of, so that’s why we did it.
 Steve Oedekerk, as Choen One, encounters an interesting dialect while stocking up on nuts in | Ace of the Week10.6%“I'll take a pound of nuts.” |
What is going on here? For the second time in three weeks, the lowest Win rate also produces the TOP ACE RATE?! A fortnight ago it was Quigley Down Under with that honor (dishonor?) and now, in jumps KP: ETF. This line delivery, though, seems to have wedged itself in enough people’s memory (not just ours) as it ended up being the catalyst for geting this right. Here's a good comparison of this scene in the original format, and then how it came across in Kung Pao.
As far as the low score of the week winning the Ace Rate…we’re stymied. If anyone here has an idea on what we should call this admirable indignity, send us an idea on the feedback link under your Profile. We can’t explain it, and frankly we don’t want to, but all we know is that it’s weirding us out.
Here are the numbers for all the games last week.
Movie | Win % | Ace % |
|---|---|---|
The Hunt for Red October (1990) | 89.0% | 9.6% |
The Parent Trap (1961) | 85.1% | 3.5% |
Red Dragon (2002) | 77.7% | 2.9% |
Soul (2020) | 76.0% | 4.0% |
Public Enemies (2009) | 61.4% | 3.5% |
The Sting (1973) | 57.9% | 10.0% |
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002) | 43.6% | 10.6% |
The Parent Trap roused all your Disney kids out of your stupor, as it rocketed to an admirable 85.1%, an impressive score for a movie 65 plus years old. We hope those two girls who played sisters in that movie are still friends!
Red Dragon is the remake of Manhunter from 1986. It’s universally-remembered as the remake that probably didn’t need to happen but after Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, the studio really wanted to squeeze the sponge that was Anthony Hopkins’ Lecter as much as they could before he bit. We don’t discuss televison much here, but the NBC series “Hannibal”, starring Mads Mikkelsen, was terrific. And we here at CineQuote are still waiting on Santa for our crystal decanter in the shape of Mikkelsen’s head.
Soul actually did a little under what was expected for a Pixar movie. Typically those things are good for a 95-105% win rate. We’re gonna blame the cat.
Public Enemies featured two of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars at the time (Johnny Depp and Christian Bale) both taking a pause on their massive franchies (Pirates of the Carribean and Batman) to make a Great Depression period-piece on the final few months of John Dillinger. Even though we gave you the title in the quote, players could not get this thing up over 62%. Remember, the next time Billy Crudup says “public enemy”, that’s gonna be our tricky clue that the movie is Public Enemies (excuse the pluralization).
The Sting is such a great movie, featuring this improbably rare melding of megastars Newman and Redford. And while our friends over at the Unkind Rewind podcast waxed nostalgic and wantonly over it, we’re going to use this space just to encourage you to see it. Prime and AppleTV both have it for rent for 4 bucks. And if you are okay with ads, YouTube has it posted for free. It’s worth the 4 bucks though.
CQ Recommends
When it comes to counting, we recommend listening to Terry.
 Heaven Knows What (2014) | A young heroin addict roams the streets of New York to panhandle and get her next fix, while her unstable boyfriend drifts in and out of her life at random. Way before they Safdies were putting Adam Sandler and Robert Pattinson through a roller-coaster of cortisol, they dragged poor Arielle Holmes through hell. Discovered randomly at a subway station, Holmes plays the central character in this semi-autobiographical New York slice of life. Harrowing for sure, and there’s something remarkable about the journey for both character, and actor. -Sean |
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Got a recommendation? Got CineQuote ideas? Get in touch: [email protected]
And check out our friends over at the Unkind Rewind Podcast. Many of the movies they cover show up on CineQuote sooner or later. Just sayin…
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