Groovy Movie

Transcript

OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:

Our next game is called "Groovy Music." I know - get excited.

JONATHAN COULTON, BYLINE: Actually, it's not.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Oh. You're right. Our next game is called...

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: ...I got so excited. Our next game is called "Groovy Movie."

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: And here to play it are Robert Pepe and Nicholas Harbison.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Now, sometimes this happens that we just put two contestants together and by pure coincidence they have a lot in common. And here's what you two have in common - you both abandoned a college degree path that you were on at one point.

ROBERT PEPE: Abandoned seems like a strong term.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: OK. Well, what happened, Robert? Why don't you tell me?

PEPE: Well, I was a philosophy major.

EISENBERG: Yeah.

PEPE: I realized that didn't prepare you for a whole lot of much.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: I feel like that's part of the course.

(LAUGHTER)

PEPE: So I dropped out and ended up in marketing.

EISENBERG: Yeah. How's that going?

PEPE: That went badly, too.

EISENBERG: Oh, really?

(LAUGHTER)

PEPE: So now I'm in affordable housing and going to school for my master's in childhood special education.

EISENBERG: Well, that's a lovely end to that story.

PEPE: It's a meandering path.

EISENBERG: It's a meandering path - that's a good one. I like that. Nicholas, what happened to your college degree?

NICHOLAS HARBISON: Well, I actually finished my, path, as it were, and I actually have a doctorate in biochemistry.

EISENBERG: Oh, you do? Congratulations.

HARBISON: I do and I hate it. So I now work in retail.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Nice. That is also a meandering path. But in this game - you guys are perfectly suited for this game because we're going to mash-up the plots of two movies whose titles' rhyme, and you have to name both movies. Let's go to our puzzle guru, Mary Tobler, for an example.

MARY TOBLER, BYLINE: If I were to say Ben Affleck plays a CIA agent who helps American hostages escape from Iran and then solves a murder in a small Minnesota town - you betcha - that would be "Argo" and "Fargo."

PEPE: This is going to be a disaster.

(LAUGHTER)

TOBLER: No, it's going to be great.

EISENBERG: So, you don't have to mash-up the titles, right? They just rhyme with each other and you just have to give them both to me. All right, feel free to talk it out.

HARBISON: Robert, I have to tell you, your lack of confidence makes me so excited for this game.

(LAUGHTER)

HARBISON: I think it's going to be a lot of fun for most of us.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know when you'll have to play basketball with Woody Harrelson.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Robert.

PEPE: "Forrest Gump" and "White Men Can't Jump."

EISENBERG: Yeah.

(APPLAUSE)

COULTON: Who's the black private dick who's a sex machine to all the chicks and a firefighting machine also, with Kurt Russell and William Baldwin?

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Robert.

PEPE: "Shaft" and "Backdraft?"

COULTON: You got it, that's right.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: I want that calendar immediately.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy play two law enforcement officers who hunt down a creepy serial killer who stalks you in your dreams.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Robert.

PEPE: "The Heat" and "Nightmare On Elm Street?"

EISENBERG: Yes.

(APPLAUSE)

PEPE: The audience didn't seem pleased with that.

EISENBERG: The audience gasped at your amazing, gymnastic feat that went on in your cerebral head.

PEPE: Good.

EISENBERG: Yeah, all right.

COULTON: After a washed-up golf pro - played by Kevin Costner - fails to qualify for the U.S. Open, yet again, he decides to run away from it all by tying helium balloons to his house.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Nicholas.

HARBISON: "Tin Cup" and "Up."

COULTON: You got it.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: First 10 minutes of that movie, man. It'll mess you up.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Which one, "Tin Cup?"

EISENBERG: Yeah, "Tin Cup."

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Because they're so...

MAN: Heartbreaking.

EISENBERG: ...Heartbreaking. You're like, this is not as funny as "Caddyshack."

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Omar Sharif brings Boris Pasternak's Russian novel to life and then gives them the old razzle-dazzle, dancing with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellweger.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Nicholas.

HARBISON: "Doctor Zhivago" and "Chicago?"

EISENBERG: Yes, exactly.

(APPLAUSE)

COULTON: Two ridiculously good-looking con men pull off one of the greatest scams in 1930's Chicago and use their winnings to buy a boom box to play Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" below Ione Skye's window.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Robert.

PEPE: "The Sting" and "Say Anything?"

COULTON: Yeah, that's right.

(APPLAUSE)

PEPE: Really? Wow.

EISENBERG: The only surviving child of the Russian royal family eludes the undead Rasputin, while a mouse in a wizard outfit makes mops dance.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Nicholas.

HARBISON: "Anastasia" and "Fantasia."

EISENBERG: Exactly.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Mary Tobler, puzzle guru - how did our contestants do?

TOBLER: They did wonderfully. It was a close game. Robert's the winner.

(APPLAUSE)

TOBLER: Well done. We'll see you in our final round at the end of the show.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Coming up, we'll talk to our VIP author of "The Interestings" and "The Ten-Year Nap," Meg Wolitzer, about her first young adult novel, so stick around. I'm Ophira Eisenberg and this is NPR's ASK ME ANOTHER.

(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.