by Dave Umbricht

Being a movie geek can be a burden some times.  The more you know, the more you want to share that knowledge.  Unfortunately, there are so few mainstream outlets, because most people could care less.  That is why there was a beautiful period in the 90’s when a movie trivia game became all the rage at parties.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon was a simple game. Players needed to link Kevin Bacon to another actor by using movies.  Why Kevin Bacon?  He had a vast enough filmography that you could easily link him to anyone in six movies or less.  The idea was to link them in as few movies as possible.

For example, if someone said John Wayne.  You could say Kevin Bacon was in Mystic River with Sean Penn who was in Casualties of War with Michael J. Fox who was in Back to the Future with Christopher Lloyd who was in Suburban Commando with Shelley Duvall who was in The Shining with Scatman Crothers who was in The Shootist with John Wayne.  That is six.

It’s time for a new game

Now the more movies Kevin Bacon made, the easier the game became.  So I say, “no mas”, time to play a new game.  Let’s expand this to all the far flung reaches of filmdom.  Each week I will give two people to connect.  The goal remains to connect them in as few movies as possible.  However, that is only part of the fun.  Bonus points are given for creativity, obscurity and downright odd movie choices.  Also, try not to use IMDB.com (like I did in the above example).  It will be a lot more fun.

A different theme every week

Each week will have a different theme.  I will also have an end movie in mind.  See if you can guess that.  There may also be weeks where I give bonus challenges – for example, use a famed rock musician as part of your chain (this may or may not be a hint to what I was thinking today).

But for today, let’s start simple and celebrate the 80’s mustache.

Connect:

 

to

Post your chains in the comment section below and let’s have some fun!

Dave Umbricht loves his family, movies and the NBA (in that order). His unexplainable, genetic attraction to movies flourished in the early ’80s thanks to Siskel and Ebert. It’s also believed Dave was the only 8-year-old to know of My Dinner with Andre, even though he didn’t see it until he was 28. In the ’90s he wrote three awful screenplays, including next summer’s Cowboys and Aliens (or at least a script with the same title). He still can’t dunk a basketball.

Check out his blog here.

Or follow him on Twitter here (@dumbricht).