Category: Quiz

Wiz Quiz 2: A Handful of Oscars!

It’s the film award season once again! Awards for the best performances and technical accomplishments in feature films released during 2010 will be announced during the first quarter of 2011.

The best known – and most sought after – film awards are presented by the (American) Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Official called the Academy Awards, they are better known by their informal name ‘Oscars’.

‘A handful of Oscars’ is the title on our weekly Wiz Quiz this week in Daily News. Film buff Vindana Ariyawansa and I have chosen a few of the great many records and outstanding feats from the rich and colourful history of Oscar awards.

There aren’t too many notable Asians in this history, but we’ve focused on some: Satyajit Ray, Dr Haing S. Ngor
Akira Kurosawa and Ang Lee among them.

The first Academy/Oscar Awards ceremony was held on 16 May 1929, at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood to honour outstanding film achievements of the 1927/1928 film season. The 83rd Oscar awards ceremony is scheduled for 27 February 2011, and will honour the best of films released during 2010. Nominations for the 2010 Awards have just been announced, on 25 January 2011.

Click here to see full list of Oscar Award nominations for 2010

Wiz Quiz: Announcing the launch of a new weekly Quiz

By Saul Steinberg (1914-1999), American cartoonist and illustrator

Question: Who said: “All the world is a quiz, and all the men and women merely players”?
Answer: The late Magnús Magnússon, iconic host of BBC television’s long-running quiz Mastermind.

I am fond of quoting these words, which sum up what quizzing is all about. I’ve been involved in quizzing most of my life, now for over 30 years. I was an avid ‘quiz kid’ in my time and later became a quiz compiler and quizmaster – I’ve been hosting long-running quizzes on radio and television in both in English and Sinhala.

The latest venture in that quiz career was launched today, with a new weekly quiz column in Daily News, Sri Lanka. It’s called Wiz Quiz. The first installment is found here, a quick look at 2011.

Every week, we will present a new set of 15 questions, and publish the answers to the previous week’s questions. The newspaper is arranging for prizes for those who get all the answers right.

I am partnering on this with my friend and long-standing quiz enthusiast (and film buff) Vindana Ariyawansa. Vindana too started quizzing as a school boy aged 13, and was later a member of University of Kentucky quiz team for three years. In 2008, he published a Quiz Book in English containing 1,000 questions and answers on general knowledge.

As we say in today’s intro: “We don’t want to ask questions that elicit esoteric answers that nobody knows. Instead of such trivial pursuits, we want to keep this quiz focused on interesting insights and factoids related to our island and the wider world outside.”

And while on the subject, here’s a great new quizzing website I’ve just discovered: Quizzing.in