Jamie and Janina’s Universal Film Drinking Game

I had originally posted a version of this on Medium, but it occurs to me that I used to sign in to Medium with my twitter account and I've deleted my twitter account, obviously, so I thought I put it here because it's very good.

Jamie and I have been playing a universal drinking game when we watch films for years. It has grown over time, and we play it regardless of whether we're drinking wine or tea or water or whatnot.

Ok, here we go:

• Someone in the film says the name of the film

Also applies to the name being in print

The Event Horizon Amendment dictates that this rule only applies for the first three instances

• Wilhelm Scream

If you're not a nerd, you might not have heard of the Wilhelm Scream. It was recorded for the 1951 film Distant Drums and was then included in the Warner Bros' stock library of sound effects. Since then it's been used so much it's become a self-perpetuating phenomenon – films use it because they know it will be recognised.

• Three-point landing

Falling into the shot with two feet and one hand on the ground. You know, like superheroes do.

• “You want me to x?”

Second drink for: “no I want you to y, yes of course I want you to x”

• Product placement

Extremely big drink if this occurs while a character is decrying commercialisation. does not apply if the movie you're watching is Josie and the Pussycats, obviously, drink responsibly.

• Obvious stand-in for brand who did not agree to product placement

e.g. whenever someone uses Not Google or has a convenient sticker over the Apple logo on their obviously a Macbook.

• Thematic tie-in, e.g. in a Christmas film if sleigh-bells are ringing and someone says, “are you listening?”

At personal discretion

Also includes names of people/town’s/stores labelling the theme of the film, e.g. jaded city girl forced to live in the town of Redemption, Colarado where she will learn be, like, unselfish or whatever. The Road to Perdition being about going to a town called Perdition, right, you understand, you get it.

• Faces are suddenly too close to each other

Will they kiss or won’t they?!

• Split diopter

This is when something in the background is in focus while something in the foreground is also in focus — Jamie always tells me when this has happened and I just believe him! Here’s a handy explainer! I did not embed it because it's quite boring, but here is also an example:

• Someone keeps talking without noticing that the person they’re talking to has walked away

Bonus if someone else walks up and enters the conversation.

• Dolly zoom

That thing where the background perspective shifts all dramatically, like the person in the shot is moving closer to the camera while the background is shifting further away, thusly:

• Camera pans through a window

Like a closed window, right, like the shot moves through a pane of glass. I cannot find an example right now, I keep just getting kitchen decor photos of pans hanging by windows.

• Breaking the forth wall, e.g. looking at the camera/addressing the audience

Unless there is an established narrator in play.

• Chekhov’s Gun

Again, in case you're not a nerd, Russian playwright Anton Chekhov had a rule that if you introduce a gun in the first act, it had better go off in the third act. Or a bomb or a broken step or a double jointed thumb or whatever. Drink again when it goes off.

• On the nose needle drop

Use personal discretion

• Meta jokes

References to external things, eg, the entirety of Scream

• Cameos

Bonus for regular film pals, e.g. Steve Buscemi in an Adam Sandler film

• “Tell my wife I love her” or similar

Bonus drink for “you’re gonna tell her yourself!”

• “I’ve got a bad feeling about this”

Extra if it’s a Star War

• Obvious foreshadowing
• Obvious ADR
• Female character being “not like other girls”
• Montage
• Character says “this is awkward” out loud
• Meetcute
• Shot includes obvious stand-in
• Unnecessary body shot

e.g. cleavage or butt

Two if it’s Arnie

• “I’ve seen the way you look at him/her/them/it”
• Obvious green screen
• Obvious painted backdrop
• Racing to the airport or similar
• Refrigerated woman

For my non-nerds, this is when a female character is killed, raped, or otherwise brutalised in order to spur the character journey of a male character. Russell Crowe's wife in Gladiator, for example. Named for an issue of The Green Lantern when the titular Green Lantern comes home to find his girlfriend has been killed and stuffed in the fridge.

• Table flip
• Classic trope of the genre

This will obviously depend on what you’re watching but examples include

1. A heisty bass line (in a heist film)
2. Any song from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack (in a dance film)
3. A POV shot peering through a window into a house (in a horror)
4. Someone “suspecting foul play” (in a detective film)

• “I’ll deal with him myself” or similar
• Retrospective cameos, i.e. featured extras who are now famous
• Nudity

Bonus for hanging dong

• Kissing in a pool or other body of water

I’m including rain as a body of water here.

• Obvious plot developing/establishing dialogue

e.g. “are you going to the party at the new waterpark that just opened last week and hasn’t been through safety checks yet?”

• Night scene obviously shot during the day
• Rain machine obviously used in bright sunlight
• Innuendoes in a kids’ film

A nice dirty joke for the parents!

• “This isn’t a movie” or “if this was a movie”

Bonus for genre specific

• Flashback
• Someone in a movie saying they don’t like/watch movies
• Keanu Reeves
• Obviously reversed shot
• Clumsy ignoring of available tech in order to let plot happen

Otherwise known as the “everyone has cellphones now” creative writing dilemma

• Director hallmark

e.g. feet in a Tarantino film, lens flare in J.J. Abrams, a dead wife in Nolan (yes he gets an extra refrigerated woman drink)

• Aspect ratio shift

As seen in Grand Budapest Hotel, for example

• “It’s noun. Adjective noun. The kind you don’t want to mess with.”
• Match cut

When you cut to a new scene but there’s a visual connection in the shot.

• Music that moves from being non-diagetic to diagetic

i.e. It goes from being background music/score to being physically played in the movie or vice versa.

• If they cheers or raise a glass in the movie you cheers or raise a glass in real life
• “There is no monster!” <Monster appears>
• Gilligan cut

i.e. “you’ll never catch me doing that” <cut to them doing that>

• When the characters tell us and also each other who they are

“I’m a two-bit hog swindler with a busted pinky toe and you’re a pink-tinged flying merma, it’ll never work.”

• Plot development via three-way phone call

Bonus for mixing up which person they’re talking to.

• Food that is clearly glued to the plate
• Food they begin eating and then immediately abandon

Look, I know food is hard for continuity, but still.

• Landmarks

e.g. Walking past The Bean in Chicago or over the Thames in London

These are all the ones we've ever done that I can currently remember! I reserve the right to come back and add more whenever I want.