Final Jeopardy: Best Actor Oscars (1-27-15)
The Final Jeopardy question (1/27/2015), in the category “Best Actor Oscars” was:
1 of 2 performers to win 2 Best Actor Oscars for films that won Best Picture.
New champ Christine Kim won $27,401 yesterday. Today her opponents are: Brian Quinn, from Boston, MA; and Jennifer Hindert, from San Antonio, TX.
Round 1: Brian found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “The City of …” under the $800 clue. He was in second place with $3,400, $400 less than Christine’s lead. He bet $1,500 and he was RIGHT.
Gaudi. show
Brian finished in the lead with $8,300. Christine was second with $4,600 and Jennifer was last with $2,000.
Round 2: Brian found the first Daily Double in “The New York Times Best Sellers List” under the $1,200 clue. He was in the lead with $16,700, $10,100 more than Christine in second place. He bet $700 and he was RIGHT.
In 2014, 20 years after it was published, this book about the origins of Ebola was back on the nonfiction list. show
Christine found the last Daily Double in the last three clues under the $2,000 clue in “Collectibles.” In second place with $7,000, she had $14,000 less than Brian’s lead. She rolled the dice again, this time with a true Daily Double, and she was RIGHT.
Perhaps you’d like to add to your collection the vases and clock (image) in iconic blue jasper from this company. show
The round ended right there and Brian finished in the lead with $21,000 but he no longer had a runaway because of his low DD bet and Christine’s bold move. She finished with $14,000 and Jennifer was in third place with $3,200.
NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
WHO IS MARLON BRANDO or DUSTIN HOFFMAN?
Marlon Brandon won his 2 Best Actor Oscars in 1954 for On the Waterfront and in 1972 for The Godfather. Dustin Hoffman won his 2 Best Actor Oscars in 1979 for Kramer v. Kramer and in 1988 for Rain Man. Each film won the Best Picture Oscar.
There are 6 other actors who have won 2 Oscars; how many roles were in Best Pictures is shown in parentheses: Gary Cooper (0), Tom Hanks (1), Fredric March (1), Jack Nicholson (1), Sean Penn (0) and Spencer Tracy (0). There is only one actor who has won 3: Daniel Day-Lewis. None of his Oscar-winning roles was in a Best Picture winner.
Jennifer picked Tom Hanks. She bet and lost it all.
Christine thought it was Daniel Day Lewis. She didn’t bet a nickel so she remained at $14,000.
Brian came up with (Leonardo) DiCaprio. He bet $7,001 so he finished with $13,999 as the audience loudly groaned! A costly error for Brian but a blessing for Christine. She remains champ and her 2-day total is $41,401.
During the chat, Christine explained the meaning of her “retired homemaker” occupation, an apparent message to her college student children that she is tired of them leaving their dirty dishes in the sink and their sneakers on the floor.
Oh yes, and apparently Jeopardy! decided to prank viewers by uploading this video of the NYT Best Sellers category on youtube well in advance of the game (linked to on Spoiler Talk about 10 a.m.) so anyone who saw it would assume Brian had the game in the bag.
2 years ago:: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “Meteorological Terms”
In the 1940s an anemometer aided Antarctic experiments that 1st determined this measurement heard in weather reports. show
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oh but with the internet and such, information is that much more readily accessible and no one needs to watch “On the Waterfront” and “Streetcar named desire” et. al…thanks to wikipedia….
categories on 19th century composers, 18th century art and the like are not often bungled on the show, can’t explain that by the fact the contestants didn’t live in that era
studying is way easier and lots more things can get covered in this age than ever….doesn’t matter if you were before the time of the making of On the Waterfront….and Marlon Brando was alive during these contestants lives
i remember hits like titanic, shawshank redemption, goodwill hunting even though i was like 7 at the time, more than any of the current stuff today…hell even know Platoon and silence of the lambs…
does anyone even remember the most recent decade of best picture oscar winners? nope…. or actors? nope….(maybe except Meryl Streep)…but i bet people still know Hepburn, Brando, Humphrey Bogart by virtue of their legend status….regardless of age
honestly thought this FJ clue was not the easiest, i first came up with Anthony Hopkins and Jack Nicholson….and they were way before my time….
Well, some folks are just not up on even Tom Hanks films as we saw recently with the contestant who thought he played Andrew Beckett in Forrest Gump. I took a look at last year and found 3 FJs about Oscars (replace the date in the address bar if you want to see the recap).
12-24-14 Oscar-Winning Actresses (funny you mention Hepburn, that was the answer here and we almost gave up predicting when only one got it)
5-15-14 The Academy Awards
1-2-14 Actors
In that light, I don’t think it’s that surprising that there will be players who just don’t delve that deeply into film history.
In the light of all the great films they are missing (Olivier, Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton, Lancaster, and so on, and an equal number of actresses in the classics, De Havilland, Stanwyck etc), it’s kinda sad but, you know, that’s just an opinion. I’m sure they can lead perfectly happy lives without ever seeing Charles Boyer try to “Gaslight” Ingrid Bergman (Trebek himself once said he never heard that expression), or Burl Ives swing from the roof rafters in “Desire Under the Elms” because his wife (Sophia Loren) just had a baby, and he doesn’t yet know the real father is his son (Anthony Perkins).
yes, and i think this is due to contestants not being up to the noses in film trivia rather than their ages
personally not a fan of FJ clues that force contestants to do some kind out of left-field, mathematical exercise as was such on today’s episode
in any event this game will be a lesson for me to take the age of the contestants into account when dealing with a fj category !!
but i think regardless of age they would/should’ve covered all their bases in their studying
like the Lawrence of Arabia question a few weeks ago…about the dude who died in the motorcycle accident…was surprised NO ONE got that right!!! doesn’t matter if the film is from 1962, it’s a classic and should’ve been covered in their studying
personally would expect a correct answer about an older but more reknowned fact than a modern/current, more obscure fact
well,yes. tom hanks is also a well known actor. but as i said before: i wonder how many of the contestants have even seen all 4 films?? i bet not one. on the waterfront from the mid 50s?? the “newest” one is from 1988 (rain man). when that movie won the oscar for best picture and best actor today’s players were i elementary school…..on the waterfront: the parents of today’s players were in elementary school….
there is too much distraction for young people nowadays to learn “general” or “classic” things. that’s the downside of the internet and video games.
and in your comment above “Should have” are the operative words. they should but often are NOT learned.
i just finished watching the episode on my TV (i’m on the east coast) and the word didn’t appear anywhere…no zooming in at all….
the Wedgwood clue i mean
I was talking about the zooming in on the youtube
VJ, the Wedgwood Jeopardy blooper was uploaded to Youtube an hour ago.
Saw it though I don’t think the uploader should have zoomed in on the word so people could decide if they could see it for themselves.
And don’t say you’d have to be blind not to see it. I am practically blind in my left eye so I doubt I would have noticed.
As it was, I was typing the clue and not paying attention to the picture.
I don’t think Christine noticed either. If you watch carefully she was staring off thinking. Much ado about nothing. We shall see if Alex Trebek says anything tomorrow. Furthermore that design is known around the world.
Having said that I did see it on our tv. We have a 65 inch 4k UHDTV. We laughed and that’s it never thinking the contestants noticed.
Please spell Wedgwood correctly. I have the dishes to prove it!
OK
Keith Williams, can’t wait to see your Final Wager video on tonight’s game and your take on the game’s outcome.
but seriously Leonardo DiCaprio is a really horrible answer, his loss is justified
amen to that !!
right?? just shows there are such things as bad answers in a tougher FJ clue… might as well written down Liam Neeson or Johnny Depp
akin to writing “Reese Witherspoon” for a best actress category….or Sandra Bullock…except Reesey and Sandy both have Oscars
There was no point for him to wager that extra dollar. If you tie on Jeopardy you go on to the next day and keep your winnings. Players should strategize for a tie in the best and worst case scenarios.
no ties allowed anymore. there is a tie breaking question and the loser gets 2000 and does NOT come back.
wait….the guy wrote Leonardo DiCaprio? seriously??!!
that’s a really terrible answer iMO
I really didn’t think it was half as terrible as having a whole category devoted to Disney’s 7 Dwarfs in Round 1. That’s when I was saying “seriously??!!”
I agree with you, VJ – what was that, Kids Week??!!
I think Brian played a great game and for him to lose by $1 was, well… ROTTEN luck. However, I don’t understand why he kept fishing for the DDs and when he finally found one he only bet $700 (channeling AChu?).
Not to take away from Christine’s victory, but I think luck was on her side. Like John B. mentioned, she must be psychic :):)
wow, what a great strategic, but risky risky move….paid off….wow
More proof that the best player doesn’t always win.
Au contraire! The best player did win. The biggest part of being smart is an ability to execute a strategy that defeats your opponent. Hence the term “Jeopardy.”
Memorizing information and spewing out what has been committed to memory w/o considering strategy is not the full meaning of the best. At some point common sense must be factored into the equation of being the best player. Just my opinion!
the only problem with success is that it is only failure waiting to happen….
The Wedgwood clue showed the name Wedgwood on the face of the clock! Total cheat!
Yep! It was really prominent on our 65 inch 4K UHDTV.
My family and I were laughing. Jeopardy really blew it on that clue and a DD no less.
That was a great strategic game. Christine faked Brian out by wagering nothing in fj. He took the bait and wagered 7,001 thinking she would wager all 14, 000 and as a result he lost. His frustration was quite visible.
Of course if they both were correct he would have won by $1 but that didn’t happen.
Great strategy Christine. Congrats!
Interestingly enough, you win by $1 by betting zero and hoping your opponent assumes you bet it all — and he misses the answer, of course — ONLY when you have exactly 2/3 of your opponent.
If she had had $13,999, he’d have bet $6,999, to win by a dollar if she bet it all. But if she bet nothing, and he missed, he’d still have $14,001 and would have won.
2/3 is a unique situation, and Christine was really, really lucky — especially considering she got to $14,000 by betting it all on a DD.
Which also means that Brian was very, very unlucky.
Yup, well, Brian had the chance to shut her out with that first DD. He could have bet a lot more. There were enough clues left at that point for him to risk it.
On the one hand, I applaud her proper FJ wager. On the other, I’m not a huge fan of getting your head bashed in for 58 clues (or 55), hitting a 2k clue + DD and winning, so…meh. C’est la vie, nature of the beast.
the wager is always proper if you win. had both been correct, brian’s wager would have been the proper one. maybe christine is psychic? it was a big risk (like today’s and yesterday’s all in dd bets but paid off.)
like in war: history is always written by the winners….:)
She had exactly 2/3rds of his score. FJ played out the way it did because he had to wager 7001 to beat her by a dollar, which also put him behind her by a dollar when he got it wrong. It was the “proper wager” because anything else didn’t improve her chances of winning.
well, the sneakiness factor…
i said i was torn between 1 and 2, but that nobody would get it? notice that all the actors picked are a generation younger than brando and hoffman?? and ddl won 3 on top of that.
first of all a gutsy move by christine on that dd and a clairvoyant bet in fj. congratulations on both accounts and for winning the game! she must have sensed something. i thought she would get it even if nobody else would, but at least she won.
i bet in a senior’s tournament you would not have had a ts! i wonder how many of the four movies each contestant has seen??
and @ jacob & VJ: just what we talked about in the CotD talk could happen DID happen, only worse.
and i would have bet my bottom $ that at least ONE (most likely christine) would get at least brando. he was – and will always be- not only an icon as far as acting is concerned, but also a very…interesting personality. from declining to accept his oscar (though scott did it 2 years before him as well) for TG to his personality,often extreme political views, not to mention his private life (3 marriages, to many relationships to count and about 20 children, maybe even more..??)
finally, the age/generation of the players definitely was THE factor in today’s fj.
Perhaps you’d like to add to your collection the vases and clock (image) in iconic blue jasper from this company.
WHAT IS WEDGWOOD?
Fairly easy, given that on TV “Wedgwood” was clearly visible on the face of the clock.
So true. LOL
Wow, vj, you were closer than you realized in describing the meaning behind Christine’s title “retired homemaker.”
Yeah, and I knew she won, too, despite the ‘spoiler’ video because of a commercial that aired right before the game with Alex saying “what a finish.” I just knew he wouldn’t be saying that if it was just a regular run of the mill runaway.
What is it he always says for that — s/he couldn’t be caught.