New Games: Cinephile and Son of Cinephile

The other night, watching Hombre with Paul Newman on one of the free TV retro stations, I picked up our 2002 edition of the Leonard Maltin video guide to look up an actor, and I thought up a new game. A board game, to use a slightly off kilter word for a game that doesn’t actually use a board, but also doesn’t involve dice or cards.

For those who like things short, it is basically the Dictionary Game for movies, except using a movie guide instead of a dictionary and movie plots instead of word meanings. In getting a present for my daughter, my son and I went to a local toy and game store and I was struck by how many games were based on other games from the past, including a spy, card game that was just a variation on Crazy Eights. So here’s my take on the idea.

To play, four or more people gather around a table with: some kind of a movie guide containing short plot summaries; pencils; and scrap paper. A guide to family friendly films may be used for a kids’ version.

One person, who probably doesn’t actively play, and who doesn’t change throughout the game, is designated the “Producer” and will read the proposed plot descriptions out loud. The other players take turns getting the movie guide and writing down the real plot of a movie from the guide. He or she is called the “Director.” The Director also starts a round by announcing the title of the movie. That movie should only be used if nobody knows beforehand the real plot of the movie.

After the title of the movie is announced, the Director writes down the real plot on a scrap of paper called a “Storyboard,” and each of the other players comes up with a clever, but convincing, plot to write on their own Storyboards. The scraps of paper, or Storyboards, with the plots are then folded over and passed to the Producer in a way where they won’t be seen by other players. The Producer shuffles them, then reads them aloud. Players then vote on which one they think is the real plot. If it is essential to use the name of an actor in describing the plot, all male actors are designated as either John Wayne or Paul Newman (even when they are not) and all female actors (or actresses, for my fellow denizens of the 19th Century) are designated as Joan Crawford or Carole Lombard (even when they are not) to make it harder to guess which is the real movie plot.

You could keep score by keeping track of how many times a player convinces the other players that he or she has the real plot, but I envision this as more of an “Exquisite Corpse” type of thing, stimulating thought and conversation.

I couldn’t convince anyone at my daughter’s birthday party to play this with me. Instead we played CodeNames, which is a pretty clever word game. So you are welcome to use the idea. Just give me credit by saying, “We found this really cool game for film buffs on the web created by this genius Joe McGrail; he’s smarter than Orson Welles.” (In fact, “Rosebud” might make a good alternate name for this game.)

And if anyone should want to produce a commercial version of Cinephile, as I have heard they have done with Dictionary, you are welcome to do that as well. Just give me credit somewhere on the box along with your sophisticated graphics depicting Hitchcock and Truffaut superimposed on images from their films and an endorsement from Whit Stillman.

Before I go off on tangents about wealth and genius, here are a couple of variations of the game: A simpler version, “Son of Cinephile”, using the same equipment, might have the Director changing a substantial word in a movie title and then reading that title along with the actual plot, and the other players would vote on whether or not the title was real or not (the Director also having had an option of reading out the real title rather than a modified one.) “Son of Cinephile” would not need a player to act as Producer. A version for really nerdy people (like myself) would be played in exactly the same way as Cinephile, except using a guide to book titles and plots (such as Magill’s Masterplots or the publishers’ catalogs librarians get). That version could be called, “The Thirty-nine Plots” (with a nod to John Buchan) with “Author” and “Publisher” replacing Director and Producer.

You are welcome to use any of these ideas, even to make money on them, if you can. I have enough money for my dignity and don’t need more. Man is not made for the mindless acquisition of wealth. Man is made to serve God and his fellow man. If wealth helps with that, it may be a good thing, but more often wealth takes away our dignity and imperils our eternal souls.

I’m also a kind of an idea person who is poor on the execution side. We as a society tend to idolize the idea people and unfairly denigrate the do-ers. The present narrative on Tesla and Edison illustrates that. As well as the adulation of Da Vinci, who actually accomplished much less than he could have. Brunelleschi was a better engineer, Caravaggio and Raphael accomplished more with painting in much shorter lives, Botticelli was more imaginative, and Michelangelo was more effective in a wider range of art. Don’t even get me started on the Mona Lisa. But enough of that, I hope you enjoy playing the games.