Moves, Movies, and More

GAMES

Extinction Chess (2013)

This chess variant was originally published in Games magazine under the name Survival of the Species Chess and was credited to Paddy Smith, a pseudonym of Wayne Schmittberger. It was inspired by two of V.R. Parton’s chess variants, Co-Regal Chess and Kinglet. Most of the rules of chess apply, including the starting position and the movement powers of the pieces. The one change is the object of the game.

The concept of checkmate is abolished. Think of each type of piece—king, queen, rook, bishop, knight, and pawn—as a different species of animal. Your job is to avoid the extinction of any of your species. If you don’t have at least one of each type of piece on the board, you lose. From an offensive standpoint, this means you can still win, as in ordinary chess, by capturing the enemy king (although, technically, you’ll have to complete the capture instead of just playing to checkmate). But you can also with by capturing your opponent’s queen, or both knights, or both bishops, or both rooks, or all eight pawns (that last one is pretty hard to do, though).

MOVIES

Short Term 12 (2013)

When this film premiered at South by Southwest, it won both the Grand Jury and Audience Awards for a Narrative Feature. For her leading role, Brie Larson won Best Actress awards from several film critics associations and other groups, as well as a Golden Globe nomination. That she was not even nominated for an Oscar is proof positive that not enough people at the Academy watched the film; maybe they will make it up to her for Room.

Larson plays Grace, a young woman working as a supervisor in a group home for troubled teenagers who do not have another safe place to live. She lives with her boyfriend Mason, played by John Gallagher, Jr., who also works at the facility. Among the teens we meet are Marcus, who is troubled by the fact that he will soon turn 18 and be forced to leave the facility; Sammy, who is troubled by his younger sister’s death; and new arrival Jayden, who has a history of cutting herself.

TV

The 100 (2013–present)

Seldom if ever has the central character of a TV series had to face as many moral dilemmas as Clarke Griffin, played by Eliza Taylor, does in The 100. This exceptional and dark science-fiction drama (CW, 2013–present) is never afraid to explore how far people will go to survive when faced with extreme circumstances.

Almost a century after a nuclear war has apparently made the Earth’s surface uninhabitable, some 2,000 people are living in orbit in the “Ark,” an assemblage of space stations. All of them were born in space, descendants of the Ark’s first passengers. Partly because resources are depleting, and partly as a test to determine whether the Earth may be habitable again, a decision is made to send 100 juvenile prisoners to the planet’s surface.

After a struggle for control within the group, Clarke Griffin emerges as a natural-born leader. The group faces unexpected dangers, beginning with “Grounders”—a tribe of people who did survive on the Earth but live primitively, and who are immediately hostile to the “Sky People,” as they call the 100.

TRIVIA

True or False?

1. Babe Ruth was the first player ever to hit a home run in an All-Star Game.

2. Allspice is a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

3. The lima bean is named for the city of Lima, Peru.

4. The man who delivered the eulogy for George Washington as “first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen” was Robert E. Lee’s father.

5. Barbra Streisand was never a member of her high school glee club.

6. Dr. Joyce Brothers won over $100,000 as a game show contestant in the mid-1950s.

7. Only female mosquitoes bite.

8. Soccer originated in the United States.

9. Elvis Presley had more consecutive singles reach the top five on the Billboard charts than the Beatles.