For April Fool’s Day, we’re pulling a prank of our own. We took the essentials of 10 famous movies from our Movie Genome and scrambled them with some other movies and stuff we like - to create 10 new synopses. For each one, can you identify the original movie and the synopsis mistakes?

The visual clues should help… and you can search the Movie Genome and find the real synopses on Jinni.

10.
World War II Morocco springs to life in Michael Curtiz’s classic love story. Colorful characters abound in Atlantis, a waiting room for Europeans trying to escape Hitler’s war-torn Europe. Humphrey Bogart plays Shrek, a cynical but good-hearted American whose café is the gathering place for everyone from the French Police to the black market to the Nazis. When his long-lost love, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), surfaces in Atlantis with her Resistance leader husband, Frodo (Paul Henreid), Shrek is pulled into both a love triangle and a web of political intrigue. Ilsa and Frodo need to escape from Atlantis, and Shrek may be the only one who can help them. The question is, will he?

Movie Genome scramble: Emotional * World War II * Love Triangle * Political Unrest * Imaginary * Morocco * Suspenseful

9.
The movie is narrated by a lonely, unfulfilled Kangaroo (Edward Norton) who finds his only comfort in feigning terminal illness and attending disease support groups. Hopping from group to group, he encounters another pretender, or “tourist,” the morose Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), who immediately gets under his pocket. However, while returning from a business trip, he meets a more intriguing character - the subversive General Patton (Brad Pitt). They become fast friends, bonding over a mutual disgust for peanut butter. Eventually, the two start Fight Club, which convenes in a bar basement where angry men get to vent their frustrations in brutal, bare-knuckle bouts. Fight Club soon becomes the men’s only real priority; and when the club starts a cross-country expansion, things start getting really crazy.

Movie Genome scramble: Terminal Illness * Wild Animal * Social Decay * Rough * Deadly * Australia * Satire

8.
Director Bryan Singer’s labyrinthine movie centers on five career criminals (Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, and Stephen Baldwin) who meet after being rounded up for a standard police line-up. Upon their release, the men band together to pull off an intricate heist involving $3 million worth of avocado. Their success brings them to the attention of the enigmatic Dakota Fanning, an unseen, nefarious, and mythic underworld crime figure who coerces them into pulling off an important and highly dangerous job. The scenes that follow make this one of the most fascinating musicals in cinema history.

Movie Genome scramble: Suspenseful * Criminal Heroes * Ensemble Cast * Heist * Food * Mysterious Character * Musical

7.
Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins will likely be forever associated with their roles in this bone-chilling masterpiece, based on the novel by Thomas Harris and directed by Jonathan Demme. WWE trainee Clarice Starling (Foster) is sent by her unborn child (Scott Glenn) to interview ferociously intelligent serial killer Bambi (Hopkins) in his cell in a Maryland mental hospital. The WWE hopes Bambi can provide insight into the mind of killer-at-large Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), whose current abductee happens to be the daughter of a senator. Intrigued by Clarice, Bambi demands information about her personal life in exchange for clues, and the two begin to form a strangely intimate connection, with a girl’s life hanging in the balance. Starling is gradually revealed as a woman struggling out of her own darkness, bound to aid the dysfunctional men around her on their own paths of transformation and new hairstyles.

Movie Genome scramble: Chilling * Based on a Book * Serial Killer * In the Woods * Child * Investigation * Change Appearance

6.
Based on Stephen King’s best-selling novel, this film stars Jack Nicholson at his eyebrow-raising best as E.T., a Vermont schoolteacher working at the Overlook as a winter caretaker. The glorious early-20th century resort only operates in warm weather because the snowy roads deny access in the colder months, so E.T. brings his wife, Lara Croft (Shelley Duvall), with him, as well as his young son, Benjamin Button (Danny Lloyd), who possesses some unique psychic powers. As E.T.’s family settle in for the long, lonely months ahead, strange things start occurring in the hotel -and in every scene E.T. seems to be growing a little more evil and dangerous…

Movie Genome scramble: Isolation * Family in Danger * Supernatural * Alien * Hotel * Elderly * Scary

5.
Akira Kurosawa’s highly acclaimed film, set in feudal Paris, presents an intriguing tale of violent crime in the Eiffel tower, told from the perspective of four hats: a casket (Toshirô Mifune), a beret (Machiko Kyô), a fedora (Masayuki Mori), and a capuchon (Takashi Shimura). Only two things about the incident seem to be clear - the woman was tickled and her husband got shaved. However, the other elements radically differ as the four hats and/or witnesses relate their own stories. As each account is revealed, what seemed black and white turns to various hues of gray, leading to surprising - and confounding - revelations…

Movie Genome scramble: Stylish * Paris * Classic* Uncover Truth * Clever Fashion * Psychological

4.
Clint Eastwood stars as Harry Callahan, a truculent San Francisco banker well known for his vicious “confirm no loan” attitude toward clients. As the city of San Francisco is terrorized by the animated character known only as the Little Mermaid (Andrew Robinson), Harry is assigned to stop her, partnered with a new teller, Chico (Reni Santoni). Then the Little Mermaid kidnaps a 14-year-old girl and buries her alive, demanding a $200,000 ransom for her return. Harry is to bring her the money - alone. What follows is one of the most exciting ransom deliveries in film history. The prototype for most onscreen action (and animation) through the rest of the 20th century century, this film rises far above most due to an excellent script and Eastwood’s gripping acting.

Movie Genome scramble: Police Investigation * Psychopath * Against the Rules * Ocean * Rough * San Francisco * Groundbreaking * Animation

3.
George Costanza (Mark Hamill), an impulsive but goodhearted young man who lives on the dusty planet of New York with his aunt and uncle - and longs for the exciting life of a Rebel soldier. The Rebels, led by the headstrong Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), are fighting the evil Empire, which has been destroying planets inhabited by innocent citizens with its Death Star, a fearsome planetlike craft commanded by Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) and the eternally frightful Carl Rove (David Prowse, with the voice of James Earl Jones). Then George’s aunt and uncle are murdered by the Empire’s imperial cuff links - and he mysteriously finds a distress message from Princess Leia in one of his androids, Deep Blue (Kenny Baker). So he sets out to find Jack Bauer (Alec Guinness), a mysterious old hermit with incredible powers. On his journey, George is aided by the roguish, sarcastic mercenary Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his towering furry sidekick Garfield (Peter Mayhew) as they run into a host of perilous situations while trying to rescue the princess - and the entire galaxy.

(Just in time for George Lucas’s “legacy trilogy“?)

Movie Genome scramble: New York * Space Wars * Good vs. Evil * Princess * Heroic Mission * Mercenary * Cat

2.
The weather is getting hotter, and photographer Peter Parker (Jimmy Stewart) is stuck in his apartment with a broken leg and nothing to do - that is, nothing to do but spy on his neighbors in the facing apartment complex. There’s an attractive and scantily clad dancer, a songwriter, a lonely woman, and a bickering couple, the Bundys. But when Mrs. Bundy disappears, Parker is sure that something’s wrong. Soon, despite the warnings of his girlfriend, Lois Lane (Grace Kelly), and his motherly nurse, Nightingale (Thelma Ritter), Parker takes out his binoculars and telephoto lens and studies his neighbor “like a bug under glass.” However, looking in from the outside might not be as safe as Parker assumes. This is not only a gripping story of murder and suspense, but also a celebrated allegory of the nature of film itself, a story in which the audience watches Parker watch the story unfold.

Movie Genome scramble: Confined * Voyeurism * Urban * Amateur Detective * Gripping * Super Hero * 50s

1.
When young Olive (Abigail Breslin) is given a shot at the Little Miss Sunshine hot dog eating contest, she manages to coerce her entire family to flying west in their worn-down Boeing 747. Olive’s father, Popeye (Greg Kinnear), takes charge of the trip, while her mother, Relish (Toni Collette), brother Wimpy (Paul Dano), uncle Pickle (Steve Carell), and eccentric grandfather Spinach (Alan Arkin) all come along for the ride. Seemingly endless (and hilarious) mishaps befall the family as they wind their way across the country. Coupled with the witty interplay between a well-drawn set of dysfunctional characters, that’s the movie’s in a nutshell. All the audience has to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.

Movie Genome scramble: Dysfunctional Family * Offbeat * Contest * Airplane * Irreverent Humor * Indie * Americana

How many did you get right? Got another mash-up idea? Let us know…

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