I love board games… and party games, trivia games, word games, card games, puzzles, and even a few video games. Yep, I’m one of those people.

I also love to have friends over to my house. Sometimes we watch  TV, sometimes we enjoy a movie, often we just sit and talk for hours. But I’ve always found that one of the quickest ways to get to know people is through playing games with them.

The other night we had some friends over for dinner, and afterward we played a game. It had been a very long time since we had done this, and we were all feeling a little brain-dead after a long hard week. So let’s try something easy. A movie trivia video game would do it. We pulled out MOVIE Scene It?: 2nd Edition. If you haven’t played before, I highly recommend it.

It’s technically a video game that you play through your DVD player. There are trivia cards, too, where you ask and answer questions about pop culture, movie slogans, and the like, but it mostly plays out on your television screen. There are pictograms, fill-in-the-blanks, still pictures with items removed, and movie-poster identifications—and lots of other little things like that. But my favorite category is the movie clips.

The game plays out a short scene from a film, and you (or your team) must answer a question following the clip.Now sometimes the question is easy. “What is this movie?” Somewhere in Time. Sometimes it’s more difficult. “Name the actress from this scene.” Jane Seymour. And sometimes the questions are all about paying very close attention to the set or something the characters say. “What is the room number on door behind them?” 116.

It’s just fun. And after a difficult week of work or school, it’s a great way to spend a few hours with friends. Scene It? even has a setting called “Party Play” where you don’t even need a person operating the remote control. It will just spin out question after question for anyone to answer.

Scene it? also has game sets and player packs for classic movies, classic TV, the Star Trek universe, James Bond, and others. If you’re especially adept at Disney movies, there’s a game just for you.

What are your favorite board games or movie games? I’d love to hear!

That’s a wrap for this Toast to Cinema. Thanks for reading.