Solution to VIII, 1

The titles of the films suggest the screen the are playing on:

Fantastic Four / Four Rooms
Hard Eight / Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag
It Takes Two / Two Weeks
Table for Three / Three Kings
The Magnificent Seven / Seven Samurai

The Power of One / One More Time

The Ridiculous Six / Six Pack

Top Five / Five Deadly Venoms

Triple Nine / Nine Queens


This leaves one film that is not playing anywhere, because no multiplex has a screen zero:


Patient Zero / Zero Tolerance

 

The Multiplex

Series VIII: Movies : Puzzle 1, What's Playing

The following movies are all playing at my local 9-screen multiplex, EXCEPT ONE.  That one isn't playing anywhere.

Fantastic Rooms
Hard Heads in a Duffel Bag
It Takes Weeks
Patient Tolerance
Table for Kings
The Magnificent Samurai

The Power of More Time

The Ridiculous Pack

Top Deadly Venoms

Triple Queens

 
Which movie isn't playing anywhere?  Why not?

Solution to VII, 4

The only "only child" is HARRY.
His parents' and surviving grandparents' initials are E, K, A, and I.
The puppy was found in the parking lot of a furniture store.
The puppy's name is IKEA.

Be Fruitful and Multiply

Series VII: Operations : Puzzle 4, Multiply

Imagine 14 people: 7 females (ANN, BETTY, CARLA, DIANA, EDNA, FIONA and GINGER) and 7 males (HARRY, IRA, JACK, KARL, LOUIE, MARCO and NATE).

1) The group includes six young children, three married couples (each a man and a woman), a widowed grandfather of three and a widowed grandmother of four.

2) LOUIE and FIONA are not related by blood or by marriage, and neither of them has a son with five letters in his name. CARLA was named after KARL.

3) Every married couple has the same number of letters in their first names. (EDNA
could be married to JACK, but not to IRA or MARCO, etc.)

4) Every married couple consists of one person with an even number of syllables in their name and a partner with an odd number of syllables in their name.

5) No siblings' initials are consecutive (BETTY is not the sister of ANN or CARLA, etc.)

6) Two of the men have the same mother-in-law. Two of the women have the same father-in-law.

7) One grandchild has five first cousins. The other five grandchildren have one first cousin. None of these six has a name that starts with a vowel.

8) One boy has parents whose names begin with vowels. Another boy has parents whose names have vowels in the center, and another boy has parents whose names end with vowels.

9) The first names of a father and his two sons have two letters in common, as do the first names of a mother and her two daughters.

10) One day, a mother and father took their only child to the store to pick up furniture for his bedroom. They found an abandoned puppy in the parking lot and adopted him. They named him for the place where he was found, which also happens to be made up of the first initials of both of the child’s parents and surviving grandparents.

What is the only child's name? What is the puppy’s name?

Solution to VII, 3

Series VII: Operations : Puzzle 3, Algebra

 

Some word puzzle people disparage math, but really -- they shouldn't.

Some mathematical and logical expressions have made it into the common parlance, like to be or not to be, forever and ever, and an eye for an eye.

If you got all three of those, it's one point for you. 

 Sometimes a little algebra is needed, like this:

The doctor said: “You are sick so take two as-Prince and call me in the morning.”

Richard is looking to trade his kingdom for a horse.

John Lennon wonders if you will still feed him when he’s sixty – four.

Tennys son wrote the poem “Idylls of the King.”

And a little more math is necessary for:

The car commercial encouraged us to “Get a square deel.”
The negative one sees the glass half empty, while the positive one sees it half full.

If you drink to excess, designate someone to drive you home. 

You probably need to  know the original to parse "Get your kicks on  sixty – six."

And you need math terminology for my favorite:  “Get your hands off my neck, cube root. "