Filched from the estimable Ed Howard.
This ain’t Cailloux de cinema, but there’ll be a lot of film talk here… best to establish that early on.
1) Second-favorite Stanley Kubrick film.
The Killing–Tim Carey goes to the race-track: a tour-de-force demonstration of what the semantic availability of hate speech can do
2) Most significant/important/interesting trend in movies over the past decade, for good or evil.
Paul Thomas Anderson
3) Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood) or Buffalo Bill Cody (Paul Newman)?
no opinion, I’m afraid
4) Best Film of 1949.
Tempted to concur with Ed on The Set-Up, but I think I’ll go with Nick Ray’s They Live By Night. It somehow exemplifies the best of what 1940s AND 1950s Hollywood had to offer.
5) Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) or Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore)?
Love them both–but Jaffe gets my vote.
6) Has the hand-held shaky-cam directorial style become a visual cliché?
Can’t we just say that it has entered the lexicon of film?
7) What was the first foreign-language film you ever saw?
French films aren’t foreign to me, so they don’t count. I think mine might have been Yojimbo too, Ed. I had heard that it was an adaptation of Hammett…
8) Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) or Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre)?
Well, Peter Lorre is awesome–but I’m not sure we need either of these two characters.
9) Favorite World War II drama (1950-1970).
Attack! (thanks to The Siren for jogging my memory on this one)
10) Favorite animal movie star.
Toto.
11) Who or whatever is to blame, name an irresponsible moment in cinema.
It’s not a good idea to think about the treatment of animals in ANY film made prior to the last couple of decades.
12) Best Film of 1969.
Medium Cool
13) Name the last movie you saw theatrically, and also on DVD or Blu-ray.
Theatre: World’s Greatest Dad (pretty great–gonna write about it, at some point, I think)/DVD (well, avi) Three Wise Girls–starring Jean Harlow, Mae Clarke and Marie Prevost
14) Second-favorite Robert Altman film.
Maybe The Player? The Long Goodbye is by far my favourite.
15) What is your favorite independent outlet for reading about movies, either online or in print?
Some really great blogs out there.
16) Who wins?Angela Mao or Meiko Kaji?
I wish I could tell you
17) Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) or Olive Neal (Jennifer Tilly)?
Don’t make me talk about how much I love Marisa Tomei. It’s not seemly.
18) Favorite movie that features a carnival setting or sequence.
Carnival of Souls. Or Nightmare Alley.
19) Best use of high-definition video on the big screen to date.
Inland Empire all the way. Grace Zabriskie on film wouldn’t have been nearly as unsettling.
20) Favorite movie that is equal parts genre film and a deconstruction or consideration of that same genre.
Agree with Ed again. I firmly expect Showgirls to destroy patriarchy someday.
21) Best Film of 1979.
Apocalypse Now
22) Most realistic and/or sincere depiction of small-town life in the movies.
hmm… Blue Velvet?
23) Best horror movie creature (non-giant division).
Robert Blake in Lost Highway.
24) Second-favorite Francis Ford Coppola film.
Peggy Sue Got Married. This thing needs a cult.
25) Name a one-off movie that could have produced a franchise you would have wanted to see.
Kings Row
26) Favorite sequence from a Brian De Palma film.
Wow–the kiss at the end of Obsession?
27) Favorite moment in three-strip Technicolor.
The cafe Hohenzollern (and Deborah Kerr) in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
28) Favorite Alan Smithee film.
no experience with these
29) Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) or Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau)?
don’t like either of these–although I often do like Matthau
30) Best post-Crimes and Misdemeanors Woody Allen film.
Almost all of them are good-to-great, but Deconstructing Harry is probably the tops.
31) Best Film of 1999.
Yeah–Eyes Wide Shut.
32) Favorite movie tag line.
“One of the three great love stories of all time.” (Mitchell Leisen’s To Each His Own–1946)
33) Favorite B-movie western.
never watch these
34) Overall, the author best served by movie adaptations of her or his work.
Cornell Woolrich–although Woolrich also should be read by all.
35) Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) or Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard)?
Both great. Hepburn gets the nod.
36) Favorite musical cameo in a non-musical movie.
La Marseillaise scene in Casablanca.
37) Bruno (the character, if you haven’t seen the movie, or the film, if you have): subversive satire or purveyor of stereotyping?
Both, no?
38) Five film folks, living or deceased, you would love to meet.
Barbara Stanwyck, William Dieterle, Carl Th. Dreyer, Sofia Coppola, Seymour Cassel
that was fun!
Dave
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