Movie Quiz!

So there's this blog I stop by from time to time called, "Sergio Leone and The Infield Fly Rule". It's a pretty good movie based blog, full of esoterica for movie geeks like me. Last week they had this little quiz by this guy by the name of David Huxley, and I thought it was kinda fun, so...

Here it is:

1) Classic film you most want to experience that has so far eluded you.

(The Leopard by Visconti)

2) Greatest Criterion DVD/Blu-ray release ever

(The Seven Samurai.)

3) The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon?

(The Maltese Falcon, if only for that great final shot of Spade descending the stairs.)

4) Jason Bateman or Paul Rudd?

(My official answer is that the jury's still out. I've liked Rudd's laid-back style since 40-year old Virgin. But Bateman in 'Arrested Development' is one of my favorite 'straight-man' roles ever. He tends to play the same role in every movie that I've seen him in, however.)

5) Best mother/child (male or female) movie star combo

(Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher)

6) Who are the Robert Mitchums and Ida Lupinos among working movie actors? Do modern parallels to such masculine and no-nonsense feminine stars even exist? If not, why not?

(It's a tough question to answer because the mechanism that gave us the Mitchums and Lupinos doesn't exist anymore. The mechanism that exists in film today cranks out pretty blanks like Keanu Reeves and Tom Cruise for men, and Julia Roberts and Gwyneth Paltrow for women. I don't like them as actors, but they put butts in seats, hence their popularity. You have to look to the fringes for the type of actors like Mitchum and Lupino, so you get Cathrine Keener and maybe Ellen Page for the women. On further reflection, contemporary British actors are more suited to fill the Mitchum spot than your typical American actor. I'm thinking of Daniel Craig, Jason Statham and Clive Owen, for instance. I'm sure if I thought this through, I'd come up with more American examples.)

7) Favorite Preston Sturges movie

(One of my biggest embarrassments is that I've only seen two Sturges movies all the way through, so Sullivan's Travels would qualify. If I saw The Lady Eve, that would be my favorite, I suspect...)

8) Odette Yustman or Mary Elizabeth Winstead?

(Pass. Oh, wait! Winstead was the girl who got left as 'collateral' for the Challenger by her friends in 'Deathproof'? Winsted, then.)

9) Is there a movie that if you found out a partner or love interest loved (or didn't love) would qualify as a Relationship Deal Breaker?

(If they liked the excrable Sex and the City series and movies enough to own them, I'd probably dump 'em. Though the type of women who take Sex and the City as a guide on real-life lifestyles to aspire to don't have any interest in me romantically, anyways. On the other side of the coin, anyone I dated who couldn't at least appreciate a classic western like The Searchers, or a black comedy like Dr. Strangelove wouldn't hold my long-term interest.)

10) Favorite DVD commentary

(Paul Verhoeven. Runner-up: John Carpenter, esp. paired off with Kurt Russell, in 'Big Trouble in Little China'.)

11) Movies most recently seen on DVD, Blu-ray and theatrically

(DVD: Gone With the Wind, Blu-ray: True Romance, and Inception for the theater.)

12) Dirk Bogarde or Alan Bates?

(Alan Bates.)

13) Favorite DVD extra

(Commentaries, in general. Occasionally, like the rare Criterion min-doc or the Blade Runner box set or Clockwork Orange Blu-ray docs, you'll get genuinly in-depth insight into the film process, but those are few and far between. While I'm on the subject, some dvds have commentary tracks that don't seem to serve any purpose except for the same reason you get a toy in your cereal box.)

14) Brian De Palma’s Scarface— yes or no?

(Yes, but with serious reservations. )

15) Best comic moment from a horror film that is not a horror comedy (Young Frankenstein, Love At First Bite, et al.)

(I can't answer this one. I'm sure there's been moments like that in horror films that I've seen that serve to relieve the genuine tension in a horror film, but I can't come up with one right now. I remember a scene in one of the 'Friday the 13th' film where Jason is wreaking havoc at a kid's camp, and we get a scene where two kids are hiding under a bed, listening to all the mayhem Jason Vorrhees is a-wreaking. "So,", says one kid to the other. "What did you want to be when you grew up?"...But I don't consider the Friday the 13th series actual horror films...)

16) Jane Birkin or Edwige Fenech?

(Pass.)

17) Favorite Wong Kar-wai movie

(I can't answer. Wong Kar-wai, like Truffaut, Visconti and Goddard, falls under the catagory of 'Filmmakers on my 'to-see' list.)

18) Best horrific moment from a comedy that is not a horror comedy

(Would Vincent shooting Marvin in 'Pulp Fiction' count? That whole scene in Jimmy's kitchen is like an American Monty Python sketch...)

19) From 2010, a specific example of what movies are doing right…

(Pixar Studios. The entire process of movie-making done right. Their formula is to not have a formula, if you know what I mean. More specific? Okay, the movie 'Kick-Ass', which makes a silk purse from a sow's ear...)

20) Ryan Reynolds or Chris Evans?

(Ryan Reynolds.)

21) Speculate about the future of online film writing. What’s next?

(A ruthlessly Darwinian process. Since nobody except for Roger Ebert seems to be in the position of even scratching out a living doing it, the best long-term writers will be doing it for love. And the possibility of on-line critics being able to influence studios seems marginal, at best. Whether we'll see the return of the likes of a Pauline Kael being brought to the studios as a consultant remains to be seen. Having said all that, www.redlettermedia.com and his surgical takedown of the Star Wars prequels is the type of thing we need more of, please.)

22) Roger Livesey or David Farrar?

(Again, pass.)

23) Best father/child (male or female) movie star combo

(Kirk Douglas/Michael Douglas. Mike could never live up to his dad, (Who could?) but he's done a good job trying...)

24) Favorite Freddie Francis movie (as Director)

(Pass.)

25) Bringing Up Baby or The Awful Truth?

(Bringing Up Baby. Cary Grant in Hepburn's gown freaking out. "Because I just went gay all of a sudden! ", he shrieks in frustration, jumping up. The camera follows his jump.)

26) Tina Fey or Kristen Wiig?

(Tina Fey.)

27) Name a stylistically important director and the best film that would have never been made without his/her influence.

(Howard Hawks. Best film? Seven Samurai.)

28) Movie you’d most enjoy seeing remade and transplanted to a different culture (i.e. Yimou Zhang’s A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop.)

(Kurosawa's High and Low, made by a contemporary American filmmaker, set now. It was orignally an Ed McBain novel. What would be interesting is to see how a contemporary audience would take a classic Greek tragedy. It would be truly universal.)

29) Link to a picture/frame grab of a movie image that for you best illustrates bliss. Elaborate.


'Nuff said.


30) With a tip of that hat to Glenn Kenny, think of a just-slightly-inadequate alternate title for a famous movie. (Examples from GK: Fan Fiction; Boudu Relieved From Cramping; The Mild Imprecation of the Cat People)

(Dr Strangelove or: You People Know That This Film Is a Comedy, Right?)