A NOTE OF SAD NEWS

I just wanted to take a moment to send out all my best wishes and prayers to Matt Zoller Seitz and his two children, Hannah and James, and Matt’s entire family, in the wake of the terrible loss of his wife, Jennifer, this past week. I didn’t know Jennifer, but I’ve spoken to Matt a few times, have been an avid reader of his reviews for several years and, of course, his blog since the beginning of this year. There really are no words that can be said to address this kind of tragedy, especially by those of us who only know Matt, and then largely only through his work. The best we can do for him, it seems, is to let him know, in the ways that we can, that we’re there for him in spirit and support. This is my way of doing that.

Matt suggests that should you want to send cards, the address is 343 State Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217. He is also looking at his e-mail, either his work address (mseitz@starledger.com) or his home address (reeling@aol.com), if you care to send a personal note that way. Also, in lieu of flowers or other gifts, Matt suggests that donations be made to either the Red Cross or the America Civil Liberties Union, two of Jennifer’s favorite charities.

Rest well, Matt, Hannah and James, and know that you will find the strength to face each new day.

UPDATE: 5/01/06 At The House Next Door, Matt has provided further news regarding a memorial upcoming this week, as well as a heartbreaking and lovely gallery in remembrance of his wife, Jennifer Dawson.

OSCAR'S TOP DRAWER: THE 10 BEST BEST PICTURE WINNERS (and a little something extra...)

Edward Copeland, proprietor of Edward Copeland On Film, is counting down the final days before the deadline to submit your list for The Ten Best Academy Award Best Picture Winners, and I’m sending my ballot in today, along with apologies to Edward for taking so long to get to it. I encourage you to hustle over to his site NOW, check out the rules and regs and get your choices sent in so Mr. Copeland won’t be spending every waking second of his upcoming weekend tallying votes.

The list I’ve sent to Edward consists of the ten best I was able to mercilessly cull from a complete roster that was actually a little stronger, considering how easy it was to compile a Ten Worst List, than I expected. I also found it interesting, and not the least unexpected, that the ‘80s would be the easiest decade to dismiss— but for the appearance of The Last Emperor and, yes, Driving Miss Daisy (not a classic, but hardly a poster child for racial insensitivity either), I might have guiltlessly blocked and deleted the entire line-up of winners for that ten-year span.

I also found it encouraging that, through no element of design, at least one film from each full decade that Best Picture awards were handed out made it onto my list—although, again, no huge surprise that fully half my list should be weighted toward the ‘70s and beyond.

Finally (and I hope I’m not trumping a future Copeland inquiry here), I decided to extend the optimism of this survey a degree further by trying to fashion a list of the Ten Best Films Nominated for Best Picture That Didn’t Actually Win the Award. Well, that was an even longer list than the 78 actual Best Picture winners, and proved to be much too daunting to be held to just 10. I slashed and ripped and tore at the list of nominees, heartlessly boiling it down further and further. But as I got nearer to that magic number there came a point where I found that I could slash no more. So my Ten Best FNFBPTDAWTA list is actually comprised of 18 essential titles, examples of when the Academy got it right, but could have gotten it even righter.

Again, Edward’s deadline is midnight CDT, Saturday, April 29. He will surely post the final results, along with some highlights of the delicious comments he’s sure to receive, whenever he damn well wants to. Here, then, are my lists.


1) The Godfather Part II (1974) Lightning in a bottle. The one film sequel that has done what (arguably) no other film sequel has done—breathed new artistic life into a predecessor that was already considered about as good as it could be and expanded the scope, emotion, metaphorical power and ultimate horror of the most potent, self-contained vision of America ever made in this country. And in a two-film series stuffed with brilliant acting, John Cazale, as the doomed Fredo Corleone, turns in one of the great overlooked performances in American movie history.

2) The Godfather (1972) The bar that seemed so unsurpassable. It is itself an incredible feat of art and passion winning out over the demands of commerce and the shortsightedness of studio executives, who would reap a huge financial and cultural windfall anyway. What would the landscape of American cinema in the ‘70s, right up to today, look like without the blood, sweat and fears of Francis Ford Coppola, the eccentricity of Marlon Brando, the interior geography of Michael Corleone courtesy of Al Pacino, or Richard Castellano's way around a pot of spaghetti?

3) Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Nine years after the introduction of Cinemascope and nearly a decade of gargantuan productions like Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments, David Lean fulfilled the promise of the epic scale of motion pictures and the wide-screen image with this rousing, troubling, awe-inspiring adventure. Like most of the films on this list, it has made an imprint on nearly every movie of any measurable scale, regardless of genre, that has been made since.

4) It Happened One Night (1934) Frank Capra drafted a durable template of screwball comedy with this graceful, ageless delight, even as his stars, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, would never strongly be associated with the form (Colbert still had great comedies in her, however, for Mitchell Leisen and Preston Sturges.) Unless you’re a Sunday school teacher, you’re more likely to think of this movie than the Old Testament if someone mentions the walls of Jericho. Seventy-two years later, whenever someone mentions great comedies, we’re still thinking of this one.

5) The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) One of the great war movies, this is, of course, a spectacle grounded in character, centered on a psychological battle of wills between two officers and how wartime strategy quickly curdles and madness infests the motivations of both. Alec Guinness, Sessue Hayakawa and William Holden were perhaps never better than in David Lean’s warm-up to Lawrence of Arabia and, once I heard it, “The Colonel Bogey March” has never really left my head.

6) Unforgiven (1992) A summing up of and engagement with the dark underbelly of not only Clint Eastwood’s career, but also with the nature of American life and history as well. The actor/director is likely never to make another western, but Unforgiven is such a rich, evocative, chilling and morose experience that it really does feel like the last necessary word on the subject, at least from this filmmaker.

7) Annie Hall (1977) Because it was such an unlikely choice to best a phenomenon like Star Wars, and because it became itself the unlikely pinnacle of Woody Allen’s connection with an audience (i.e., the real world), this self-conscious, maddening, riotously funny and surprisingly sweet comedy makes the list. When I think of 1977 some 30 years later, I’m much more likely to conjure an image from this movie than of C3PO or R2-D2, and for that, Woody, despite your output over the past 20, I thank you.

8) The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) Peter Jackson’s feat of bringing J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels to the screen with abundant integrity and vision, sustaining that integrity and vision over three films, and adding such overwhelming sorrow, yearning and, ultimately, joy to the third part is the kind of expansion of Lean’s epic filmmaking into a fantasy realm that must still give George Lucas fits of envy and nightmares of what could have been. Jackson’s contribution to the Oscar roster stands the best chance of being undervalued over time (actually, I think it already has been) due to its sheer popularity and inclusiveness.

9) All About Eve (1950) Released the same year as Sunset Boulevard, these two Best Picture nominees must have give the impression that Hollywood suddenly really had it in for itself. Wilder’s film carries with it the truly acrid scent of dead flowers, whereas Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders and company are in it for the bitchy fun. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Essentially a soap opera for the above-the-line set, the movie is carried almost effortlessly along by the arrogant entitlement, and the confusion, of Davis’s Margo Channing, one of the most unlikely repositories for audience identification in the history of the movies.

10) Casablanca (1942) The ultimate studio picture, seemingly conceived by the seat of its pants out of providence, unlikely chemistry, spit, bailing wire, prayer and sheer luck. But to fully accept this theory would be to discount the importance of director Michael Curtiz, a solid craftsman who, despite helming other classics like The Adventures of Robin Hood, Angels with Dirty Faces and Yankee Doodle Dandy, has never been one to stoke much auteurist heat. Overexposure and excessive popularity are other enemies against which this movie’s reputation has had to endure. But a clear eye reveals Casablanca to be one of the pinnacles of the studio system, proof that even too many cooks and a bunch of conflicting recipes don’t spoil the soup every time.

The Ten (18) Best Films Nominated for Best Picture That Didn’t Actually Win the Award

Ruggles of Red Gap (1935; Leo McCarey)
Grand Illusion (1937; Jean Renoir)
Stagecoach (1939; John Ford)
Citizen Kane (1941; Orson Welles)
Double Indemnity (1944; Billy Wilder)
It's a Wonderful Life (1946; Frank Capra)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951; Elia Kazan)
Roman Holiday (1953; William Wyler)
Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964; Stanley Kubrick)
M*A*S*H (1970; Robert Altman)
Deliverance (1972; John Boorman)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975; Sidney Lumet)
Nashville (1975; Robert Altman)
Taxi Driver (1976; Martin Scorsese)
Breaking Away (1979; Peter Yates)
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982; Steven Spielberg) *
The Right Stuff (1983; Philip Kaufman)
Babe (1995; Chris Noonan)

* In choosing E.T. over Jaws, I decided that losing to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (as did Jaws) was no dishonor, whereas losing to Gandhi (as did E.T.) was a slight that I wanted to address in some fashion, however insignificant.

If you have your own lists, please get thee promptly to Edward via his e-mail address: eddiesworst@yahoo.com (And don’t worry about that address. As Edward said himself, “I know the title seems wrong for a best contest, but I created the address especially for the first contest, so might as well use it again.”)

Or if you just feel like dropping the names of a couple of other candidates or arguing with the ones on my list, the door to my comments column is always open. With a survey like this, the more perspectives, the better.

Thanks, Edward, for inspiring a load of fun. I look forward to seeing how it all shakes out!

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UPDATE 4/27/2006 In a comment below, Mr. Middlebrow quite correctly pointed out that I left one of the best movies of the '80s, one that actually was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award off my Ten Best FNFBPTDAWTA list. I have updated it above, but please now consider that Ten Best list expanded from 17 to 18 with the tardy inclusion of Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff.

ALSO, Mr. Middlebrow has a fun survey of his own going on at his site A Drinking Song (You know... "Show me the way to go home/I'm tired and I wanna go to bed...") that will give you an opportunity to stand up for 10 movies you think have been unjustly ignored or given the critical shaft. I've already turned in my list and I encourage you to do the same!

ANGIE DICKINSON: THE WOMAN NEXT DOOR

The first crush I ever had on a TV or movie star was Julie Newmar in the role of Catwoman on the Batman TV series. I remember vividly the stirrings of fear and desire that were conjured up in me upon first seeing her in that costume, and then every time after that when I had even but an inkling that she would be reappearing on the show to test the wits and strength of the Dynamic Duo. That Newmar-inspired fear, which was really the first stirrings of lust in the heart of a then-six-year-old boy, often manifested itself in nightmares, visitations by the Catwoman as she floated over my bed, like a feline succubus in black-and-gold lame, silken cat ears and coyly revealing face mask, often flanked by a couple of her extremely nonthreatening henchmen. Julie Newmar set the template of sensual and sexual attraction for me very early on—strong, seductive, sometimes violent females, capable of holding their own amongst the men who would either hold them in check, lash out against them or conspire in some way to keep them down. Claudia Cardinale, Sophia Loren, Pam Grier, Ann-Margret and Michelle Yeoh would all occupy the same position of honor in my affections at one point or another in my development as a teenager and a cinephile. Had I encountered her in any significant way during that time, I’m pretty sure Angie Dickinson would have slipped under my youthful radar.

My interest and fascination with Angie is, instead, a late, retroactive one, and much more satisfying so, I think— the fascination roughly fits my particular mold in terms of her basic appeal, but it seems to be most clearly expressed in a more adult-oriented sensibility of appreciation. Angie never was the ostentatiously libidinous villainess, or the outsized, overripe sexpot, or the hyperactively alluring Vegas-style entertainer, or the carnal and deadly action star, or the lithe and transcendently kinetic martial arts heroine. For me, her appeal was rooted in the earthy splendor best displayed by Feathers in Rio Bravo. The role could have been simply female diversion—some might argue, and successfully, that that is exactly what it is. But I think Dickinson’s easy manner, her sense of playfulness in her scenes with John Wayne, her refusal to be intimidated by him either as an actor/icon, or in her encounters with Wayne’s John T. Chance, and what That Little Round-headed Boy accurately describes as her casual beauty, allows Dickinson to reveal more than that diminutive “female diversion” might allow. Feathers stands toe-to-toe with the men and the boys on Hawks’ canvas of loyalty and controlled action-- she demands respect, and makes no apologies, for seeing the world the way she sees it.

Her devastating, rather understated beauty is central to her appeal in Rio Bravo and, I think, throughout her career. The fact that she registers first as a “real” woman, that is, not a spectacular, unattainable caricature, but as someone whose essence seems grounded in the everyday, the recognizable, is what makes the gradual revelation of just how lovely a presence she is in films as varied as The Bramble Bush, The Chase, Ocean’s Eleven, Rome Adventure, Jessica, The Killers, Point Blank, Sam Whiskey and Pretty Maids All in a Row eventually so, well, devastating.

However, while reserving spots for Rio Bravo, Point Blank and Dressed to Kill as perhaps the best movies Angie Dickinson ever appeared in, I would agree with those who cite Big Bad Mama as perhaps her best role, and perhaps even her finest hour as an actress. It’s an excellent showcase for the particular brand of earthy, genuine manner and humor she accesses, leavened, of course, by that unassuming, unadorned beauty, and all mixed up with a unapologetic and brazen sexuality (the kind only hinted at in her previous roles), a measure of maternal compulsion, and the kind of violent bravado that was not out of place amongst Roger Corman’s New World Pictures at the time. The template for the picture is, of course, Bonnie and Clyde, and while the movie cuts nowhere as deep as Arthur Penn’s picture, it’s still a lively, funny ride, an ostensibly new wineskin filled almost to bursting with admittedly old wine—the heady excitement and eventual comeuppance of gangsters on the run in 1930s America wasn’t exactly a new tale even when Penn told it (in that instance, the old wineskin did indeed bust wide open), but director Steve Carver’s movie opened it up with a kind of B-movie brio that would prove profitable for Corman, as well as for several producers of similar gangster movies that would follow in its dusty, bloody trail throughout the ‘70s.


But I’ll leave the movie to others whose enthusiasm for it matches mine even as their words engage it with the kind of ease of articulation and perception that I’m not capable of mustering as the hour grows late. Instead, Big Bad Mama, and indeed the essence of the allure of Angie Dickinson, for me can be boiled down to a single shot in that movie. It’s a moment that encapsulates all the qualities of her physical presence, which, I think it can be argued successfully, is the sturdy foundation on which her very real, if modest, talents as an actress are built. (Anyone who doubts her ability to conjure coiled, feral energy and focus with laser precision on the weary disgust of a fashion-plate femme fatale really ought to get themselves hence to John Boorman’s Point Blank, and then contrast this character turn with Maria Bello’s rather more well-trodden approach in Brian Helgeland’s terrific, if more conventional, Point Blank remake, Payback.)

Mama, known to everyone else but her daughters as Wilma McClatchie, has returned to the arms of Fred Diller (Tom Skerritt) one last time, in a hay loft on the farm where Wilma’s gang has being hiding out. Yes, this is the scene every teenaged boy who saw Big Bad Mama in 1974 and has held it near and dear to their hearts ever since remembers with absolute clarity— the shocking moment when Wilma/Angie rises up from the arms of Fred/Tom, reacting the noises being made by a posse that is about to lay siege to that farm and engage her gang in a fatal gun battle. Wilma crosses in front of the camera toward the barn door, revealing herself to be completely and totally nude—a surprising and quite welcome display by Angie Dickinson that even today puts most pneumatically engineered porn starlets and their relentlessly manufactured eroticism to sad shame.

But it’s the moment when Wilma/Angie begins to steel herself for that gun battle that I find to be the height of the film’s fusion of sexuality, eroticism and violence. Framed by the hay loft door, looking down over the courtyard at the entrance to the farm where her pursuers have started to make themselves known, Wilma, holding her pistol, breasts still exposed, gathers up her slip over herself in a series of modest moves, all the while talking (To Fred? Her daughters? Her soon-to-be attackers? I admit I don’t remember to whom) and readying her pistol for the defensive task at hand. The simple eroticism of this shot, the actress’s economical, expressive movement, and the projection of the inescapable trajectory of violence that has now fused itself permanently with her maternal instincts by the presence of the gun, strikes me as easily the visual highlight of the film. In fact, when I saw Big Bad Mama recently on DVD, the moment seemed to me to be one of the most genuinely, poignantly, expressively sexy images I could recall seeing in a movie.






Angie Dickinson is arguably more famous for her role as Pepper Anderson on TV’s Police Woman series, which ran for four years, than for any single movie, or perhaps for her entire movie career. Though Police Woman often stuck her in vaguely demeaning hooker/stripper guises in order to lure criminals to their date with the law, often emphasizing Lt. Bill Crowley (Earl Holliman) as her unlikely savior, it was steady, high-profile work, and she certainly got to do more during the run of Police Woman than she ever did in a typically small role like the one she played in The Chase. (And no matter how traditional his male-dominant role in the series, I always imagined Angie could mop the floor up with Earl pretty handily.) But for many I suspect her Wilma McClatchie, Big Bad Mama herself, has reserved a much softer spot in their cinematic hearts. For me, discovering the movie as a grown-up, rather than as a testosterone-fueled teen at my local drive-in in 1974, it cements the grown-up appeal Dickinson held for me in Rio Bravo, Point Blank and Dressed to Kill as a sex symbol grounded in a happily recognizable standard of beauty. All the photographs and stills you’ll see during today’s Angie Dickinson Blog-a-Thon show that beauty to be timeless, and it still shines through Angie v.2006. Her movies, even the least memorable of them, testify to a different kind of beauty though, the kind informed by the magic that the cinema can bring to an actress to make her live and breathe for us, to make her more “real.” The movies featuring Angie Dickinson prove that a cinematic sex symbol need not seem larger than life. Indeed, for my money, it’s her connection to the truer dimensions of that life, with all its attendant humanity, grace, failures, and even acceding to the inevitability of aging, that ushers her into the pantheon of the movies’ greatest beauties.

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There are other contributions to the Angie Dickinson Blog-a-Thon that will provide you with much reading enjoyment today. This list will undoubtedly expand as the day moves along, but for right now you might click on the following to get that Angie fix:

Steven Carlson checks in on The Three Faces of Angie, one of them being the little seen Big Bad Mama II, over at The Ongoing Cinematic Education of Steven Carlson.

Flickhead has a great overview of Angie's career, as well as his usual keen observtions: "Ultimately what purpose does she serve other than to let us know all is right with the world?... Angie flowered in an era that went gaga over smoldering, busty exotics and amazons: Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Senta Berger, Anita Ekberg. But wisely and logically, she never tried to compete. Hers is a soft sexuality, warm and genuine, merry narrow-eyes and a slight lisp, the promise of a pleasant time in the sack and blueberry pancakes in the morning."

Look to That Little Round-Headed Boy for an investigation into "The Enduring Mystery of Angie Dickinson," seen largely through the prism of Big Bad Mama: "Angie Dickinson is a gorgeous, gorgeous woman, with one of the most casually beautiful bodies ever put on screen. But is she much of an actress?... She could have been a '60s-'70s Lauren Bacall, a topline star of slow-burning insouciance who attracted the men but didn't turn off the women. She had the legs, she had the bust, she had the pert blond hair and most important, she had the voice. Angie Dickinson's voice is truly what makes her sexy: it's low, smoky, whiskey-cured, measured out to entice. It's irresistible catnip to a man."

Peter Nellhaus does well to remind us of Angie, Arnold Leven and Sam Whiskey at Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee.

John McElwee at Greenbriar Picture Shows remembers some forgotten Angie Dickinson films and the Hollywood atmosphere in which her bid for stardom was launched.

Inisfree offers Angie en francais...

Richard Gibson features some nice screen grabs in considering Angie in Dressed to Kill.

Michael J. Hayde has a look at an early TV Guide appearance by our guest of honor.

Keep checking back for more to come as we celebrate Angie Dickinson Blog-a-Thon Day!

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(Again, thanks to Aaron Graham, keeper of More Than Meets the Mogwai for his excessive generosity in procuring the screen grabs used to make this post a much more entertaining one than it would have been without them. Aaron is unfortunately unable to participate in today's tribute to Angie Dickinson, but even so, that he would take the time to supply this DVD-ROM-less soul with such delights for publication speaks volumes. My tab just keeps getting bigger and bigger, MGM.)

LAST CALL FOR THE ANGIE-A-THON!

Last call for the Angie-a-Thon!

This coming Wednesday, April 19, is the day that has been set aside as Angie Dickinson Blog-a-Thon Day. So if you’re going to be contributing to the festivities, please drop either me or Flickhead a line at our e-mail addresses so we can get a preliminary roster of links posted first thing Wednesday.

And remember, if you don’t have a blog and would be interested in contributing a piece, however brief or lengthy, feel free to submit your stuff to Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule at powser2@earthlink.net and I’ll be glad to post it for you.

Rio Bravo! Ocean’s Eleven! The Killers! Point Blank! Big Bad Mama! Dressed to Kill! Police Woman! Join us as we pay tribute to this sensationally sexy star Wednesday, April 19.

TERENCE MALICK IN ODORAMA?

This just in: When Terence Malick's The New World opens in Tokyo later this month, two movie theaters there will be specially equipped to offer something U.S. audiences had to rely on Malick's lush, atmospheric imagery, and their own imaginations, to provide. According to an Associated Press report, special scents will be released into the air of the auditoriums during crucial moments in the film.

The report states that "a floral scent accompanies a love scene, while a mix of peppermint and rosemary is emitted during a tear-jerking scene.

"Joy is a citrus mix of orange and grapefruit, while anger is enhanced by a herb-like concoction with a hint of eucalyptus and tea tree.

The smells waft from special machines under the seats in the back rows of two movie theaters, which create different fragrances by controlling the mix of oils stored in the machines."

Enhancing anger with a hint of eucalyptus and tea tree. Interesting. One has to wonder, though, whether or not if a certain director had been brought in to consult on the aromas those lucky Japanese viewers might also have been treated to a dose of what Colin Farrell's John Smith might have smelled like after a few weeks away from camp.

Malick's trimmed theatrical cut of The New World arrives on DVD May 9 with a 60-minute making-of documentary attached but, presumably, sans smells of any kind.

BRUSH WITH GREATNESS: HARUKA MEETS DONNY

My friend and coworker, super fan Haruka Sometani, got the chance to meet actor-writer-director Steve Buscemi at a recent screening of his new directorial effort, Lonesome Jim, and just happened to have a camera ready. Said Haruka in the e-mail to which this photo was attached, “It’s my dream come true! The only celebrity I've dreamed of meeting! I finally did it! It's Mr. Buscemi!”

I can only imagine that Buscemi, the man whom the Coen Brothers have killed off at least four times (bullet in the brain pan, hotel fire, wood chipper, and of course, heart attack, as Donny in The Big Lebowski) * and who was so memorable as Seymour, the blues record collector who catches Thora Birch’s cynical eye in Ghost World, was just as happy to meet you, Haruka! I don’t remember if Haruka said whether she liked Lonesome Jim or not, but from the look on her face I doubt if it would have made any difference one way or another.

* (Did the Coens off Buscemi in The Hudsucker Proxy? I’ve only seen it once, and if not for the wonder of the Internet Movie Database I probably wouldn’t have even remembered he was in it.)

PROFESSOR VAN HELSING’S JUST-BEFORE-SUNRISE WOODEN-STAKE-THROUGH-SPRING-BREAK QUIZ

Spring break? What spring break? Professor Van Helsing, senior professor emeritus at the SLIFR U School of Vampirology, has driven a stake through the entire conception of an April vacation and issued another quiz designed to keep you clothed, off the beaches and stone cold sober while all around you students destroy brain cell after brain cell on the hunt for cheap thrills and fresh meat. As proctor of these quizzes, I make a vow right now not to make you wait until September to see the answers to this quiz—the Professor Brainerd turnaround should be considered an aberration, not the rule (this is why I’m not going on spring break either).

And here's a special shout-out to any longtime or newbie lurkers who regularly check out the goings-on at SLIFR-- we all want to hear from you. If you're logging on for the first time, or especially if you've hung around for a while and never commented or participated in one of our quizzes before, I hope you'll take some of your valuable time and let us know what your answers are to these pressing cinematic questions. As much as I hope to see many, if not all of the past participants check in, I know I'd love to have more company in the comments column as those answers start coming in. So join us, won't you?

Just submit your completed list of answers in the comments column. In a month or so, I will compile all of the answers in a digested format for easy pickin's. The questions tend not to be yes-or-no, so short, terse answers may not always be easy to formulate, nor are they necessarily preferred. Personally, I like to read the ones with lots of verbiage, so if you feel like going off on a tangent, feel free to do so!

All right, the hour is now upon us. Sharpen your stakes, sharpen even further your No. 2s, sit up straight and open your blue books… now!

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1) What film made you angry, either while watching it or in thinking about it afterward?

2) Favorite sidekick

3) One of your favorite movie lines

4) William Holden or Burt Lancaster?

5) Describe a perfect moment in a movie

6) Favorite John Ford movie

7) The inverse of a question from the last quiz: What film artist (director, actor, screenwriter, whatever) has the least–deserved good reputation, artistically speaking. And who would you replace him/her with on that pedestal?

8) Barbara Stanwyck or Ida Lupino?

9) Showgirls-- yes or no?

10) Most exotic or otherwise unusual place in which you ever saw a movie

11) Favorite Robert Altman movie

12) Best argument for allowing rock stars to participate in the making of movies

13) Describe a transcendent moment in a film (a moment when you realized a film that just seemed routine or merely interesting before had become become something much more)

14) Gina Gershon or Jennifer Tilly?

15) Favorite Frank Capra movie

16) The scene you most wish you could have witnessed being filmed

17) Robert Ryan or Richard Widmark?

18) Name a movie that inspired you to walk out before it was finished

19) Favorite political movie

20) Your favorite movie poster/one-sheet, or the one you’d most like to own

21) Jeff Bridges or Jeff Goldblum?

22) Favorite Ken Russell movie

23) Accepting the conventional wisdom that 1970-1975 marked a golden age of American filmmaking in which artistic ambition and popular acceptance were not mutually exclusive, what for you was this golden age’s high point? (Could be a movie, a trend, the emergence of a star, whatever)

24) Grace Kelly or Ava Gardner?

25) With total disregard for whether it would ever actually be considered, even in this age of movie recycling, what film exists that you feel might actually warrant a sequel, or would produce a sequel you’d actually be interested in seeing?