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STEALING: MY FAVORITE COMMERCIAL
My summer TV viewing habits are pretty much restricted to baseball, and though nothing will replace the AFLAC duck, voiced by Gilbert Gottfried, in my daughters' hearts, this beauty of a commercial, shown at least twice per Dodger game and featuring Harvey Keitel, Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter and Angels starting pitcher John Lackey, has fast become my favorite. This is the slightly longer :44 version-- the :30 cut pops up most often in between innings.
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1) Favorite quote from a filmmaker.
Alfred Hitchcock: "Drama is life with the dull bits cut out."
2) A good movie from a bad director.
I’m ashamed to say I ain’t got one. Maybe “Flawless” (which was okay) directed by Joel Schumacher.
3) Favorite Laurence Olivier performance.
'Maxim' de Winter in “Rebecca”.
4) Describe a famous location from a movie that you have visited (Bodega Bay, California, where the action in The Birds took place, for example). Was it anything like the way it was in the film? Why or why not?
The Whispering Gallery in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, which was where the climax of “Hands of the Ripper” occurs. I was a 12-year-old kid on a trip to England and Scotland with my parents and I watched “Hands of the Ripper” on TV in our hotel late at night while we were there (Scared the hell out of me). When we visited the cathedral it was a bit surreal to be in the place that I had just watched on television, especially with the drama that the end of that Hammer flick delivered. It looked the same as it did in the film, but there was no one there in period costume (Well, people were in 70’s period costume, but not Jack the Ripper period costume).
5) Carlo Ponti or Dino De Laurentiis (Producer)?
De Laurentiis for being shameless.
6) Best movie about baseball
“The Bad News Bears” (1976).
7) Favorite Barbara Stanwyck performance.
No big surprise… “Double Indemnity”, with “Ball of Fire” close behind.
8) Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Dazed and Confused?
“Dazed and Confused”, because it’s great and evocative. I don’t get “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” despite being the right age at the time of its release and the presence of Jennifer Jason Leigh.
9) What was the last movie you saw, and why? (We’ve used this one before, but your answer is presumably always going to be different, so…)
“Black Book”, because I’d heard it was good and because I’m always interested in what Paul Verhoeven is up to.
10) Whether or not you have actually procreated or not, is there a movie you can think of that serious affected the way you think about having kids of your own?
Being a non-Breeder, I can seriously say that “The Exorcist” is that flick, simply because of the devotion Chris MacNeil shows toward her daughter, and the emotional, psychological, and physical damage she endures to help her off spring. This movie most clearly showed me the particular bond between parent and child.
11) Favorite Katharine Hepburn performance.
Without a doubt, “Bringing Up Baby”.
12) A bad movie from a good director.
Woody Allen’s “Melinda and Melinda”. Ugh. I hate that movie.
13) Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom-- yes or no?
God help me… Yes.
14) Ben Hecht or Billy Wilder (Screenwriter)?
Wilder is great, but I have to pick Hecht, mostly because of his work with Hitchcock… The complexities of the “Notorious” script, his great work on the “Strangers on a Train” and “Foreign Correspondent” scripts, among others, and of course, the non-Hitchcock “His Girl Friday” script.
15) Name the film festival you’d most want to attend, or your favorite festival that you actually have attended.
The most fun I’ve had at a film festival was attending the Midnight Madness screenings at the Toronto Film Festival, but I’d really enjoy going to the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal.
16) Head or 200 Motels?
“Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”.
17) Favorite cameo appearance
(Try visiting here and here for some good ideas! This question was inspired by Daniel Johnson at Film Babble)
Bruce Willis in “The Player”, because it made me laugh.
18) Favorite Rosalind Russell performance.
”His Girl Friday”.
19) What movie, either currently available on DVD or not, has never received the splashy collector’s edition treatment you think it deserves? What would such an edition include?
I’ve recently ordered DVD-R’s of “Blood and Lace”, “Four Flies on Grey Velvet”, “Hands of the Ripper”, and “I Was a Teenage Werewolf”, but it would be nice if all those puppies were available as official Region 1 DVD releases. The current DVD I have of “Eating Raoul” is pretty awful, so it would be nice to see a decent release featuring commentary from the fantastic Mary Woronov with a retrospective documentary of her career as well as that of co-star and director Paul Bartel. And the trailer, of course.
20) Name a performance that everyone needs to be reminded of, for whatever reason.
Donald O’Connor in “Singin’ in the Rain”, because when he does “Make ‘Em Laugh” everything is okay.
21) Louis B. Mayer or Harry Cohn (Studio Head)?
Harry Cohn.
22) Favorite John Wayne performance.
“The Searchers”.
23) Naked Lunch or Barton Fink?
“Naked Lunch”. Talk about doing a great job adapting the unadaptable. I love the Cohen Brothers, but I’ve always thought that “Barton Fink” was too much like “Eraserhead”.
24) Your Ray Harryhausen movie of choice.
Tough one, but I’m going to go with “The Golden Voyage of Sinbad” as a sentimental favourite.
25) Is there a movie you can think of that you feel like the world would be better off without, one that should have never been made?
No, because there’s room for every movie.
24) Favorite Dub Taylor performance
Err… “Bonnie and Clyde”.
25) If you had the choice of seeing three final movies, to go with your three last meals, before shuffling off this mortal coil, what would they be?
Breakfast: “Bringing Up Baby”
Lunch: “Notorious”
Dinner: “The Long Day Closes”
26) And what movie theater would you choose to see them in?
Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
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