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DEAN VERNON WORMER’S LOCKDOWN-FRIENDLY, DOUBLE-SECRET PROBATIONARY QUARANTINE-QUALITY MOVIE QUIZ
As you may have heard, classes at all of our esteemed learning
institutions across the nation and the globe have been forced into online
learning environments in order to accommodate all the students who have been
currently confined to their homes. But here at SLIFR University we’ve been
doing our assessments and quizzes online
for 16 years now (!!!), so not much of an adjustment has been required.
However, we noticed that some of you have been behind on your studying, so in
order to make sure to stay on track with your studies we’ve had to roll out the
big guns. Online class for this next session will be conducted by the big
cheese himself, head of all SLIFR University academic facilities and operations,
Dean Vernon Wormer, and he promises to be a most exacting taskmaster.
Whereas most of our previous faculty have held their assessments between 20-30 questions, Dean Wormer has opted to put you all through the proverbial wringer—you will now be subjected to perhaps the most epic investigatory undertaking in the history of the SLIFR Uni movie quiz. Behold, Dean Vernon Wormer’s Lockdown-Friendly, Double-Secret-Probationary Quarantine Quality Movie Quiz, a blistering 55 questions in length! As our fearless leader (not that that one—I’m talking about Dean Wormer, who in comparison, comes off looking pretty spiffy, doesn’t he?) said as he submitted his questions to the review board, “If they can survive this one, they can survive anything.”
Well, I’m willing to take that sentiment and run with it. Here are the rules— there are none. (When the Deltas took on the rules, remember, the rules lost, so what good are they anyway?) The only encouragement this proctor can offer is the one he always offers—there are, of course, no wrong answers, and the most elaborately expounded upon your answer is will likely most please the persnickety dean, who finds himself quite bored cooped up in his mansion, quarantined alone, with not even his wife to keep him company. (She never did return from that “spa vacation” at Sarasota Springs.) And when you do answer, there’s no need to cut and paste the question, but if you could please make sure to number your answers to their corresponding questions, Dean Wormer would be slightly less likely to cavalierly dock points from your endeavor on grounds of hostile participation.
So, get your pencils ready and shoot for better than a 0.0 GPA on
this one—you’ve got the big man to impress! And… go!
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1) You’re on a desert island (and you sort of are)—What three discs do
you select out of your own collection to keep if you had to get rid of all the
rest?
2) Giuletta Masina or Jeanne Moreau?
3) Second -favorite Roger Corman movie.
4) The most memorable place you ever saw a movie. This could be a film projected on a big screen or seen in some other fashion—the important thing is what makes it memorable.
5) Marcello Mastroianni or Vittorio Gassman?
6) Second-favorite Kelly Reichardt movie.
7) In the matter of taste, is there a film or director that, if your partner in a relationship (wife/husband/lover/best friend) disagreed violently with your assessment of it, might cause a serious rift in that relationship?
8) The last movie you saw in a theater/on physical media/via streaming (list one each).
9) Name a movie that you just couldn’t face watching right now.
10) Jane Greer or Ava Gardner?
11)Edmond O’Brien or Van Heflin?
12) Second favorite Yasujiro Ozu movie.
13) Name a proposed American remake of an international film
that would, if actually undertaken, surely court or inevitably result in
disaster.
14) What’s a favorite film that you consider genuinely subversive, for
whatever reason?
15) Name the movie score you couldn’t live without.
16) Mary-Louise Weller or Martha Smith?
17) Peter Riegert or Bruce McGill?
18) Last Tango in Paris—yes or no?
19) Second-favorite Akira Kurosawa movie.
20) Who would host the imaginary DVD commentary you would most want to
hear right now, and what would the movie be?
21) Favorite movie snack.
22) Second-favorite Planet of the Apes film (from the original
cycle).
23) Least-favorite Martin Scorsese movie.
24) Name a movie you feel doesn’t deserve its current reputation, for
better or worse.
25) Best movie of 1970. (Fifty years ago!)
26) Name a movie you think is practically begging for a Broadway
adaptation (I used this question in the last quiz, but I’m repeating it because
I never answered the quiz myself and I think I have a pretty good answer)
27) Louise Brooks or Clara Bow?
28) Second-favorite Pier Paolo Pasolini movie.
29) Name three movies you loved in your early years that you feel most influenced your adult cinematic tastes .
30) Name a movie you love that you think few others do.
31) Name a movie you despise that you think most others love.
32) The Human Centipede—yes or no?
33) Anya Taylor-Joy or Olivia Cooke?
34) Johnny Flynn or Timothée Chalamet?
35) Second-favorite Dorothy Arzner movie.
36) Name a movie you haven’t seen in over 20 years that you would drop everything to watch right now.
37) Name your favorite stylistic filmmaking cliché, and one you wouldn’t mind seeing disappear forever.
38) Your favorite appearance by a real-life politician in a feature film, either fictional or a fictionalized account of a real event.
39) Is film criticism dead?
40) Elizabeth Patterson or Marjorie Main?
41) Arch Hall Jr. or Timothy Carey?
42) Name the film you think best fulfills the label “road movie.”
43) Horror film that, for whatever reason, made you feel most
uncomfortable?
44) Least-favorite (directed by) Clint Eastwood movie.
45) Second-favorite James Bond villain.
46) Best adaptation of a novel or other form that had been thought to be unfilmable.
47) Michelle Dockery or Merritt Wever?
48) Jason Bateman or Ewan McGregor?
49) Second-favorite Roman Polanski movie.
50) What’s the movie you wish you could watch with a grandparent right now? And, of course, why?
51) Oliver Stone two-fer: Natural Born Killers and/or JFK—yes or no?
52) Name the actor whose likeness you would proudly wear as a rubber
latex Halloween mask.
53) Your favorite cinematographer, and her/his greatest achievement.
54) Best book about the nitty-gritty making of a movie.
55) If you needed to laugh right now, what would be your go-to movie
comedy?
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25 comments:
1) THE CRITIC on dvd.
2) Giuletta Masina. I need a break from French women... (wouldn't it be amazing if that last sentence meant anything??)
3) Limiting myself to movies that he directed: threeway toss-up between PIT AND THE PENDULUM, DAY THE EARTH ENDED, and WILD ANGELS.
4) That time I projected THE GOLDEN BOWL from my computer onto a wall in a small shed for maybe three or four of my mom's friends back when she was the curator at the Voelker-Orth Museum.
5) Marcello Mastroianni, you maniac!
6) Meek's Cutoff.
7) Jing Wong.
8) Theater: Bacurau/Physical Media: Canton Godfather on blu-ray/VOD: Wild Goose Lake. I recommend all three.
9) Child Bride. (Seriously, no)
10) Ava Gardner?
11) Edmond O’Brien.
12) Early Spring.
13) JSA.
14) Zardoz.
15) Gojira!
16) Mary-Louise Weller!
17) Bruce McGill.
18) Yes.
19) Throne of Blood.
20) Bruce Vilance on the Holiday Special.
21) Junior Mints.
22) Beneath the Planet of the Apes.
23) The Departed? Though I don't even really dislike that.
24) Zardoz.
25) Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx (jk, it's Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion)
26) Name a movie you think is practically begging for a Broadway adaptation (I used this question in the last quiz, but I’m repeating it because I never answered the quiz myself and I think I have a pretty good answer)
27) Clara Bow.
28) Hawks and Sparrows.
29) Kurosawa's Dreams.
30) Zardoz.
31) Let the Sunshine In.
32) 1 and 2, yes. 3, nooooooo
33) Olivia Cooke.
34) Ok.
35) Yes.
36) Fantastic Voyage.
37) Favorite filmmaking cliche: Carrie's "The End...?" from-beyond-the grave jump scare; disappear it: anything related to Paul Greengrass.
38) Gotta be George W. Bush in that SIMPSONS episode.
39) Seriously?
40) I'm still mad about 39!
41) No talk me, angy.
42) Most Hope and Crosby movies.
43) Probably NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
44) Eiger Sanction!
45) Grace Jones.
46) NAKED LUNCH.
47) Justice for #39!
48) Grr.
49) The Tenant.
50) Empire of the Sun with my late grandpa (dad's side); he really liked that movie.
51) 39!!!
52) Captain Lou Albano.
53) Peter Hyams; as a cinematographer? Either OUTLAND or that one episode of AMAZING STORIES.
54) Battle for Brazil.
55) Top Secret!
I can't believe I'm the first person to post here.
1.) A Hard Day’s Night (for the joy), History Is Made at Night (for love surviving through peril), and Jazz on a Summer’s Day (for the pleasure of human expression).
2) Jeanne Moreau. Tougher, cooler, scarier.
3) The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent. For the title alone.
4) Theater 80 in New York City, because it used to be a speakeasy during Prohibition.
5) Marcello Mastroianni. So suave.
6) I’ve only seen Wendy and Lucy.
7) If she didn’t like someone I liked, that wouldn’t be a problem. If she liked someone I loathed, that might be an issue. I’m not sure why the first would be OK and the second wouldn’t.
8) The last movie I saw in a theater was the Gary Oldman one where he was Churchill – Darkest Hour, I think? I watched The Kennel Murder Case on TCM earlier this week. I don’t stream.
9) Pretty much anything scary. For example, I saw Fail-Safe listed on my guide earlier today and the thought of watching mass death was overwhelming, even though the cause was completely different.
10) Ava Gardner. Jane had basically one important movie. Ava was emblematic of an era.
11)Edmond O’Brien. I cannot stand Van Heflin and his bug eyes. He seems to be the walking definition of flop sweat.
12) I regret to say I haven’t seen any Ozu movies. I think I’d like his work, but I’ve never had the chance.
13) I’m not aware of any current proposed re-makes. Breathless was pretty damn bad, though.
14) The T.A.M.I. Show. Speaking for myself, as a 10-year-old kid from a small town in northeast Ohio, seeing James Brown opened up whole new worlds for me, none of which were in the playbook offered in my schools.
15) Adventures of Robin Hood.
16) Mary-Louise Weller. Martha is livelier, but Mary-Louise made Bluto Blutarsky fall off his ladder.
17) Peter Riegert or Bruce McGill? Aargh!! I love both guys a lot. Bruce by a hair because he’s such a classic Hollywood character actor. He could’ve been in every Warner Brothers movie from about 1933 through the end of the 1950s.
18) Last Tango in Paris has remarkable acting, but it’s also more than a little creepy. Some of that is part of the point, but some of it is from Bertolucci’s own issues.
19) I’ve only seen Rashomon and Seven Samurai. I liked the latter a little bit more, so Rashomon.
20) Fred Astaire with Swing Time. Pure comfort food.
21) Sno-Caps with a cup of Coke.
22) I remember enjoying Beneath the Planet of the Apes with James Franciscus. I also remember thinking the one with the Volkswagons was fun, but I can’t recall which one that was.
23) New York, New York. Really loud, really long, really dumb.
24) Star Wars. It’s an enjoyable movie that’s been very influential, to put it mildly. And I don’t begrudge a single moment of pleasure that any of its billions of fans have experienced because of it. It’s just not one of the all-time great movies, which is how I think a lot of people see it.
25) Hard to choose between Let It Be, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and Patton, but Let It Be has meant the most to me over the last 50 years.
26) Soapdish.
27) Clara Bow. Much more fun.
28) I’ve never seen any of his movies.
29) North by Northwest, A Hard Day’s Night, and any Astaire/Rogers movie.
30) Night of the Comet.
31) Forrest Gump.
32) A “no” for each foot.
33) I’ve never seen either. I’ll take Anya from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
34) I’ve only seen Timothee, who was good in Lady Bug, so I’ll choose him.
35) Craig’s Wife. I’ve only seen this and Dance, Girl, Dance, which I liked a lot. I’d like to see more of her films. I wish she’d gotten to *make* more of her films.
36) Little Big Man. One of my all-time faves with a great feel for its time and place and a total lack of reverence for the typical historical mustiness found in Hollywood movies set in the past. Dustin Hoffman’s best performance
37) I have a silly fondness for iris-outs. On the other hand, I generally dislike extremely fast cutting – what would have been described as MTV video style, once upon a time.
38) These sort of cameos usually make me uncomfortable because they always feel cutesy. I guess I’d say Fred Thompson in In the Line of Fire, since he wasn’t appearing as his Senatorial self.
39) No. I think film criticism, like rock ‘n’ roll music, has simply stopped being a Top 40 mainstay. Now it’s mostly on the critical equivalent of Sound Cloud. On the one hand, that gives the critic total freedom, but on the other it means a vastly reduced audience.
40) Elizabeth Patterson. I always found Marjorie annoying, and more than a little patronizing: this was Hollywood’s idea of rural folk. Contrast this with Elizabeth’s performance in, say, Remember the Night.
41) Timothy Carey. I haven’t seen Arch, but Carey has a long list of memorable films, so I have to go with him.
42) Harry and Tonto was the first thing that popped into my head, so I’ll trust that. The road scenes with Howard Hughes and Melvin Dummar are wonderful, but they only make up a relatively small portion of the movie.
43) The 1972 version of Tales from the Crypt. Scared the bejeezus out of me – although I can’t remember anything about it now, apart from the almost physical sensation of fear the title evokes. It would be stretching the definition of “horror film,” but the TV adaptation of Helter Skelter would probably win this award, if it could be included in the category.)
44) American Sniper, for the politics.
45) Joseph Wiseman. (Close call between him and Gert Frobe.)
46) How about the original uncut version of Greed?
47) Michelle Dockery or Merritt Wever? I left the question because I enjoy seeing two such dissimilar performers in one sentence. Let’s just say I would’ve loved to have seen Merritt Weaver in an episode of Downton Abbey.
48) Jason Bateman, because of Game Night.
49) The Ghost Writer.
50) Wild River. When I was young, we watched that at my mom’s mom’s house; not only was it a good movie, my grandma had lived in an area of western North Carolina that was very similar to the place depicted in the movie, so it really resonated for her, and the rest of us, as well.
51) No, not at this moment. Too loud, violent, and scary.
52) Charles Laughton as the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
53) Winton C. Hoch, The Searchers. Ted Tetzlaff (Notorious) and Robert Burks (North by Northwest) are close behind.
54) I have never read a “making of the movie” book, except for a fun, quickie paperback book about the making of Animal House that was rushed out in the wake of that film’s monster success. So that wins by default. (I wish I still had that book.)
55) Soapdish.
Simon, Bill, thanks to both of you for answering here! I almost never get comments anymore! And Simon, sorry for making you angy!
Gonna need a bit to chew on all of these questions but the answer to number four is a slam dunk. Let me try to explain:
Riverside Drive-In, Vandergrift PA. So watching PSYCHOMANIA during the Super Monster-Rama as a thick, layered fog rolled in, casting 30-50 progressive ghost images of the film, letting you see each frame as the flickering light fought its way toward the screen, was admittedly pretty cool, I gotta go with THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES at the same venue because, as the film played out, a thunderstorm was raging on the other side of the mountain of this natural echo chamber carved into its side up in coal county; so lightning is flashing, thunder is booming joining an ethereal echo along with the soundtrack; and right behind the screen is a bowling alley, it’s league night, so you can physically hear a ton of exploding pin action; and on top of all that cacophony, the next town over is celebrating its bicentennial or something, explaining away the spectacular fireworks display going on just to the right of the screen off in the distance. And as all of this is going on, the lighting, the thunder, the strikes, the fireworks is Vincent Price murdering someone on screen most righteously and I’ve never felt more like an American and a monster movie maniac than I did right then and there.
1) Two-Lane Blacktop/His Girl Friday/Kiss Me Deadly
2) Moreau.
3) Boxcar Bertha.
4) Annie Hall, on the beach in Monte Carlo.
5) Marcello. Though Vittorio is great in Sharky's Machine. (Burt to Gassman's character: "I'm gonna pull the chain on you, pal. And you wanna know why? 'Cause you're fucking up my city. 'Cause you're walking all over people like you own them. And you wanna know the worst part? You're from out of state.")
6) I'd have to see a first one.
7) That's already happened -- often -- and we're still married.
8. Birds of Prey/Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street/52 Pick-Up
9) Any plague movie you care to name.
10) Ava. Ava. Ava.
11) You know, the first thing I learned in this town, was to own property. Eddie O'Brien taught me that...
12) See No. 6
13) Umberto D.
14) His Girl Friday
15) The Stunt Man, Dominic Frontiere.
16) When I used to watch Gilligan's Island, I liked Ginger AND Mary Ann.
17) Tough call. Tie.
18) YES.
19) Sanjuro.
20) Dennis Cozzalio on Animal House?
21) French fries. Can't eat popcorn anymore.
22) Whichever one had the apes driving cop cars.
23) Cape Fear.
24) Vertigo is a great movie, but not the greatest of all time, and not even anywhere near the greatest Hitchcock.
25) Too hard to pick the best one, maybe Five Easy Pieces. But Song of Norway would definitely be the worst one.
26) You never answered your own quiz????
27) Brooks.
28) See No. 6 and 12.
29) Batman (Adam West version); American Graffiti; Mary Poppins
30) The January Man.
31) Parasite. (Don't despise, just don't think it holds up all the way through)
32) Uh, what's that?
33) Well, having just watched Emma...
34) See No. 33. Plus, I think Timmy was a little full of himself regarding Woody Allen.
35) After Christopher Strong, nothing compares. But Dance, Girl, Dance.
36) Can't think of one.
37) The person walking down the middle of the crowded New York sidewalk, pulsing to an urban score. Though I guess that isn't a problem now, sadly.
38) Bella Abzug in Manhattan.
39) No, but like most American journalism, it's lost a lot in style points.
40) Ma Kettle.
41) Carey!
42) Two-Lane Blacktop.
43) Jurassic Park.
44) J. Edgar.
45) Rosa Klemp.
46) To Have and Have Not.
47) DOCKERY!
48) Obi-Wan.
49) The Ninth Gate.
50) My grandparents have been gone a long time, and we never watched movies together.
51) I never want to see NBK again.
52) William Demarest.
53) Tie between John Alton and Gordon Willis, too hard to pick just one, they're all great.
54) The recent book on 2001.
55) Anything by Sturges or the Paramount Marx Brothers.
And thanks to you, Dennis, for the extra-long quiz. For some reason, I've never been able to post any comments on your Facebook page, but I'm always happy to post here. As Dobie Gray once sang, the original is still the greatest.
1) Criterion disc of "Paris Texas", "Casino" and "Swingers"
2) Moreau because she exhibits this dangerous sexiness that's perfect for most of the films she pops up in
3) "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre"
4) Living here in Texas, one of Harry Knowles' "Butt-numb-a-thon" events took place on Halloween on the grounds of a dilapidated Travis County Psychiatric Hospital property..... movies projected on the outdoor Rolling Roadshow screen with the world premier of Eli Roth's "Cabin Fever". It wasn't so much the films, but the camaraderie and the atmosphere.
5) Mastroianni
6) "Night Moves"
7) That staying home to watch a movie is better than the big screen
8) Theatre- "Greed" streaming- Jim McBride's awful vampire film "Blood Ties" physical media- Renoir's "The River"
9) Anything with animals since I recently had to put my dog down
10) Ava Gardner
11) Van Heflin. O'Brien just seemed like a colossal prick (nothing of evidence outside his 50's crime film roles, of course)
12) "A Story of Floating Weeds"
13) Michael Bay remaking Sokurov's "Russian Ark"!
14) "Bowfinger" it's inherently nasty towards pretty much everything with a sweet facade of maverick filmmaking
15) Georges Delerue's score to Godard's "Contempt"
16) Martha Smith! Scarecrow and Mrs. King!
17) umm McGill?
18) "Last Tango in Paris", yes
19) "High and Low"
20) Ahh, the lost art of listening to DVD commentaries. I suppose Scorsese on "The Irishman". Hopefully one is included on the Criterion
21) snickers
22) "Planet of the Apes"
23) "After Hours"
24) "Roma". Liked it, but don't see what everyone was jumping up and down about
25) "The Kremlin Letter" by John Huston best film of '70
26) Broadway adapt "Call Me By Your Name"!
27) Louise Brooks
28) "The Gospel According to ST. Matthew"
29) "Something Wicked This Way Comes" (1983) because it felt like something I shouldn't be watching and how insidious movies can become, "Parenthood" (1988) for the way humor and drama can intersect and "Goodfellas" when I realized an intelligent design behind the camera
30) Nick Gomez's "Laws of Gravity" from 1992, largely because it's so hard to find but still devastates me to this day
31) "2001 A Space Odyssey"
32) "The Human Centipede" no
33) Cooke because she was so good in "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"
34) ugh Flynn if I have to choose
35) Sadly, can't say I've seen any of her films. shame!
36) wow can't think of one
37) i love the long tracking shot when it has meaning and not just for show. any montage segue can go bye bye
38) John McCain in "Wedding Crashers" I suppose.
39) no, just undergoing some fits and starts
40) Marjorie Main
41) Carey
42) Wim Wenders "Paris, Texas" because it's not only about geographical gulf but emotional and spiritual
43) "Inside" by Bustillo and Maury. It just felt so..... savage and unrelenting in a normal way
44) His last few have been very rudimentary. "American Sniper" especially
45) That knife wielding, Chinese star throwing dude in "Octopussy"
46) anything Raoul Ruiz adapts
47) Dockery
48) McGregor
49) "The Fearless Vampire Killers"
50) Grandmother loved "On Golden Pond"
51) Oliver Stone 2fer? yes, if only for "JFK"
52) Florence Pugh weird? nah
53) Nestor Almendros and "Days of Heaven"
54) recent book "Best Movie Year Ever" is chock full of tidbits about all the great 90's efforts
55) "Blazing Saddles"
My answers are here: http://moviebot.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-slifr-double-secret-probationary.html
Hold your horses, we're coming!
1) You’re on a desert island (and you sort of are)—What three discs do you select out of your own collection to keep if you had to get rid of all the rest?
Bear in mind I only own 8 or 9 discs, all gifts. SO: Napolean Dynamite, Fight Club, and Marisa Tomei: Core & Curves
3) Second -favorite Roger Corman movie.
Bucket of Blood (# 1—Masque of the Red Death)
4) The most memorable place you ever saw a movie. This could be a film projected on a big screen or seen in some other fashion—the important thing is what makes it memorable.
A friend of mind had the 15 minute 8mm (silent!) Castle Films print of “Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman” but he could find the screen so we projected it on the White Album, where it was about the size of a post card. It was awesome.
8) The last movie you saw in a theater/on physical media/via streaming (list one each).
Theater: Joker. I’m at basically one trip to the movies every 18 months now.
DVD: Annihilation
Streaming: The Killing of a Sacred Deer
11)Edmond O’Brien or Van Heflin?
O’Brien. Although I caught Heflin’s Oscar-wining turn in “Johnny Eager” a few weeks back and I was startled by how good he was.
12) Second favorite Yasujiro Ozu movie.
There’s a whole bunch with titles like “Early Spring” “Late Fall”, etc. The one with all the little kids farting.
13) Name a proposed American remake of an international film that would, if actually undertaken, surely court or inevitably result in disaster.
Does “Night of the Hunter” count as International because of its British director? Because that remake’s going to be a shit sandwich I have no intention of gobbling down.
16) Mary-Louise Weller or Martha Smith?
Sarah Holcomb!
17) Peter Riegert or Bruce McGill?
Reigert’s star turn in “Crossing Delancy” gets him my nod.
18) Last Tango in Paris—yes or no?
Nah. Saw it again maybe 3 years ago. Didn’t even like the cinematography.
19) Second-favorite Akira Kurosawa movie.
The High and the Low.
21) Favorite movie snack.
White Castle hamburgers. Only at the drive-in, natch.
23) Least-favorite Martin Scorsese movie.
Gangs of New York.
24) Name a movie you feel doesn’t deserve its current reputation, for better or worse.
Vertigo. It’s a great movie and it spent decades being ridiculously underrated, but FFS…
25) Best movie of 1970. (Fifty years ago!)
Well, my FAVES would be Tristana, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and Brewster McCloud. But it was a good year and I could probably make a good case for a dozen more.
26) Name a movie you think is practically begging for a Broadway adaptation (I used this question in the last quiz, but I’m repeating it because I never answered the quiz myself and I think I have a pretty good answer)
If Mickey Rooney were still around and spry enough to play the Japanese guy, Human Centipede.
27) Louise Brooks or Clara Bow?
Am I casting a movie or desperate for a prom date?
28) Second-favorite Pier Paolo Pasolini movie.
The Decameron is my favorite, which means Canterbury Tales (the other one I saw) would have to be number two.
29) Name three movies you loved in your early years that you feel most influenced your adult cinematic tastes.
Zero for Conduct, Psycho, and Lord Love a Duck, all seen before I was out of high school.
30) Name a movie you love that you think few others do.
Brewster McCloud
31) Name a movie you despise that you think most others love.
Metropolis.
34) Johnny Flynn or Timothée Chalamet?
Haven’t seen Flynn yet. I’ve seen Chalamet in a bunch of stuff and he’s good, but I’m voting for Flynn because he spells his name correctly and doesn’t stick any fucking bullshit doo hickies over his vowels.
35) Second-favorite Dorothy Arzner movie.
Christopher Strong is the only one I can say for sure I’ve seen…
37) Name your favorite stylistic filmmaking cliché, and one you wouldn’t mind seeing disappear forever.
The simultaneous dolly-in / zoom-out (or vice versa) remains a favorite. On the other hand, I think I could do without ever seeing anybody walking nonchalantly away from the conflagration or explosion they’ve caused, slo-mo or not.
38) Your favorite appearance by a real-life politician in a feature film, either fictional or a fictionalized account of a real event.
Joseph Welsh in “Anatomy of a Murder.”
39) Is film criticism dead?
Mass media VENUES for it are dead.
41) Arch Hall Jr. or Timothy Carey?
Timothy Carey. Is this even a question??
42) Name the film you think best fulfills the label “road movie.”
Going Places
43) Horror film that, for whatever reason, made you feel most uncomfortable?
Phenomena (Dario Argento). There’s a pool with dead bodies and the ‘corpse water’ is full of maggots and somebody falls in it. I don’t dig maggots.
44) Least-favorite (directed by) Clint Eastwood movie.
I spent the first half hour of “Jersey Boys” baffled by its lousy reputation. It was great. By the 90 minute mark I was trying to figure out how it even got released.
45) Second-favorite James Bond villain.
Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya)
46) Best adaptation of a novel or other form that had been thought to be unfilmable.
Mary Ellen Bute’s “Scenes from Finnegans Wake”
49) Second-favorite Roman Polanski movie.
MacBeth. Whole bunch tied for first, tho.
51) Oliver Stone two-fer: Natural Born Killers and/or JFK—yes or no?
Lotta fun things in Killers, including intercutting radically different takes of the same scene together.
52) Name the actor whose likeness you would proudly wear as a rubber latex Halloween mask.
Timothy Carey! Although without question 41 in front of me I don’t think the answer would have been obvious.
53) Your favorite cinematographer, and her/his greatest achievement.
Conrad Hall, the elder. A lot of high points but if you want to know what the light in New York City was like in the last decades of the 20th Century (and believe me, it’s like that no longer), see Searching for Bobby Fisher.
54) Best book about the nitty-gritty making of a movie.
“Picture” by Lillian Ross is the gold standard.
1. Koyaanisqatsi
Mon Oncle
The Third Man
2. The bride who wore black, Jeanne Moreau.
3. Sorry, Dean Wormer, I haven’t seen one yet. But I’m sure it would be an Edgar Allan Poe!
4. The Communales Kino in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. It was a tiny little place, maybe seated 100 people. Flat floor, folding chairs, bare bones. It doubled as a café (the lobby, which was almost as big as the theater itself), which probably kept them in business. It was magical, though, somehow. They played a lot of interesting stuff, but I was young and foolish and only went once. A good one, though -- The Passion of Joan of Arc, with a pianist improvising a score. Maybe the movie had a lot to do with the magic.
5. Well, I’ve never seen any of their films. Looking at Gassman’s filmography, I am more intrigued. But I would love to see Mastroianni in Enrico IV. A tie.
6. You should see my house. (Well, OK, maybe not. It’s a bit of a mess.) I love library book sales, especially when you can get a whole bagful of things for $5 or so on the last day. Around here, they usually have movies, and this is where I tend to buy them. A lot of them. They form little Tower of Pisa-like sculptures all over the house. Two of those sculptural blocks are Wendy and Lucy and Meek’s Cutoff. You’re right, I haven’t seen either one yet.
7. I am sure I have answered this question before. For consistency’s sake, I will say “Triumph of the Will”.
8. Theater: Oh, so long ago! The Return of Skywalker, I think, which I quite enjoyed.
DVD: I think it was Knives Out, which was a bit of a lark, but right up my alley.
Streaming: The Great Escape. Maybe I should start a second tunnel from my laundry room, just in case.
9. Presumably you mean something good, not godawful. Hmm … On the Beach, for obvious reasons.
10. Toss On the Beach, keep Ava Gardner.
11. I don’t know either well, but Edmond O’Brien leaves a stronger impression.
12. Please, sir, may I have another?
13. I don’t really hear such proposals in this here neck of the woods.
14. I’m waiting for the Hamilton movie myself.
15. The score for E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is pretty much perfect.
16. Oh, Martha Smith, if I must.
17. Bruce McGill by a hair.
18. Never seen the whole thing, but came in at the middle once on TV – did not care for it.
19. Ran (second to Rashomon).
20. I’d like to hear Maggie Smith and Michael Palin talk about A Private Function. Actually, I’d like to hear them talk about anything.
21. Popcorn with butter, please. Although if they still made Flicks, I’d get me a tube of those, too.
22. Kurosawa – I’ve seen two of those! Planet of the Apes – not even one.
23. The Wolf of Wall Street. It had a few moments, but it just had me cringing most of the way through. A mob movie without the mob, which at least seems to make their lives of excess understandable. Not really fond of mob movies though, either.
24. The Wolf of Wall Street? Hmm, too easy. Well, another one that has always bugged me is The Quiet Man. Talk about ripping off every Irish stereotype in the book. Interestingly, my absolute least favorite Star Trek episode of any series is the Next Generation one with the refugees who act like they’re from The Quiet Man. Did I mention my Irish ancestry?
25. Patton. George C. Scott is fabulous, of course, but the script is pretty darn brilliant. Music very haunting as well.
26. I was going to say Little Miss Sunshine, but I’m too late, it’s been done. Hmm … Velvet Goldmine?
27. I am behind the times.
28. I once checked The Gospel According to St. Matthew out from the library, but never actually watched it. So, in keeping with the theme of our test, I will choose The Decameron.
29. Rear Window -- not sure it was the first Hitchcock movie I ever saw, but I think it’s the one where I fell in love. Was a big fan of mystery novels before this, but a truly suspenseful film was something I just hadn’t seen, or at least not so well done.
The Ladykillers -- the film that really got me into Ealing comedies, and British comedy films in general.
My Fair Lady -- before either of those, I grew up on the big musicals, and this was the one that really caught my imagination (although before that were a couple I didn’t see for a long time, but listened to on records -- 1776 and Jesus Christ Superstar).
30. The Stupids. There’s a story here. I was working on my dissertation, which was a very philosophy-heavy topic dealing with artistic originality and style, and was getting so bogged down in the reading that I finally decided to stay up all night to finish one article I just had to be clear on. By 6 am it was getting light and I was totally lost, and decided I needed to change my topic. But I was wired on caffeine and couldn’t sleep. Instead, I watched The Stupids. Don’t think I ever laughed so hard in my life.
31. Didn’t I just do this? Another one? … There Will Be Blood. Acting, script, music, pretty much everything about the film worked together like a well-oiled machine to annoy the hell out of me.
32. Life’s too short.
33. I’ll go with Olivia Cooke simply because I’ve seen her in something.
34. Chalamet by the same reasoning.
35. Mimi Leder ditto ditto.
36. The Jokers. Haven’t seen it since college.
37. Favorite – montage to music, if it’s well thought out.
Least favorite – Actually a sentimental favorite, in a Plan Nine from Outer Space sort of way – the car going off a cliff that explodes before it hits anything.
38. I’m guessing it doesn’t count if they weren’t politicians yet, like Reagan or Eastwood or Schwarzenegger. Hmm … Are there any? Phooey on it – Fred Dalton Thompson in The Hunt for Red October.
39. I sure hope not! What will us duffers do? Think for ourselves?
40. I’ve seen them both in a few things, but don’t really remember either one.
41. I’ve got nothing.
42. The Straight Story -- road movie in slow motion.
43. I haven’t seen that many, because hey, they all make me feel uncomfortable. Does Silence of the Lambs count? Excellent movie, but creeped me out majorly.
44. Blood Work. I like Michael Connelly a lot, but it’s not one of his best books, and the film is even weaker.
45. Robert Shaw (after Lotte Lenya). Not one of my favorite Bond films, but what a pair of villains!
46. I thought Chicago did a good job of differentiating between the club-style performances from the regular film plot. But I guess I don’t know a lot of unfilmable material.
47. Haven’t seen Michelle Dockery in anything. Have seen Merritt Wever in several films, but I don’t seem to remember her. Tie.
48. Jason Bateman is good, but I find his characters a little one-note, and tiresome over time. I prefer Ewan McGregor.
49. The Ghost Writer (after Chinatown)
50. I never met my grandfather who came over from Ireland – he died before I was born. I know he was a Protestant who came to America to escape persecution from Catholics in the early 20th century. It would be interesting to see a film with him about that time in Ireland – maybe Michael Collins -- and get his take on what was happening then.
51. Never seen NBK, but I really like JFK, even if it’s a little long. Actually, I have a friend who is the son of one of the key players in the various conspiracy theories, which make it that much more fun. :)
52. Mister Ed. I can do the voice too.
53. I do love Roger Deakins. I loved the way he filmed west Texas in No Country for Old Men, but in a way, I think his work on Skyfall may be even more impressive – the film is just visually stunning, the only Bond film I think I could say that about. Just looking at it was a pleasure.
54. I think I’ve only read one, which was fascinating for me, who knows next to nothing about making movies – “Making Movies,” by Sidney Lumet.
55. The Skin of Our Teeth? Hmm, there hasn’t really been a big movie version of that – there should be. Unless it’s unfilmable. Well, then, something with Peter Sellers. The Return of the Pink Panther.
I'm going to limit myself to the questions I have interesting answers for, or am interested in answering.
1) You’re on a desert island (and you sort of are)—What three discs do you select out of your own collection to keep if you had to get rid of all the rest?
I'm going to take this in a different direction and name the three movies I would choose to memorize in Charlton-Heston-in-the-Omega-Man fashion if I absolutely had to: Blazing Saddles, Animal House and The Great McGinty.
4) The most memorable place you ever saw a movie. This could be a film projected on a big screen or seen in some other fashion—the important thing is what makes it memorable.
The Vagabond Theater in Los Angeles, with its Battleship Potemkin murals on the walls that made you feel like you'd stepped into the 1960s. They used to do it up big, like when they did a smash hit engagement of The Wizard of Oz and Singing in the Rain where MGM struck new prints for them and they had big electric signs made up for it (along with the ticket taker doing a spot-on Jean Hagen impression). They also had the Silent Clowns series with the cream of the Raymond Rohauer collection, which may have been the peak of my moviegoing life.
7) In the matter of taste, is there a film or director that, if your partner in a relationship (wife/husband/lover/best friend) disagreed violently with your assessment of it, might cause a serious rift in that relationship?
As, per Captain Renault, for me women are already rationed, I'm not going to make ultimatums, but if said partner didn't like Preston Sturges or Ernst Lubitsch, then Trouble in Paradise might be foreshadowed. A co-worker (who I had no designs on) once told me she liked romantic movies, so I lent her a DVD of I Know Where I'm Going assuming she'd be dazzled, but it left her stone cold. So I tried The Lady Eve on her and she was at best lukewarm, which rather upset my belief in these movies' universal appeal. I would say watching a movie with someone would be a better way to discover compatibilities before commitment then of revealing irreconcilable differences afterward.
8) The last movie you saw in a theater/on physical media/via streaming (list one each).
In a theater, the week before the shutdown: Seven Stages to Achieve Eternal Bliss by Passing Through the Gateway Chosen by the Holy Storsh. Sort of the modern movie equivalent of the kind of show Mickey, Judy and the kids put on in the old barn, except it's black humor instead of blackface. There are funny parts in it, and you get a peek at Kate Micucci's backside, which is as cute as her eyes, but it's black humor that fails because it doesn't have the nerve to go black enough, and it can't transcend its L.A. people and their kookie religions clichés.
Physical media: the Nazi Baron Munchausen movie. You would be amazed at how good that picture is, and astonished to see that there were things you could get away with in Nazi Germany (if the producer's name was Goebbels anyway) that American or British censorship would never have allowed. Prior to that I watched Yojimbo and Sanjuro in honor of Toshiro Mifune's 100th birthday, so April has been a big month for the Axis with me.
Streaming: A Colt is My Passport, which is a blast, and makes me want to look at more Japanese postwar pulp movies.
9) Name a movie that you just couldn’t face watching right now.
Just prior to the 2016 election, while still living in a Princeton Election Consortium fool's paradise, I watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. That picture will be poisoned for me until November 2020 at the earliest that I will ever have the heart to watch it again. I feel lucky I saw it when the seeing was good. From now on I stick to my go-to Election Day picture, The Great McGinty.
11) Edmond O’Brien or Van Heflin?
Van Heflin was a living example of Hollywood's inability to generate stars after World War II who could live up to the ones generated before. Glenn Ford, Stewart Granger, Gregory Peck, same deal. Edmond O'Brien on the other hand shows that even a second string star from the peak of the studio system could produce memorable performances in memorable movies time and time again.
13) Name a proposed American remake of an international film that would, if actually undertaken, surely court or inevitably result in disaster.
Last Year in Marienbad. I still can't imagine what possessed George Clooney to remake Solaris.
14) What’s a favorite film that you consider genuinely subversive, for whatever reason?
In a Lonely Place refutes the American therapeutic myth by positing that there are people in the world who are not redeemable, who are so incurably violent that they are too dangerous to be intimate with, even if they didn't kill anybody this one time.
15) Name the movie score you couldn’t live without.
Novecento (1900) is my favorite. My second favorite is David Mansfield's score for Heaven's Gate, which is as superior to its inspiration as a score has ever been. Favorite oldtime Hollywood score, The Sea Hawk.
19) Second-favorite Akira Kurosawa movie.
Ran, second to Yojimbo.
20) Who would host the imaginary DVD commentary you would most want to hear right now, and what would the movie be?
Steven Sondheim wrote a musical version of the John Collier story Evening Primrose for television, and its star Anthony Perkins made a personal appearance after a museum showing of it. He was just the most amazing raconteur I've ever heard, speed-rapping a mile a minute and everything funny and fascinating, and nothing like his onscreen persona. The DVD would be equally be imaginary, the movie version of Pudd'nhead Wilson that he never got to play the title role in.
22) Second-favorite Planet of the Apes film (from the original cycle).
The one with Severn Darden in it, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, was it?
23) Least-favorite Martin Scorsese movie.
Any movie where he tries to break out of his postwar East Coast lowlife gestalt. That TV series Vinyl he produced was just a total piece of shit. The TV version of The Devil in the White City he's supposed to be working on sounds fascinating, though.
24) Name a movie you feel doesn’t deserve its current reputation, for better or worse.
People will one day wonder what anyone saw in that turgid Disney live action remake of The Jungle Book, but I must confess that the audience I saw it with in Inglewood was with it every step of the way. One of only two movies I was ever tempted to walk out of.
25) Best movie of 1970. (Fifty years ago!)
Despite its half-ass pseudo-hip Cat Ballou-style comedy western hokiness, The Ballad of Cable Hogue.
26) Name a movie you think is practically begging for a Broadway adaptation (I used this question in the last quiz, but I’m repeating it because I never answered the quiz myself and I think I have a pretty good answer)
The Baz Luhrmann production of Aventurera. It was about a teenage convent school girl whose life is torn apart when her mother leaves for another man, her father is killed, and she is sold into prostitution, so she makes herself over into a nightclub star in order to wreak revenge on all who wronged her. It's also the Mexican equivalent of The Girl Can't Help It, with the great names of 50s Mexican pop performing in this night club/bordello. It could be a show with more than everything.
29) Name three movies you loved in your early years that you feel most influenced your adult cinematic tastes.
The three flavors of movies that I loved above all others in my adolescence were The Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields and Humphrey Bogart kinds, though I guess the most formative and what has stayed with me the longest was actually the Bugs Bunny kind.
30) Name a movie you love that you think few others do.
I thought that woman would like I Know Where I'm Going, so what do I know? I like two Coen Brothers movies that no one else seems to: The Hudsucker Proxy and Irreconcilable Differences, the latter of which is up to its gutless ending the closest thing to a modern Preston Sturges movie.
31) Name a movie you despise that you think most others love.
Still on the Coen theme, I don't dislike it but I don't like The Big Lebowski as much as other people do. I thought Barton Fink was a much better L.A. movie. As with Harry Potter, I don't criticize other peoples' religions. It don't pay.
36) Name a movie you haven’t seen in over 20 years that you would drop everything to watch right now.
In the Lawrence Austin incarnation of the Silent Movie (I actually went to the pre-Austin Silent Movie once, but that's another story) he showed an absolutely pristine print of Raymond Griffith's Hands Up!, and I'd love to see it again, and see it digitized. I assume it was auctioned off with his estate, and is now buried in a private collection. But really, the only movies you can't see again these days are the ones the owners are perversely keeping out of circulation, aren't they? Though I referenced it dismissively earlier, I'd like to take another look at Cat Ballou (which I think I saw at a drive-in when it first came out).
37) Name your favorite stylistic filmmaking cliché, and one you wouldn’t mind seeing disappear forever.
Favorite I guess is the non-sequential structure. One thing I would like to see the end of is the attempt of the present day to remake the classics of the past in its own image. For one thing, it never works, if only because you are putting yourself in competition with the greatest storytellers who ever lived. Secondly, there is something deeply dishonorable about treating an artist as if he is morally defective while trying to profit from the goodwill the original created. It would make far more sense to just steal ideas and start from scratch, and the man who will show you how to do that is Akira Kurosawa.
38) Your favorite appearance by a real-life politician in a feature film, either fictional or a fictionalized account of a real event.
Before I started wishing him a long, lingering death I would have said Rudy Giuliani in Anger Management. That movie used real life personalities very well.
39) Is film criticism dead?
So long as movies suck, film criticism will never die. Seriously, there will always be film criticism because people will always want to read about the movie they've just seen. What I don't think you will see is anymore is the celebrity critic like Pauline Kael or Andrew Sarris or James Agee, because you don't have the platforms where that kind of critic can thrive anymore. (Really, it's a matter of too many critics spread across too many platforms.) Rather, I believe that film criticism will migrate from the periodical movie review to the large scale survey book, like David Bordwell's Reinventing Hollywood or James Harvey's Romantic Comedy in Hollywood: From Lubitsch to Sturges.
42) Name the film you think best fulfills the label “road movie.”
It Happened One Night defines it, The Last Detail might have fulfilled it. I'm trying to work out the ground rules in my mind. I think to be truly a road movie the characters are strangers, though one might know who the other is. They are more likely to be escaping something than to have a destination, and indeed the point is to continue the journey as long as possible. I don't think a movie with crime involved qualifies, so that leaves The 39 Steps and North by Northwest out. Looking for ideas on my DVD shelves I got intrigued with the road movie's cousin, the railroad movie. There are fewer rules for this; I think to be a railroad movie most of the action must be confined to a train. Unlike the road movie, the railroad movie by its very nature has a destination. This I think would leave out Snowpiercer, because the train is an end in itself. The railroad movie is a wide-ranging assortment: The Twentieth Century, The Lady Vanishes, The Good, The Bad and The Weird, The Palm Beach Story (a borderline case), On the Orient Express (naturally), Shanghai Express (I guess there's a subgenre where the movie is named after the train),
43) Horror film that, for whatever reason, made you feel most uncomfortable?
Audition. It fills you with fear, but I can't believe it's the kind of fear you'd ever get pleasure out of.
44) Least-favorite (directed by) Clint Eastwood movie.
Actually, I think he's made far more bad movies than good. When he is good he is very very good, but by my count that's only three times: Unforgiven, The Outlaw Josey Wales and High Plains Drifter.
46) Best adaptation of a novel or other form that had been thought to be unfilmable.
When you think of all the people who over the decades (inhaling and exhaling deeply and in a nasal David Crosby-like voice) said, "Man, when I get to be a big Hollywood director I'm going to make a movie of Lord of the Rings, man, and that is going to be the coolest movie you've ever seen your life, man" – and then Peter Jackson actually goes and does it, well, there might be better movie of an unfilmable novel, but who can argue with a miracle?
Tristram Shandy is I guess my favorite, but Coogan had to cheat.
49) Second-favorite Roman Polanski movie.
Cul-De-Sac.
50) What’s the movie you wish you could watch with a grandparent right now? And, of course, why?
You know, I don't have the slightest idea what kind of movies my grandfather liked. I would like to find out the kind of movie he liked and watch that with him. My grandmother, a really insane Busby Berkeley movie, to compare notes with the sort of person it was made for. My maternal grandparents, Ben Hur because anything to keep the peace and not talk with them any more than necessary. With my father it would be the Alec Guinness picture he and my mother had to leave when she went into labor with my older brother.
54) Best book about the nitty-gritty making of a movie.
Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age by Michael Barrier.
55) If you needed to laugh right now, what would be your go-to movie comedy?
Whatever Preston Sturges movie I've seen least recently.
Great quiz - It took a while to knock this one out, and I still had to pass on a lot of the questions. See, even though we are all on COVID-19 lockdown, I'm still working from home, so it feels like I'm on vacation, but I'm not.
Answers at my site: Cool Bev. Enjoy. Looking forward to your and everyone's answers.
With apologies for the lateness of this response, my answers are here:
http://kaedrin.com/weblog/archive/003802.html
As always, thanks for hosting, these are always tons of fun.
I really appreciate that I had this quiz to complete right now, and I have really enjoyed reading the answers. My response is here: https://catecinem.wordpress.com/2020/05/11/slifrs-dean-wormer-quarantine-quiz/
My answers are here:
https://mythicalmonkey.blogspot.com/2020/05/dean-vernon-wormers-lockdown-friendly.html
But I'll leave a couple of answers here:
27) Louise Brooks or Clara Bow?
Louise Brooks is the better actress, arguably the best of the silent era — she was brilliant in Pandora's Box, Diary of a Lost Girl and the recently rediscovered silent version of Miss Europe aka Prix de Beauté.
But I'd rather hang out with the sweet, funny, fragile, much libeled Clara Bow, who worked her tail off and was discarded like an old boot by a studio that mistook her for a plow horse. Not to mention she's damn good in It and the first best picture winner, Wings.
45) Second-favorite James Bond villain.
Well, my favorite is Auric Goldfinger. I like Oddjob, too, but technically, he's a henchman (as is Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb in From Russia, With Love).
Blofeld shows up a lot, but there's no particular performance of Blofeld — Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas, Charles Gray, Max von Sydow, Christoph Waltz — that I really like. How about Blofeld's cat? My second-favorite James Bond villain is Blofeld's cat.
53) Your favorite cinematographer, and her/his greatest achievement.
Arthur Edeson. He might be the most underappreciated cinematographer in movie history. The guy photographed Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, All Quiet on the Western Front, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Mutiny on the Bounty, Red Dust, several Douglas Fairbanks movies including The Thief of Bagdad ... But he never won an Oscar and you never see his name mentioned anywhere. Except here.
Oh god! I am again so late for this! Please forgive me, Dennis. As usual, I've posted my answers on my now very neglected blog: https://wp.me/pR4QP-cfU
BTW, this won't publish till Monday, July 13th. Best to you and yours during our 'Love in the Time of COVID'.
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