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 decided to go with three endlessly rewatchable favorites that roughly lumped together form a decent approximation of my general aesthetic: Love Streams (John Cassavetes), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Amy Heckerling), and The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton).
2. Giuletta Masina or Jeanne Moreau?
I like Masina, but it's Jeanne Moreau all the way. So much range for so many different kinds of filmmakers. A few months before everything went crazy, I saw Diary of a Chambermaid and Bay of Angels on the big screen at the Austin Film Society, so Moreau has been on my mind this year.
3. Second -favorite Roger Corman movie.
To make this slightly more manageable, I'm sticking to Corman the director, not the producer, and I think my pick is The Wild Angels. (Masque of the Red Death is my favorite.)
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.
I grew up in a tiny town in western Nebraska, but we had a drive-in movie theater a few miles outside town that remained open until a huge hailstorm destroyed the screen in the late '90s. The first movie I remember seeing there was Altman's Popeye when I was three (Raiders of the Lost Ark and Twilight Zone: The Movie also blew my young mind), but I had so many formative childhood and teenage experiences there. It made going to the movies seem like an event. The screen on a hill, the ticket booth, the snack bar, the speakers, the large trees surrounding the property. It definitely contributed to my love of film. I'm glad I got to experience that.
5. Marcello Mastroianni or Vittorio Gassman?
Mastroianni, because his face and several of his performances flooded my thoughts the second I read his name, but I had to do an image search of Gassman to remember where I'd seen him.
6. Second-favorite Kelly Reichardt movie.
I haven't seen First Cow yet, but I think about her other movies a lot, admire them all, love most of them, and cannot decide in what order to place them. Gun to my head, Old Joy.
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?
I don't think a disagreement about a single film or director would be enough to sour a relationship for me, but my wife and I have very similar movie taste, so I'm lucky to not have to face this dilemma.
8. The last movie you saw in a theater/on physical media/via streaming (list one each).
Theater: Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project/Physical media: Private Fears in Public Places/Streaming: Vitalina Varela
9. Name a movie that you just couldn’t face watching right now.
For personal family health reasons, I would not want to watch Mike Nichols' Wit.
10. Jane Greer or Ava Gardner?
As much as I love Out of the Past, I still have to go with Ava Gardner. She has a slightly better overall filmography and a little more screen presence.
11. Edmond O’Brien or Van Heflin?
Edmond O'Brien has a more character-filled face and is in more of my all-time favorites, so he takes this one pretty easily.
12. Second favorite Yasujiro Ozu movie.
This is insanely hard to answer because I love every Ozu film I've seen and I also get many of the titles confused with each other, so let's go with a tie between I Was Born, But... and The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice.
13. Name a proposed American remake of an international film that would, if actually undertaken, surely court or inevitably result in disaster.
I keep hoping the Toni Erdmann remake never gets off the ground. I have horrible visions of the story being turned into trying-too-hard quirkiness or sentimental treacle or the horrible combination of both for the American market.
14. What’s a favorite film that you consider genuinely subversive, for whatever reason?
I think a subversive film has to do more than shock, it has to genuinely change thought patterns and behaviors in the viewer, and I don't know if a single film can do this. I've seen shocking films, mind-expanding films, influential films, challenging films, but I don't know if I've ever seen a genuinely subversive film. Maybe Death Wish or Dirty Harry or one of the many other '70s and '80s vigilante vs. street punks movies I can't help but love because they subvert my moral opposition to revenge and capital punishment and briefly turn me into a right-wing, street-justice-loving crank.
15. Name the movie score you couldn’t live without.
Bernard Herrmann's Taxi Driver score regularly gets stuck in my head, and I'm never irritated about that. I love it.
16. Mary-Louise Weller or Martha Smith?
I had to look both of them up, and, oh yeah, they were both in Animal House. I'm on Team Weller.
17. Peter Riegert or Bruce McGill?
Another Animal House battle. I'm always happy when either of these guys turns up in something I'm watching, but I'm giving the nod to Riegert because of Local Hero, The Sopranos, and because he collaborated on a film with a professor at my alma mater, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
18. Last Tango in Paris—yes or no?
Yes and no. If you go back to what Maria Schneider actually said about her experiences on the movie (and it remains frustrating that her voice is often left out of both the outrage about and defenses of the film), she said she felt manipulated and used by Bertolucci and Brando into performing scenes she was uncomfortable with that weren't in the script that they invented without her input. This mutated into the permanently outraged online types spreading a rumor that the butter scene was real, unsimulated penetration, a rumor that Bertolucci weirdly seemed to encourage. That rumor does a disservice to Schneider as an actor, but it shouldn't let Bertolucci or Brando off the hook. They made her do things she didn't want to do, and just because those things were simulated doesn't make them morally defensible. It's also important to point out that Schneider said Brando himself was manipulated and emotionally abused by Bertolucci, and Schneider and Brando became friends despite it all. Life is more complex than our present moment tends to allow, but it's also true that abusive behavior by talented artists has been excused for too long. I think it's a fascinating movie, but I'm glad I saw it before I read about how traumatic it was for Schneider. I don't have the desire to revisit it.
19. Second-favorite Akira Kurosawa movie.
Ikiru
20. Who would host the imaginary DVD commentary you would most want to hear right now, and what would the movie be?
I would like to hear an Arnold Schwarzenegger commentary for Gummo, hopefully as Arnold is seeing it for the first time.
21. Favorite movie snack.
I don't usually eat snacks at the movies, but I did love the drive-in nachos.
22. Second-favorite Planet of the Apes film (from the original cycle).
Beneath the Planet of the Apes, though I haven't seen any of them since I was a kid. (I watched each one dozens of times as a kid, though.)
23. Least-favorite Martin Scorsese movie.
I love most of his movies, but the stretch from Gangs of New York to Shutter Island doesn't move me as much as the rest of his work. Roll the dice and pick anything from this run.
24. Name a movie you feel doesn’t deserve its current reputation, for better or worse.
Do we all finally agree that Ishtar is good? In that case, I'll go with Killing Them Softly. It got middling reviews in 2012 and then disappeared into obscurity, but it's a great crime movie with an incredible cast of character actors and a prescient look at where we were headed politically.
25. Best movie of 1970. (Fifty years ago!)
Wanda (Barbara Loden)
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)
I can't remember what I said last time, so let's go with 1990: The Bronx Warriors: The Musical
27. Louise Brooks or Clara Bow?
I like Bow, but it's Brooks by a mile.
28. Second-favorite Pier Paolo Pasolini movie.
I didn't think it was going to be Salo, but it is.
29. Name three movies you loved in your early years that you feel most influenced your adult cinematic tastes.
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Poltergeist, and Jaws may explain my love for road movies, absurdist humor, character actors, horror, atmosphere, and the unexpected.
30. Name a movie you love that you think few others do.
Trash Humpers
31. Name a movie you despise that you think most others love.
Inception
32. The Human Centipede—yes or no?
Since I've successfully avoided it so far, no.
33. Anya Taylor-Joy or Olivia Cooke?
I have not seen any of their movies.
34. Johnny Flynn or Timothée Chalamet?
Don't know this Flynn fella. Don't know why Chalamet is in everything now, but I did think he wasn't bad in Little Women.
35. Second-favorite Dorothy Arzner movie.
Arzner is one of my major blind spots. Hope to change this soon.
36. Name a movie you haven’t seen in over 20 years that you would drop everything to watch right now.
I haven't seen Trog since I was a kid. Should I drop everything and watch it?
37. Name your favorite stylistic filmmaking cliché, and one you wouldn’t mind seeing disappear forever.
I'm a sucker for neon signs reflecting off of rainy streets. Would love to never see another somber, faux-arty trailer set to a little-girl-voice piano-dirge cover of a well-known rock song.
38. Your favorite appearance by a real-life politician in a feature film, either fictional or a fictionalized account of a real event.
I'm drawing a blank. I am almost always annoyed when a real-life politician appears in a film or TV show.
39. Is film criticism dead?
No, it just smells funny.
40. Elizabeth Patterson or Marjorie Main?
Patterson is in more of my favorites, but Main is more fun to watch. Gotta go with Main.
41. Arch Hall Jr. or Timothy Carey?
Carey. The World's Greatest Sinner, Cassavetes, Kubrick, Kazan, Head, the Angel of Death in D.C. Cab, Columbo, his insane personal life.
42. Name the film you think best fulfills the label “road movie.”
Two-Lane Blacktop
43. Horror film that, for whatever reason, made you feel most uncomfortable?
In a good way, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. In a bad way, I Spit on Your Grave.
44. Least-favorite (directed by) Clint Eastwood movie.
I'm usually a fan of Eastwood the director (though I haven't seen many of his recent movies), but I think Mystic River, despite being one of his most acclaimed films, is turgid, overwrought, overacted, overwritten, and dreary.
45. Second-favorite James Bond villain.
Goldfinger
46. Best adaptation of a novel or other form that had been thought to be unfilmable.
Cronenberg's Naked Lunch
47. Michelle Dockery or Merritt Wever?
I like Wever, but she wins by default anyway because I haven't seen anything that Dockery's done.
48. Jason Bateman or Ewan McGregor?
McGregor's got a bit more range, but Bateman's trajectory from Teen Wolf Too to Ozark should not go unmentioned.
49. Second-favorite Roman Polanski movie.
Repulsion
50. What’s the movie you wish you could watch with a grandparent right now? And, of course, why?
I would love to watch The Wizard of Oz with my maternal grandmother because she loved the movie and loved introducing her grandchildren to it, she was always great company, I miss having her in the world, and it's still a great movie.
51. Oliver Stone two-fer: Natural Born Killers and/or JFK—yes or no?
No. I don't like his movies. I do find Joe Pesci extremely amusing in JFK, though.
52. Name the actor whose likeness you would proudly wear as a rubber latex Halloween mask.
The aforementioned Timothy Carey. I think he would approve.
53. Your favorite cinematographer, and her/his greatest achievement.
Robby Muller. The American Friend - color, Dead Man - black & white.
54. Best book about the nitty-gritty making of a movie.
The film books I read tend to be collections of reviews, essays, or biographies, so I don't really have an answer, but there are some good stories about the hustle of moviemaking in Cassavetes on Cassavetes and Ben Gazzara's autobiography.
55. If you needed to laugh right now, what would be your go-to movie comedy?
Not ashamed to say Billy Madison. Well, maybe a little ashamed, or I wouldn't have felt the need to say "not ashamed," but it always makes me laugh a lot.
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