Can you stand it, more answers for the Good Professor

Once again, as is his tradition, the good professor--in the very real guise of Dennis Cozallio, author of the esteemed film blog Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule--poses questions for all film bloggers to ponder as the summer turns to autumn. His newest salvo, Professor Dewey Finn's Ostentaciously Odd, Scholastically Scattershot Back-to-School (of Rock?) Movie Quiz, posits 35 brain-jangling movie queries, all of which I, as a monk for the movies, am more than eager to answer:

1) Band without their own movie, from any era, you’d most like to see get the HARD DAY’S NIGHT or HEAD treatment

I first considered The Bay City Rollers, The Beach Boys, Blondie, The Doors, The Geto Boys, The Mamas and the Papas, The Police, The Pretenders, The Runaways, The Ventures and most especially Public Enemy (who really should have already had their own movie--what a bunch of characters they are; certainly my #2 choice, by a thin margin, and Spike Lee is the obvious choice to direct such a project, with Antoine Fuqua a close second). But, in the end, I had to settle on Devo. Just based on their unique videos ("Wonderful World" being my favorite of the bunch), it's evident they could have packed a feature with enough wacked-out new wave oddness to make it both an instant classic and a visual banquet (how hilarious would it have been to have each member, each nearly unrecognizable from one another, be the steward of their own individual scenes). I tried to think of a current band that could fit the mold (other than GWAR or Slipknot, both of whom need to have done a horror movie by now), but I just couldn't come up with one (I tried to envision a Radiohead vehicle directed by, say, Anton Corbjin, but it seemed like it would just be a bunch of moping around). Don't even ask about Insane Clown Posse. I should also add, on a totally up-to-date and indie note, I would easily go with The Woggles. 

2) Oliver Reed or Alan Bates?

Out of Oliver Reed's 45-year career, I've loved The Curse of the Werewolf, I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name, Oliver, Women in Love, The Devils, Tommy (my favorite movie as a kid, though I always thought Reed's hammy performance and bad singing were its one weak point), The Three Musketeers and. I guess, Gladiator.  With Alan Bates and a career that's ongoing on 60 years, I adore The Entertainer, Whistle Down The Wind, Zorba the Greek, Georgy Girl, King of Hearts, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Fixer (for which he got his only Oscar nomination), Women in Love, The Go-Between, The Shout (my favorite of his performances), An Unmarried Woman, The Rose, Brittania Hospital, that HBO version of Separate Tables, and Gosford Park. So, just going by the numbers, Bates would have to win, even though he seems to be less hip then Reed. Still, few actors enjoyed the strong streak Alan Bates had in the 60s and 70s. That said, when Oliver Reed showed up in a movie, you knew there was a specific sort of maniacally dangerous energy lurking there. It's too bad the drink clearly did him in; the movies he chose have largely not stood time's test. 

3) Best thing about the move from physical to streaming media in home video

The pure, nearly miraculous ease of it all. You can start one movie and, if its not fitting to your particular mood at the moment, go ahead and start another one without fear or regret. Depending on the streaming quality, you can see it in better condition than you've ever seen it before. And not having to buy or rent a movie reduces clutter, both physically and mentally, from your life. 

4) Worst thing about the move from physical to streaming media in home video

The lack of a breadth of choices, and the idea that a film's very existence depends on the whims (or legal rights) of those doing the streaming. If a film isn't available to be seen in that venue, it simply disappears. This is why I still have a DVD and even a VHS player--I need at least the impression that all of cinema is there for me to enjoy, at any time I want. VHS is particularly valuable because often when I'm shopping for tapes, I'll come across a title I haven't heard tell of in years and, upon watching it, wonder why more people do not know of it (this usually doesn't require much wondering). I should say here that I also find a certain amount of comfort in actually owning the movie in physical form. I'm not a nut about collecting things, but I am sentimental, and there is something about holding that original video box or whatever that is undeniably magnetic. I also find comfort in still being able to watch something in analog, without the notion that the image I'm taking in is composed of little tiny pixels. I can feel my brain take a little sigh of relief when it isn't requires to put all those little squares together. The sigh grows louder when I watch things projected on film. 

5) Favorite Robin Williams performance

It's difficult to get away from the love I immediately felt for him as Technical Sergeant Garp. He's just so wonderful in George Roy Hill's movie--so early in his career, he really gets to portray the arc of a life in a movie that should have never worked as well as it does. Steve Tesich's script from this complex John Irving novel, is, after his Breaking Away Oscar-winner, the best work of his cut-short output, and the entire cast--Williams chief among them--surely transmit a sense of time's passage (the film is a master class in casting). I watched The World According to Garp again the other night and it played like a trip back in time where I, like Garp, had so much hope for the future--hope for for having a loving family and for achieving as a writer. Now I'm a 47-year-old man--much older than Garp grew to be--and I am a childless pro/amateur writer, so it maybe follows that I now see such superb value in many of Williams' other performances (I was never a fan of his stand-up, which was always too wackily unstoppable for my tastes--George Roy Hill himself gruffly directed Williams to not "give me any of that comedy shit"). I love the intelligence and heart he displays in Good Will Hunting; the malice of his appearances in Dead Again, One Hour Photo, and Christopher Nolan's Insomnia; his supremely emotional desperation in What Dreams May Come and Bill Forsyth's Being Human (an unfairly maligned movie); his utter perfection in Robert Altman's Popeye (seriously...who ELSE could have played this part?); the wild comedy of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (where he really gets to let loose), The Fisher King (ditto, though tempered with lovely drama), Michael Richie's The Survivors (where he maniacally screeches my favorite line of his career: "What kind of man gives cigarettes to trees?"), and of course Mork and Mindy; the sweet realness of Moscow on the Hudson and The Best of Times; the utter darkness of Jakob the Liar and Seize the Day (the latter is maybe his most chancy role), and that unbelievably stark appearance in a 2013 episode of Louie, where he and Louie CK meet in a graveyard and later discuss death over coffee (that's a piece of work I have to take a bit of time before I watch it again, since it seems so ridiculously apropos). It's tempting for me to maybe give the edge to his emotionally crippled doctor in Penny Marshall's Awakenings--another beautifully realized movie I immediately revisited upon Mr. Williams' leave. But given that Robert De Niro also assuredly controls so much of that piece, I still have to stand with Garp. Man. It's all a treasure chest of riches. What a time Williams had, bless his soul.  

6) Second favorite Carol Reed movie

My choice, 1948's The Fallen Idol, is incredibly tense and well-made, with such assured suspense that it's hard to ignore. In these sorts of questions, I like to reveal my first favorite, and in this case, many might assume it's The Third Man. Nope. That's my third favorite (a great movie but a bit cold for me). Instead, I'm an unabashed fan of Oliver! It's a movie I find I can watch over and over, in equal parts jpyfully and soberly, soaking in its terrific splendor and pacing (it didn't deserve the 1968 Best Picture Oscar, but it deserved to come in second). Full disclosure: I just recently watched Night Train to Munich and further realized that Reed is a big blind spot in my movie knowledge. I have lots more of his work to see.  

7) Oddest moment/concept in rock music cinema

Perfect question for me, as I'm just as much of a music fan as I am a movie geek. In 1965's Ski Party, James Brown and the Famous Flames strangely dropping by, decked in oddly full winter garb, to sing "I Got You" for the whitest gathering imaginable certainly qualifies, even if you haven't yet seen the worthwhile Get On Up. Jessie Pearson portraying the Elvis stand-in of the moment in 1963's Bye Bye Birdie is a casting concept I have a very hard time swallowing, since Pearson's a big zero in the charisma department--yet that's probably an effect of square studio execs not understanding rock n' roll yet. Meanwhile, Elvis himself had a heckuva time in so many movies, it's hard to narrow his nadir down to only a few mentions; I'd say his rendition of the execrable "Song of the Shrimp" in Girls! Girls! Girls! and most definitely his dance with Albert, his own Great Dane, in Live a Little, Love a Little deserve recall. We should have Arch Hall Jr's guitaristic horrors in Eegah! as well as Ron Hayback's perfectly terrible score for Ray Dennis Steckler's Batman ripoff Rat Pfink A Boo Boo in the running. Much of The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour is unbearably awful, but Paul McCartney's Give My Regards to Broad Street is equal nonsense, yet it's so much more horribly boring. I've always found it unusual (though perhaps not for the director) that Jean Luc-Godard focused his cameras on the recording of a single track in the Rolling Stones doc Sympathy for the Devil, so I suppose that should be checked. In the positive concept of oddness, we should consider Peter Watkins' trippy, well-framed portrait of a rock star, 1967's Privilege, which is unlike anything ever; Timothy Carey's The World's Greatest Sinner, which is also superbly unique; Barry Shear's Wild in the Streets, with its fantastic Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil song score accompanying the ridiculous tale of a rock star president, played perfectly by Christopher Jones; and finally Animals veteran Alan Price's superbly utilized score for Lindsay Anderson's 1973 tour of all things difficult O Lucky Man!, which still remains the greatest original rock score in cinema history (only Isaac Hayes' Shaft and Stewart Copeland's Rumblefish come close). For me, though, there are only four finalists here. In fourth place, George Englund's 1971 film Zachariah, billed as the first rock n' roll western and certainly something to see (I'm tellin' ya, it's surprisingly entertaining). In third place Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band from 1978, a notorious bomb with The Bee Gees, Peter Frampton and just about everyone else in the music business embarrassing themselves with such aplomb you feel sorry for 'em (the ending, with a chorus of 70s stars in full hopeful and dynamic form, is something to be seen). In second place, within a pubic hair's width of first, is Ken Russell's frankly terrible Lisztomania, his follow-up to the also weird but so much more accomplished Tommy, with The Who frontman Roger Daltrey performing works by classical composer Franz Liszt, sometime accompanied by a phalanx of giant penises. But, for me, number one has to be not Phantom of the Paradise or The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but the late Menahem Golan's The Apple. Take it from me and an impassioned cult following: set aside a night, invite all your nuttiest rock star friends, and take in this amazing, nearly unbearably insane tale of a Eurovision contest gone horribly wrong. It's got the Devil, and Adam and Eve and a big ol' oversized fruit in it, and it's unlike anything ever made. You won't have to imbibe even one drop of any substance and you'll be totally on board. The Apple it is. 




8) Favorite movie about growing up
Forgive me if I chime in with the most obvious choice of the moment, but Richard Linklater's Boyhood cannot be denied. The fact that it truthfully portrays the process, not just for boys but for girls too (Lorelei Linklater nearly steals the movie as lead Ellar Coltrane's sister), and that does it in seemingly real time, largely without the trappings of cliched plot, seals the deale for me. Before Boyhood, I would have picked Truffaut's The 400 Blows and maybe George Roy Hill's A Little Romance, Jacques Doillon's Ponette or maybe even the Paradise Lost trilogy by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. But Linklater's movie is clearly something different, and yet extremely relatable. I now am sure it's the film to beat for the 2015 Oscar race, though I do expect a backlash. 

9) Most welcomed nudity, full or partial, in a movie 
I'll never forget sitting through the difficult scenes of Brokeback Mountain, right beside my good friend Brian Matson, and feeling so uncomfortable. We were both two straight guys bravely going to see such a movie together, sans girlfriends. Then, there they were, unexpectedly, in the middle of this absolutely fine film: Anne Hathaway's so-lovely, jiggly, soft breasts (not to mention Michelle Williams' more laconic flesh). Brian and I turned to each other, as Hathaway's fineries hovered over Jake Gyllenhaal for only seconds, and we glanced at each other, without words. saying: "Oh my God! Totally worth the price of admission." I'm not one for Celebrity Skin or any sort of thing like that, but this was a moment that totally moved me. 

10) Least welcomed nudity, nude or partial, in a movie
My guess is that many will note Kathy Bates' hot tub scene in About Schmidt, and I think that's mean, because fat people get nude, too. y'know, and they're not so bad. For this query. I'm going to go for Harvey Keitel in both Bad Lieutenant and then again in the The Piano because, dude, yeah. you show yer all in one movie, but then in another? And one so soon? Gimme a break! Still, I have to say, I love both films, and both performances. 

11) Last movie watched, in a theater, on DVD/Blu-ray, via streaming
The last movie I watched in a theater, all the way through, was Raymond St. Jean's A Chair Fit for an Angel. I sat down for this movie expecting a respectful but average tour through an ancient tradition, the Shakers.What I got was a movie that so moved me with its exacting images and music that I found myself wiping away tears of joy. I have never seen anything like A Chair Fit for an Angel. The director Raymond St. Jean deftly conflates so many art forms in its short running time, it's nearly impossible to put their collective aptitude into words (I might comparethe film to Wim Wender's 3D masterpiece Pina but it moved me so much more than that wonderful work did). Yes, there are talking heads, but they are sparingly used. And yes, there is a narrator, also sparingly used. Sometimes what this film consists of is silent, radiant shots of American and European Shaker environments--often a shot of a chair and table, immaculately made, in an immaculate surrounding, with gorgeous natural light seeping in through a single perfect window pane, the camera moving ever so slowly through it all. And then sometimes the movie is a powerful look at choreographer Taro Saarinen's dichotomous and yet somehow harmonious modern dance, often dynamically filmed and yet sometimes set with a vocalist present, with the dancers out of focus in the background (how luminous is the direction here; it's so hard getting dance to play on screen and yet St. Jean and his cinematographer Jean-Francois Lord do it so brilliantly). And then, as if we needed more, it's a movie that explains the Shakers' spiritual perceptions and their worshipful, artisanal approach to building, say, a simple chair, with a worker there portraying his love for God as he carves another groove. It's a film that truly trips you into another world, all in 75 short minutes, and that is exactly what I look for in movies. On Blu-Ray, the last film I watched was David Lean's always stunning but somehow overlooked A Passage to India. Through streaming, aside from watching some very depressing yet insanely incredible documentaries from the Frontline crew (A Death in St. Augustine and the absolutely unbelievable The Confessions), I last watched Anthony Mann's still riveting Winchester '73. 

12) Second favorite Bertrand Blier movie
Beau Pere, with the late Patrick Dewaere falling for 14-year-old Ariel Besse. A movie that could not be made today. The first would be the Oscar-winning Get Out Your Hankerchiefs, also with Dewaere and with Gerard Depardieu, a movie that more deftly juggles the desire of adults and children. Though I recognize the boundaries, I hate it that children are now seen as beings who have no sexual lives. They clearly do, and it seems so incredibly taboo to admit to such these days. Stranger danger, knowwhutimean? 

13) Googie Withers or Sally Gray?
This seems like a test question, and in this test I fail: I have no opinion either way. 

14) Name a piece of advice derived from a movie or movie character that you’ve heeded in real life
Such an astonishing question.  My immediate reaction is to site Martin Sheen's Willard (and Frederic Forrest's Hicks) from Apocalypse Now: "Never get out of the boat. Goddamn right." I also love Robert De Niro's advise to the young Henry Hill in GoodFellas: "Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut." I try to heroically follow the advise from The Shawshank Redemption as best as I can: "Get busy living or get busy dying," and I suspect this is many movie lovers' favorite aphorism. But ultimately that sound too much like a bumper sticker for me. I believe the one piece of advise that has done more for me than any other comes from Larry Gelbart's screenplay for Oh, God! In it, undervalued grocery store manager Jerry Landers (John Denver) is faced with God Himself occupying his bathroom one morning. Jerry doesn't know what to do, and God (George Burns) advises that he shave. Jerry is nervous, and God is sympathetic, so He counsels: "Sometimes when you don't feel normal, doing a normal thing makes you feel normal." Having not felt so normal many a time, on many a morning, I can't express to you how often this thought has come to my aid.  

15) Favorite movie about learning
There are so many movies that wrestle with the subject, one has to separate those that deal with learning about life from learning about a particular subject. For the purposes of this question, I'm going to separate the "life" thing from more specific knowledge. My first thought goes towards James Bridges' The Paper Chase, which really gets the unrelenting yet somehow freeing pressure of law school down pat. Ramon Menendez's Stand and Deliver understands hammering down math, even under difficult circumstances, pretty correct. The French film from 2002, Nicholas Philibert's To Be and To Have is one of the most overwhelmingly emotional  films ever to be made about being both a elementary teacher and a student (a subject that is rarely touched upon). I l0ve Alan Parker's 1980 film Fame so much because it so finely and frantically gets pat the joys and frustrations of wildly unpredictable performing arts training. And Lewis Gilbert's Educating Rita, with those incredible leads from Julie Walters and Michael Caine, absolutely nails the pursuit of literary enrichment. However, ultimately, I have to settle wholly upon Ira Wohl's 1979 documentary Best Boy. Once you experience Philly, Mr. Wohl's charismatic 50-something-year-old cousin, as he finally learns to live on his own without the help of his aged but loving parents, you will get a new sense of what constitutes an education. Ira Wohl's Oscar-winning documentary is intimate and so real, it's miraculously like nothing else photographed. It's one of my favorite movies ever. 

16) Program a double bill of movies that were announced but, for one reason or another, never made. These could be projects cancelled outright, or films that were made, but at one time had different directors, stars, etc., attached--and your "version" of the film might be the one with that lost director, for example
A complex question--one for a true movie geek. Of course, the one movie that stands out--the one unproduced movie that I wish I could see--is Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon. Given that one could sit through such a double feature, I would pair it with Stanley Kubrick's Wartime Lies, his Holocaust nonstarter. I would go on to another double--just to be weird--Marilyn Monroe's Something's Got To Give with David Lynch's long-gestating Ronnie Rocket. 

17) Oddest mismatch of director and material
This is easy for me. Sidney Lumet with The Wiz. How did THAT happen???

18) Favorite performance by your favorite character actor
Without going though the entire history of character actors (which is a pretty rich bunch), I have to go with my first choice. M. Emmet Walsh is an astounding actor. When I see his jowly face, I sense an undeniable power. I remember him as the snarky coach in Ordinary People, the wild sniper in The Jerk, a desperate family man in Bound for Glory, a cop in Serpico, a court officer in What's Up Doc?, a bus driver in Micky and Nicky, a suspicious parole supervisor in Straight Time (he's so incredible in that role), Deckerd's boss in Blade Runner, a deadbeat in Cannery Row, a company man in Silkwood, a blustery politico in Reds, a doctor in Fletch, another coach in Back to School, a gum-chewing machine shop worker in Raising Arizona, a straight-talking alcoholic's sponsor in Clean and Sober (my second favorite of his performances), a detective in The Glass Shield and an elderly father in Youth in Revolt. Even with all this, my favorite performance from Mr. Walsh is from Blood Simple, where he stands sweaty and tall in a yellow suit throughout. At turns nervous, confident, suspicious, vulgar and tough, his show in the Coen Brothers' breakthrough movie is something cut out of cinema history. He should have won the Oscar that year. 

19) Favorite chase scene
No contest. There is nothing like the 40-minute climax that tops H.B. Halicki's Gone in 60 Seconds from 1974. You can name all the rest...Bullitt, The French Connection, The Seven-Ups. maybe even To Live and Die in L.A. and We Own The Night, and yes, even Return of the Jedi and The Matrix Reloaded, and more I haven't even considered. But nothing can top Halicki's remarkable, nearly homemade epic that seems like it was filmed without any pesky supervision. There's many a wicked wreck here there that seems totally unplanned, and that Halicki was the lead driver makes Gone in 60 Seconds so much more stunning. It's absolutely literally a movie that could not be made today. A note: Halicki died performing a stunt for a later movie, The Junkman. What a legend he is.

20) Movie most people might not have seen that you feel like proselytizing about right now

Quoting from my own website filmicabilty: "In Targets, Peter Bogdanovich’s sobering look at the varying distances between fantasy and modern horror, Boris Karloff portrays Byron Orlock, an embittered old screamfest idol who’s announced his retirement from Hollywood because he's sure the real world has become scarier than any of the cheapos he’s been making. While he’s in L.A. for the drive-in premiere of his last film, one of these worrisome true-life horrors is unveiling in another part of the city, as the all-American Thompson family is too busy with the daily grind to notice the breakdown going on inside the head of their Ken-doll son, Bobby (Tim O’Kelly). Byron’s and Bobby’s worlds collide, but not before Bogdanovich stages one startling act of violence after another. No movie, ever, has matched Targets for vile, matter-of-fact depictions of random gun violence (though there’s very little blood). We quiver, matching Bobby short-breath-by-short-breath at his every pull of the trigger. Adding salt to open wounds, the director shoots this berserking in an unforgettable quasi-documentary style (the scene with Bobby taking potshots at highway-bound cars while munching on a Baby Ruth will make you wince)." It's a movie about guns, made way before guns became a hot button issue. But really it's a movie that sees the drying up of personal relations--or more just a scary sort of soulessness lingering in the air--as the more serious problem. 

21) Favorite movie about high school
I'm not gonna get all John Hughes on ya. My single favorite movie about high school is Renee Daalder's Massacre at Central High, from 1976. It's surreal but yet feel so authentic. Derrel Maury plays a sallow-faced newcomer at school who finds that there's a brutal hierarchy he can barely surmount. When he bests the most popular at the school, he's left to discover that the new ruling party is worse than the old. Beautifully exploitational, surprisingly violent, and also shockingly gentle, it stands as the one high school movie that has cache way beyond its standing. It feels like a movie about life rather than one about a part of life. As that it's not readily available in America (it's a film without any adults in it, and one that concludes explosively), it also feels like a movie that has been repressed in the US. 

22) Favorite Lauren Bacall performance
An astounding output. To go from Howard Hawks to Lars Von Trier? How can that be done? She's obviously the person who taught us how to whistle (in Hawks' To Have and To Have Not), but I think her best moments came late in her career. Given her roles in Streisand's The Mirror Has Two Faces, Siegel's The Shootist, and Von Trier's Dogville, I have to go with her portrayal of Nicole Kidman's dazzled mother in Jonathan Glazer's Birth as her finest moment. Even so, you can surely put your lips together and blow... 

23) David Farrar or Roger Livesey?
Roger Livesay. I feel like I've gotten this question before.

24) Performance most likely to get overlooked during the upcoming awards season
Tilda Swinton in Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer.  What an amazing and ludicrously large performance!! Robin Wright's superior performance in The Congress would be my second choice (with Danny Huston's malevolent support in the same film coming in third).

25) Rock musician who, with the right project, could have been a movie star
Many might say Jim Morrison, whom I find indescribably boring. I would instead go with Scott Walker, who has a better voice and a more appealing look, though many wouldn't be able to pick him out of a lineup. On another day, I might choose Queen's Freddie Mercury or The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde. 

26) Second favorite Ted Post movie
He was mostly a TV director, but being pressed, I would have to say Magnum Force, the excellent second entry in the Dirty Harry series. My favorite of his films would have to be the now forgotten Vietnam drama Go Tell The Spartans from 1978, with hawk Burt Lancaster commanding a reluctant Craig Wasson. I fully expect many votes, however, for Chuck Norris' Good Guys Wear Black, just 'cuz that's the world we live in now. 

27) Favorite odd couple
Harry, an old man played by Art Carney, and Tonto, an orange cat. (Paul Mazursky, 1974) 

28) Flicker or Zeroville?
I've read neither.  I get my fiction from movies, and I read  mostly non-fiction. Neither have been made into movies. Thus I know nothing about either title. 

29) Favorite movie about college
From at least seven years before I actually entered college in 1984, the single best movie about the institution has been National Lampoon's Animal House. Yes, I could be all high and mighty and mention The Social Network (which is pretty dour stuff), The Paper Chase (very bright but also very serious), Horse Feathers, Harold Lloyd's The Freshman, Frederic Wiseman's At Berkeley, the little-loved A Small Circle of Friends, Love Story, Revenge of the Nerds, Breaking Away (which really looks askance at college) or Wonder Boys. But Animal House stands as exactly the same sex-laden, booze-sodden experience everyone is trying to recreate in their college years. No one's trying to study all the time, but everyone is sure as fuck trying to party all the time, and that's where the real connections occur, and you know it's true. John Landis' movie is like no other--it's the perfect distillation of the Lampoon mentality, dripped down from the steps leading up to each Harvard building that housed the greatest comedy minds of the 70s and 80s. Ask someone if they've ever been put on double secret probation and see what they say. National Lampoon's Animal House is and probably always will be the college movie to measure all others by. However, if you're a parent, you might wanna skip showing this one to your kids (although I have no viable alternative to screen for them in its place). 

30) In a specific movie full of memorable turns, your favorite underappreciated performance
It seems fair to say that, in a movie like Network, for which Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, William Holden, Ned Beatty and Beatrice Strait were all nominated for Oscars, it's a shame that Robert Duvall as the greasily aggressive UBS exec out for a "big-titted" hit was left behind. 

31) Favorite movie about parenting
It's an unpopular choice, I guess, but I have to stick with Kramer Vs. Kramer, which I think changed the nature of American parenting from top to bottom. Before Robert Benton's movie--which was the biggest hit of 1979-- no one gave a crap about how they raised their dang kid or how in what manner their adult lives were wafting onto their progeny. After Kramer Vs, Kramer, everyone was like "How does this affect my kid?" and "Am I gonna have enough time for them?" and "Am I doing the right thing?" and "I know I'm a parent, but what more can I do?" I don't necessarily think this sort of foofaraw was right for parenting as a whole (I'm not a parent so what do I know?). But I do see Kramer Vs. Kramer as being pre-Reagan-era ground zero for Parenting 101. 

32) Susannah York or Sarah Miles?
I love Sarah Miles in Ryan's Daughter; she makes me weep with her longing. But Susannah York brings so many more emotions with her performance in Robert Altman's Images (not to mention her showings in They Shoot Horses, Don't They and The Silent Partner). Her so vividly-played emotional breakdown (what screams she has!!) in Altman's movie, paired with her writing of the children's novel portrayed in the film, ensures her victory here.

33) Movie which best evokes the sense of place in a region with which you are well familiar
Eric Weston's Marvin and Tige is still the best movie that capture my hometown of Atlanta, Ga. In it, we see downtown Atlanta as it once was. We see the lighting of the Rich's Christmas tree. We see Six Flags Over Georgia, with leads John Cassavetes (only a few months before he passed away) and newcomer Gilbran Brown riding the Six Flags' Scream Machine together (apparently in the winter time). We see the Atlanta Fish Market, and we see Peachtree Center. We see the Fairlie-Poplar district, which would later be portrayed in the opening segments of The Walking Dead. We see the midtown district before it was razed for more upscale concerns. We see Piedmont Park as it still remains, and we see Central City Park before it was redesigned. We see co-star Billy Dee Williams, shortly after portraying Lando Calrissian, sharing the frame with Cassavetes both at the Omni and at Grady Hospital. This movie was nearly the last film Cassavetes shot before his death, and you can feel that ghost that over its every frame (it's the actor's finest performance). That he shared it all with newcomer Brown is something that I will always treasure as one of Atlanta's great victories. I love that Cassavetes' Shadows--one of the very first truly independent movies, made in the late 50s--was about race relations, and that one of Cassavetes' final films--shot in Atlanta--was about a old white man forging a gentle friendship with a young black boy (he must have transmitted much to his young co-star, given the fellowship seen here). Marvin and Tige is a movie I discovered as an Atlanta teen, and it's one that which I have passed on to my family and to anyone else I love, particularly those who adore this city as I do. 

34) Name a favorite actor from classic movies and the contemporary performer who most evokes their presence/stature/talent
James Stewart and Tom Hanks

35) Your favorite hot streak of any director
Leaving out any directors that I don't think have had any sort of a "cold streak" (see this article), I have settled on a streak of ten films:  
M*A*S*H* (1970) 
Brewster McCloud (1970) 
McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971) 
Images (1972) 
The Long Goodbye (1973) 
Thieves Like Us (1974) 
California Split (1974) 
Nashville (1975) 
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976) 
3 Women (1977) 
A Wedding (1978) 
Director: Robert Altman

Yet Even MORE Answers for the Good Professor...

It's time for a change of seasons, and in that spirit, Dennis Cozullio over at the essential Sergio Leone and The Infield Fly Rule has provided us movie lovers with Professor Larry Gopnik's set of 30 challenging questions meant to test the limits of our passion and knowledge (past questionnaires I've filled out can be seen here, here, and here). It's been a long time since I participated in one of these, and I must say, I always find it a hoot! Have fun, and visit Mr. Cozzulio's site so you can provide your own answers! 
 

1) Favorite unsung holiday film?
Eric Weston's 1983 film Marvin and Tige, with John Cassavetes as a borderline alcoholic who takes in an orphaned kid (Gibran Brown). Not necessarily a Christmas movie per se, but with many key holiday scenes, and with a generous spirit of love and compassion throughout. It'll make ya cry, as my mom would say. Unfortunately unavailable on digital despite it being one of Cassavetes' last (and greatest) roles, performing alongside a talented newcomer who never did another feature, in an indie of the sort that Cassavetes pioneered. An extraordinarily graceful, gritty picture that deserves to be seen by all. 

2) Name a movie you were surprised to have liked/loved.
I attended the wonderful Massachusetts Independent Film Festival this year, as Jury President, and one of the films they featured as a midnight offering was Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem. I'd never gotten through The Devil’s Rejects or his Halloween remake, because that kind of screen cruelty is just not my bag. But I was shocked to find that The Lords of Salem is easily the most visually arresting horror film of recent memory. Inventively cast, brilliantly designed and photographed, and scored with Zombie's usual collection of smartly-chosen source music (I’ll never hear The Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties” the same way again), Zombie's film had me sitting forward, gripping the back of the empty seat in front of me with terror and astonishment (though it's also not a film without a sense of humor). Make wisecracks--I was totally surprised myself--but The Lords of Salem is definitely scary, and immaculately made.

3) Ned Sparks or Edward Everett Horton?
Horton, if only for the Rocky and Bullwinkle stuff.  But with Here Comes Mr. Jordan, I Married an Angel, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Front Page, Holiday, Design for Living, Trouble in Paradise, Lost Horizon and Thank Your Lucky Stars, I'm pretty sure he's in the Character Actors Hall of Fame. Still so many more of his movies I need to see. Ned Sparks barely registers for me (he doesn't even have a photo on IMDB, though he was in some landmark movies like Lloyd Bacon and Busby Berkeley's 42nd Street, John Stahls 1934 version of Imitation of Life, and Capra's Lady for a Day). By the way, Horton has come up as a subject on more than one of these questionnaires. I voted for Horton in the past, too. But what's with the E.E. Horton obsession?

4) Sam Peckinpah's Convoy-- yes or no?
Yes, with a case of beer and a few friends around. Otherwise, no. As a film, it's a time-waster (unless you're a Peckinpah nut). The C.W. McCall song--a Billboard #1 hit--is quite enough. If it's trucks and fighting you wanna see, try out Jonathan Kaplan's White Line Fever. A much better movie. 

5) What contemporary actor would best fit into a popular, established genre of the past?
I'd love to see a traditional WWII picture--like something Robert Aldrich or William Wellman might've crafted--with Jon Hamm as an American officer struggling on the battlefield, and Michael Fassbender as a canny Nazi honcho trying to outsmart him. It'd be extra amazing if the Nazi wins. 

6) Favorite non-disaster movie in which bad weather is a memorable element of the film’s atmosphere 
Sam Raimi's snowy A Simple Plan.

7) Second favorite Luchino Visconti movie?
Rocco and His Brothers. 

8) What was the last movie you saw theatrically? On DVD/Blu-ray?
I just spent a day watching Out of the Furnace, Frozen, and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (it was a fire-and-ice themed day, I later realized; I was underwhelmed by the first two, and entertained well enough by the finale). On VHS, On disc, barring the last season of The Wire, it was Andrew Dominik's always remarkable The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. On Blu-Ray, it'd be Polanski's exquisite Rosemary's Baby. 

9) Why do you react the way you do when someone eloquently or not-so-eloquently attacks one of your favorite movies? (Question courtesy of Patrick Robbins)
I sometimes react like a mother tiger defending her cubs. I feel a special bond to some movies, as if they were MINE, as if I MADE them, and I'll scrap for them to the death. It's just something instinctual. That said, I do find myself more able these days to step away from a movie debate, especially online, where I find I'm overwhelmed with ant-like dunderheads with whom I have no desire to debate. 

10) Joan Blondell or Glenda Farrell?
Joan Blondell, for sure. She was always hilarious to me! (Glenda Farrell is an actress I need to become more familiar with; I'd like to see some Torchy Blaine movies now).

11) Movie star of any era you’d most like to take camping.
My current favorite actor, Greta Gerwig (here's my Movie Geeks United talk with her) would probably be able to catch a fish or start a fire, and she'd just be all-around game for the experience. She'd be extremely pretty and goofy and smart, and wonderful to be around.

12) Second favorite George Cukor movie?
Dinner at Eight

13) Your top 10 of 2013 (feel free to elaborate!)
I'll save any elaborations for my year-end article. As it stands right now (and it's bound to change, since I haven't seen many of the Christmas releases):
1) Steve McQueen's 12 YEARS A SLAVE
2) Abdellatif Ketchiche's BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR
3) Andrew Bujalski's COMPUTER CHESS
4) Yasim Ustaoglu's ARAF / SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN (brilliant Turkish film I saw at 2012 NYFF but only released here on digital this year)
5) Kleber Mendonca Filho's NEIGHBORING SOUNDS (from Brazil, released in the US in 2013)
6) Alfonso Cuaron's GRAVITY
7) Noah Baumbach's FRANCES HA
8) Pablo Larrain's NO (from Chile, released in the US in 2013)
9) Sebastian Lilio's GLORIA (also from Chile, with Pablo Larrain as producer)
10) Hannah Fidell's A TEACHER

14) Name a movie you loved (or hated) upon first viewing, to which you eventually returned and had more or less the opposite reaction.
This happened to me first 30 years ago exactly, when De Palma's Scarface arrived. I was there opening day, and was absolutely thrilled by it. Next week, I returned for a second helping, and realized it was the stinkiest of stink bombs. I was forced to reconcile these two reactions, and finally surmised that, first time around, I'd been caught up with the spectacle of Al Pacino (who cannot be denied). Just now, I'm recalling a similar about-face on Burton's Batman. As for the movies I did not like, and then came around to loving...there are too many to mention.  

15) Movie most in need of a deluxe Blu-ray makeover.
Abel Gance's Napoleon. It's an abject crime this isn't available for all to see. Also, I'd posit that Joan Micklin Silver's Chilly Scenes of Winter is the most recent movie (1981) I'd request as a Criterion release (replete with the alternate scenes from its first version, 1979's Head Over Heels, and a comprehensive dissection of its complex structure and history). 

16) Alain Delon or Marcello Mastroianni?
Mastroianni, in a walk. I never got the appeal of Delon, I confess. 

17) Your favorite opening sequence (provide link to clip if possible).
I can't decide between the majestic opening to Terrence Malick's The New World (set to Wagner's "Vorspiel," or the audition at the beginning of Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (set to George Benson's "On Broadway"), so it's a tie.18 other worthy possibilities: Persona, Touch of Evil, Manhattan, Stop Making Sense, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Music Man, O Lucky Man!, Once Upon a Time in the West, Apocalypse Now, Seven Beauties, West Side Story, Blue Velvet, The Exorcist, The Wild Bunch, 8 1/2, Electra Glide in Blue, Fail Safe, and The Social Network.  





18) Director with the strongest run of great movies
Kubrick is the too-obvious answer. I'd instead go with Mike Leigh, who bests Kubrick by not having made even a middling feature (or short, or TV production) in a 40+ year career. It's apparently impossible for Mike Leigh to contribute anything but superlative, invaluable work. 

19) Is elitism a good/bad/necessary/inevitable aspect of being a cineaste?
The more movies you see, and the more you switch up the TYPES of movies you see (varying the genres, budgets, countries of origin and time periods)...well, it's follows that your tastes are going to become sharper, more particular, more nuanced. It's inevitable--if you're a thinker (that's the elitist in me coming out). The reason critics often have what's viewed by the public as "snobby" tastes is simply that they see more films than the average dude. Rather than the 1000th superhero or combat movie, you give critics something completely unique like Playtime, Salesman, The Tree of Life, or Persona, they feel connected again with the energy that made them love seeing, and commenting about, movies in the first place. Depending on the critic, the branching off from popular taste is an occupational hazard. 

20) Second favorite Tony Scott film
I guess it'd be The Hunger. Not a director I care for, though I know he has his defenders.

21) Favorite movie made before you were born that you only discovered this year. Where and how did you discover it?
Definitely Vincente Minnelli's 1958 movie Some Came Running. After years of procrastination, I finally caught it streaming online, and was enraptured by its rich Cinemascope look, fiery emotions and iconic performances (Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine and especially Dean Martin have rarely been better than they are here, and man, I'd love to see this one on the big screen). Other pre-1966 movies I discovered I adore this year: Jubal (Delmer Daves, 56); Warlock (Edward Dymytryk, 59); I Saw What You Did! (William Castle, 65); The Big Country (William Wyler, 58); Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang, 56); The Yangtze Incident (Michael Anderson, 57); Man Hunt (Fritz Lang, 41); You Only Live Once (Fritz Lang, 37); Sanjuro (Akira Kurosawa, 62); Mr. Sardonicus (William Castle, 61); Pickup (Hugo Haas, 51); and Fourteen Hours (Henry Hathaway, 51) (Buzz Kulik's 1967 film Warning Shot should be included here, too, since I was only 4 months old when it was released). Also I reconnected with a few movies I hadn't seen in a REALLY long time: It Happens Every Spring (Lloyd Bacon, 49); Rhubarb (Arthur Lubin, 51--two Ray Milland baseball comedies!); Harakiri (Masaki Kobayashi, 62); Midnight Lace (David Miller, 60--the single best Hitchcock imitation ever); and The Incredible Shrinking Man (Jack Arnold, 57--deeper, more melancholy and technically adept than I remembered it being).

22) Actor/actress you would most want to see in a Santa suit, traditional or skimpy?
Like, 60s-era Andy Devine, for a traditional Santa (just hearing him say "Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas" in that voice of his would crack me up). For the skimpy Santa suit, Scarlett Johansson. Sorry but...youch!

23) Video store or streaming?
Nothing matches the challenge and excitement of going to the video store and finding things you were thrilled about seeing, or never knew existed. The streaming is nice and convenient, but the social experience of attending a top indie video outlet, and talking to fellow customers along with the hopefully knowledgeable staff, is (was) unlike anything in the film-watching pursuit. I greatly miss visiting, and working at, video stores; the best of them provided a sense that the possibilities in film watching are literally endless. 

24) Best/favorite final film by a noted director or screenwriter
John Huston's The Dead. Utterly exquisite and THE perfect final film. (Great for Christmas...or maybe not...). I would also vote for Robert Altman's 2006 film A Prairie Home Companion as a near-flawless swansong. 

25) Monica Vitti or Anna Karina?
Anna Karina is more fun to watch. Vitti's just too chilly for my taste. 

26) Name a worthy movie indulgence you’ve had to most strenuously talk friends into experiencing with you. What was the result?
I always like to treat my friends to my favorite unsung movie, George Roy Hill's A Little Romance. It often takes some doing, since they see it as a kid's film, and an old one at that (plus Hill isn't held in the highest regard by film buffs, I suppose). But I usually wear them down, and by the end sequence, they're inevitably wiping away tears while I'm over in the corner, swabbing my face and blubbering like a child. Really, it never fails...

27) The movie made by your favorite filmmaker (writer, director, et al) that you either have yet to see or are least familiar with among all the rest
Kubrick's Fear and Desire. Only seen it once, and have been meaning to go back and rewatch it. All the others I've seen so many times, I have them committed to memory (though I suppose I could use another brush-up on Killer's Kiss, which is the only Kubrick movie I do not care for). As for a favorite filmmaker whose works I haven't seen in full, I hafta admit there are still a gaggle of 50s/60s/70s Sidney Lumet movies I'd like to catch, but which're unavailable (at least to me): Stage Struck, The Group, Bye Bye Braverman, Child's Play, Lovin' Molly, The Sea Gull, The Appointment, The Deadly Affair, The Last of the Mobile Hot Shots. I'm fully expecting to be let down by some of these titles (Lumet certainly wasn't infallible), but there just HAS to be a gem or two amongst 'em. 

28) Favorite horror movie that is either Christmas-oriented or has some element relating to the winter holiday season in it.
Bob Clark's Black Christmas. Has to be! It's the king Christmas horror movie of all time!

29) Name a prop or other piece of movie memorabilia you’d most like to find with your name on it under the Christmas tree.
That painting Catherine Scorsese shows off to De Niro, Liotta and Pesci in GoodFellas ("One dog goes one way and the other goes the other, and this guy's saying 'Whaddaya want from me?'"). This, or an authentic, talking, sentient HAL 9000 (this is impossible...or IS it?). I also wouldn't sneeze at that red neon sign outside of Ben's place in Blue Velvet: THIS IS IT. I've contemplated having some artisan replicate that sign for me. I also love that mirror hanging in Joe Gideon's apartment in Fosse's All That Jazz--the one that says OH WOW. Dang, that would be amazing to have. Oh, I could go on and on... 

30) Best holiday gift the movies could give to you to carry into 2014? 
A Scorsese/DiCaprio team-up that doesn't leave me cold (though I like The Departed and The Aviator well enough, I guess). Here's hoping it happens!! But I ain't bettin' the farm on it. 

Another Bunch of Answers for the Good Professor!

It's time once again for me to provide my replies to Dennis Cozzulio's seasonal movie geek quiz over at Sergio Leone and The Infield Fly Rule (you can find past installments here and here; I like that this season's quiz is attributed to Bigger Than Life's afflicted educator Ed Avery). These are always extremely fun posts to do, and I find Cozzulio's always surprising questions (to which I proudly contributed this time around) to be a brain-bending exercise that's totally rewarding! So here we go:

1) Depending on your mood, your favorite or least-loved movie cliché.
It used to be that my least favorite was the high-speed car chase leading to an auto smashing into a fruit stand or something. Then, in the 90s, it turned into the huge object (car, truck, tire, cow) being flipped up over end and flying into the air, hitting the camera (that one we're still seeing after 20 some odd years of it). Now I find myself shaking with rage every time someone vomits on camera, even if it's a little kid who's being sick. And I really hate it when someone throws up as a cheap acting ploy to show audiences how upset their characters are. How many times have YOU ever vomited spontaneously because you were shocked, nervous or saddened? For me, the answer is NEVER, and I suspect the same is the case for a lot of other normal people. I even manage to swallow my pukey feelings when I see or smell something disgusting; I only drive the porcelain bus when I'm dead drunk, which is almost never. Regardless, vomiting is just something I don't enjoy seeing in movies; I give upchuck passes only to Bad Santa, The Exorcist, The Sopranos and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. By the way, I have no "favorite" cliches because they just tend to remind me of the filmmakers' laziness.

2) Regardless of whether or not you eventually caught up with it, which film classic have you lied about seeing in the past?
It's been a long time since I've lied about seeing a movie. I'll be one of the seemingly few to admit it: I used to lie a lot when I was around 20, in order to seem smarter than I really was. Now that I've seen a lot more stuff (including most of the things I used to lie about), I find I enjoy telling people I haven't seen something they love because it somehow reminds me to either catch or avoid an important title. Plus I learned through experience that the actual key to intelligence is being able to admit to not knowing something. This said, the last movie I can remember fibbing about seeing was Black Narcissus. And I still haven't seen it; I've tried, but (kill me now) I find it boring, and can never finish it.

3) Roland Young or Edward Everett Horton?
Roland Young is the ultimate Cosmo Topper (when is Johnny Depp going to star in a Topper remake?), and he's great in And Then There Were None. But, let's face it: Edward Everett Horton had the more spectacular career, because he was just simply funnier. What a career he had: Top Hat, Trouble in Paradise, Design for Living, The Gay Divorcee, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Arsenic and Old Lace, Thank Your Lucky Stars, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, and Cold Turkey, plus he played the Mad Hatter in the superior 1933 version of Alice in Wonderland. And then, of course, there's his Rocky and Bullwinkle connection as the narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales. Easy to make this choice.

4) Second favorite Frank Tashlin movie.
I've not seen a lot of his cartoons, so they're unfortunately not being considered as deeply as they should. I respect The Girl Can't Help It, but I don't absolutely love it, so it would be a strong #2. My favorite is his Bob Hope comedy Son of Paleface. I do love the wackiness of Who's Minding the Store, too. And I can't bring myself to watch Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? Movies about the toxic environment of Hollywood send me spiraling downward into a maelstrom of bad feelings.

5) A Clockwork Orange--yes or no?
Of course, yes. I'd like to meet the person who votes "no" and bust them in the yarbles--if they have any yarbles. (I'm kidding here--I'm strictly non-ultraviolent.)

6) Best/favorite use of gender dysphoria in a horror film (Ariel Schudson)
Leaving Norman Bates in Psycho behind as the obvious choice, I pick Roman Polanski in The Tenant. He looks better in drag, too!

7) Melanie Laurent or Blake Lively?
I prefer a woman who seems sexy AND clever, so Melanie Laurent's for me. I just hope she has some more great movies in her post-Inglourious Basterds future!

8) Best movie of 2011 (so far…)
Since its official release was in January, I'd have to go with my second favorite 2010 movie, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. I'm sure this will change once I see The Tree of Life later on this week.

9) Favorite screen performer with a noticeable facial deformity (Peg Aloi)
Well, I do love Owen Wilson most of the time, and that nose would definitely have to count as some sort of deformity. And Stacy Keach obviously had a cleft palette at one point, while George Macready had an awesome scar across his face for most of his career and Joaquin Phoenix has that weird upper lip. But what kind of film fan would I be if I didn't say Rondo Hatton? May seem obvious, but he's impossible to ignore in this regard.

10) Lars von Trier: shithead or misunderstood comic savant? (Dean Treadway)
Misunderstood comic savant, definitely; you only need to see The Five Obstructions or The Boss of It All or The Idiots to understand this. Regarding the recent controversy: Trier obviously suffers from depression, and as a fellow sufferer, I know that you say a lot of shocking things when you are deep in the throes of it. These things can seem funny to you at the time, because you have such a dark internal world and the horrors going on outside of it can seem so ultimately absurd that you lose all sensitivity for what kinds of comments are going to piss people off. Thus, I fault him not one whit for saying what he said at Cannes (I got the joke). I could say something here that could piss some people off right now, but I won't (self-censorship can be key when you're depressed; this is something that Trier doesn't have much control over because he's an uber-edgy artist who's perpetually banished that particular survival skill). However, this is no reason to think of him as a shithead.

11) Timothy Carey or Henry Silva?
Oh, why must I choose? I love them both! But, in the end, it has to be Timothy Carey, because he was as fascinating off-screen as on. If that's possible...

12) Low-profile writer who deserves more attention from critics and /or audiences
Jean-Claude Carrière: Diary of a Chambermaid, Belle de Jour, Taking Off, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire, The Tin Drum, Danton, The Return of Martin Guerre, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Cyrano De Bergerac, Birth, The White Ribbon. What a career! Yet I've never even seen one article on him, and even most rabid film fans wouldn't be able to recall his filmography, if challenged.

13) Movie most recently viewed theatrically, and on DVD, Blu-ray or streaming
Theatrically: Cave of Forgotten Dreams; DVD: Grandma's Boy; Streaming: Citizen X

14) Favorite film noir villain.
Dan Duryea in just about anything, but particularly in Criss Cross. I love that guy! SO slimy, yet so debonair about it!

15) Best thing about streaming movies?
Low cost, high accessibility. Worst thing? TOO MANY CHOICES! Sometimes I cannot decide what to watch, and it makes my head explode. I usually have to revert back to TV watching in these instances.

16) Fay Spain or France Nuyen? (Peter Nellhaus)
This is the sort of question that inspires nothing in me. Fay Spain seems more like a TV actress than a movie one (though she did play Hyman Roth's wife in Godfather II). And France Nguyen was somewhere in Battle for the Planet of the Apes, South Pacific and the underrated The Last Time I Saw Archie. But neither inspire me to pick one over the other, so I pick neither and move on...

17) Favorite Kirk Douglas that isn’t called Spartacus. (Peter Nellhaus)
Paths of Glory is his best movie, but maybe not his best role: I pick his nasty huckster Chuck Tatum from Ace in the Hole instead, with Seven Days in May, Paths of Glory, Lonely Are The Brave, The Bad and The Beautiful and The Man from Snowy River following close behind. Spartacus is good, but it doesn't even really enter into the question.

18) Favorite movie about cars.
Oh, this is easy: the ultimate car movie--H.B. Halicki's 1974 crack-up Gone in 60 Seconds. A car lover's dream/nightmare, that movie!

19) Audrey Totter or Marie Windsor?
Totter is good in The Set-Up and Lady in the Lake, but she's only in them a tiny bit. Marie Windsor--on top of having an unforgettable face, voice, and demeanor--is terrific in Cat Women on the Moon, The Fighting Kentuckian, The Narrow Margin, and is wonderfully cutthroat in Stanley Kubrick's The Killing. Windsor, for sure!

20) Existing Stephen King movie adaptation that could use an remake/reboot/overhaul.
I'd like to see someone do a slightly better job with Cujo. But The Stand obviously needs to be made correctly, by an A-lister. I hear it's in the works, too.

21) Low-profile director who deserves more attention from critics and/or audiences.
Joan Micklin Silver, the superb writer/director who gave us Between The Lines, Hester Street, Bernice Bobs Her Hair, Crossing Delancey, Finnegan Begin Again, and the criminally underappreciated Chilly Scenes of Winter. My very favorite female director, for sure, and among my favorite directors in general. Very few artists are keyed into the rhythms of everyday life better than she. The fact that I've seen not one critical essay breaking down Chilly Scenes of Winter's radical time-juggling structure makes me wonder if the best critics out there have ever even seen it. Everybody needs to get on the ball on this one.

22) What actor that you previously enjoyed has become distracting or a self-parody? (Adam Ross)
It pains me to say that Robert De Niro has, these days, rarely reconnected to what originally made him a movie star: a wild charisma and a certain hunger to inhabit new characters. I DID like his performance in Everybody's Fine, though--that's the chanciest thing he's done in quite some time, because it was his warmest character maybe since Awakenings. He's just taken the scary, staring asshole guy thing a little too far.

23) Best place in the world to see a movie.
Two answers: the perfectly stunning Fabulous Fox in Atlanta, GA (where, during their summertime movie series, you can get a great old or relatively new movie, trailers, a cartoon, and a ancient-feeling singalong with the Mighty Mo Organ, all in the confines of the most beautiful theater you've ever stepped into, and all for eight bucks). And, in NYC, the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, because you can bet the projection is going to be crystal clear, and that the programming lineup is going to be outstanding. Plus, you might see an actor or director you love giving a talk after the film! Honorable mentions go to the wondrous Plaza Theater and Starlight Six Drive-In, both also in Atlanta. Even New York theaters have nothing on them! I consider myself lucky to have three of the undeniably finest film venues in the nation here in my home city.

24) Charles McGraw or Sterling Hayden?
No contest. Sterling Hayden. A complete bad-ass of the first order. He'd gut ya as soon as look at ya. And he could surprise you with every role he took on!

25) Second favorite Yasujiro Ozu film.
The End of Summer (1961). Gorgeous movie, through and through.

26) Most memorable horror movie father figure.
Max Von Sydow in The Exorcist. (Get it?)

27) Name a non-action-oriented movie that would be fun to see in Sensurround. (Sal Gomez)
Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff. I figure Sensurround would be a fun and suitable effect for the flying and rocket launch sequences.

28) Chris Evans or Ryan Reynolds?
I'll go with Chris Evans, 'cuz he was in Sunshine and Scott Pilgrim (and was pretty hilarious in the latter). Watching a paper clip for two hours would be better than sitting through almost anything with Ryan Reynolds (though I liked him in Buried and Adventureland). But that guy has the goofiest face in the world. How the hell did HE become a movie star?

29) Favorite relatively unknown supporting player, from either or both the classic and the modern era.
For the classic era, I'm going with Burt Mustin (above), whose name's not well-known, but whom I guarantee has many fans out there who smile inside when they see him pop up in movies like The Lusty Men, The FBI Story, Executive Suite and The Reluctant Astronaut, as well as on TV shows like The Andy Griffith Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Monkees, and All In The Family (his appearances on the latter series would always elicit moans of delight and copious applause from the live audience). And for the modern era, I'm going with the always likable Rick Dial (below), from Sling Blade, The Apostle, and Crazy Heart. Both are non-actors who spent most of their lives in other fields--Mustin was a salesman and Dial was a sports announcer--before stumbling on to avidly natural screen acting talents. I find their career trajectories to be extremely heartwarming.

30) Real-life movie location you most recently visited or saw.
The fountain at Lincoln Center, used most memorably in The Producers, (seen below), Ghostbusters, and Black Swan.

31) Second favorite Budd Boetticher movie.
Ride Lonesome (1959). Seven Men From Now would come in third, and The Bullfighter and the Lady fourth. We all know what's #1.

32) Mara Corday or Julie Adams?
Julie Adams has that slightly feral look that I like in some women (Jessica Harper and Claire Forlani have it, too). Plus she was in Bend of the River, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Private War of Major Benson AND The Last Movie!

33) Favorite Universal-International western.
Refreshingly simple! Winchester '73 (Anthony Mann, 1950)

34) What's the biggest "gimmick" that's drawn you out to see a movie? (Sal Gomez)
I avoid 3D like nobody's business; I really think Avatar will be the last 3D movie I'll ever see, because it seriously made me wanna jump off a bridge after viewing it. (THIS piece of crap is the future of movies? Someone give me a saw so I can cut my own head off.) I did really wanna go and catch the 2010 William Castle retrospective at Film Forum in NYC--you know, Emergo, Percepto, and the Punishment Poll? All that stuff? But I really think the last time it happened for me was in 1973 upon the release of Wicked, Wicked in Duo-Vision. I begged my parents to take me to see it at the drive-in. Not a good movie, that, but ever since I've had an undying fascination with split-screen! Honorable mention: the phone gimmick used to promote Bob Clark's 1974 horror classic Black Christmas; in the ads for the film, they encouraged you to call a given number, which led you into a scary vortex of phone-centric chaos, which matched the movie perfectly.

35) Favorite actress of the silent era.
She only did one movie, but, boy, was it a winner: Maria Falconetti, from The Passion of Joan D'Arc. Louise Brooks comes in a close second. Miss Lillian Gish was obviously the most influential, though.

36) Best Eugene Pallette performance (Larry Aydlette)
His Mr. Pike in The Lady Eve is his meatiest role. But I find him even more hilarious, and more suitably cast, as political machine henchman Chick McGann in Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. His exasperated reactions to Jimmy Stewart's oh-gawrsh title character have me in stitches every time I watch it.

37) Best/worst remake of the 21st century so far? (Dan Aloi)
Matt Reeves' Let Me In (2010) is the best, with Steven Soderburgh's Traffic (2001) trailing behind it. The worst is Adam Sandler's awful, laughless 2005 mishandling of Robert Aldrich's The Longest Yard; Sandler and his director, Peter Segal, somehow managed to make an exciting story into an utterly stoic bore.

38) What could multiplex owners do right now to improve the theatrical viewing experience for moviegoers? What could moviegoers do?
With this, I suspect I have nothing to say that will differ from the comments of most filmgoers. First priority needs to be the sharpness, brightness and accuracy of the movie's projection (see my recent article about this issue here). And customers need to please, please, PLEASE stop texting or using your phone in any way during the movie; the only thing you could do in a theater that's worse is take a dump right in your seat. Here's what I'd love to say to anyone who texts or gabs while in a movie theater: "Just put the fucking phone down and pay attention! You DID lay down cash to get in here, did you not? JESUS! I can't fucking see one thing on this giant screen because you wanna play with your fucking bright-ass toy. Godammit!" Believe me, you do not wanna see that side of me. It's ugly.

(This is me right before I choked this woman's guts out.)