A Merry Voight Kampff To You #4

It's that time of year again. When the great Dennis Cozzalio points a camera at our eyes and finds out whether or not we dream of Electric Sheep.

So without further ado...

1) Best Movie of 2010



Winter’s Bone.

2) Second-favorite Roman Polanski Movie



Rosemary’s Baby.

3) Jason Statham or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson



Potential: Dwayne Johnson
Actual: Jason Statham

4) Favorite movie that could be classified as a genre hybrid



Evil Dead II.

5) How important is foreknowledge of a film’s production history? Should it factor into one’s reaction to a film?



I don’t think there’s any set in stone rule on this one. 90% of the time I could care less how the sausage gets made, unless it involves a filmmaker I respect leaving/getting booted from the film.

Watchmen is an exception I can think of to this rule. I tend to cut it a bit of slack since it seemed less of a movie and more the equivalent of a kidney stone that I’m just impressed got passed at all.

Even if all the thanks Synder got for his trouble was a shredded urethra.

6) William Powell & Myrna Loy or Cary Grant & Irene Dunne?



Grant over Powell, but Powell and Loy together are never less then magical.

7) Best Actor of 2010



John Hawkes. Uncle Teardrop was the most complex and magnetic character I’ve seen on screen this year.
Can’t help but be fascinated by someone who’s idea of unconditional love includes both being willing to kill and die for a person and leeringly offering them Crystal Meth.

8) Most important lesson learned from the past decade of watching movies
?


A go for broke failure is almost always worth your time. As long as its failure is the result of someone’s fervor rather then timid committee think.

9) Last movie seen (DVD/Blu-ray/theater)



DVD: Waking Sleeping Beauty
Blu Ray: House
Theater: The Fighter

10) Most appropriate punishment for director Tom Six



Being allowed only to watch shock for shock sake movies for the rest of his life. An eternity with only “Shocking Asia” for company is one worth shuddering over.

11) Best under-the-radar movie almost no one else has had the chance to see?



I lurve my copy of Dragon’s Forever. Benny The Jet Rodriguez Vs. Jackie Chan? Yes please.


12) Sheree North or Angie Dickinson?

Dickinson.



13) Favorite nakedly autobiographical movie



Dogma.

14) Movie which best evokes a specific real-life place



Gangs Of New York

15) Best Director of 2010



You know if I’m going to be honest for all the directors I love who made movies this year, Ben Affleck is the one who impressed me most.

Gone Baby Gone could be written off as a fluke. The result of good source material. In The Town Affleck took a novel that was mediocre at best and transformed it into the best crime film since Heat.


16) Second-favorite Farrelly Brothers Movie



Something About Mary. Which never had a moment as glorious as the final fate of Petey The Parakeet.



17) Favorite holiday movie



A Muppet’s Christmas Carol as being one of the traditions shared between myself and my siblings. Nightmare Before Christmas is the only one I give any significant play outside of the holidays.

18) Best Actress of 2010


Michelle Williams. There stands a lady who knows how to bring the pain.


19) Joe Don Baker or Bo Svenson



Baker

20) Of those notable figures in the world of the movies who died in 2010, name the one you’ll miss the most

?

Sally Menke. I don’t think we really understand the magnitude her untimely death will have on the rest of film history. And we probably won’t for decades.

21) Think of a movie with a notable musical score and describe what it might feel like without that accompaniment.

Streets Of Fire and I… I don’t even want to think about it. 



22) Best Screenplay of 2010



The Town if only for the following exchange.

“I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later and we’re going to have to hurt some people.”

“Whose car are we gonna take?”

23) Movie You Feel Most Evangelistic About Right Now




I’ve been pushing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 for a long time. It’s probably the most successful blend of comedy and horror (in that the two genres never contaminate one another. It goes from Goofy to grim on a dime).

However since I recently finished up programming my first film series I guess it’d be more accurate to say I’ve been evangelical about Gone Baby Gone, One Two Three, I Walked With A Zombie, The Red Shoes and Gangs Of New York.

24) Worst/funniest movie accent ever



“Et Iz a jawry Horriday Affer Awl Mawy Popbins!”

25) Best Cinematography of 2010



Shutter Island. Hell as the inside of a Val Lewton picture.

26) Olivia Wilde or Gemma Arterton



Wilde. So long as she's in the grid.

27) Name the three best movies you saw for the first time in 2010 (Thanks, Larry!)



Winter’s Bone
Somebody Up There Likes Me
A Matter Of Life And Death


28) Best romantic movie couple of 2010



Leonardo Di Caprio and the memories in his head. Both A) and B) are correct.

29) Favorite shock/surprise ending



Drag Me To Hell. If only because I was so convinced I was two steps ahead of the film and that it’d be Justin Long who ended up on the expressway to Hades. Nothing like a nice little sucker punch to the smug.

30) Best cinematic reason to have stayed home and read a book in 2010



A Nightmare On Elm Street Remake. Sure I really should have known better but that movie broke something in me. I have about 30% less capacity for Hollywood Assembly line Horseshit now then when I walked into the theater.

31) Movies in 2011 could make me much happier if they’d only…

Announce the making of Scorsese's Silence and Gilliam's Don Quixote.

Voight Kampff Test 3

Sergio Leone And The Inflied Fly Rule has published another of it's essential cinematic Voight Kampff tests, read on to find if I'm a replicant.


1) Classic film you most want to experience that has so far eluded you.



Rolling Thunder

2) Greatest Criterion DVD/Blu-ray release ever

Oh man talk about your killer question. But if we’re talking sheer pound for pound value I’d have to give a tie between Slacker and Stranger Than Paradise, as both give you a whole other movie with your movie, not to mention that the idea that either Permenant Vacation or Its Impossible To Learn To Plow would have gotten releases otherwise is laughable.

3) The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon?

The Big Sleep, but that’s just as much about me preferring Chandler to Hammet.

4) Jason Bateman or Paul Rudd?

Rudd. Bateman might be a better actor, but his smarm doesn’t always seem to be on purpose. Plus he’s never made me laugh as hard as Rudd in Role Models.

5) Best mother/child (male or female) movie star combo

Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee.

6) Who are the Robert Mitchums and Ida Lupinos among working movie actors? Do modern parallels to such masculine and no-nonsense feminine stars even exist? If not, why not?

Well since Robert Mitchum is my favorite movie star of all time, I’m inclined to say no. But Jeremy Renner does have some of that effortless lazy eyed swagger, if not the class. As for Lupino, no man, she was one of a kind.

7) Favorite Preston Sturges movie

Miracle At Morgan Creek no if ands or buts.

8) Odette Yustman or Mary Elizabeth Winstead?


Winstead. The moment she gets over her unfortunate habit of being box office poison that kid is going places.

9) Is there a movie that if you found out a partner or love interest loved (or didn't love) would qualify as a Relationship Deal Breaker?

Already happened. Was on a date with a girl and we saw Blow. Chatting about it afterwards I basically said I liked it, but it felt like it ripped off Goodfellas too much. She had never heard of it. We started chatting about it. She was perplexed that she never heard of it. Asked me when it came out. I said 1990, she said “Oh. I don’t watch old movies.”

Keep in mind this was when Blow first came out. Goodfellas was barely ten years old.

Needless to say there was no second date.

10) Favorite DVD commentary

Anything with Martin Scorsese, Tarantino, or Roger Ebert on it. Ebert’s ones are particularly poignant now.

11) Movies most recently seen on DVD, Blu-ray and theatrically

DVD: The Dead Zone
Theater: Inception (3rd Time)

12) Dirk Bogarde or Alan Bates?

Bogarde

13) Favorite DVD extra

I love it when they have an extra that is devoted to exclusively other filmmakers talking about the film.

14) Brian De Palma’s Scarface— yes or no?

Oh hell yes.

15) Best comic moment from a horror film that is not a horror comedy (Young Frankenstein, Love At First Bite, et al.)

If unintentional counts I nominate the hilarious OOT opening for The Burning.

16) Jane Birkin or Edwige Fenech?

Fenech

17) Favorite Wong Kar-wai movie



That’s one cup of Koolaid I don’t drink.

18) Best horrific moment from a comedy that is not a horror comedy

The Death Of The Fish in A Fish Called Wanda.

19) From 2010, a specific example of what movies are doing right…

Like last year, the big thing I take from this year is that If you leave my favorite filmmakers alone, they can still make pretty great films.

Of course how long they will continued to be allowed to do their thing when their films make Scott Pilgrim money, is an open question.

20) Ryan Reynolds or Chris Evans?

Evans. Now if you'll excused me "I need to go get blazed in my Winnie"

21) Speculate about the future of online film writing. What’s next?

Honestly, not to sound like a party pooper, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the bubble burst a bit. Not so much with “professional sites” but I think we’ve hit kind of a critical mass on how many pieces the pie can be cut into. Particularly now that Blog readership in general has taken a bit of dip. We’re all fighting for the same readers and there are only so many sites they can have on their daily feed (And if you're reading this, a sincere thanks for making this one part of yours).

Writers will get frustrated with an inability to grow their readership we get a mini wave of shut downs, and fewer people will start up blogs.

Of course this will only be a fallow period before the next presumable boom.

And further more if y’all go out to the abandoned summer camp where dem kids were mudahed seventeen years ago tonight yer doomed!

22) Roger Livesey or David Farrar?

Roger Livesey

23) Best father/child (male or female) movie star combo

John and Angelica Huston.

24) Favorite Freddie Francis movie (as Director)

The one and only Trog.

(This one's for you Rob. You're welcome/I'm sorry)

25) Bringing Up Baby or The Awful Truth?

Baby.

26) Tina Fey or Kristen Wiig?

Conundrum, I actually really like Wiig in everything I’ve seen her in that’s not SNL. That being said, her performances on SNL make me want to drive nails into my eyes. So I give a reluctant advantage to Fey.

27) Name a stylistically important director and the best film that would have never been made without his/her influence.

Terry Gilliam. City Of The Lost Children.

28) Movie you’d most enjoy seeing remade and transplanted to a different culture (i.e. Yimou Zhang’s A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop.)

I know this is blamsphemy but an American Oldboy has a certain car wreck appeal to me.

29) Link to a picture/frame grab of a movie image that for you best illustrates bliss. Elaborate.




For me if not the character.

30) With a tip of that hat to Glenn Kenny, think of a just-slightly-inadequate alternate title for a famous movie. (Examples from GK: Fan Fiction; Boudu Relieved From Cramping; The Mild Imprecation of the Cat People)

Drag Me To Purgatory.

"What's A Tortoise?" "Ever see a Turtle Leon? Same idea."

Its time for another one of Sergio Leone And The Infield Fly Rule's Cinematic Voight Kampff test. I have yet to be asked about my Mother but its still a lot of fun.

1) William Demarest or Broderick Crawford?

I’d have to go with Crawford. You can’t argue with Jowls like that.

2) What movies improve when seen in a state of altered consciousness? (Patrick Robbins)

An Altered state helps smooth over some of The Fountain’s sillyness while framing its magesty. But I think its underrating that film to term it a Stoner Movie. Oddly enough one of my favorite movies to watch in an Altered State is The Aviator. I don’t know if Improved is the right word, but the opulence of that film, relaxed pace, and occasional bracing bits of style make it a blast to watch.








3) Favorite studio or production company logo?

I’d don’t know if it counts but I basically have a Pavolovian reaction to the Janus film logo.

4) Celeste Holm or Joan Blondell?

Blondell. Nightmare Alley.

5) What is the most overrated "classic" film? (Tony Dayoub)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Lolita both annoy me. The first because it takes everything interesting and difficult in Kesey’s book and throws it away. The second because, its to borrow from Ebert, your basic Dog walking on hind legs scenario. Just because one is surprised to see it done at all does not mean it is being done well.

6) What movie do you know for sure you saw, but have no memory of seeing? (Patricia Yokoe Cozzalio)

Hmm… No clue.

7) Favorite Hammer Film?



Brides Of Dracula. By Far. Its hallungetic, gorgeous, kinky, Basically everything I want from a Hammer film.

I do have to give a special jury prize to Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter (The K makes it sexy). Which is totally ridiculous and totally awesome.



8) Gregory Itzin or Joe Pantoliano?

Pantoliano, hands down. He may be guilty of over extending the brand, but no ones more dependable for a despicable scumbag. And Teddy in Memento remains a righteous performance.

9) Create a double feature with two different movies with the same title. No remakes. (Peter Nellhaus)

Off by a letter but I can’t help but go with Trick R’ Treat last years fun Creepshow Homage paired with Trick or Treat, the heavy metal horror movie featuring both Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne.

10) Akiko Wakabayashi or Mie Hama? (Ray Young)

Mie Hama beat Diana Rigg to the punch. That and she also played a character named Madame Piranha in King Kong Returns. Which would give anyone a leg up.

11) Can you think of a (non-porn) movie that informed you of the existence of a sexual act you had not known of prior? (Bob Westal)

The only things that come to mind are comedies.

“What’s a ZJ?”

“If you have to ask. You can’t afford it.”

12) Can you think of a black & white movie that might actually improve if it was in color? (Patrick Robbins)

Once again I don’t know if improved is the right word, I just know that every time I watch an Ozu color film, I’m sad that there aren’t more.

13) Favorite Pedro Almodovar Film?

Volver. Cruz has never been lovelier.

14) Kurt Raab or Udo Kier?

Oh that’d be Kier for sure and certain. If only for the moment where he feeds his guts through the projector in the underrated Cigarette Burns.

15) Worst main title song (Peter Nellhaus)

Die Another Day. Which Manages to be the worst Bond Theme in a category that includes a Sheena Easton song.

16) Last movie you saw in a theater? On DVD, Blu-ray or other interesting location/format?

Theater: How To Train Your Dragon (meh)
DVD: Blue Collar (Schrader)

17) Favorite movie reference within a Woody Allen movie? (Larry Aydlette)


Any from Love And Death. If I had to sum up Allen’s career in one image it would be his riff on Bergman’s dance of death at the end of the film.


18) Mary Astor or Claudette Colbert?

There’s something in Colbert that makes you want to protect her. There’s something in Astor that looks as though it never needed to be protected.
Take your pick.

19) Favorite trailer (provide YouTube link if possible)?

I love The Gangs Of New York Teaser Trailer. Much better then the film’s clumsy trailer and makes better use of Horner’s Charging Fort Wagner, then Glory ever did.

20) Oddest double bill you either saw or saw listed in a theater?

I came of movie going age after the fall of the double bills. Much less the really odd Double Bills.

That said I made a pretty good one for myself when I saw Bad Lieutenant Port Of Call New Orleans and The Princess And The Frog back to back.

http://thingthatdontsuck.blogspot.com/2010/01/bad-lieutenant-port-of-call-new-orleans.html

21) Favoite Phil Karlson film?

I’m going to have to go for the obvious one, with Walking Tall.

22) Favorite “social problem” picture?

I still say Stone’s Natural Born Killers is an underrated movie. Sure its overwrought. Its made by Oliver Stone. But it’s points about how we react to violence by safely cloaking ourselves in moral outrage hit a lot closer to home then it gets credit for.

23) Your favourite Harryhausen film/monster? (Ali Arikan)

Skeletons man. Skeletons.

(Skeletons)

24) What was the first movie you saw with your significant other? (Patrick Robbins)

I’m currently single (shocking I know). My last SO and I met at a Cirio Santiago double feature at the New Bev.

25) John Payne or Ronald Reagan?

John Payne as he was presumably not responsible for deregulating big business, throwing insane people out on the street, and ignoring the spread of AIDS.

26) Movie you feel a certain pressure or obligation to see that you have not yet actually seen

Almodvar. I’ve seen some of his movies but have always sort of ignored him because of his Anti Catholicism. Now that, as Jack Nicholson put it in The Departed, “The Confessional Seal is a little iffy these days. I have less reason not to see it.

Also Goddard, but I’m more annoyed at that pressure. I’ve seen Band Of Outsiders, and Alphaville, and Weekend and I still just plain don’t care. I’m glad he made Breathless but that was fifty years ago. I haven’t been glad he’s made a movie since.

27) Favorite “psychedelic” movie (Hey, man, like, define it however you want, man…)

If bad trips count I’d say Alan Parker’s The Wall.

Gotta love Gerald Scarfe





28) Thelma Ritter or Eve Arden?

Ritter. My love for Pickup knows no bounds. The whole Rear Window and The Misfits thing doesn’t exactly hurt either.

29) Favorite iconic shot or image from a film?

John Wayne clutching his arm, before leaving civilization forever in The Searchers.

30) What is the movie that inspired the most memorable argument you ever had about a movie?

Hmm… this is tougher then it sounds. I have entire friendships that are basically long memorable arguments about the movies. And there was the time when I had an argument with a customer over a hundred and forty dollar late fee for Fritz The Cat and she beat up a strangers Vespa outside which she for some reason thought was mine. But I don’t know if it counts.

The most memorable argument I had though wasn’t about a specific movie. It’s more centered around the way the argument went down. It was with a friend of a friend, who I was annoyed with. One of those film geeks who doesn’t really like other film geeks. We where talking I was a bit drunk, and I admittedly made some dumb lapses in logic trying to “beat” him.

Which led to me admittedly getting my ass semantically handed to me. It was kind of like that scene in The Color Of Money where Newman gets hustled by Whitaker. This dazed sense of “Wow did that just happen?”

At the end of the day though I think it was good for me. As the old timer’s say “It learned me.”

31) Raquel Torres or Lupe Velez?

Lupe Velez never captured Groucho’s heart.

32) Favorite adaptation of Shakespeare to a film?

I have a certain affection for Julie Taymor’s batshit crazy artschool representation of Titus Andronicus. But I think I’d either have to tip my hat to Polanski’s Macbeth, surely the most underrated and misunderstood film in his career, or McKellan’s Richard III.

33) Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (in 3D)-- yes or no?

Haven’t seen it.

34) Favorite movie rating?

Pre PG-13 PG. It’s a mysterious rating. You genuinely never know what you’re about to see. Could be something Bambi safe, and there might be Blood and Tits galore. You just never know!

35) Olivia Barash or Joyce Hyser?

Olivia Barash.

36) What was the movie that convinced you your favorite movie genre was your favorite movie genre?

Don’t have one. Youu can’t make me pick between Chopin, The Beatles and The Ramones.

37) Favorite Blake Edwards movie?

You just can’t go wrong with A Shot In The Dark.

Questionnaire

Over at the Superlative Sergio Leone and The Infield Fly Rule, Denis has popped up another one of his fascinating Cinematic Voight Kampff Tests. I was happy to participate and thought I'd go ahead and share my answers here. If you like it head over to the site and check out some of the other fascinating posts.

1) Second-favorite Coen Brothers movie.

Raising Arizona choosing between it and Blood Simple was a terrible choice. But this funny, beautiful movie holds so much of what I love about the Coens in it while simultaneously acting as a showcase for the heart they’re accused of not having. If this isn’t a humanist movie I’ll eat my hat. The Coen’s may mock the absurd little details of people but never the stuff that matters to them. And when HI’s dream plays out at the end, even though its absurd, its genuinely moving, I hope it comes true.

2) Movie seen only on home format that you would pay to see on the biggest movie screen possible? (Question submitted by Peter Nellhaus)

Shock Corridor.

3) Japan or France? (Question submitted by Bob Westal)

Ooh this is tough. If criticism and preservation where included I’d have to go with France. But I’m just going to go by the movies and pick Japan. At the end of the day there are only two French filmmakers who I truly couldn’t live without (Truffaunt, Melville) There are several Japanese ones.

4) Favorite moment/line from a western.

Favorite Line comes from Ride The High Country, “Hell, I know that. I always did... You just forgot it for a while, that's all.” The moving climax to one of my favorite films.

Favorite Moment has to be the final showdown in For A Few Dollars More. The best of the trilogy and I will duel at dawn to defend it. The multiple emotional climaxes happening, Morricone’s haunting score. The look on Van Cleef’s face. The sheer style of Leone. It was one of those formative movie going experiences that hooked me for life. Sheer cinematic bliss.


5) Of all the arts the movies draw upon to become what they are, which is the most important, or the one you value most?

I’d have to go with Photography. The Ability to compose and juxtapose are really cinema in its essence.

6) Most misunderstood movie of the 2000s (The Naughties?).

Vanilla Sky Cameron Crowe’s so ahead of his time on this one its not even funny. He’s the only filmmaker who understands just how much of our head space Pop Culture has co-opted. Our ideals of love are curtisy of Truffaunt, Father’s via Gregory Peck, Romance, Bob Dylan. This film is a landmark and a touch stone, a bravura visual work and touching character piece to boot.

7) Name a filmmaker/actor/actress/film you once unashamedly loved who has fallen furthest in your esteem.

I don’t really have one. I find that nothing ever really erases the affection I have for a particular artist, even when they’re actively destroying their own work (Lucas). Even when I no longer respond to what I once loved, I still retain my affection for the time it meant so much to me.

8) Herbert Lom or Patrick Magee?

Asylum gives Lom the edge.

9) Which is your least favorite David Lynch film (Submitted by Tony Dayoub)

Dune remains an unredeemably muddled mess. Apologists be damned. Though the scene where Sting prances around in Blue Panties whilst the Baron murders a eunuch has its charms.

10) Gordon Willis or Conrad Hall? (Submitted by Peet Gelderblom)

Hall.

11) Second favorite Don Siegel movie.

Charley Varrick. Its like a lost Cormac McCarthey novel as reimagined by Richard Stark (happy ending aside).

12) Last movie you saw on DVD/Blu-ray? In theaters?

DVD: Son Of Frankenstein
Theater: An Education

13) Which DVD in your private collection screams hardest to be replaced by a Blu-ray? (Submitted by Peet Gelderblom)

Probably my import copy of Bullet In The Head (is that even out on Region 1 DVD yet)?

14) Eddie Deezen or Christopher Mintz-Plasse?

Mintz-Plasse, Role Models shows potential for him to eventually be more then McLovin.

15) Actor/actress who you feel automatically elevates whatever project they are in, or whom you would watch in virtually anything.

Kate Winslet and Mark Ruffalo in the modern day. Most of the classic star’s presence (Cagney, Mitchum) will get me to watch anything no matter how dreadful the reputation.

16) Fight Club -- yes or no?

Yes.

17) Teresa Wright or Olivia De Havilland?

Wright.

18) Favorite moment/line from a film noir.

Moment: Marlowe attempting to put on his pants in Murder My Sweet.

Line: “You’re like a leaf that the wind blows from Gutter To Gutter” Out Of The Past

19) Best (or worst) death scene involving an obvious dummy substituting for a human or any other unsuccessful special effect(s)—see the wonderful blog Destructible Man for inspiration.

I’m awful partial to the guy in the wheelchair rolling down the stairs with a hatchet embedded in his face in Friday The 13th Part 2.

20) What's the least you've spent on a film and still regretted it? (Submitted by Lucas McNelly)

DVD - 5.00 Dollars Strange Days. Not because I thought it was bad, but because it really did upset me. And I’m a pretty cold fish when it comes to screen violence. It’s the only film I’ve ever returned on moral grounds. I didn’t want it in my house.

Movies – Free: Transformers. Christ I’m upset I wasted anytime at all on that travesty. Proud to say I didn’t get fooled again.

21) Van Johnson or Van Heflin?

Heflin

22) Favorite Alan Rudolph film.

I’m aware of no such thing.

23) Name a documentary that you believe more people should see.

The Z Channel. It’s the most loving valentine to cinema I know. As well as a moving portrait of a broken man. It brings up such conflicted emotions because I recognize so much of myself in Jerry Harvey, we share a lot of history. In a lot of ways this movies was an intervention. But one I don’t mind watching over and over again.

24) In deference to this quiz’s professor, name a favorite film which revolves around someone becoming stranded.

Naked Prey.

25) Is there a moment when your knowledge of film, or lack thereof, caused you an unusual degree of embarrassment and/or humiliation? If so, please share.

Oh God yeah. I always make sure to put a quota on my film conversation “in mixed company” and have given up mentioning movies on a first date all together.

26) Ann Sheridan or Geraldine Fitzgerald? (Submitted by Larry Aydlette)

Fitzgerald.

27) Do you or any of your family members physically resemble movie actors or other notable figures in the film world? If so, who?

My uncle is the white Samuel Jackson. Looks, body language, even speech rhythms. It’s uncanny.

28) Is there a movie you have purposely avoided seeing? If so, why?

Transformers 2. See above. It’s only films that are time wasters that I avoid seeing altogether. Even if I have some hestation going into a film (A lot of Almodovar is that way just because I don’t feel like luxuriating in Anti-Catholic land for a few hours) It’s more of a “I’ll see it someday.” Then a “I won’t see it.”

29) Movie with the most palpable or otherwise effective wintry atmosphere or ambience.

Fargo.

30) Gerrit Graham or Jeffrey Jones?

Jones.

31) The best cinematic antidote to a cultural stereotype (sexual, political, regional, whatever).

A genius director (see Kurosawa)

32) Second favorite John Wayne movie.

El Dorado. Wayne. Mitchum. Hawks. The most incogrinous, out of nowhere, racist Chinese joke in the world performed by James Caan. What more does one need?

33) Favorite movie car chase.

Normally I’d say The Road Warrior, but I’m going to go with The Matrix Reloaded, because people don’t acknowledge that scenes specatacle admid all the other baggage that film has.

34) In the spirit of His Girl Friday, propose a gender-switched remake of a classic or not-so-classic film. (Submitted by Patrick Robbins)

True Romance.

35) Barbara Rhoades or Barbara Feldon?

Feldon.

36) Favorite Andre De Toth movie.

House Of Wax. Play Dirty also deserves mad props.

37) If you could take one filmmaker's entire body of work and erase it from all time and memory, as if it had never happened, whose oeuvre would it be? (Submitted by Tom Sutpen)

Its a cliché but probably Michael Bay, not because his films are loud crass and dumb. All three can occasionally be admirable qualities. But he has had a detrimental effect on film Grammar. I’m sure he’s shot some of the greatest action scenes ever filmed. Too bad you’ll find no evidence of this in his actual movies.

38) Name a film you actively hated when you first encountered it, only to see it again later in life and fall in love with it.

Deadman, and the few other Jaramusch films I’d seen at that point. Watching Stranger Than Paradise was like finding a key that allowed me to understand just what the hell he was trying to do.

Another notable is American Werewolf In London. Still think it ends with an anti climax, but the rest is golden.

39) Max Ophuls or Marcel Ophuls? (Submitted by Tom Sutpen)

Max.

40) In which club would you most want an active membership, the Delta Tau Chi fraternity, the Cutters or the Warriors? And which member would you most resemble, either physically or in personality?

Delta housem because fat drunk and stupid is away to go through life son.

41) Your favorite movie cliché.

I’m always down for a tale of righteous vengance

42) Vincente Minnelli or Stanley Donen? (Submitted by Bob Westal)

Minnelli was an interesting and ahead of his time filmmaker. Donen made two of the most perfectly entertaining films ever made. Donen for the win.

43) Favorite Christmas-themed horror movie or sequence.

Does Jack Skellington’s moonlighting as Santa Claus count?

44) Favorite moment of self- or selfless sacrifice in a movie.

Jesus in The Last Temptation Of Christ “It IS ACCOMPLISHED!” I know it’s a corny choice, but as the film burns and Gabriel’s score comes in I can’t help but be moved anew.

45) If you were the cinematic Spanish Inquisition, which movie cult (or cult movie) would you decimate? (Submitted by Bob Westal)

Kaelites. Or rather that particular breed of Kaelite who thinks its there job to never enjoy anything, act as contrarians for the sport of it, and think the canon is a waste of time. Basically Armond White.

46) Caroline Munro or Veronica Carlson?

Caroline Munro, I have an odd affection for Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter.

47) Favorite eye-patch wearing director. (Submitted by Patty Cozzalio)

Walsh.

48) Favorite ambiguous movie ending. (Original somewhat ambiguous submission---“Something about ambiguous movie endings!”-- by Jim Emerson, who may have some inspiration of his own to offer you.)

Zodiac. No one knows. The past swallows another mystery without so much as a burp of indigestion.

49) In giving thanks for the movies this year, what are you most thankful for?

Coraline. That something so delicate beautiful and idiosyncratic exists makes me glad. As does the fact that Neil Gaiman now has a decent Adaptation from his work. I’d give an arm for Selick to give Sandman the same treatment.

50) George Kennedy or Alan North? (Submitted by Peet Gelderblom)

Kennedy