Promise Me You'll Never Do That Again

Okay, Naomi, I promise.

Dear Naomi Watts...

Thank you for once again making the first day in November a wonderful and deeply pleasant experience.

Sincerely,

Everybody ever

Restless

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I'm feeling particularly restless and uncreative and unthoughtful, and all sorts of other words that make sense but probably don't exist -- this should explain why not so much in the way of posts lately. It's aggrevating, to be honest, because I don't feel distant from the blog, like I don't care, but simply empty of things to say.

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Ah well, who cares. My loss is your gain, though, because ordinarily when I wrote a post, a post that includes pictures, I dictate what kind of pictures you're going to look at. But tonight, since I have nothing else to offer, I'm going to let you pick which picture, out of a choice of two, you'd rather gaze upon. So: would you like to look at this picture of Amy Adams from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day:

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...or this picture of Ernest Borgnine from The Devil's Rain:

The choice is yours entirely. I make no judgments, and don't even care to know your selection. It's your life, and you must find happiness where available. But -- and I probably should have said this before -- you can only look at one of them. Make your choice, and then look at that picture, and only that picture. This isn't a charity.

Naomi Watts: A Kind of Face You Hate Tradition

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Quizmaster Drei

Though he claims to be merely the conduit of one "Professor David Huxley", I know for a fact that the man behind the latest movie quiz I've been forced to complete is none other than the Diabolical Dennis Cozzalio. The upside this time around is that it's not 95 questions long. So let's just get this over with.

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

"Eluded" how? Because it's generally unavailable, or because I just haven't seen it yet, or are you saying that you want to like the film, but don't? If the first, then, I don't know, pick one: Ulzana's Raid or Losey's The Prowler, and like that. If the second, then the list is too damn long to put here, but today I'll land on...I don't even want to say. Okay, Nosferatu. Shut up, I tried to get it from Netflix a while back, and the damn disc they had was some public domain crap, so now I have to buy it. Which is fine, I just haven't yet. And if you mean the final interpretation, then Peeping Tom. I don't really dislike it, but everybody else in the world is over the moon about it, and I'm not. I really wish I was, though.

2) Greatest Criterion DVD/Blu-ray release ever.

Jeez, I don’t know. There are some beautiful ones, ones I even own, that I haven’t gotten around to watching yet, so I can’t really comment. I can say, though, that the year that Mamet’s Homicide and Yates’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle were both released was pretty amazing. It’s like the Criterion folks said “You know what? This is Bill’s year! Come on, everybody, let’s make this a good one for him!”

3) The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon?

The Maltese Falcon. I like the novel better, which might well have something to do with it, and I like Spade more than I like Marlowe. It’s just a preference thing.

4) Jason Bateman or Paul Rudd?

Batemen stunned me on Arrested Development. He’d been completely off the entertainment world’s radar at the time, and his very appearance in the commercials made me wonder if the show was even worth my time. Then I started watching it, and he was outstanding – a brilliant comic actor. Then again, I feel like Rudd – who’s no slouch himself -- has better taste in movies. Bateman might be the best thing in a bad movie, while Rudd is more likely to be the best thing in a good movie. Plus, Role Models. So, Rudd.

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

Patty Duke and Sean Astin.

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?

Regarding Mitchum -- of course not. You might as well ask "Who's the new Lee Marvin?" There isn't one. And why not? You really want to know? It's because we're all sissies now! Myself included! I can barely hammer a nail, let alone run moonshine, and even though I smoke, I'm one of those guys who's regularly told "You don't look like a smoker." No, I don't -- Robert Mitchum looked like a smoker, and Lee Marvin looked like a smoker. I look like a guy who picked it up in college (which is more or less the case).

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Regarding Lupino -- also no. Part of it here (and honestly this applies to the lack of Mitchums, too), if not much or all of it, has to do with self-consciousness. Lupino, at least on screen, lacked all self-consciousness. She just was. Being no-nonsense in the way Lupino was would now require, in the minds of those who might wish to try it, a kind of slumming attitude that would just kill the whole idea. Of course, all of this makes it sound like I hate modern movies and actors and I absolutely don't; it's just that there are new priorities and attitudes about performance now. They don't make 'em like they used to, and all that.

7) Favorite Preston Sturges movie.

The Lady Eve. It has everything, by which I mean it has Barbara Stanwyck being utterly winning, and it’s damn funny, to boot.

8) Odette Yustman or Mary Elizabeth Winstead?

Ah…I haven’t seen much of either. But Winstead, I guess. She's cute.

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?

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No, and I hate the philosophy that such things can or should be deal breakers. It requires a kind of arrogance that, even if I do possess it deep down, I try very hard to suppress, in the same way we all try to suppress unpleasant thoughts that pass unbidden through our minds. Well, okay, I guess certain things, if my "love interest" was a fan, would be hard to get past, but that would generally be because they’d indicate something more about the person, something beyond taste (and what I have in mind are things I’ve hammered on so often that I’m not going to bother listing them again). Aesthetically, though, no, I can’t think of anything. I’m lucky anyway, though, because I remember one time, waking up in the morning to find my then-girlfriend, now-wife watching Barry Lyndon, just because she was interested. She liked it, too! Unfortunately, I’ve pummeled her with movies since then, so I don’t even think she likes me anymore.

10) Favorite DVD commentary.

I don't know that I have just one. I'm a big fan of these in general, and so it's hard to narrow down, but basically any classic horror film with commentary by Steve Haberman (his one for Dracula is pretty ace) or Kim Newman and Stephen Jones (they tend to work as a pair, and I enjoy the ones they did for I Walked With a Zombie and Mark of the Vampire very much); or any classic noir with commentary by any number of people, but especially Eddie Muller. Muller is a favorite because he combines a sharp grasp of the history and biographies of those involved in the film with a genuine love of the films that he's not shy about expressing. His commentaries for Otto Preminger's Angel Face and Fallen Angel are love letters. He can barely contain himself at the end of Angel Face, for example, but he knows his shit, too. I love that.

Having said all that, the extended improv that makes up the Talladega Nights commentary is pretty hilarious, too.

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

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I'll answer the DVD part in two ways, because I want to count rewatches and never-seen-before separately. As a rewatch, it was Joe Giannone's Madman, which is a Friday the 13th knock-off that I like because the score sounds like it was lifted from unused tracks of the BBC television version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; and never-before-seen goes to Fassbinder's Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven, which is kind of a gripping oddity, I suppose. The satire on Communism seemed pretty biting to me, but I've since learned that those crazy Reds liked the movie. Whatever, dudes.

In the theater, it was The Other Guys. I don't get out much.

12) Dirk Bogarde or Alan Bates?

I want to say Alan Bates, but I’m not sure why. I've probably seen more Bates films, but both he and Bogarde were familiar to me early because of frequent, but long ago, viewings of Richard Attenboroughs' A Bridge Too Far, which featured Bogarde in a prominent role, and Mike Hodges' A Prayer for the Dying, where Bates plays the villain, and Mickey Rourke pronounces "father" as "fa'er", because he's Irish.

13) Favorite DVD extra

Well, I haven't actually partaken in this one yet, but I love that Criterion's set of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales comes with Rohmer's collection of stories, also called Six Moral Tales, on which he based the films. I plan on using that book as my gateway into his work.

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

God, no. That movie’s the worst at everything.

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

What about in Witchfinder General when they torture that one guy! What, too soon?

16) Jane Birkin or Edwige Fenech?

Fenech.

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17) Favorite Wong Kar-wai movie.

I’ve only seen two. So In the Mood for Love.

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

Can I choose an episode, or rather half an episode, of a TV show? Just tonight, I watched the episode of Extras when Andy is on the cusp of getting signed to the BBC to shoot a pilot of his sitcom, but he tells his friend that the network script editor he's working with is "too gay". The aftermath of that is fucking brutal.

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

Well, if what I've heard about Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman in Black Swan is anywhere close to accurate, then Movies in 2010 have landed on precisely the formula I've been mentally pitching to them for a long time now.

20) Ryan Reynolds or Chris Evans?

I kind of like Reynolds – he seems okay in certain roles. But I think Evans has some untapped potential. I thought he was very good in the it-sucks-but-we-have-to-do-it-anyway leadership role in Sunshine.

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

That it will continue? Probably? I mean, that's my guess, anyway.

22) Roger Livesey or David Farrar?

I'm not pleased that my knowledge of Farrar's work is so sketchy, but if he manages to somehow be better than Roger Livesey, then God bless 'im.

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

Gary and Jake Busey.

24) Favorite Freddie Francis movie (as Director).

The Skull.

25) Bringing Up Baby or The Awful Truth?

Is it permissible that I haven’t seen The Awful Truth? Because I haven’t. I love Bringing Up Baby, though.

26) Tina Fey or Kristen Wiig?

Fey. I think they’re both funny, but Tina Fey wears glasses.

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

Robert Altman. Magnolia.

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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.)

Maybe House of Whipcord in Japan. Wait, no, I think they already did a version. How about South Korea?

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

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Now you want me to elaborate? Oh yeah, I'll elaborate on that, all right! You just...wait, does that work? Is "elaborate" dirty?

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)

Jesus. The Decent Escape? Puns and I don't get along.

When the Well Runs Dry...

...I turn to Naomi Watts. I just think she's pretty, is all.

A New Dawn

Well, October's over. Thank Christ.

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This is just a brief post to thank everyone who stopped by during The Kind of Face You SLASH!!!, whether you left a comment or not (though if you didn't, what the hell??). I'm going to be taking it easy for the next week -- I'll post, but nothing very substantial, probably. In the meantime, I decided that I would repeat what I did last year when October was over, and post an image of the lovely Naomi Watts, as something of a palate cleanser. Observe:

I feel better already.

Quizmaster

I once told Dennis Cozzalio that when it came to taking his semi-quarterly film quizzes, my reaction was similar to Paul Valery's. "Dennis's film quizzes," Valery said (though I'm paraphrasing slightly), "are never finished, only abandoned." Well, the time has come, once again, to abandon another of Dennis's very thorough quizzes, and the results of said abandonment can be read below.

1) Second-favorite Stanley Kubrick film.

This is tough, because technically I believe 2001 is my favorite, in that I think it’s his best, but The Shining is the one I’m most likely to watch over and over…and indeed I have done so. Which I think would make 2001 my second favorite, since “favorite” and “best” are two different things. But I don’t know. Judges?

2) Most significant/important/interesting trend in movies over the past decade, for good or evil.

I think this has been going on for more than a decade, but the trend towards not giving a shit about B genre films. It used to be that good, sometimes great, professional talent would be hired for low budget crime, horror and science fiction films. Professionalism doesn't seem to enter into the equation anymore, let alone talent. If anyone who is perceived -- rightly or wrongly -- to be good at their job, then the genre films they get hired for have to be big summer tentpole wanks. The system that produced movies like Prime Cut is long gone.
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3) Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood) or Buffalo Bill Cody (Paul Newman)?

I’ve only seen the Altman film, and that was a long time ago. I must say I wasn’t thrilled with it, though I don’t actually remember disliking it, either. But anyway, I guess Cody/Newman wins by default.

4) Best Film of 1949.

You picked the year that The Third Man was released. Did you mean to choose a different year?

5) Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) or Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore)?
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This is the first of many questions on this quiz that I can’t answer, because I haven’t seen either movie. But Jack Benny wins, because he’s Jack Benny.

6) Has the hand-held shaky-cam directorial style become a visual cliché?

Oh, of course. It’s been a cliché for many years now.

7) What was the first foreign-language film you ever saw?

I have no idea. Probably Seven Samurai, though. Kurosawa was pretty much the first foreign-language director I paid attention to.

8) Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) or Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre)?

See? Another one. Can you believe I’ve never seen a Charlie Chan or Mr. Moto film? Isn’t that awful? But Peter Lorre wins because he’s Peter Lorre.

9) Favorite World War II drama (1950-1970).

Ouch. I’m tempted to go with an easy one, like The Bridge on the River Kwai, which is probably what I’ll go ahead and say. I was big on POW films for a while, and still kind of am. My brother always wondered why, and I didn’t really have an answer then, but now I’d guess it has something to do with “triumph over adversity”, as well as sticking it to those Axis rats. Of course, Bridge on the River Kwai is a bit more complicated than that, as far as the “triumph over adversity” part goes, but the Axis rats still have various things stuck to them, so it evens out.

10) Favorite animal movie star.

Snoopy.

11) Who or whatever is to blame, name an irresponsible moment in cinema.

The time those parents let their kids take that other kid out of the house and make him "walk the plank" off the backyard pool's diving board, and he ended up getting eaten by the alligator in Alligator. They were probably busy getting drunk and swapping keys.

12) Best Film of 1969.

One Upon a Time in the West

13) Name the last movie you saw theatrically, and also on DVD or Blu-ray.

Theatrically, it was Public Enemies, which I liked, although I was also slightly disappointed in it in some ways. Mostly small ways, but they added up. But the good stuff lingers in my head more, so that’s a good sign.
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On DVD it was Dr. X, directed by Michael Curtiz. That is one crazy-ass movie, I don’t mind telling you. “Synthetic fffllleeessshhh…”

14) Second-favorite Robert Altman film.

Short Cuts. That was my favorite for a long time, but now it’s taken a back seat to Gosford Park, which I truly think is a full-blown masterpiece. Short Cuts actually might be third, since I watched Nashville again about a year ago, and thought it was damn near perfect. So Nashville and Short Cuts are tied, with a final decision pending.

15) What is your favorite independent outlet for reading about movies, either online or in print?

Hurm…SLIFR, Some Came Running, Coosa Creek Cinema, Cinema Styles, Arbogast on Film, Tractor Facts, Only the Cinema, Doodad Kind of Town, Ferdy on Film, Medfly Quarantine, Flickhead, Self-Styled Siren, The Bleeding Tree, Lazy Eye Theater, Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee, Illusions Travel by Streetcar, Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies, Film Fed Babies, Eternal Sunshine of the Logical Mind, Final Girl...

16) Who wins? Angela Mao or Meiko Kaji?

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I can only go by an internet search of what they look like, but Meiko Kaji. She has that certain something. Actually, hold up, I did see Kaji in Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion. So yeah, her. She's hot, and if I wasn't married, hoo boy I wanna tell you, etc.

17) Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) or Olive Neal (Jennifer Tilly)?

Olive, in a walk.

18) Favorite movie that features a carnival setting or sequence.

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Sheesh, I don't know. I feel like I should have a whole difficult list to choose from, but either I don't, or my brain is dead. I did like The Funhouse, though. More not-that-great horror movies should be that good.

19) Best use of high-definition video on the big screen to date.

I’d say Zodiac, if I’d seen it in the theater. Public Enemies did impress me on that front, actually, so I’ll go with that one.

20) Favorite movie that is equal parts genre film and a deconstruction or consideration of that same genre.

Unforgiven is way too obvious an answer, isn't it? But that is my favorite, although I'm sort of taking the "deconstruction of the genre" elements on faith, because, while I can see where people are coming from when they make those points about the film, I honestly don't care about that. I think it's the least interesting thing about Eastwood's masterpiece, and I'd wager that Eastwood and company didn't give it much thought, either.

21) Best Film of 1979.

Hanover Street. Okay, no, it’s Herzog’s remake of Nosferatu.

22) Most realistic and/or sincere depiction of small-town life in the movies.

The depiction of small-town life is one of the things I always liked about Sling Blade. It was honest about the bad aspects without resorting to full-scale condemnation, and it also showed that there was a great deal of warmth and kindness to be found, as well as lawnmower-blade slayings.

23) Best horror movie creature (non-giant division).

This is at least sort of a horror movie, so cheating or not I'm going with the Angel of Death from Hellboy II.

24) Second-favorite Francis Ford Coppola film.

The Conversation. It’s almost as good as The Godfather.

25) Name a one-off movie that could have produced a franchise you would have wanted to see.

I'm going to get yelled at, but Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I liked that movie. I had a damn good time with it. Screw everybody else.

26) Favorite sequence from a Brian De Palma film.

I’m not the world’s biggest De Palma fan, but he can direct the hell out of a sequence, and my favorite is the first murder in Sisters, with the split screen of the bloody hand clawing at the window on one side, and on the other side that hand seen from across the street by a neighbor, who calls the police. That is really ingenious.

27) Favorite moment in three-strip Technicolor.

I could pretend to have one, but I don’t, really.

28) Favorite Alan Smithee film. (Thanks, Peter!)

I haven't really seen any pure Smithee movies, I don't think. I've only seen the movies that get the Smithee stamp due to TV re-edits, and not even very many of those. So I guess the longer version of Dune is my favorite, even though I don't like it.

29) Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) or Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau)?

Please. If you give a choice of two, and one of those choices is Walter Matthau, then Walter Matthau automatically wins. That’s, like, just science. If the choice was “Monkeys or Walter Matthau?” or “Tokyo or Walter Matthau?” or “Cheeseburgers or Walter Matthau?” the answer is always Walter Matthau. This is like an IQ test question, and if you don’t pick Matthau, then it proves you’re a dumbshit.

30) Best post-Crimes and Misdemeanors Woody Allen film.

Bullets Over Broadway. It’s his funniest, that’s for sure.

31) Best Film of 1999.

Magnolia. Still my favorite PT Anderson film, and it still contains one of the most mesmerizing and mysterious openings I've ever seen. Love that film.

32) Favorite movie tag line.

Snuff - "A film that could only be made in South America, where life is CHEAP!"

33) Favorite B-movie western.

Did Budd Boetticher make B westerns? If he did, then The Tall T is my answer.

34) Overall, the author best served by movie adaptations of her or his work.

Wow. Almost everybody who's been adapted on a regular basis has their share of highs and lows. Obviously Chandler had a nice run, as did James M. Cain. God, there's so many. Did you realize this was an impossible question when you asked it?

But I'll say Robert Bloch. He actually hasn't been adapted all that often, but one film -- Psycho, of course -- has made his name live on for decades after it might have otherwise faded into obscurity. This isn't a qualatative judgment, by the way, because Bloch was a very good writer, but lots of good writers are forgotten. However, the day Hitchcock started rolling on his film, Bloch was ensured that every book he published subsequently would have stamped, on the front cover, the words "By the author of Psycho!" I know that's how I first learned about Bloch, and I'm grateful for it.

35) Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) or Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard)?

Susan Vance. That’s one of my favorite comic performances.

36) Favorite musical cameo in a non-musical movie.

Randy Newman as the Singing Bush in Three Amigos.

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37) Bruno (the character, if you haven’t seen the movie, or the film, if you have): subversive satire or purveyor of stereotyping?

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Neither. “Occasionally funny comedy” would be my description. This stuff is nowhere near as subversive as a lot of people claim.

38) Five film folks, living or deceased, you would love to meet. (Thanks, Rick!)

Robert Mitchum, Orson Welles, Boris Karloff, Werner Herzog, and Salma Hayek, and I'd like to meet Salma while we were both swimming. And she'd be delighted to meet me. Also, my wife would be totally cool with it.

Time to Increase Traffic

This is What I Do When I Have Nothing to Write About

I hope you understand. Besides, I'll probably be reviewing Watchmen this weekend, which is what the internet wants from everybody anyway. Oh, look, it's Joan Chen!

Anyway, I guess that's it. Oh wait, I guess I should make this Watchmen appropriate, so...

Those last two ladies are in Watchmen, you see. Relevance!

Salma Hayek...

...cures those daily blues.

What do you want from me? I had a shitty day.

Marilyn Monday - Blogger's Choice, Apparently

With no word from Marilyn regarding which actress should get the nod today, I'm going to go ahead and post a picture of someone I like, who I don't think Marilyn would choose herself...

Marilyn Monday - Kate Beckinsale

Marilyn Monday - Bettie Page

RIP.

25 Super Ladies

I am a male chauvinist. Either that, or I'm gay. I say that because this meme, started by Nathaniel R. and sent my way by Rick, was very difficult for me. The idea is that you simply pick your 25 favorite actresses, and I would have had a much easier time picking my 25 favorite actors. Make of all this what you will, but I do genuinely like all of the following actresses, even if "favorite" might be stretching it on occasion. And that's the end of the commentary on this post, because I have a cold.

I tag Dennis, Arbogast, Adam, Krauthammer and Fox.