Courtesy of the always entertaining maestro of Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, my terminally late (-- it's OK, my doctor gave me a note and everything) answers to Sister Clodagh's Superficially Spiritual, Ambitiously Agnostic Last-Rites-of-Spring Movie Quiz.
1) Favorite movie featuring nuns
2) Second favorite John Frankenheimer movie
3) William Bendix or Scott Brady?
Nobody loves William Bendix.
Nobody but me.
4) What movie, real or imagined, would you stand in line six hours to see? Have you ever done so in real life?
Oh, say, if Joe Dante ever got it into his head to do a remake of THEM!, sure ... For realsies, it wasn't quite six hours, but the line to see The Empire Strikes Back was long enough but worth it.
5) Favorite Mitchell Leisen movie
Well, I've only seen two, Kitty and Lady in the Dark, and though I love pretty much everyone involved, cast wise (Paulette Goddard, Ray Milland, Ginger Rogers), neither really did a whole lot for me.
6) Ann Savage or Peggy Cummins?
In a fight? I think Savage could take her. Three rounds. Tops. On screen? Cummins. So let's call that a push.
7) First movie you remember seeing as a child
A matinee double-feature of Disney's Blackbeard's Ghost and The Gnome-Mobile. Can't remember which was top-billed.
8) What moment in a movie that is not a horror movie made you want to bolt from the theater screaming?
Not from a theater, but, the scene in The Naked Prey (1966), where the natives torture and kill Cornel Wilde's hunting party, especially the native levy, who was coated and cocooned in clay and then cooked alive and crushed as the coating contracted in the heat, had me screaming "THAT AIN"T RIGHT!" at the top of my lungs. That scene still gives me the drizzles just thinking about it, and is the reason why I will never, ever watch that movie again.
9) Richard Widmark or Robert Mitchum?
Who gets to tell the other that they didn't win? Not me, brother. Next.
10) Best movie Jesus
Alan Arbus as "Jesse" in Greaser's Palace. Not trying to be a wise-ass, here, either. I dug the hell out of that movie. "If you feel you're healed."
11) Silliest straight horror film that you’re still fond of
Considering all the clout behind the camera for something tagged as "Thee Monster Movie" Prophecy turned out to be pretty darned hysterical and I love it unconditionally.
12) Emily Blunt or Sally Gray?
13) Favorite cinematic Biblical spectacular
I watch the network broadcast of this religiously every Easter. The only thing I do do religiously around Easter. Even invented my own drinking game for it.
14) Favorite cinematic moment of unintentional humor
Again, from Frankenheimer's Prophecy, when the giant mutant bear attacks the family of campers and punches the kid stuck in a sleeping bag, sending him flying into a rock, which causes him to explode in a shower of down filling. Look for yourselves if you dare....
16) Most effective faith-affirming movie
I got more from Rufus the Cat's 30-second speech about keeping the faith in Disney's The Rescuers than a decade of Sunday School indoctrination.
17) Movie that makes the best case for agnosticism
18) Favorite song and/or dance sequence from a musical
It does to count! That's a musical, and they're just dancing with cars to Booker T. and the MG's. And if you'd like a more traditional answer, I love that part in Singing in the Rain. You know, that part between the opening and closing credits. Loved that part.
19) Third favorite Howard Hawks movie
20) Clara Bow or Jean Harlow?
Harlow is great but wins this by default. Haven't had the pleasure of seeing Bow in action yet.
21) Movie most recently seen in the theater? On DVD/Blu-ray/Streaming?
Theater: The Avengers (Four times and counting...)
DVD: The Great Texas Dynamite Chase
Blu-ray: N/A
Streaming: Shack Out on 101
22) Most unlikely good movie about religion
I believe in Kowalski's God. I feel secure and humbled knowing that after all his trials and tribulations, tempered by the desert heat, shunning prophets and false prophets alike, Kowalski died for all our sins, and that he is still out there, somewhere, foot on the floor, going hellbent toward another, endless horizon. So, when next you face a moral dilemma or a crisis of conscience, just ask yourself: What Would Kowalski Do?
23) Phil Silvers or Red Skelton?
24) “Favorite” Hollywood scandal
Favorite probably isn't the right word, but, apparently, while on location filming Call of the Wild, stars Loretta Young and Clark Gable had a fling with one of those pesky nine-months later results. (Gable was married at the time, Young was between the first of three.) And fearing for both their careers, and being a staunch Catholic (-- unless we're talking about adultery and divorce, which she already had partook at least once on both counts and would do again on the later), Young hid the pregnancy, rather ridiculously, even so far as to having a press conference in bed covered in blankets to hide the evidence and dispel the rumors. When the baby was born, a girl, she was clandestinely placed in an orphanage by Young's mother. Never fear, when the girl neared the age of two, Young "adopted" her back, apparently the plan all along. Alas, genetics kinda gave it away, especially her father's wing-flap ears, and the poor girl would go through life as one of Hollywood's worst kept secrets. A secret her mother, being a staunch Catholic, would deny and surgically hide (those aforementioned ears went under the knife and were pinned back) until a final, private confrontation, where, after vomiting, Young admitted to the daughter that she was nothing more than a walking "mortal sin." Young would eventually make the knowledge public, posthumously, of course, in her autobiography. And this kind of action, putting a child through this, for that, is the reason I will continue to poke organized religion, any organized religion, with a sharp stick it so thoroughly deserves.
25) Best religious movie (non-Christian)
26) The King of Cinema: King Vidor, King Hu or Henry King? (Thanks, Peter)
*ahem* I'm sorry. Couldn't hear you over the big, roaring monkey. What were those choices again? King who?
27) Name something modern movies need to relearn how to do that American or foreign classics had down pat
Slow down, let the actors hit their mark, hold the camera steady, let special effects enhance your film, not define it, and stop trying to set records for the number of edits per minute per movie.
28) Least favorite Federico Fellini movie
Sadly, I've only seen La Dolce Vita and enjoyed it thoroughly.
29) The Three Stooges (2012)—yes or no?
Nah. But, as they say, your mileage may vary.
30) Mary Wickes or Patsy Kelly?
31) Best movie-related conspiracy theory
Three Men and a Ghost.
32) Your candidate for most misunderstood or misinterpreted movie
It's not about the car, folks. See answer to 22.
33) Movie that made you question your own belief system (religious or otherwise)
I didn't think it was possible to find the actual "worst movie ever made." I always figured that no matter how far you dug into the primordial slime in the rental racks, YouTube holes, or the depths of Netflix instant, there would always be something even worse out there, waiting for my cine-masochistic tendencies. That is, I did, until I saw this: the perfect balance of brain-addling tedium, stock-footage abuse, asinine characters, country-line dancing, flatulence jokes, and, oddly enough, no werewolves (-- sorry, a red-tinted POV shot does not count). There might be something out there that's worse than this, but I don't know if I actually want to find it let alone see it.
2 comments:
Great answers! And as you have done this, now I've got no excuse to not claim a late pass instead of waiting for the next quiz.
Love your answer for #22 and #24. Well done!
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