My Own Marathon Movie Meme
1. Film you have probably seen the most times: I saw The Wizard of Oz annually on TV until I was in my teens and a few times since then. I saw the first Star Wars seven times in its original run, not counting theatrical rereleases or home video, so that's no doubt the winner for actual theatre viewings. Other contenders that I've lost track of how many times I've seen them include Superman: The Movie, Police Story, Aliens, The Terminator, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Young Frankenstein, The Muppet Movie, and the rest of the original Star Wars trilogy.
2. First R-rated movie you ever saw? Were your parents aware? Hmmmm...it might have been Police Academy...and yeah, my mom took me. Also of note was when I went with some high school buds to see Return of the Living Dead...I was under 17, and I was so afraid they were gonna card me.
3. Is there any particular film series/genre you collect (or plan to collect)? I collect Jackie Chan movies specifically, and kung fu flicks in general. I've also got lots of Mystery Science Theater 3000, if that counts, and lots of comic-book type movies (that just somehow happened)...also a few Godzilla flicks.
4. Most legitimately funny film moment: What sprang to mind first was the dart game between Frederick and Inspector Kemp in Young Frankenstein.
5. Cheapest, most lowbrow laugh: From Evolution...Harry (Orlando Jones) has just had an alien removed rectally ---
Dr. Reed : Can we get you anything?
Harry : (with childlike vulnerability) Ice cream... I want some ice cream.
Dr. Reed : Ice cream, ok, what flavor do you want?
Harry : It doesn't matter. It's for my ass.
6. Most profound scare: As a kid, my dad always took me to scary movies, even though he knew I had no stomach for them (then), and I almost suffocated listening to the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers from beneath my winter coat, using the sleeve during quiet scenes as a periscope...which was almost worse than really just watching it, since my mind was making horrible things out of all the squishy alien pod noises. I also was so frightened by some Ray Harryhausen demons in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger that I couldn't sleep. As a grownup, Ringu probably freaked me out the most...I told the story in LJ about waking up in the middle of the night and being afraid to get up to go to the bathroom.
7. Cheapest scare (and did you scream?): The monster (James Arness) is right behind a door when some guys open it to go look for him in The Thing from Another World. And I did jump...that one's kind of a "ha-ha, okay, you got me". But cheap would be something like the Samuel L. Jackson's big monologue scene in the middle of Deep Blue Sea...I probably did jump, and boy, was I surprised...but I felt irritated.
8. Most exciting film moment: For me, it was actually in Return of the Jedi...I rode the city bus to the theatre on opening day and got in line two hours early. That was my first real experience with hardcore fans, and we chatted about the movie and theorized about what it would be like, and it's hard to describe the excitement of a just-turned-14-year-old about to see the movie he'd been dreaming about for three years. The theatre was packed, and the fans applauded the first appearance of every hero, hissed the first appearance of every villain, and literally "ooh"ed and "aah"ed through the movie...remember, special effects like that had literally never been seen before. As you looked through the theatre, you could see the audience swaying in unison as they watched the speeder bike sequence.
The big moment, though, was when Lando was trying to fly clear of the second Death Star. It had been rumored that one of the main characters would die in the film, and that quite possibly it would be Lando (and actually, in early versions of the script, he did die, I believe)...plus, there was some foreshadowing in the movie with Han saying he had a funny feeling he wouldn't see the Millenium Falcon again. So audience tension was at a fever pitch as the Falcon twisted and banked, hurtling through the narrow service shaft on the Death Star, TIE fighters exploding behind it as they were overtaken by the flames from the station's core. There's a shot out the Falcon cockpit of flames encroaching on the ship...I was sweating, leaning forward...then an exterior shot of the Death Star's surface, showing the tunnel opening; and I and the audience literally gave a pained "NOOO!!!..." as a huge fireball erupted out of the shaft, only to be supplanted almost immediately by a tremendous cheer as the Falcon shot through the fireball to safety. It was truly awesome.
...and I'll give an honorable mention to the first Jurassic Park. I went to a midnight premiere of that, and the whole audience screamed and giggled and jumped and clutched each other like they were on a roller coaster. Oh, and to the moment you finally see the whole shark in comparison to the good ship Orca in Jaws.
9. Most violent/gory movie you've seen: It's not the most realistically gory, by any means, but I'd have to say the amazing Riki-Oh - The Story of Ricky. Torsos punched through, heads squashed flat with bare hands, a guy tying together his severed tendons so he can keep fighting, a guy strangling someone with his own intestines while his boss says "Attaway, Oliver...you've got a lot of guts!" Every time I thought, "well, that's it...there can't possibly be any different way left to mangle the human body", fifteen seconds later I'd be proven wrong as someone's rubbery jaw was run through with a fist.
10. Way, way, way too long a film for its own good: Heat. Would've been really great rather than just indulgent if it were an hour shorter, especially since clearly the entire raison d'etre for the film is to have a scene with De Niro and Pacino facing off over coffee.
11. Most Stoopidest Movie award winner (equally applicable to films you hated and films you love in spite of themselves): Stoopid-hate (though I do admit that I own it): Daredevil. Stoopid-love: Rumble in the Bronx (which features dune-buggy-drivin' street gangs in thoroughly outdated late 80's neon-colored "punk" wear roaming the mean streets of Vancouver until the climactic hovercraft chase. Yes, hovercraft chase).
12. Best romantic film moment: In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Li Mu Bai tells Yu Shu Lien, "I want to be with you... just like this. It gives me a sense of peace." And then they just sit quietly looking out into the wood and Shu Lien smiles ever so slightly; the final phone call in The Goodbye Girl; "I love you" - "I know" from The Empire Strikes Back. Honorable mention to Hicks demonstrating the use of a firearm to Ripley in Aliens.
13. Worst romantic film moment: Mark Harmon's mind-booglingly successful apology for toying with a woman's feelings and stringing her along with a marriage proposal...on a bet to win a painting...at the end of the execrable Worth Winning.
14. Deserved more hype: It got some eventually, but Memento. Also, Godzilla 2000 (no, that's not the American one)...and the late-90's trilogy of Gamera movies...I was, I think, understandably skeptical that a giant flying turtle(!) could be compelling, and I know no one will believe me when I say this, but those were some of the best monster movies I've ever seen, period.
15. Got way, way too much hype: Scooby-fuckin'-Doo or any other movie based on a stupid former TV series. Are we really that starved for ideas? ...And I hate to say it, 'cause it was a good film with some parts that I loved, but by the time I finally saw Forrest Gump it was a major disappointment relative to the talking-up it received.
16. Do you talk during movies? Like to go in groups or alone? While I think it's fun to give certain throwaway movies the Mystery Science Theatre treatment in a party situation, and will loudly join the blather with great zeal under those circumstances, woe be to the person who speaks to me during a film at a theatre, or a serious film I've never seen in general. It is one of my most horrifically over-the-top idiosyncrasies. I don't care if you sit next to me and react honestly and noisily but nonverbally by gasping, screaming, guffawing, weeping, snarling or snorting...I welcome that...I like to know other people in the room are into the movie, and I love to be with an attentive and appreciative audience of my pals, and I delight in dissecting the film afterwards over a drink. But the first time you say aloud what just happened, remark on what just happened, or, God help you, predict what will happen, I will burn through your body with my heat vision. Do not fill romantic moments or scary moments or even wildly improbable moments with uncomfortable, nervous chatter...I suspend my disbelief very easily, and I AM WATCHING THEM AND TRYING TO ENJOY THEM. Oh, and if you ever...EVER!...talk through a plot point and then turn to me and ask what's going on, the combined forces of Quincy, Dr. Watson, and every incarnation of CSI will not be able to piece together the fragments of your body.
17. Movie that made you cry: Ladyhawke; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; and, believe it or not, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
18. Movie that you've loved since you were a kid: Superman: The Movie.
19. Movie that you loved as a kid that you realized totally sucked as an adult: It's funny...I almost always remember things like that exactly as they are...music, effects, everything...I'm not sure why. But when I watched Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger as an adult, I realized that Patrick Wayne was kind of a bland Sinbad. I still love the movie, though.
20. Favorite movie snack(s): Popcorn and a Sprite...I don't normally really care for Sprite or even non-diet soda, but it's always what I want at the theatre. Goes well with popcorn, I guess, plus I seem to have a distant memory of getting it when I was really little. But even more importantly, Junior Mints, which I've started having to smuggle in myself, as so few theatres carry them now (most carry bags of those diz-GUSTing balls of leftover candy bars).
21. Pet film peeve: People talking around me, or bringing little kids to R-rated or clearly scary movies. I'm so picky about that and where I sit, as a matter of fact, that often when I go to the movies I'll go by myself, to the latest show on a Monday or Tuesday, to avoid the crowds.
21. Best date movie ever: Chocolat or Amélie, although Evolution is nonsensically mine and elliedee's special date movie.
22. Movie that you have not seen that you would not sit through for a million zillion dollars: Like jasonr_, I managed to dodge the bullet of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which I thought sounded utterly grotesque in its frou-frou pandering. I refuse to see something with a title as lousy as You've Got Mail, and though I'm a kung fu nut (or perhaps because I'm a kung fu nut), I avoid any and all American action films with people like Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme (yawn)...if I'm going to watch a movie that's devoid of plot, I at least want the fighting to be good.
23. Best music-related moment in a movie: There are too many in Superman: The Movie to count, but some include the first reveal of the planet Krypton, young Clark racing with a train, an old-fashioned woodwind riff as Superman leaves Lois' apartment, the entire section from the time Superman is freed from the Kryptonite until when he turns back the globe, and of course, the introduction sequence that leads into the opening credits exploding onto the screen. (Honorable mention to the first time the James Bond theme gets played in each of those films.)
24. Flat-out worst movie you've seen: The Musketeer and Johnny Mnemonic are certainly up there (down there). The only movie I've ever walked out of was A Kiss Before Dying, in which Sean Young plays two different characters, but does it so ineptly, I thought, "why is Sean Young's character wearing that awful wig now?"
25. Guiltiest of guilty pleasures: If it's not Godzilla flicks or old school kung fu, it's might be the Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movies...Golden Voyage of Sinbad is probably the first movie I can remember ever going to, and it's still one of my favorites...colorful, fantastic, melodramatic and totally magical.
