Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Another Quiz From Sergio Leone And The Infield Fly Rule

The great Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule is featuring another of his famous movie quizzes. Click here to check it out, scroll down to read my responses.

MS ELIZABETH HALSEY'S ROTTEN APPLE, HOT FOR (BAD) TEACHER SUMMER MOVIE QUIZ

1) Name a line from a movie that should've become a catch phrase but didn't
"I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks."

Not exactly a catch phrase, but it's the answer to many of life's more difficult questions.

2) Your second favorite William Wellman film
My favorite is Battleground, one of the best war movies ever made. And while he made great movies such as The Ox-Bow Incident and The Public Enemy, my second favorite William Wellman movie is Wings, the silent Oscar winner starring Clara Bow and a bunch of airplanes.

3) Viggo Mortensen or Javier Bardem?
Like them both, but I think Javier Bardem is a national treasure.

4) Favorite first line from a movie
"Saigon. Shit. I'm still only in Saigon."

5) The most disappointing/superfluous “director’s cut” or otherwise extended edition of a movie you’ve seen?
Everything George Lucas has ever done to Star Wars

6) What is the movie you feel was most enhanced by a variant version?
Possibly Orson Welles' Touch of Evil. But what I really want is a Blu-Ray with all five versions of TV's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

7) Eve Arden or Una Merkel?
Eve Arden and it's not close. Una Merkel's appeal baffles me.

8) What was the last DVD/Blu-ray/streaming film you saw? The last theatrical screening?
DVD? Season one of television's Lost in Space. Streaming? Amazon Prime's series Bosch. Theatrical? The Imitation Game

9) Second favorite Michael Mann film
Thief (my favorite being The Last of the Mohicans)

10) Name a favorite director’s most egregious misstep
Even though it grossed more money than any movie of the silent era, established once and for all the commercial and artistic viability of the feature film, and influenced everything that came after it, I consider the second half of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation the most blinkered, ill-conceived and pernicious piece of film ever made. And not just through the politically-correct lenses of 21st century glasses, at the time, too, when it was considered so inflammatory, it was banned outright in several U.S. cities. (I've written at length about it here.)

11) Alain Delon or Marcello Mastroianni?
Marcello Mastroianni, for and La Dolce Vita.

12) Jean-Luc Godard famously stated that “all you need for a movie is a girl and a gun.” Name one other essential element that you’d add to the mix.
Wit.

13) Favorite one-sheet that you own, or just your favorite one-sheet (please provide a link to an image if you can)
Only one sheet I own is of Key Largo, which I bought in a bookstore in Key Largo, Florida, twenty-five years ago.

14) Catherine Spaak or Daniela Giordano?
Honestly, I have no idea who either of these people are.

15) Director who most readily makes you think “Whatever happened to…?”
Pete Wilson, whose student film Das Volkswagen featured a supporting performance by the Mythical Monkey

16) Now that some time has passed… The Interview, yes or no?
Haven't seen it, nor am I likely to see it, for no other reason than that it looks stupid, and not in a fun way.

17) Second favorite Alberto Cavalcanti film
Who?

18) Though both displayed strong documentary influence in their early films, Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog have focused heavily on the documentary form late in their filmmaking careers. If he had lived, what kind of films do you think Rainer Werner Fassbinder, their partner in the German New Wave of the ‘70s, would be making now?
Selfies on his phone? I have no idea. But it would be a rare director indeed who would be making better movies in his seventies than he made in his thirties. It's a young-ish man's (woman's) medium.

19) Name a DVD you’ve replaced with a Blu-ray. Name another that you decided not to replace.
Replaced DVD with a Blu-Ray? Citizen Kane. Didn't replace? About 800 others.

20) Don Rickles or Rodney Dangerfield?
Going to see Rickles in New York in two weeks. That's what, twelve times? I've even been personally insulted by Rickles. Rickles Rickles Rickles.

Although let's be honest, he can't act a lick.

21) Director who you wish would hurry up and make another film
Buster Keaton.

22) Second favorite Michael Bay film
Do people honest to God have a favorite Michael Bay film?

23) Name a movie that, for whatever reason, you think of as your own
I love lots of movies, I identify with many of them, I can quote some of them from beginning to end. But I don't think of any of them as "mine." I've never understood the tendency of some fans to become proprietary about the object of their admiration, throwing sharp elbows to keep newcomers at bay. I am a movie evangelist. Come one, come all!

24) Your favorite movie AI (however loosely you care to define the term)
Hal 9000

25) Your favorite existing DVD commentary track
Robinson Crusoe on Mars where Paul Mantee explains how "the monkey never lied to me." I get the impression everyone else in Hollywood did.

26) The double bill you’d program on the last night of your own revival theater
What, we're saying my revival theater has gone belly up? Before I've even opened one?

My goodbyes mostly resemble the ending of The Horse's Mouth, Alec Guinness's brilliant comedy about a half-mad artist — which is to say, I drift away on the tide while involved in another nutty project. (Lost in Space, anyone?)

But the best goodbyes involve saying hello to a beautiful redhead — the ending of Holiday and The Quiet Man being two of my favorites.

27) Catherine Deneuve or Claudia Cardinale?
I think Catherine Deneuve is a better actress but Claudia Cardinale was in more movies that I actually watch — i.e., The Professionals and Once Upon a Time in the West.

7 comments:

Who Am Us Anyway? said...

Name two great examples of under-appreciated rock & roll that the Monkey's encyclopedic and definitive quiz answers FIRST called IMMEDIATELY to mind (no fair over-thinking this thing).

(1) Who? The Who? Of course, and with Keith Moon Unleashed as it Were.

(2) Mine? You dare to ask me what movie i think of as MINE?? You stoopid toad! I ought to beat your brain out! No movie is I me mine! PS: "Idiots ... I am surrounded by idiots ..."

Mythical Monkey said...

I always loved "I Me Mine." My little brother and I got Let It Be when it came out -- I guess we were 8 and 9 -- and we played it until the grooves melted.

As for the Who, I didn't think there was a Who song I didn't know, but you have enlightened me. I'll have to ask my brother, who has absorbed the Who into his pores, whether he's heard it (I'll go out on a limb and say he has -- he knows them the way I know the Beatles).

mister muleboy said...

The "correct" answers to this poll have been provided by Sergio. . . .

Anonymous said...

Hello, Monkey!

Enjoyed the post - if you haven't seen the gorgeous, egregiously-overdue, remastering of The Quiet Man on Blu-ray...well, as you only mentioned one DVD you replaced, you may concur, as I did, that you have never seen the film before. The only transfer ever used for all previous releases was the same one they spun the VHS copies from in the '80s! And it looks like it! Easily the worst picture quality of any major studio picture in my collection. But not any more...Wow!

Blu-ray.com has some jaw dropping screen captures if you weren't aware of this already.

Cheers -

Jim

Mythical Monkey said...

the gorgeous, egregiously-overdue, remastering of The Quiet Man

Now that I would like to see. Katie-Bar-The-Door and I saw a really nice print of The Quiet Man at the AFI-Silver a while back and it was like watching a movie I'd never seen before. And then later I again saw the old fuzzy print you always see and it was a real comedown.

One of my all-time favorite movies, I'll definitely check out the Blu-Ray. Thanks for the tip.

Who Am Us Anyway? said...

I come back to re-reread this post every once in a while, and I'm always glad when I do -- there's always a "new" witticism or reference to discover that I missed on the first 3 readings

Mythical Monkey said...

And I apologize for not posting in what is now a long while. I sent the first part of my novel to my agent and she really dug it and demanded more chapters as soon as they're ready. So I'm grinding.

But I swear there will be a long post on September 15th, the 50th anniversary of the network premiere of Lost in Space.