Another Quiz From Sergio Leone And The Infield Fly Rule

Missed this one a while back. You're welcome to play along, of course:

Professor Birdman's Wing-Flapping, Plumage-Flaunting, Beak-Busting Thanksgiving Weekend Movie Quiz

1) Most obnoxious movie you’ve ever seen

Obnoxious is defined in Merriam-Webster as "odiously or disgustingly objectionable : highly offensive"

By that definition, the all-time most "obnoxious" movie for me is Electrocuting an Elephant from 1903, in which a real live circus elephant was electrocuted for Thomas Edison's cameras because apparently it didn't occur to anyone not to.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was not amused.

2) Favorite oddball pairing of actors

Robert Conrad and Michael Dunn on The Wild Wild West television series. In ten unforgettable episodes, the 3'10" Dunn — an Oscar- and Tony-nominated actor — played the nefarious Dr. Miguelito Loveless across from Conrad — a handsome athletic actor who famously performed all his own stunts. For two characters who are busy trying to kill each other, they had a weirdly warm, affectionate rapport.

By the way, if you're only going to see one pairing of Dunn and Conrad, watch "The Night of the Surreal McCoy" in which Loveless moves back and forth between paintings hanging on a gallery wall to rob a museum of priceless jewels. Surreal is right.

3) Which movie would you have paid to see remade by Ken Russell?

Tommy — although it's unforgettable in its bombastic, excessive way, it does a real disservice to the music of the Who.

Oh, wait, that's not the question. I read it as which Ken Russell movie would I pay to see remade, but you mean which movie would I like to see remade by Ken Russell.

So, which movie would I want to see remade as an exercise in bombastic excess? The answer is a very easy "none."

4) Emma Stone or Margot Robbie?

Emma Stone for Easy A

5) Which member of Monty Python are you?

In terms of preferring to work behind the scenes, Terry Gilliam. In terms of being a fan of travel and Ernest Hemingway, Michael Palin. In terms of what makes me laugh, John Cleese
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6) Which movie would you have paid to see remade by Vincent Minnelli?

Minnelli was, in my book, a merely competent director of Hollywood musicals and not much more. But off the top of my head, Minnelli in his prime maybe could have improved on the very overrated La La Land — he might have insisted on better songs and better choreography. And a tighter story.

7) Franco Nero or Gian Maria Volonte?

Franco Nero, but I'm not going to fight anybody over it.

8) Your favorite Japanese monster movie

Gojira (which is to say, the original Japanese-language cut of the 1954 Godzilla) — although the only one I ever saw in the theater was Godzilla versus the Smog Monster in 1972.

9) Which movie would you have paid to see remade by Stanley Kubrick?

Artificial Intelligence: AI which of course was his baby. Steven Spielberg handled it fine, I suppose, but if ever a movie demanded Kubrick's chilly elegance, this would be it.

Otherwise, Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith. Kubrick had a true appreciation of madness and institutional evil. The director of Dr Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and The Shining could have handled Anakin Skywalker's transformation into Darth Vader with his eyes closed.

Of course, anything would have been better than that hot mess starring Hayden Christensen.

10) Hanna Schygulla or Barbara Sukowa?

I don't really care one way or the other, but I more readily recognize the name Hanna Schygulla, so her.

11) Name a critically admired movie that you hate

The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

12) Which movie would you have paid to see remade by Elia Kazan?

Nothing. To me, his movies always have a hammy, stagey quality to them that only the great acting of Marlon Brando could transcend. Who needs hammy-stagey now that Brando is dead.

But if I must pick something, then I'll go with any one of the Hallmark Christmas movies, which are by design hammy and stagey.

13) Better or worse: Disney comedies (1955-1975) or Elvis musicals?

I prefer the Disney comedies of 1955-1975 to any of the Elvis musicals, no matter how much I like Elvis Presley's music.

14) Which movie would you have paid to see remade by Alfred Hitchcock?

I have read that Hitchcock wanted to make The War of the Worlds after he did The 39 Steps but couldn't secure the rights. Would love to see that. I'm sure it would have been much more like Spielberg's version than the 1953 version, but would have been much closer to The 39 Steps than either of them — a lone man running across the moors while a giant Martian ship chases him.

Otherwise, Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones. Instead of the story of a whiny teenager cock-blocked by the Force, Hitchcock could have done a psychological thriller about an ace pilot who dips into the dark side of the Force out of expediency and lives to regret it.

15) Ryan Gosling or Channing Tatum?

Ryan Gosling — is this a trick question?

16) Bad performance in a movie you otherwise like/love

Bruce Cabot in the original King Kong — possibly the worst acting of all-time in a classic movie

17) Which movie would you have paid to see remade by Howard Hawks?

From 1932's Scarface through 1959's Rio Bravo — with Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Red River, The Thing (From Another World) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in between — the best director working. Certainly my favorite.

I've read that he bought the rights to The Sun Also Rises but couldn't lick it and wound up selling the rights to Darryl F. Zanuck who made an okay but not great picture starring Tyrone Power and Ava Gardner. Hawks directing The Sun Also Rises might have been a hell of a film.

He also wanted to do a James Bond movie, but couldn't get the rights.

Otherwise, Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace. If anyone could have added some humor and forward momentum to that turgid mess, it would have been Hawks. I am convinced he would have changed Anakin Skywalker from a toddler to a mid-20s hot-shot pilot out of the mold of Han Solo. Having made several movies about pilots (the best of which is the Cary Grant classic Only Angels Have Wings from 1939), he would have turned the movie into a humorous meditation on what it means to be a professional flyboy in difficult times.

At the very least, though, he would have ditched Jar-Jar Binks, because Hawks wasn't an idiot.

18) Tippi Hedren or Kim Novak?

Kim Novak for Vertigo and Bell Book and Candle, although for hanging out, Tippi Hedren anytime, anywhere.

19) Best crime movie remake

The Maltese Falcon (1941) followed by Ocean's 11 (2001).

20) Which movie would you have paid to see remade by Preston Sturges?

Laughs with a raging undercurrent of blistering social commentary. I would like to see what he might have done with near-misses such as Wag the Dog, The American President and Bulworth, which were neither as funny nor as insightful as they could have been.

Or maybe All The President's Men as a screwball farce, which is probably closer to the truth of it.

21) West Side Story (the movie), yes or no?

Overlong and wildly uneven. I respect the artistry of the dance sequences, but I think the acting is pretty atrocious.

22) Which movie would you have paid to see remade by Luchino Visconti?

Don't know his work well enough to comment.

23) What was the last movie you saw, theatrically and/or on DVD/Blu-ray/streaming?
Theatrically? Star Wars: The Last Jedi — thumbs up. Thought Luke Skywalker doing the brooding Achilles in self-imposed exile thing was great, and Mark Hamill finally got to show off the acting chops that makes his animated Joker so great. Plus, I think Daisy Ridley is a great action hero(ine).

DVD/Blu-Ray — After The Thin Man on New Years Day, of course. A classic.

Streaming — The Muppet Christmas Carol. We had never seen it. Meh.

24) Brewster McCloud or O.C. and Stiggs?

How about neither? Is neither good for you?

25) Which movie would you have paid to see remade by Luis Bunuel?

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas — Terry Gilliam and Johnny Depp tried so very hard to capture the anarchic spirit of the novel and cranked out a tedious dud. I think Buñuel captured better than anybody the paradox that the more seriously society takes itself, the more ridiculous and surreal it becomes.

26) Best nature-in-revolt movie

I don't know — Jaws? Not really my thing

27) Best Rene Auberjoinois performance (film or TV)

Star Trek Deep Space Nine

28) Which movie would you have paid to see remade by Ingmar Bergman?

Any of Woody Allen's Ingmar Bergman knock-offs — e.g., Interiors, Stardust Memories, Crimes and Misdemeanors, etc.

29) Best movie with a bird or referencing a bird in its title?

Duck Soup or The Maltese Falcon

30) Burt Lancaster or Michael Keaton?

Burt Lancaster. Again, this feels like a trick question.

31) In what way have the recent avalanche of allegations unearthed in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal changed the way you look at movies and the artists who make them?

It will make me view careers differently, and all those awards Weinstein successfully lobbied for differently, but the movies are the movies.

32) In 2017 which is “better,” TV or the movies?

Television, and it wasn't close.