Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule Revisited

One of my favorite bloggers, Dennis Cozzalio of Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, has seemingly gone silent. It's been nearly two years since his last post which means no more of those semi-annual movie quizzes I always enjoyed. So in lieu of something new, I decided to revisit a few questions from old quizzes I'd answer differently this time around.

In the order I rediscovered the questions:

A Clockwork Orange — yes or no?

I avoided answering the question the first time around — too many fans of Kubrick read my blog. This time, I will unequivocally say No. I saw it back in the day, saw it again at a revival theater with Katie-Bar-The-Door, then watched it yet again for this blog, and found myself checking my watch every time, begging for it to end. I feel that way about every movie Stanley Kubrick directed after 2001: A Space Odyssey (conversely, I love his movies up through 2001. Did something happen? Did acclaim happen? Did he no longer feel in any way compelled to engage his audience?)

Favorite actress of the silent era

Mary Pickford, followed closely by Louise Brooks. Three to see starring Mary Pickford: The Poor Little Rich Girl, Stella Maris, My Best Girl.

Favorite first line from a movie

Is a guitar chord an opening line? Because the opening chord of A Hard Day's Night sucks me into the movie every time.

Other contenders: William Holden's opening monologue while floating face down in a swimming pool (Sunset Boulevard), Julie Andrews singing "The hills are alive ..." (The Sound of Music), George C. Scott's rousing speech in Patton, Jack Nicholson's cynical world-weary introduction in Chinatown ("All right, Curly, enough's enough. You can't eat the Venetian blinds. I just had 'em installed on Wednesday."), the clop-clopping of the coconuts in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the voice over in Apocalypse Now ("Saigon. Shit. I'm still only in Saigon."), the "Chapter One" business in Manhattan, Danny DeVito's voice over in L.A. Confidential, Sam Elliott's voice over in The Big Lebowski ...

Henry Cavill or Armie Hammer?

When I first answered this question, I'd seen Guy Ritchie's version of The Man From UNCLE once and it hadn't made much of an impression on me. Since then, I've seen it several times and it's on a short list of my favorite Guy Ritchie movies. And given that Guy Ritchie is on a short list of my favorite active film directors, that's saying something.

Of the two, I prefer Henry Cavill and, given the self-destruction of Armie Hammer's career, he's the only one I'm ever likely to see on the big screen again. But I liked them both in UNCLE. A good team, and Hammer had good chemistry with Alicia Vikander.



By the way, I have a feeling Ritchie's recent effort Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre was originally intended to be the sequel to The Man from UNCLE but after holding off for years, Ritchie finally rewrote it with a new cast of characters (Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza) because he knew he'd never be able to make an UNCLE sequel with Armie Hammer. Pity, but I get it. It's hard to sell a movie these days starring a guy with a cannibal fetish ...

Elizabeth Debicki or Alicia Vikander?

Again, a Man from UNCLE question. Alicia Vikander was the political football in the middle of the scrum between Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin; Elizabeth Debicki was the villain. Alicia Vikander has grown on me and I think she was great in UNCLE, so I'm going with her. But Debicki makes a good femme fatale.

Second favorite Wong Kar-wai movie

My favorite is In the Mood for Love so my second favorite would be Chungking Express. If you haven't seen In the Mood for Love, I highly recommend it.

Johnny Flynn or Timothée Chalamet?

When this question was first asked, I'd never heard of either of them but since then Timothée Chalamet has been in Dune, Little Women, A Rainy Day in New York and Lady Bird, an impressive body of work.

Name the last 10 movies you've seen, either theatrically or at home

I'll limit it to the last ten movies I saw for the first time (otherwise, you're going to get TCM's Alfred Hitchcock marathon).

In reverse order, Francois Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player (which I saw immediately after reading the source novel Down There by David Goodis) (thumbs up), Pineapple Express (thumbs up, after avoiding it for years), Guy Ritchie's The Covenant (thumbs up), A Star Is Born (2018) (thumbs up, especially Lady Gaga's singing), Enola Holmes 2 (thumbs up — a sequel to the pandemic era Enola Holmes, which was my favorite movie of a year with no movies), Barbie (very enthusiastic thumbs up), An American Dream (based on a mediocre Norman Mailer novel) (thumbs most decidedly down), Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (thumbs up — love me some Mission Impossible), Oppenheimer (another very enthusiastic thumbs up), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (thumbs up).

Favorite movie location you've visited in person

Most recently, the John Wick steps at the base of Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre, Paris, France (if you've seen John Wick Chapter Four, you know what I mean.) Unlike John Wick, though, I had the good sense to go down them instead of trying to go up. They are seemingly endless.

I always get a kick out seeing a location in a movie that I recognize from real life ...

Emma Stone or Margot Robbie?

At the time, Emma Stone was a lock, but since then, Margot Robbie has made Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Barbie. She's now ahead in my book.

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

High Road to China, starring Tom Selleck and Bess Armstrong. I've written about China before — pardon me if I quote myself:

A flapper-heiress (Armstrong as Eve Tozer) has to find her long-lost father or lose her fortune, so she hires a drunk flying ace (Selleck as Patrick O'Malley) to squire her hither and yon, from Egypt to Afghanistan to Nepal and finally to China, dodging bombs and bullets every step of the way.

As with all good romances, the ending is bittersweet — Evie gets the money but by then doesn't care. O'Malley gets the money, too, but probably never cared. In the meantime, they've each lost the only things they ever really loved — him, his airplane; her, the fantasy of a father who would give up his thrill-seeking wanderlust if only she could make him notice her.

They damn near miss out on each other, too — a few awkward words, a pat on the knee, and the promise of a long, uphill walk back to Nepal, before a deep breath, a steeled nerve and a long-overdue declaration of intent. To allow yourself to fall in love when everyone you've ever cared about has up and flown away or spiraled nose down into the sod requires an act of courage that by comparison makes fighting warlords and German flying aces a stroll in the park.

This sort of thing was Howard Hawks's meat — think Only Angels Have Wings, To Have and Have Not and even Man's Favorite Sport. His men are no nonsense professionals, facing death on a daily basis with grace and good humor. And his leading ladies — so uniquely tough and independent they were dubbed "Hawksian women" — time and time again prove to be equal partners in whatever task is at hand. I think he would have had a field day with this sort of thing, one last great movie to cap a career full of them.

Okay, that's it. Hopefully, there will be more Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule in the future, but if not, it was a helluva lot of fun while it lasted.