Professor Larry Gopnik's Post Hanukah, Pre-Christmas, Post-Schrodinger, Pre-Apocalypse SLIFR Holiday Movie Quiz

Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule is hosting its famous semi-whenever-he-wants-to-do-it movie quiz this week. The questions are in bold, my answers are not.

1) Favorite unsung holiday film
Scrooge? Holiday? It's A Wonderful Life? Eh, click on this link to check out my list of Christmas movies you may have forgotten are Christmas movies.

2) Name a movie you were surprised to have liked/loved
Mostly, it's television that takes me by surprise—I don't search it out, it searches me out. In the last year or so we've discovered Modern Family, Bunheads, Castle, Elementary, Almost Human, The Blacklist, Inspector George Gently, Endeavour and The Crazy Ones. And Bunheads has already been cancelled!

3) Ned Sparks or Edward Everett Horton?
Horton, for everything from the Ernst Lubitsch movies to the Astaire-Rogers pictures to the narration of Fractured Fairy Tales on The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

4) Sam Peckinpah's Convoy—yes or no?
Oh, lord no.

5) What contemporary actor would best fit into a popular, established genre of the past
I'd like to see George Clooney and Amy Adams do a classic 1930s era screwball comedy.

6) Favorite non-disaster movie in which bad weather is a memorable element of the film’s atmosphere
The Thing From Another World, unless an alien invasion counts as a disaster, then Key Largo. I'm also a big fan of the rain in Red Dust.

7) Second favorite Luchino Visconti movie
Notwithstanding The Leopard's reputation, I don't even have a favorite Luchino Visconti movie.

8) What was the last movie you saw theatrically? On DVD/Blu-ray?
At the theater? Harold Lloyd in The Freshman at the AFI-Silver with live musical accompaniment. On DVD? After the Thin Man.

9) Why do you react the way you do when someone eloquently or not-so-eloquently attacks one of your favorite movies? (Question courtesy of Patrick Robbins)
Mostly, I think it over and either modify my opinion or not. Otherwise, polite indifference, since I am (1) polite and (2) indifferent. Not much for argument, friendly or not, unless you're paying me the going hourly rate.

10) Joan Blondell or Glenda Farrell?
As an actress, Blondell. It's said though that Farrell could speak 400 words in 40 seconds which considering how quiet I am could come in real handy at a dinner party.

11) Movie star of any era you’d most like to take camping
You couldn't make me go camping at gunpoint.

12) Second favorite George Cukor movie
My favorite is Holiday, so The Philadelphia Story.

13) Your top 10 of 2013 (feel free to elaborate!)
No Top 10, but here are my two favorite plays.

14) Name a movie you loved (or hated) upon first viewing, to which you eventually returned and had more or less the opposite reaction
Hated Apocalypse Now when I saw it as a callow eighteen year old then grew to love it. Loved The Big Chill the first time I saw it, then gradually realized I love the soundtrack and hated the characters.

15) Movie most in need of a deluxe Blu-ray makeover
Heck if I know.

16) Alain Delon or Marcello Mastroianni?
Mastroianni for 8 1/2.

17) Your favorite opening sequence, credits or no credits (provide link to clip if possible)
My favorite is Katie-Bar-The-Door's imitation of the beginning of Once Upon A Time In The West.

18) Director with the strongest run of great movies
Currently, Quentin Tarantino. All-time? Hitchcock, Hawks and Wilder.

19) Is elitism a good/bad/necessary/inevitable aspect of being a cineaste?
Labels like "cineaste" give me a headache, and "elitism" is often just an excuse for bad manners.

20) Second favorite Tony Scott film
I liked Crimson Tide, but that's really about it.

21) Favorite movie made before you were born that you only discovered this year. Where and how did you discover it?
The Big Clock, a 1948 film noir starring Charles Laughton, Ray Milland, George Macready and Elsa Lanchester, remade with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman as No Way Out. I had it confused in my head with the non-musical Judy Garland movie, The Clock, which is fine but nothing to write a blog post about. Saw The Big Clock with Mister Muleboy at the AFI-Silver where we had met to see a free preview of Last Vegas and wisely chose to see this instead. One of the highlights of the year, not just movie highlights, highlights.

22) Actor/actress you would most want to see in a Santa suit, traditional or skimpy
Not on point, but I found this picture of Mary Pickford I like.

23) Video store or streaming?
There are no video stores around here anymore, but I do prefer to check out movies and TV shows from the library.

24) Best/favorite final film by a noted director or screenwriter
A popular meme going around the internet the point of which I admit I don't get.

25) Monica Vitti or Anna Karina?
I can take them or leave them, as a pair or individually.

26) Name a worthy movie indulgence you’ve had to most strenuously talk friends into experiencing with you. What was the result?
Strenuously? The Monkey does nothing strenuously. But I did ask Katie-Bar-The-Door and Mister Muleboy and his bride Michele to see some silent movies with me and the result was three converts.

27) The movie made by your favorite filmmaker (writer, director, et al) that you either have yet to see or are least familiar with among all the rest
Is Howard Hawks my favorite? Maybe. Apparently he made something called Red Line 7000 in 1965 I'd never even heard of until today.

28) Favorite horror movie that is either Christmas-oriented or has some element relating to the winter holiday season in it
Scrooge—a Christmas musical with Albert Finney and a variety of ghosts.

29) Name a prop or other piece of movie memorabilia you’d most like to find with your name on it under the Christmas tree
Mister Muleboy and Bellotoot once gave me a replica of the Maltese Falcon. Hard to beat that.

30) Best holiday gift the movies could give to you to carry into 2014
Free popcorn for life?

Eleanor Parker (1922-2013)

All the newspaper headlines today noting Eleanor Parker's passing trumpet her role in The Sound of Music, which is a pity, I think, since it's probably the worst showcase for her talent. Better to take a look at her Oscar-nominated performances in Caged, Detective Story and Interrupted Melody. Or how about her wicked supporting performance in Frank Sinatra's The Man With The Golden Arm? Or for that matter, The Naked Jungle with Charlton Heston where she at least looks super hot.

Anyway, some photos.

Ten Things I Liked (And One Thing I Didn't) About The Stage Revival Of Shakespeare's Macbeth Starring Ethan Hawke And Currently Playing At The Lincoln Center In New York

1. Because I am a world-renowned critic, the tickets were free. Free is my favorite number.

2. New York City is one of my favorite places on Earth, especially at this time of year when all the store windows are decorated for Christmas.

3. The Vivian Beaumont Theater at the Lincoln Center is a great place to watch a play. Not a bad seat in the house.

4. Instead of a long line to check coats there, they have individual lockers, and they are free. Again, free is my favorite number. I have decided all theaters should have free coat lockers.

5. I expect the work of the playwright, a fellow named William Shakespeare, to be a staple of the theater for generations to come.

6. Ethan Hawke was wonderful in the Before film trilogy (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight). All three are available on DVD.

7. The show on Tuesday started at 7 p.m. instead of the usual 8, which meant we were out in time to stop by Starbucks on our walk back to the hotel and still watch Modern Family reruns in our room.

8. A side trip to the New York Historical Society is well-worth your time. If you've never been to New York, I wouldn't put it at the top of the list, but if you go there often and want to see something otherwise overlooked, this a good bet. I'd recommend you make a lunch reservation in the excellent restaurant (go for the pasta dishes), see some exhibits in the morning, take a break, then some more in the afternoon.

9. Also highly recommended: Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in Waiting For Godot. Hilariously, movingly brilliant.

These two heavyweights of stage and film are longtime friends (McKellen officiated at Stewart's wedding) and the easy rapport shows. If you haven't seen it or read it, the title tells you the plot, but the play's success depends on how the actors choose to interpret their parts. Stewart's decision to play Vladimir as a gently amused, concerned, prodding pal looking after Estragon, his friend of fifty years, adds a tenderness that was missing from other productions I've seen. And you might not know it from their movies, but Stewart and McKellen have impeccable comic timing and a gift for broad physical humor resulting in many belly laughs.

That Samuel Beckett's absurdist masterpiece also wistfully prods you to think about that whatever-it-is that keeps you from getting on with your life is icing on the cake. If you can possibly get to New York during this play's run, go and see it.

10. The New York subway system is our favorite way to get around town. It's reasonably priced and goes everywhere.

The one thing neither Katie-Bar-The-Door nor I liked: the production of Macbeth itself. It's terrible. Genuinely, shockingly terrible. I didn't think it would be possible to screw up one of Shakespeare's best plays—the story of an empty suit filled with murderous ambition—but I was wrong. If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know I am the gentlest of gentle critics. I want to like everything I see and do and I wanted to like this production of Macbeth. I really, really did. But, oh boy, did I not.

Look, Ethan Hawke has been great before and he's going to be great again. There were a couple of good supporting performances from Brian d'Arcy James (Banquo) and Daniel Sunjata (MacDuff). The tickets were free, the weather was nice, we didn't get mugged. It wasn't a disaster. But I can't recommend it.