pedestrian saga

Long after I flunk out of SLIFR U, Dennis assigns a movie quiz I manage to answer! Via Facebook (or How to Kill a Saturday Real Good):

Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen movies you’ve seen that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends, including me because I’m interested in seeing what movies my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note – upper right hand side.)

These films are truly the first fifteen that came to mind, and quickly (in less than five minutes, thanks, no doubt, to the two shots of espresso with breakfast). Subsequently organized by era and annotated.

Age of Innocence (Kendallville)

• The Muppet Movie (1979, James Frawley). I will be first in line to purchase The Onion Store’s “I Appreciate The Muppets On A Much Deeper Level Than You” shirt, should they see fit to offer it in a flattering women’s cut. (Come on, Onion, show the ladies some lovin’!)
• Labyrinth (1986, Jim Henson). As discussed in 2005.
• Poltergeist (1982, Tobe Hooper). Watched it alone, in the middle of a sunny afternoon, in the living room of some random elementary school pal, and it frightened me out of my skin. The scary TV on the scary TV perhaps marks the onset of my fascination with meta.
• Stand by Me (1986, Rob Reiner). My parents mistook it for a kids’ movie, probably because it featured cute boys. And so, during a dinner party of oblivious adults, a fellow giggly eleven-year-old and I watched it on HBO in the family room. I oohed and aahed as the f-bomb burst like fireworks in the pristine sky of my sheltered childhood. And I specifically remember hugging my friend, jumping up and down, and squealing as Gordie and Vern struggled to beat the train across the bridge. My house being third from the tracks, I had a thing about kids beating trains. (Thanks, Mom!)

The Weber’s Video–Cinema Center Years (Lagrange, Fort Wayne)

• A Clockwork Orange (1971, Stanley Kubrick). The first time through, I understood very little of what was uttered and perpetrated on-screen. One paperback copy of the Anthony Burgess novel and fifteen viewings later, I was reciting the lines along with my best droog and giving Mum hell for walking out on a screening with Dad back in the Seven-tays. As if!
• The Crying Game (1992, Neil Jordan). Oh, I know all there is to know about this one, having trekked to Fort Wayne at least half a dozen times to see it in the cinemas. It has to be a nerd girl’s version of Goodfellas or something.
• Farewell My Concubine (1993, Kaige Chen). Foreign films were a huge deal back then, a new frontier. Epic Chinese opera “homo mad love” story? Pretty much exploded my world.
• Don’t Look Now (1973, Nicolas Roeg). Another random Weber’s Video score, it features a mesmerizing sex scene and a super-creepy Little Red Riding Hood, all set against gloomy Venice.
• Annie Hall (1977, Woody Allen). Another movie that expanded my Norman Rockwell universe. (”What has the universe got to do with it? You’re here in Brooklyn! Brooklyn is not expanding!”)
• Wild at Heart (1990, David Lynch). Standing by his locker, the boy I had a crush on declared it his favorite movie, so I rushed to check it out. Six years later I married him. It is a deeply weird film.

College and the Great Beyond (Bologna, Berkeley, Los Angeles)

• Dead Alive (1992, Peter Jackson). Speaking of people walking out on a movie while I snicker with glee, I first saw this romantic comedy at my second home in Bologna, the Cinema Lumière. It was dubbed in Italian and billed as Splatters, gli schizzacervelli. What were they expecting?
• The Times of Harvey Milk (1984, Rob Epstein). As described here.
• The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton). Ominous, enthralling black-and-white at the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Fun times.
• Secretary (2002, Steven Shainberg). It is difficult for me to articulate the awesomeness of this movie. I feel like Buffy would understand though.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966, Sergio Leone). Westerns always had anesthetic properties similar to televised baseball or basketball or football. So boring! Until I grew up and met Sergio Leone. Seeing the Whistler’s live pre-screening performance in Glendale with Dennis and Andrew sure is memorable.

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