I Think, Therefore I Blog » Movies

Strange way to do an interview

fsherman — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 21:50:12 +0000

My voice is currently sliding into laryngitis, so I just conducted an interview writing all the questions on my laptop and having the interviewees read the questions off. I think they found this a little weird.

Christmas on the silver screen

fsherman — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:40:56 +0000

My Thanksgiving viewing this year—selected, as usual, from the laser-discs my brother buys and trades—was a little untraditional. Let’s face it, Victor Frankenstein transplanting brains doesn’t exactly scream “Thanksgiving” (though give Peter Cushing a scalpel and I’m sure he could slice up a turkey smooth as silk) but when confronted with a huge pile of Hammer horror films, it’s hard to resist.
Christmas, though, I’m strictly a traditionalist. So as the season begins Dec. 1 (no matter how much the radio stations try to fool me into thinking it’s already started), here’s some of my favorites:
•Christmas in Connecticut. The ever delightful Barbara Stanwyck plays a columnist, “America’s most beloved homemaker,” who has successfully hidden the fact that instead of a farm-wife, mother and accomplished cook, she’s really a kitchen-illiterate single woman living in a New York apartment. Then overbearing publisher Sidney Greenstreet announces she’s going to take a lonely, wounded soldier into the heart of her family for Christmas …
•A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (no, no, no, NOT the movie!). Need anything be said?
•Scrooge. Albert Finney plays Scrooge in a musical of which I’m extremely fond, possibly more than the film deserves.
•A Christmas Carol. Alistair Sim plays the definitive Scrooge in this fine British version, showing him as a greedy miser but also a human being in need of redemption.
•The Real Ghostbusters: Xmas Marks the Spot. In this cartoon spinoff of the Ghostbusters, the guys are transported to the 1800s and save an old man from three ghosts tormenting him on Christmas Eve … And when they return to the present, they discover Scrooge was so inspired by the defeat of the ghosts, he went on to convince the entire world to give up Christmas.
•Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. Jim Backus plays shortsighted Mr. Magoo in an animated version of Dickens. Cheap animation, but this is a surprisingly good musical.
•A Christmas Story. “It was—soap poisoning!”
Okay, you out there—what are your favorites?

Movies

fsherman — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:30:28 +0000

A variation on a post on books I did earlier:
A movie that made you cry: It’s a Wonderful Life made me cry for joy the first time I saw it. Remains of the Day made me weep.
A movie that scared you: The Innocents, the blood-chilling adaptation of Turn of the Screw. And Snow White, when I was a kid.
A movie that made you laugh: Only one? I’ll go with Fierce Creatures (”We have eliminated the non-event interest deficit!”).
A movie that disgusted you: Deep Throat.
A movie you loved in elementary school: You Only Live Twice, my first Bond film.
A movie you loved in middle school: Captain Blood.
A movie you loved in high school: Blazing Saddles.
A movie you hated in high school: Can’t think of one.
A movie you loved in college: Casablanca, Citizen Kane. Or for contemporary movies, Logan’s Run and Foul Play.
A movie that challenged your identity: Dark City raised a question that’s always fascinated me: Are we who are memories say we are, or are we who we really are?
A series that you love: Marx Brothers, Thin Man films, Star Wars (original trilogy).
Your favorite horror film: The Innocents. Or Carl Dreyer’s silent movie,”Vampyr”
Your favorite science fiction film: Star Wars (Episode IV), Dark City, Nausicaa in the Valley of the Wind.
Your favorite fantasy movie: Cast a Deadly Spell or Spirited Away.
Your favorite mystery film: Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely (Robert Mitchum’s shot at Raymond Chandler) or a TV film called Killjoy.
Your favorite biopic: Seabiscuit or Life of Emil Zola
Your favorite “coming-of-age” film: My Life as a Dog.
Your favorite movie not on this list: Hellboy, Speed, Double Indemnity, Young Frankenstein, Being John Malkovitch.