Accismus

Which movie of each of these directors is your favorite?

Here’s how I would answer:

1.  Very tough choice between The Big Lebowski and Fargo, but I think I have to go with Lebowski, because I really could watch Jeff Bridges play that character for, like, three additional hours without getting bored.

2.  My favorite Wes Anderson movie changes pretty much monthly, but right now, I’m thinking Bottle Rocket takes top spot.

3.  I’ve only seen Harold & Maude.  Which I liked, but not as much as some people do.

4.  I think I’ve only seen about one-and-a-half Kevin Smith movies, and that was one-and-a-half too many.  I refuse to pick a favorite.

5.  I can’t imagine ever liking any movie better than I liked Kill Bill.  It is the only movie that, after seeing it, I immediately went out and bought, and then watched five times in a row.  No deliberation needed here.

6.  Kubrick’s version of The Shining is my all-time favorite horror movie, and the only such movie I find truly, lastingly frightening.  Close second = Full Metal Jacket.

7.  There Will Be Blood.  Awesome.

8.  I have only seen The Fog of War.

How would you answer?

Obviously, I’ve not been blogging much lately, but it’s not like I’ve just been sitting around watching movies. I have also been watching television and paint drying. Here is a list of all the movies I have in the past few months, and how they affected me:

The Virgin Suicides made me glad I am no longer a teenage girl, and also it made me feel bad for not being extremely thin (about which, come to think of it, is also what I spent the vast majority of my teenage girlhood feeling bad).

Camille Claudet made me feel bad for not being brilliant and dedicated at something, so much so that I get up in the middle of the night and go dig around in mud for it. 

Desperately Seeking Susan made me feel bad for Madonna.

Hellboy 2 made me feel bad for not speaking up when groups of people decide on a movie.

Day For Night made me feel bad for having in the past gotten stupidly and overdramatically involved with various cast-mates; that must have been very trying for everyone around me.

Velvet Underground made me feel bad for not being extremely thin, and for not partying very much, or doing anything interesting.

Belle de Jour made me feel bad for having watched it.

The Double Life of Veronique made me google the movie for an hour afterwards trying to figure out what the hell it was about. Turns out, nobody else knows either.

Vicky Christina Barcelona made me angry, because if a woman had written it, it would have been condescendingly reviewed as yet another chick-flick, but because Woody Allen wrote it, it was reviewed as dry and witty and smart, which isn’t to say that it wasn’t an enjoyable movie, but just that it’s a good example of what I often consider to be an unfair, automatic dismissal of the work of women writers. Also, Penelope Cruz is awesome in it, and every bit as much fun to watch as ScarJo is not. Also, it made me feel bad for not being extremely thin, and for not shacking up with a sexy artist when I did my own long-term travel (not that I met any).

The Swimming Pool made me feel bad for not being extremely thin, and for not getting any writing done.

The Interpreter made me wonder if the UN really is completely empty at night, and if there aren’t any sort of security people or anything around, and also why those people had bothered to be in there talking about their plot, since it didn’t turn out to be necessary at all in any way. Did one of them say, ‘Hey, where should we meet to go over the details of our planned assassination? I don’t feel like paying Manhattan prices for beers. You want to just meet at midnight in the UN Security Council chamber?’ And beyond just that, since (spoiler alert) the assassination plot was a red herring anyway, they were obviously there entirely under the assumption that surely somebody would stumble in after hours and overhear their whispers. Which…what? Possibly, I’m confused about the plot in recollection, but I’m pretty sure it made no sense. Also, this movie made me feel bad for never following through on my vague plan to take the Foreign Service exam. And for not being extremely thin.

La Petite Lilli is even worse than The Seagull.

2 Days In Paris made me feel bad for not being French, extremely thin, quirky and taken. It also made me think how weird it must be to go from dating Julie Delpy to dating Christina Ricci. I bet Adam Goldberg is pissed about his career, too – his girlfriend’s movie, and Chandler’s roommate. Has he been in anything else? I wonder if he blames his tattoos.

The Dinner Game made me wonder if anyone has ever invited me to hang out with them just for the purposes of mocking me, and then I realized that of course they had; that’s what junior high is all about.

The Amityville Horror…sweet lord, what was with the ballet outfit? I wasn’t around when this movie came out, but tell me this was widely mocked at the time, yes? I mean, if you have not seen this movie, Margot Kidder at one point stands in front of a full length mirror in her bedroom and carefully arranges a white flower behind one ear, before doing several plies dressed in an unbuttoned white shirt (with no bra), panties, and one long white leg sock thing that’s like a legging that’s been cut off at the top…but just one. What the hell is that thing? Is that an actual garment? Did somebody say ‘let’s think up the most bizarre sort of dance-inspired lingerie we can imagine to ease us into the sex scene?’ I mean, really? I might go as that scene for Halloween next year.

Forty Shades of Blue – I spent this entire movie thinking that the one guy looked an awful lot like Ed from Northern Exposure, and then I thought, whatever happened to Ed from Northern Exposure? And then I thought about how much I liked Northern Exposure, and how if Alaska were really anything like Northern Exposure, it might be fun to live there, but really, it’d just be cold and then Sarah Palin. And then, I imdb’d the film, and guess what? It was Ed from Northern Exposure!

Belle Epoque had Penelope Cruz in it, too, but she was really young and boring in this one.

The Remains of the Day made me feel bad for never being forthcoming with my feelings, but also good, because I am not the sort of person who would ever employ servants, or feel any sort of loyalty towards a corrupted employer.

Bed and Board made me think it might be really fun to live in a big apartment building in Paris. And it made me feel bad for not being extremely thin.

The Prestige had both Christian Bale and David Bowie in it, and as such, there was really no possible way I wasn’t going to like it. And it made me feel bad for not being brilliant at and dedicated to anything. And it made me remember how much I enjoyed The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (which I read almost entirely in a hammock on a porch overhanging the river in the 4000 Islands in Laos), and made me wish I could find another novel as absorbing as those had been.