Screaming Meme

It’s been creeping and crawling from blog to blog. Is meme pronounced ‘meemee’ or ‘memee’ or what? Here’s my two cents worth:

1. Total number of films I own on DVD and video.

About 200, not counting the ever-growing stack of tapes of movies recorded off of cable that I may get around to, some day…

2. Last film I bought.

Halle Berry as Catwoman. You see, I got this coupon for 20% off, and, well…

3. Last film I watched.

Yasuzo Masumura’s Giants and Toys (1958), a predecessor to Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three (1961), and as half-baked as a vague idea whipped up by Paddy Chayefsky over breakfast.

4. Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me (in no particular order).

Juliet of the Spirits (Federico Fellini, 1965) How I long to be up in that tree house with Sandra Milo…

The Last Waltz (Martin Scorsese, 1978) Weekends smuggling beers into the Ziegfeld Theater.

La Cérémonie (Claude Chabrol, 1995) After centuries, the bourgeoisie finally give birth to their savior(s): a woman ready to ‘go postal’ and a housekeeper they’ve distracted into illiteracy.

The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967) Lola may be Demy’s best, and Umbrellas of Cherbourg his most popular, but give me Rochefort any day.

La Vallée (Barbet Schroeder, 1972) “We’ll always be tourists here,” quips Michael Gothard to Bulle Ogier, part of a group stepping away from capitalism to hedonistic jungle life in New Guinea. To quote Robert Ryan in The Wild Bunch, “By God I wish I were one of them.”

5. If you could be any character portrayed in a movie, who would it be?

The artist given years to contemplate her one crowning masterpiece and then the funds to do it, perfectly, but just once: Babette in Babette’s Feast.