Diamonds and rust never sleep

Charles ‘Piggy’ Coburn as the hypnotist collector

Thanks to some gentle prodding in the comments of this entry by Siren, I’m posting my answers to Dennis Cozzalio’s latest quiz. What all this means, where it’s headed, is anyone’s guess…

1) Best transition from movies to TV (actor, actress, producer/director, movie/show)
Candice (Day the Fish Came Out) Bergen and Cybill (Texasville) Shepherd fared far better after retreating to the tube.

2) Living film director you most missing seeing on the cultural landscape regularly
I wish more of Agnès Varda’s work would make it to America.

3) Eugene Pallette or Charles Coburn
“Oh, Piggy!”

4) Fill in the blank: “I pray that no one ever turns _____________ into a movie.”
My life.

5) Jane Greer or Veronica Lake
Ava Gardner.



6) What was the last movie you saw in a theater? On DVD? And why?
Thanks to a tip-off by Peter Nellhaus, 19-year-old Sophia Loren, smiling, singing, braless, bouncy and generally magnificent in the otherwise forgettable Too Bad She’s Bad (1954). Blowing Marilyn off the map, even her armpit hair was sexy.

7) Name an actor you think should be a star
It’d be easier to think of a star who should be an actor.

8) Foxy Brown or Coffy
Do we really need to go there?

9) Favorite TV show still without its own DVD box set
My Living Doll.

10) Jack Elam or Neville Brand
Oofah…

11) What movies would top your list of movies you need to revisit, for whatever reason?
OK, this is getting too personal.

12) Zodiac or All the President’s Men
It’s a sign of changing generations that bloggers generally prefer Zodiac, a good, not great, work…but filled with that sense of ambiguity championed by those with abbreviated attention spans. I’m sure they see the Redford/Pakula film as hopelessly dated, when, in fact, it’s still fresh provided one is capable of appreciating its many qualities. It’s 2008 and here we are talking about All the President’s Men (1976). Thirty years from now, will anyone give a hoot in hell about Zodiac?

13) Using our best reviewer-speak, what is an “important” film comedy? And what is to you the most important film comedy of the last 35 years?
When comedy becomes important, it’s serious.

14) Describe the ideal environment for watching a movie.
In a hot tub, stone naked with Eva Mendes.

15) Michelle Williams or Eva Mendes
Am I psychic or what?

16) What’s the worst movie title of all time?
The Goonies is certainly up there. But that’s the 80s for you…

17) Best movie about teaching and/or learning
House of Games.

18) Dracula (1931) or Horror of Dracula (1958)
Horror of Dracula may be the best Dracula movie of all. Bela’s is good for the first twenty minutes, but then it slides into tedium.

19) Why do you blog? Or if you don’t, why do you read blogs? (Thanks, Girish)
I have no life.

20) Most memorable/disturbing death scene
Heath Ledger’s in Monster’s Ball came out of left field.

21) Jason Robards or Robert Shaw
Shaw’s the more natural stylist and Jason never gave up the theatre (to wit: The Night They Raided Minsky’s). But I’d rather watch Jason.

22) A good candidate for Most Blasphemous Movie Ever
Oh god…

23) Rio Bravo or Red River
Angie Dickinson.

24) Werner Herzog is remaking Bad Lieutenant with Nicolas Cage—that’s reality. Try to outdo reality by concocting a match-up of director and title for a really strange imaginary remake.
How about Ron Howard’s Salo?

25) Bulle Ogier or Charlotte Rampling
I always thought that Charlotte looked like John Hurt with tits. I fell in love with Bulle about 32 years ago, and the flame still burns.

26) In the Realm of the Senses— yes or no?
Zzzzzzzz.



27) Name a movie you think of as your own (Thanks, Jim!)
Years ago I would’ve said La Vallée (1972). But I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now.

28) Winged Migration or Microcosmos
This is starting to bug me.

29) Your favorite football game featured in a movie
I hate football. But Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday was a lot of fun — especially Cameron’s encounter with the swinging dicks in the locker room.

30) Wendy Hiller or Deborah Kerr
Wendy’s probably the better actor, but Deborah’s got the more interesting resume.

31) Dirtiest secret you have that is related to the movies
Little Mike (Twin Peaks) Anderson bangs statuesque blonde hookers. (It’s true! It’s true!)

32) Name a favorite film and describe how it is illuminated and enriched by another favorite film.
Whoa…heavy…

33) It’s a Gift or Horsefeathers
S.O.B.

34) Your best story about seeing a movie at a drive-in
I could relate the old chestnut about tripping during Giant Spider Invasion plus Night of the Cobra Woman, but no need to incriminate anyone here.

35) Victor Mature or Tyrone Power
Or, Cry of the City versus Nightmare Alley. Ty’s the one. Victor, on the other hand, carries the look of a man suffering unending heartburn.

36) What does film criticism mean to you? Where do you think it’s headed?
At this point, nothing, nowhere.

Innocent Bystanders

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When Innocent Bystanders was released in 1972, the secret agent phenomenon whipped up by James Bond a decade earlier had long since died from overkill. Closer in spirit to Harry Palmer than 007, Pauline Kael called this labyrinthine espionage tale “a revolting example of the constant use of brutality (plus a dash of sexual sadism) to rouse the audience from the apathy brought on by the familiarity of the material.” I haven’t seen it since it came out, but I remember going twice hoping it was the first in a new series. (It wasn’t, but the poster hung on my bedroom wall until I went away to college.) The lead spy, John Craig, was played by Stanley Baker, a good actor who never quite became a mainstream star. (Consider him Sean Connery Lite.) Although he was knighted in 1976, Baker died shortly after from lung cancer and pneumonia at the age of forty-eight. Playing his main squeeze was Geraldine Chaplin, an excellent actress of considerable pedigree whose svelte physique and delicate beauty ran contrary to the buxom standards of superspy dollbabes. Her bad girl counterpart is played by Sue Lloyd, a hot tomato who played Peter Cushing’s messed-up fiancée in the positively insane Corruption (1968). Also on hand are Dana Andrews, Vladek Sheybal (the chess whiz in From Russia with Love) and Donald Pleasance (as ‘Loomis’). During one dialog-free scene of a car driving around the countryside, Norman ‘Hurricane’ Smith (a Pink Floyd producer known for croaking out “Oh Babe, What Would You Say?”) sings the forgotten non-hit “What Makes the Man.” If you’ve got a copy of this to lend, please drop me a line.

Age before beauty

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Recently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a mortified Ashley Olsen (left) tempers sister Mary-Kate on the Red Carpet before a sea of fans and paparazzi attending the Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy gala. Twins, they’re a dogeared twenty-two-years-old… life in the fast lane, you understand. Could a remake of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane be in the offing? Mary-Kate's got the Bette part, fer shur.

Gates of Eden

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In this photograph swiped from Wikipedia, actor Gates McFadden — bored? tired? hungry? all three? — reminisces for young fans at the Dallas Comic Con in 2006. Best known for playing the redheaded Beverly Crusher on the Jean-Luc Picard edition of Star Trek, the beautiful Ms. McFadden has had an otherwise unexceptional career after starting out as one of Jim Henson’s Muppeteers. 57-years-old at the time this photo was taken, one can only imagine how tedious and/or tortuous these autograph gigs can be — especially for any actor who once saw stardom in their future. How many times can you merrily relate the same tired anecdotes? How often are you asked to discuss other actors? How many fabrications must you perpetuate about revivals that’ll never happen? And when you get back home and look in the mirror, does disillusionment collide with depression, or are you grateful to earn grocery money by reliving the past and scribbling your name a few hundred times?