Movie tag. eRobin of Fact-esque has tagged me with the latest one of these blog frivolities, and, well, there's hardly anything more fun than gassing about movies. So here ya go:

How many movies do you own? Right now, it's over fifty and under a hundred. Better than that I can't do: some of my movies are still hidden in boxes from my last move—because I'm lazy—and anyway I don't have a real cataloging system—because I'm poor and decent shelving's expensive.

What's the last movie you bought? Probably Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—Charlie Kaufmann films (Human Nature aside, which I just find puzzling) are worth owning. That's not the last movie I got, though, since (see above) I've been poor lately and loath to spend money on DVDs—so gifts have had to pick up the slack. At Christmas I came in for something of a haul: the Warner Bros. film noir collection, Stroszek, and The Singing Detective.

What's the last film you watched? If filmic TV series count—ah, no, that way madness lies. (I'll just mention my devotion to The Sopranos and leave it at that.) In the theater, I think it'd be Vera Drake—it's been a while since I've gone to the theater, or felt especially drawn to go. I thought the film was extraordinary, as a piece of claustrophobic period realism, but modest to a fault and less resonant dramatically, at last, than I wanted it to be. On DVD, Asphalt Jungle, from that Warners set, the Ur heist film. Which I basically only watched with one eye, and need to see again to have anything intelligent to say about it.

Name five films you watch a lot or have special meaning for you. These are all going to be ones I own. That's pretty much the principle on which I buy films: I won't, unless I feel that the movie's really going to repay multiple viewings. The aforementioned Charlie Kaufmans aside, I own hardly anything made in the last ten years—not because my movie tastes have ossified, I think/hope, but because the steady diet of blockbusters and actioners and what have you just gives me nothing I can sink my teeth into. I like story, I like character, I like rich imagery, I like language.

• The Godfather. One, of course—though I have a long-standing argument with a former English Dept. colleague over the merits of One vs. Two. And I don't care if it's obvious. GF I is as resonant an exposition of American identity as there is, in a period full of great expositions of American identity. ("I believe in America": that line, and the way the movie slowly opens into its first shot, still catches my breath, and I've seen it at least a dozen times. And that classic, operatic use of Catholic ceremony at the end—...)
• The Lady Eve. Not enough people nowadays know who Preston Sturges was, and for my money this is his best comedy. When I first saw this, I only knew Barbara Stanwyck as the matriarch of the old TV western The Big Valley: the idea that she could be sexy had never entered my mind (much less the idea that a film would make me fall in love with her). Or that Henry Fonda could do slapstick. But what hooked me was the magnificent, off-kilter loopiness of Sturges' dialogue: "I need him like the axe needs the turkey." "The fish was a poem." Not to mention the brilliant, zero-degree use of the mask device: practically postmodern, and funny as hell. ("I tell ya, it's the same dame!") After you've watched this one, go on to The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and The Palm Beach Story, at the very least. And come back and tell me how much you like them.
• Swingers. Hardly one of the Great Movies, and totally a chick flick for straight guys, but fuck it, it makes me happy. Vince Vaughan as Trent is one of the iconic recent movie characters. "I'm gonna ask you a simple question and I want you to listen to me: who's the big winner here tonight at the casino? Huh? Mikey, that's who. Mikey's the big winner. Mikey wins." "You're like a big bear with claws and with fangs ... And you're looking at your claws and you're looking at your fangs. And you're thinking to yourself, you don't know what to do, man. 'I don't know how to kill the bunny.' With this you don't know how to kill the bunny!"
• La règle du jeu. An even thicker film, in the anthropological sense, than The Godfather. I saw this for the first time in college, and it was a revelation: especially in teaching me that there was an art to watching films, as surely as there was an art to making them. It's been a while since the last time I viewed La règle, in part just because it does place demands, and I have to feel I'm up to them. But the shot of Marquis Robert standing in front of his calliope to show it off to his guests—just standing, little more—has remained with me since the first time I saw it, as something like a perfect piece of cinema.
• Lost in Translation. Another small, perfect moment of cinema: Scarlett Johansson rests her head on Bill Murray's shoulder, and he displaces the answering gesture that he wants to make by folding his hands together on top of his knee. The pathos of that reticence gets me every time, and not just because it translates a moment of my own hopeless romantic history. I have mixed feelings about the film as a whole—the satirical stuff, in particular, just doesn't hold up—but at its core it's a minor wonder of economy and emotional transparency. And another film where I fall in love with the lead actress—where you have to, I think, if the movie's going to work.

OK, since the form requires that you pass the tag along, here are mine: Tex, just because we've never talked about movies, and I'm curious; Jesse, because he wants to be less confrontational; and Patrick, who's new to my blogroll and probably doesn't know this blog from a hole in the ground—but how many chances do I get to ask a redneck leftist musician to talk about films? (I mean, who isn't my brother-in-law ...) As always, if you want to play along, just leave your own responses in the comments.

posted by michael  9:09:53 AM  
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