let's all go to the lobby

And how's your August going so far? The first week of mine was spent in New Mexico with G and his family. In addition to hiking, visiting art galleries, getting obscene amounts of sleep, and gorging myself on Madre's delicious cooking, I also saw three operas: Faust, which was excellent and had gorgeous staging; La Boheme, which was good but totally ripped off Rent; and Griselda, which blew. Vivaldi's music was lovely, but the story was about a woman whose husband, the king, torments her in progressively cruel ways to test her loyalty. And she's all "Oh, but I still love you!" instead of saying "Hey, asshole, fuck you and the horse you rode in on. My fine ass is out of here."

Oh, and on the flight back, G and I were watching The Wire, which we were initially meh on but are now really enjoying, and something major happened just as they announced that all electronics had to be put away. And we were all "Wait, there's like two minutes left in this episode, we can't stop now!" and the flight attendant was all "Fools, put your shit away IMMEDIATELY, y'heard?" And then she started advancing towards us while whistling "Farmer in the Dell", so we quickly complied.

Anyway, it's survey time! This one's all about movies.

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1) Name a movie you have seen more than ten times.

I don't think I've seen ANY movie that many times! Favorite bits and pieces here and there, sure; for example, I must have watched Hit Girl's initial appearance in Kick-Ass and the staircase fight in The Protector dozens of times, but not the whole movie all over again. The movie that probably comes closest is Planes, Trains, and Automobiles because we had a tradition of renting it for Thanksgiving when I was younger. Even so, that probably only clocks in at 6 or 7 times.

2) Name a movie you have seen multiple times in the cinema.

::settles into rocking chair, resting hands on top of cane::

Now, when I was a young'un, if you wanted to see a movie more than once, you HAD to see it in the theater. Wasn't no goddamned Betamax or VHS or any o' that newfangled flimflammery. So as a kid, I saw a few movies twice in the theater: Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, Clash of the Titans, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and E.T. The only fairly recent movies I've seen in the theater are Titanic (twice) and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (3 1/2 times, the half accounted for by a broken filmstrip at a seedy dollar cinema in Lancaster, CA).

And if you're wondering why I didn't see Empire Strikes Back more than once in the theater, it's because I was too upset about Han Solo. And you can just stop laughing right now, thank you. I was 9, for fuck's sake!

3) Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a film.

Mostly action stars that I know will deliver the goods, like Jason Statham (his sheer UNFiness certainly doesn't hurt) and Tony Jaa. But I also really like Clive Owen and Jesse Eisenberg.

4) Name a director whose movies you always have to see.

David Fincher, Zach Snyder, Christopher Nolan, Todd Solondz, David Lynch, Satoshi Kon (RIP), John Cameron Mitchell, Quentin Tarantino, Hayao Miyazaki, and Miranda July. I was going to put M. Night Shyamalan here, even though his movies have been disappointing for a long time, but then I remembered The Last Airbender, which I will never see under any circumstances, and had to take him off the list. I mean, Jesus, how do you take such unbelievably rich source material and turn it into a festering pile of maggot-ridden pigshit?

5) Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a film.

It used to be Colin Farrell, but after In Bruges, I let go of that grudge. I really, really dislike Katherine Heigl, so I'll say her.

6) Name a film that you can and do quote from.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch. "It's a car wash, ladies and gentlemen!"

7) Name a musical that you know all of the lyrics to all of the songs.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch. God, now I really want to watch that again.

8) Name a film you would recommend everyone see.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Kick-Ass, Up.

9) Ever walked out on a film?

Haunted Honeymoon (1986) and A Day without A Mexican. I'm extraordinarily cheap, so the only reason I walked out of the first one was because it was the second movie in a double feature, and I noticed one of my nastier bullies walk into the theater, so I figured I'd better just leave. As for the second one, well...at some point you have to cut your losses. My brother and I saw it because the poster made us laugh for about ten minutes straight. The movie itself was garbage. I think we heroically made it through 45 minutes before deciding to bail.

10) Name a film that made you cry in the cinema.

You're asking MY sappy ass this question? I'll just name the last movie that made me cry in the theater: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

11) Popcorn?

No, I don't usually get snacks. I know this may surprise you, considering how much I love my tasties, but they never really have anything worth the money/calories.

12) How often do you go to the cinema (as opposed to renting them or watching them at home)?

I've adopted G's policy of "theater movies", i.e. something that's so visually stunning (Avatar, your average Pixar flick) or so highly anticipated (Harry Potter, any non-Cars Pixar flick) that I just don't want to wait for it to come out on DVD. These days, movies are just too damn expensive and people are just too damn rude. That's one of the things I love about our local indie theater; the tickets are relatively cheap ($6 for a matinee) and, at the risk of sounding like a total snob, the audiences are generally more polite. Your average teenager isn't exactly chomping at the bit to see the latest Belgian import about impoverished farmers. So I'd say that I go to an actual movie theater...oh...let's say five times a year. Most of those times are, of course, with G, but once or twice a year I take a mental health day, which usually includes a matinee.

13) What's the last film you saw in the cinema?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

14) What's your favorite/preferred genre of film?

Comedies.

15) What's the first film you remember seeing in the cinema?

The Aristocats. (I almost typed The Aristocrats, which would have been a much different moviegoing experience, and probably would have killed my poor grandmother.)

16) What film do you wish you had never seen?

Too many junky "I wasted 2 hours of my life on this?" crapfests to count.

17) What is the scariest film you've seen?

The Shining fucked my shit UP, but as for the scariest scene in any movie, it's the nurse scene in The Exorcist III.





I don't know if this will be scary out of context, but when I saw it, I had no idea it was coming and I almost pissed my pants.

(Huh...rewatching it now, I wonder if the makers of Silent Hill were inspired by this scene at all as far as Lisa Garland's uniform?)

18) If you could be any character portrayed in a movie, who would it be?

Hit Girl

19) Total number of films you own on DVD and video?

None.

20) Last film you bought.

See above.

21) Last film you watched at home.

Rango

22) Five films that mean a lot to you.

Kick-Ass, Somewhere in Time, E.T., Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Me and You and Everyone We Know

23) What movies do you have lined up to watch soon?

Hall Pass and Insidious. Next theater movie will probably be Rise of the Planet of the Apes, because...I mean, come on. Andy Serkis doing mocap AND fucking apes scurrying down the sides of a building? Yes please!