Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Mi mi mi mi, re re re re, do so mi do la si.

Rachel at The Girl with the White Parasol, set up a movie meme for New Year's and I decided to participate! Yay!!

1. What is your all-time favorite Grace Kelly costume?
I must confess. I've seen very few Grace Kelly movies. I know, I know. She's amazing. She's beautiful. She's pretty much perfect. But I've still only seen To Catch a Thief and High Society. And I haven't seen either in quite a while so this question is stretching my memory a great deal (and we're only at the first question!) It's honestly a toss up between one in each. I'll go with this one from High Society.



2. What classic film would you nominate for a remake?

Can I say none? I know you've all heard my rantings about contemporary remakes. They're just awful. Most of them, anyway. If it were done well, though, I think I could go for another Scarlet Pimpernel adaptation (the important phrase here being "done well" - or maybe I should say, "done right.") Despite the fact that both Anthony Andrews and Leslie Howard are flawless in their versions of Percy Blakeney, I love his character so much, I could go for more versions!

3. Name your favorite femme fatale.
Cyd Charisse. I'm not sure if that's the type this meme is talking about but that's what I think of. I suppose her most iconic role as a femme fatale would be as The Brunette in The Bandwagon.
For the most part, I feel like femme fatale roles pop up most in film noir and I'm not much into the genre (yet).

from Doctor Macro
4. Name the best movie with the word "heaven" in its title.
To be honest, the only one I've seen is My Blue Heaven with Betty Grable and Dan Dailey and I really, really, did not like it. At all. I even did a search in case there were movies I'd forgotten about. Nope. Just that one.

5. Describe the worst performance by a child actor that you’ve ever seen (since Laura gave me the idea).
Oh! I know this one! Okay. So, typically I like a lot of child actors. I'm a big Shirley Temple fan (it's only beginning to dawn on me that not everybody loves her) and I like kids in general. Even when they're not good actors, I can usually admit that they're pretty adorable and I figure that's why they were cast. I had a whole bit written about Dean Stockwell and how he needs to get it together because he's always messing people up. But then I remembered. At least Dean Stockwell is cute. There's one major child actor that I'm pretty sure I've yet to like in a role.


A good portion of the reasons I don't like Meet Me in St. Louis is that little girl up there. She lies about the incredibly good-looking and unbelievably nice boy-next-door. She tears apart her snowmen (what did they ever do to her?). And she's pretty morbid. I like her whole character less than I like Zuzu's line about the bell-ringing-angel-winging connection (which, for some reason, is a line that I really don't like).

6. Who gets your vote for most tragic movie monster?
I don't watch too many monster movies but I'm gonna go with Beast. Because, to be honest, that's really the only movie monster I can think of.



7. What is the one Western that you would recommend to anybody?

Does Oklahoma count as a Western? I do enjoy watching a cowboy Gene Nelson dance and a cowboy Gordon MacCrae sing. Aah. If more Westerns had dancing and singing cowboys, I'd be more inclined to watch them. When I think of typical Westerns, I just think of a lot of death and a lot of desert - neither of which is appealing to me.

8. Who is your ideal movie-viewing partner?
I watch movies with people to bond with them. That's kind of how I get to know them. In a way. So the people I'm closest to: my sisters, my mom, my best friends, are the ones I've watched lots and lots of movies with. I look forward to getting home from work so that I can watch a movie with my sister. (These nights are often the highlight of my week!) I've randomly driven to my mom's house because I've discovered a movie that we have to watch together. My college roommate and I made movie watching a near-nightly experience. We'd walk all the way across the dorms to pop popcorn (our hallway's microwave was broken) and then we'd settle down and watch a movie. Invariably, we'd start at our desks and then I'd joke, "do you want to take this to the bedroom?" Which was a pretty stupid joke but I always thought it was funny - and then we'd watch the movie sitting on a bed. I take great pride in introducing Fred and Ginger, Nick and Nora, Errol Flynn, Cary Grant, Gene Kelly to my roommate.

9. Has a film ever made you want to change your life? If so, what was the film?
Like every one else who's written in this meme, I would say that old movies in general have made a huge impact on my life. But, oddly enough, the movie that's impacted my way of thinking most is probably Tangled. The idea that you can have more than one dream in life has seriously freed me to a world of possibilities. I'm not nearly so stressed out about finding my dream because, hey, whether it works out or not, there's another dream waiting.



10. Think of one performer that you truly love. Now think of one scene/movie/performance of theirs that is too uncomfortable for you to watch.
I thought this one would be difficult but it wasn't. It turned out to be easy. Errol Flynn in Dodge City. I hate to say that I did not like that movie and mostly because of him. I didn't like his character at all. Now, it's very normal for Errol to be cast as a cocky, smug, self-righteous guy but in this movie, he was just insufferable! Ugh.

At least he was pretty.

from Doctor Macro

11. On the flip side, think of one really good scene/performance/movie from a performer that you truly loathe.
I can't honestly say that I truly loathe anybody. There are actors that I certainly don't care for much. And there are several that I'm still beginning to warm up to - Jean Harlow, for example. I'm not a terribly huge Bette Davis fan - mostly because I've seen so few of her movies. But I did adore her in It's Love I'm After. She was so cute!

12. And finally, since it will be New Year's soon, do you have any movie or blogging-related resolutions for 2012?
Well, I've recently hit upon the idea that I'd like to watch a new movie each week. BAHAHAHA. Right. Ah well. It was funny, wasn't it? My schedule is so crazy and so irregular that I really don't think I'll be able to hold to this one, but it would be awfully nice, wouldn't it? 52 new movies in 2012. I rather like the idea. Lots of space to expand my horizons.

P.S. If anybody knows what the blog title is quoting, I shall be incredibly impressed! It's a really weird line to quote.

3 comments:

  1. Fun! I love these memes and your answers are great. I completely agree with you about Margaret O'Brien! Good choice for movie monster, too. I would have no idea what to pick for that since I haven't seen many monster films.

    That sounds like so much fun to watch movies with people who love the old movies like you do. Usually when I watch a movie with my family, if it's a musical they fast-forward the singing or dancing numbers. Grr!

    Oh, and now I really want to watch Tangled!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Have just discovered your blog, and am spending some time reading your archive - which I'm really enjoying - and am attempting to guess your title,even though I'm a bit late to the party, but here goes...

    Is it the opening line to the song "It's De-Lovely"?

    "callmemadam"

    ReplyDelete

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