1) What was the last movie you saw, either in a theater or on DVD, and why?
Wicker Man, the remake, b/c I wanted to see if it was as awful as i thought it was--cryptic, with mild horror, and mostly dull, the orginal seemed to be a v. time and place thing, which is a shame, b/c the central message seems to be one of lebutes main wrestling venues, not quite gender, but what happens when men and women start realising they hate each other, what happens with power when the sexes have been found out (though the scene thru the woods, on the first chase, at night, looks oddly like a kinkade w. the lights turned out, which i find really funny) (and molly parker is really sexy in it)

2) Name the cinematographer whose work you most look forward to seeing, and an example of one of his/her finest achievements.
Tobias A. Schliessler, Friday Night Lights and Dream Girls, w. FNL, the scenes in between, of small towns, and the usual robert frank aesthetics, are made grainy, without that grainess being used to symbolize much at all, those scenes were so well shot, and slowed down the movie, into a gorgeous, syrupy utopia...i havent seen dream girls, but i can imagine he can do equal things there.

3) Joe Don Baker or Bo Svenson?
Bo Svenson, aside from doing a fantastic, grizzled frontier work on kill bill, he has this great white trash aesthetic, including television work.

4) Name a moment from a movie that made you gasp (in horror, surprise, revelation…)
Bambi's dad being shot.

5) Your favorite movie about the movies.
Sunset Bvld, The Player, Bamboozled (though thats really television), i like the angry and deseprate better than the love songs

6) Your Favorite Fritz Lang movie.
Lets Divide this into two:
German M (nothing creepier, more effective, more elegant in its evil than peter lorre here)
American Rancho Notorious, cause it reminds me of Johnny Guitar

7) Describe the first time you ever recognized yourself in a movie.
this awful little gay love story, from the UK, cheap and sort of melodramatic, with really cheesy musical cues, called Beautiful Thing, embarassingly enough.

8) Carole Bouquet or Angela Molina?
i dont know enough

9) Name a movie that redeems the notion of nostalgia as something more than a bankable commodity.
im stuck on this one, but the first that came to mind was steel magnolias, because it seemed genuine and honest about life in the rural south, among women, and the pace, and the refusal to be anything but entertainment, seemed not to have any agenda but documenting that, it seems then, not to be current, but looking backwards (another answer--the best little whorehouse in texas, where easy and ready sex is cast as good clean fun, and that progress is attached to morality, is a sort of backwards lesson, but i like how sex for money is what is viewed w. rose coloured glasses, and intereference with that is viewed as problematic progress)

10) Favorite appearance by an athlete in an acting role.
Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan the Barbarian

11) Favorite Hal Ashby movie.
Harold and Maude, because Ruth Connor had an amazing run in the 70s, after a long and complicated life, becaue it was erotic and tender, difficult and lovely, with morbid humour, well written, and decently shot...a cult classic that should be moved straight into the canon

12) Name the first double feature you’d program for opening night of your own revival theater.

Pink Narcissus, Wild is the Wind (set decoration as political subtext)

13) What’s the name of your revival theater?
The Holy Neville

14) Humphrey Bogart or Elliot Gould?
Elliot Gould, because he has this laid back sunbaked charm, and a hard new york edge; because he managed land half a dozen movies that worked as films and as satires, because he didnt look like he was working hard, and because he managed to be interesting, and basically good..i think i could live without bogart (i would have a problem w/o maltese and key largo) but i cannot imagine living without teh night they raided minskys, m*a*s*h, california split, bob and ted and carol and alice, or the two muppet movies,
he also has a sense of humour about himself, and his reputation, the v. funny, and v. hollywood deconstructions found in oceans 11 and oceans 12 are the only thing accessible in those monuments to inside baseball)

15) Favorite Robert Stevenson movie.
Mainstay of my childhood, and i think one of the first people who taught me about how to intergrate a huge variety of media into one text (including the under the sea set peice of bedknobs, and the dick van dyke penguin dance by marry poppins---i love some of the amazing music in marry poppins, and remember wondering fondly how they did the tea party scene, and i found myself comforted by the precise, and slightly sinister performances by both lansberry and andrews...i didnt like slapstick much as a kid, but loved the steampunk appliances that made flubber, i remember three generations of my family (granddad, mom, and i) weeping at the end of old yeller, the only time i saw my grandfather cry),forbidden planet was the first science fiction film i ever saw, and though it was not my introduction into space opera, i think ti was amongst the first times that i operationalised the other, fuck, i even watched the shaggy da on sundays thanks to the wonderful world of disney...i cannot choose

16) Describe your favorite moment in a movie that is memorable because of its use of sound.
Pyscho. I know its obvious, but come on, the shower scene soundtrack...scared the shit out of me, and synthesised 20th centuries history of discordance as a symbol of trauma, like the Black Angels Death Song by Crumb, but pop

17) Pink Flamingoes-- yes or no?
fuck yeah

18) Your favorite movie soundtrack score.
is it cheating to use a musical---Cabaret, if it is, then perhaps Badlands by Malick, for how low/broken the soundtrack matched the low/broken people and the low/broken landscape, the short idyll in the swamp, with the domesticity proteccted by cotton woods, the sounds of birds, nature, crickets, etc, as well as love is strange, makign the whole thing sound so ordinary, the least strange thing being love is strange, is one of those deep lingusitic ironies that is pure malick

19) Fay Wray or Naomi Watts?
Fay Wray, looked like she really wanted to fuck that monkey, Watts just looked like she wanted to fuck herself...

20) Is there a movie that would make you question the judgment and/or taste of a film critic, blogger or friend if you found out they were an advocate of it?

21) Pick a new category for the Oscars and its first deserving winner.
Best Porn Film, or even merge AVN with the academy. (Pirates or the new Michael Lucas remake of Caligula)

22) Favorite Paul Verhoeven movie.
everyones favourite pop refiensthal, starship troopers

23) What is it that you think movies do better than any other art form?
Spectacle.

24) Peter Ustinov or Albert Finney?
Finney is doing more interesting work, longer, from Tom Jones to Erin Brokovich

25) Favorite movie studio logo, as it appears before a theatrical feature.
MGM, i love the lion (and of course, the implications of body image as found in the columbia model)

26) Name the single most important book about the movies for you personally.
Waters Shock Value gave me permission to like movies for their own sake, and Thomsons New Biographical....allowed me to be eccentric, even in a form that was encylopedic.

27) Name the movie that features the best twist ending. (Please note the use of any “spoilers” in your answer.)
Snake Eyes by De Palma, not for its twist endings, but for its twist beginning, middle and end, and for eventually jettisioning any attempt at normal narrative spin

28) Favorite Francois Truffaut movie.
400 Blow, for all the usual reasons

29) Olivia Hussey or Claire Danes?
Claire Danes.

30) Your most memorable celebrity encounter.
Jake Gyllenhall, Yorkville, Toronto Film Week (he's dreaaaaaaamy)

31) When did you first realize that films were directed?
Oddly enogh, i think that the disney animated films did it, because they were so singualr in their viusal style, and the clues for what to look like, apperead like a string...