A Never Too Late for Spring Movie Quiz
Yeah, well I’m truly and fully late for this one. And the only reason I even noted how tardy was the fact Dennis’ posted his answers to his own quiz months ago. Sheesh. Time to fix that, I reckon.
Among his regular readers, blogger Dennis Cozzalio (he of the wonderfully titled Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule site… and a mensch who is not like the guy pictured above) is well-regarded for his in-depth film knowledge and the thoughtful essays he gladly shares. The L.A.-stationed Mr. Cozzalio remains one of my long-time reads and a fellow TCM Film Festival regular. Plus, his semi-regular movie quizzes remain a joy to answer. For our Love in the Time of COVID, he’s teed up another:
DEAN VERNON WORMER’S LOCKDOWN-FRIENDLY, DOUBLE-SECRET PROBATIONARY QUARANTINE-QUALITY MOVIE QUIZ
Personally, I regard these as interview questions. But, that’s me. Anyone interested in film or sharing your thoughts are invited to take part. You can paste the questions and craft your answers into Google’s sometimes temperamental Blogger comment system in Dennis’ post or publish your answers on your own blog (if you have one) and leave a comment on his post with a link back to your answers. As Dennis encourages:
“At any rate, time to get to the new quiz, which hopefully you have been hankering for. The usual reminders are in order. You can post your answers in the comments column below, and when you do please copy and paste the questions as well as your answers so readers will know to what your answers refers without having to scroll back up to this post to be reminded. You can also link to your own blog page or Facebook page if you prefer to post your questions/answers there.
And please, don’t feel you have to post short answers. For this quiz, as all SLIFR quizzes, the longer, more discursive answers are almost always more interesting to read. But short answers can be great too– if you’ve got a witty, quippy reply, feel free to cut loose and run.”
So let’s get to it, shall we…
1) You’re on a desert island (and you sort of are) — What three discs do you select out of your own collection to keep if you had to get rid of all the rest?
2) Giuletta Masina or Jeanne Moreau?
Has to be Jeanne.
3) Second-favorite Roger Corman movie.
Just behind The Pit and the Pendulum is this one:
4) The most memorable place you ever saw a movie. This could be a film projected on a big screen or seen in some other fashion — the important thing is what makes it memorable.
At first, when I read this question, I thought of the great and grand movie palaces here in Los Angeles that I attended over the decades. The historic and striking Chinese and the Village Theatres still with us, and the old National Theatre in Westwood (among others) now long gone, which hosted big blockbuster first-run films I had movie dates with.
But if I’m honest, it’s the one below — the Warner Theatre in Huntington Park, California. It was my most frequented spot for catching a movie as a child (living in nearby Florence), and a teen (after we moved to South Gate), and later when I was one of its projectionists in the mid-’70s. As it still holds the most movie memories, it’s remains my pick.
5) Marcello Mastroianni or Vittorio Gassman?
Vittorio
6) Second-favorite Kelly Reichardt movie.
Sadly, I’ve only seen Meek’s Cutoff.
7) In the matter of taste, is there a film or director that, if your partner in a relationship (wife/husband/lover/best friend) disagreed violently with your assessment of it, might cause a serious rift in that relationship?
None.
8) The last movie you saw in a theater/on physical media/via streaming (list one each).
- The last film that I saw in a movie theater before COVID-19 shut that down: The Gentlemen
- The last on physical media: Jaws
- The last that was streamed: The Lake House
9) Name a movie that you just couldn’t face watching right now.
10) Jane Greer or Ava Gardner?
No question it has to be Ava:
11) Edmond O’Brien or Van Heflin?
Any other choice would be D.O.A.
12) Second favorite Yasujiro Ozu movie.
Striking out again as I’ve only seen Tokyo Story.
13) Name a proposed American remake of an international film that would, if actually undertaken, surely court or inevitably result in disaster.
Don’t know if it was ever proposed, but my answer to question 12 would surely be it.
14) What’s a favorite film that you consider genuinely subversive, for whatever reason?
As quoted from my 2011 film review:
“Starship Troopers plays simultaneously as a war film, a hard-edged sci-fi conjecture, and special effects summer movie (though, it was released in the Fall of 1997). It is also one of the more subversive cinematic takes of a source novel (one that was controversial then and as well as now). Its reworking to film offered a sly, yet insightful, criticism toward those (certainly the author of said work) who see a military styled government as a cure-all for its denizens. The quality and nobility of purpose for the warrior class in such a state in both the film and book is exalted, however… well, except maybe for one general in a scene Verhoeven made sure to add.”
The director’s agitating and cinematic look at fascism via this sci-fi lens remains timely.
15) Name the movie score you couldn’t live without.
With the recent passing Ennio Morricone, it would have to be this one:
16) Mary-Louise Weller or Martha Smith?
I’ll go with Linda Darnell for the block:
17) Peter Riegert or Bruce McGill?
I’ll go with Bruce McGill if for nothing more than his doing Elvis in Into the Night (1985):
18) Last Tango in Paris—yes or no?
Um…no.
19) Second-favorite Akira Kurosawa movie.
It’s this one, second to Seven Samurai, but I may soon flip that order because this keeps rising in my opinion.
20) Who would host the imaginary DVD commentary you would most want to hear right now, and what would the movie be?
Robert Culp providing a commentary track to his lone movie directorship of:
21) Favorite movie snack.
22) Second-favorite Planet of the Apes film (from the original cycle).
The original The Planet of the Apes (1968) still tops the list, but this is a wonderful second:
23) Least-favorite Martin Scorsese movie.
An overrated and overly long remake of a superior Hong Kong film, Infernal Affairs (2002)… there I said it:
24) Name a movie you feel doesn’t deserve its current reputation, for better or worse.
See my answer to question 23.
25) Best movie of 1970. (Fifty years ago!)
26) Name a movie you think is practically begging for a Broadway adaptation (I used this question in the last quiz, but I’m repeating it because I never answered the quiz myself and I think I have a pretty good answer)
Okay, I’ll update my answer from the previous quiz (and make a musical while you’re at it):
27) Louise Brooks or Clara Bow?
Paul Lynde for the block:
28) Second-favorite Pier Paolo Pasolini movie.
29) Name three movies you loved in your early years that you feel most influenced your adult cinematic tastes.
30) Name a movie you love that you think few others do.
31) Name a movie you despise that you think most others love.
32) The Human Centipede—yes or no?
Not no, but HELL NO!
33) Anya Taylor-Joy or Olivia Cooke?
Lana Condor
34) Johnny Flynn or Timothée Chalamet?
I’ll go with the new Kyle MacLachlan, I mean Paul Atreides…okay the young dude with the accent mark:
35) Second-favorite Dorothy Arzner movie.
I got nothin’.
36) Name a movie you haven’t seen in over 20 years that you would drop everything to watch right now.
37) Name your favorite stylistic filmmaking cliché, and one you wouldn’t mind seeing disappear forever.
The heroic silhouette remains a favorite:
…and guns that never run out of ammo can happily go the way of the Dodo.
38) Your favorite appearance by a real-life politician in a feature film, either fictional or a fictionalized account of a real event.
The former mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman, who appeared as himself in the 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino.
39) Is film criticism dead?
No, why do you ask?
40) Elizabeth Patterson or Marjorie Main?
Got to be Majorie:
41) Arch Hall Jr. or Timothy Carey?
42) Name the film you think best fulfills the label “road movie.”
Does this count?
43) Horror film that, for whatever reason, made you feel most uncomfortable?
Would M. Night’s The Happening count for just how bad it is?
44) Least-favorite (directed by) Clint Eastwood movie.
That would be J. Edgar.
45) Second-favorite James Bond villain.
The understated and cheeky villainy of Charles Gray as Blofed:
46) Best adaptation of a novel or other form that had been thought to be unfilmable.
I offer Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Mark Bowden’s book chronicling the Battle of Mogadishu, Black Hawk Down:
47) Michelle Dockery or Merritt Wever?
Michelle
48) Jason Bateman or Ewan McGregor?
Ewan
49) Second-favorite Roman Polanski movie.
Second only to Chinatown (1974):
50) What’s the movie you wish you could watch with a grandparent right now? And, of course, why?
It would have to be my maternal grandmother who raised me (for better or worse) and the above classic, which would harken back to my childhood when we would annually watch this on TV together.
51) Oliver Stone two-fer: Natural Born Killers and/or JFK—yes or no?
Okay, sure.
52) Name the actor whose likeness you would proudly wear as a rubber latex Halloween mask.
From Drive (2011):
53) Your favorite cinematographer, and her/his greatest achievement.
Will always have a soft spot, and leave a candle burning, for Conrad Hall (1926-2003)
54) Best book about the nitty-gritty making of a movie.
That would be the one I read earlier this year:
55) If you needed to laugh right now, what would be your go-to movie comedy?
Easily, that would be YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974):
It Rains... You Get Wet 
One Response to “A Never Too Late for Spring Movie Quiz”
WOW! Not only an incredible quiz, but terrific answers! To speak to just one of them, of COURSE “Midnight Run” is a road movie! Great answers, what a trip down a cinematic wormhole!
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