May 8th



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I sure didn't mean to stun everyone into silence. I've had too few responses on the film quiz, and after talking with a new friend about it tonight over dinner I guess I may have just been too darn obscure with it. Or people don't care about obscure cinema as much as I do. Anyhow, here are the answers.

1. El Degüello features in two movies prominently. In one, the Big Guy gets it; in the other you'll find Chance, Dude, and Colorado. What're the two movies?

1. The Alamo and Rio Bravo. In The Alamo John Wayne gets bayonetted to death. In Rio Bravo he gets Angie Dickison. [Chance, Dude, and Colorado are Wayne, Dean Martin, and Ricky Nelson.]

 2. Where will you find a movie so strange as to have 'Death' utter the line: "You have failed me for the last-- hey, nice shoes!"

2. Six String Samurai. Yeah, yeah, I know - uberobscure, but not to true moviegeeks.

 3. From Magua to the Sphinx, before acting he served 18 months in the 9th Division in VietNam.

3. Wes Studi. He was the fierce warrior Magua in Last of the Mohicans, and the pseudocryptic Sphinx in Mystery Men.

4. Body count: 230. With retrospective nods to Peckinpah, one of the largest body counts for any action film. Gives new meaning to the phrase 'Tequila Sunrise'.

4. Hard Boiled. Mr. John Woo's "Die Hard In A Hospital" [but so much more than that]. Mr Woo is such an incredibly sincere pacifist, and he does his essays of peace through the medium of excessive violence. And does them well. 'Tequila' was the nickname of Chow Yun Fat's character.

 5. A wonderful under appreciated western, with the narration voice-over done by an actor who was formerly a bodyguard to Howard Hughes.

5. Last of the Dogmen, such a fine modern western with Barbara Hershey and Tom Berenger. The unmistakeable voice of narration [uncredited in the movie] was Wilford Brimley, who was in fact formerly a bodyguard of Howard Hughes.

 6. He kept saying "It's showtime!", but his 20 minute death scene really was a comment on his excesses.

6. Bob Fosse played by Roy Scheider in All That Jazz.

 7. Get the DVD version with Susie chatting along on the Director's Commentary. And of course Corky reaching up to fix the plumbing was suggestive!

7. Bound, with Susie Bright - the official lesbian consultant to the directors - contributing to the commentary. She convinced them that with macho movies the underlying theme was 'hard', but for women the underlying theme needed to be 'wet', and looking at the movie with that in mind you'll see her effect. And anyone who has ever been down reaching up into female plumbing gets the point when Gina Gershon reaches up into the pipes that Jennifer Tilly wants her to fix.

 8. I saw it in LA in 180o Cinerama, but on TV the three separate cameras each only give you a small third of the screen. The buffalo stampede just isn't quite the same.

8. How The West Was Won. And in 180 neck-breaking Cinerama, it was overwhelming. The buffalo stampede, the logs rolling off the careening train - if you ever get a chance to see this 1962 classic, go for it.

9. And I still don't understand why they're all driving Yugo's!

9. Drowning Mona. One helluva cast, quite morbidly funny. And everyone from the murder victim to the cops drive only Yugo's!

10. Everyone loved him singing 'Fugue for Tinhorns', but seeing him with Nat singing about a cat, just made you smile.

10. Stubby Kaye, singing Fugue for Tinhorns and Sit Down-You're Rocking The Boat and other classics in Guys and Dolls, and ten years later teaming up with Nat King Cole to do the soundtrack for Cat Ballou onscreen.

 11. He did the voice over for the commercial "Secret - strong enough for a man but made for a woman"; later he had the great line "We've got a blind date with Destiny -- and it looks like she's ordered the lobster!"

11. William H. Macy, a great modern character actor. The quote is from Mystery Men.

 12. "A cock on a rock in a frock." [I had to throw an easy one or two in].

12. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. A chip shot for most readers of my journal.

13. Later, she said, "You wouldn't have to get drunk to bed Catherine Deneuve, I don't care what your sexual history has been to that point." Her name, the movie she refers to?

13. Susan Sarandon, The Hunger, as quoted in Celluloid Closet.

14. In Ready To Wear, she walked the runway nude, carrying a bouquet, and extremely pregnant with her son, Max. You have to love her - she has this quote: "(on Céline Dion) Her singing is a hoot. And she provides absolutely no passion. She's a bore!"

14. Ute Lemper, a true goddess. I'd crawl a mile over broken glass just to sniff the chair she rose from.

15. You know who it is. In which movie did he say, "I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them."

15. The Shootist, and of course it's John Wayne.

16 - and for extra credit - she got an academy award nomination for her dedication to a junkie comic, but bottomed her career out singing to a bathhouse in the gayest film ever to refuse to admit it's gay, directed by Rosie The Bounty Lady.

16. Valerie Perrine, a Best Supporting Actress candidate for Lenny, and then bottoming out in Can't Stop the Music, the pseudo autobiography of The Village People. The director was Nancy Walker, Rhoda's mom and Bounty's voice.

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Enjoyed myself babysitting Elf and Omaha's darling daughter last night, while O took E out for a birthday movie. I was littlebit's first babysitter ever, mentioned in one of my first journal entries ever, and these days she greets me with a large grin, a happy squeal, and a hug. I'm not much for sitting the more capricious older kids, but I sure enjoy the little ones. Omaha is about the only friend who approaches me on this though - I must be too much of a Big Scary guy or something. Who knows? It isn't like the kids read my journal, ya know? Anyhow we enjoyed the Little Mermaid together, then she played on her floor-level computer a while. Her little bed is right next to her parent's bed, so she fell asleep in bed holding onto my outstretched pinky, and I damn near dozed off myself. We both woke up when Mom and Dad got home from Spiderman about 30 minutes later and I headed on home. Good evening.

Tonight after work I headed over to the Sunlight and met HielanLass of 3WA for dinner and a "hi how are ya". We'd never met previously, but had occasionally posted things on 3WA that caught the attention of the other. Turns out we have virtually nothing in common. Well, except for both having cyclopedic knowledge of some favorite authors we shared. And the same about favorite movies we shared. And a bunch of other stuff. It's refreshing periodically to have the sort of date where you don't start by getting nekkid and bumping uglies. She's a nice person and hopefully we can continue to find points in common.

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