Day-Late Halloween Movie Meme

Yikes, have I abandoned this dive for awhile. Apologies. Luckily, my fellow blog-horts (like co-horts, only...I'm sorry) have been quite more creative than stupid ol' me in the meantime. Such as that ever lovable and unpredictable dame Rachel at Girl With the White Parasol, who came up with this delightful Halloween Movie Meme!...about two weeks ago. I'm a bit tardy. Heh. SO HERE IT IS NOW! WHOOPS! HA HA HA!

Anywho, enjoy.

1. Who is your favorite movie witch?
She did appear in the movie adaptation Night of Dark Shadows, so Angelique Bouchard it is:

(Not my picture, unfortunately. Whoever made this, let me know so I can credit!)

2. What is the first movie you can remember being scared by?
My poor well-meaning mother scared me away from watching Beetlejuice the whole way through when I was an itty-bitty thing because "a lady cuts her own neck off" or something (I think she was referring to Geena Davis trying to scare off the Deetzes).

Yeah. This scene.

3. Name a classic horror film that would be substantially improved by better special effects.
The climactic scene in the original The Fly would have had a lot more impact had the fly's actual head not looked like something a kid could pick up at a costume store.

4. Name your favorite Val Lewton film.
Gotta go with Cat People, followed closely by its sequel, Curse of the Cat People. Horror with heart, with perhaps the first mainstream sympathetic female "monster." 

Add to that a very eerie, sleepy mood and Simone Simon's otherworldy charm, and you definitely have a Lewton classic.

5. What movie villain or monster has the most frightening "stare-into-the-camera" moment?
I bet there are others more iconic, but the one that really sticks into my mind that my mother brought up recently, is the epic side-eye Cotton gives the camera (and Teresa Wright) in Shadow of a Doubt.

All blank but heavy with menace. That's the stuff.
6. What is the most irritating horror film cliche?
Ironically kind of a cliched answer, but I guess the Fainting Female. Screaming I get, but I'd like to think like other organisms, us chicks' immediate instincts would be to run rather than lose consciousness altogether in moments of stress.

7. Are there any movies you refuse to watch alone?
If a movie's too scary for me to tackle alone, chances are I couldn't handle watching it with anyone else, either. See, I'll have to be alone again eventually, and THAT'S when I'd really start freaking out.

8. Picture an old childhood nightmare of yours. Now try to adapt it to film. Can it be done?
Mr. Burns chasing after me? Like every "Treehouse of Horror" ever? Yeah, probably could be done.

9. Who's your favorite "scream queen?"
I really can't choose one. I love my Scream Queens. Here's narrowed down to three:
1. Elsa Lanchester




2. Caroline Munro - This is possibly the greatest song ever written.




 3. Let's not forget our darling Fay (it's not a cliche if it's true!)


Also, according to the YouTube poster, she doesn't wear any underwear! How nice.

*As an honorable mention, I'd like to include Marilyn Burns as Sally Hardesty (or "Leatherlungs" as my dad dubs her), even though I refuse to watch all of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, due to overall cowardice. However, for sustained screaming, I hear nothing can beat her neverending howls during the notorious dinner scene (like Lanchester, I hear they looped some of her screams backwards for creepier effect).

Some of that was her own blood, apparently! Oh, the fun of shooting on location and running through brush and branches.

10. What is the most disappointing horror remake?
The thing is, there are so very,very many terrible horror remakes. Really, you just have to pick the one whose ludicrousness hits you in that one raw place.

The 1973 Wicker Man was uneven but such a unique mixture of pastoral musical hippy-dippy hypnotism and creepy cult nightmareville that it definitely stands as an unclassifiable classic.

...But then in 2006 they cast Nicholas Cage as an Average Joe policeman (unlike the fervently virgin and fundamentalist Edward Woodward's Sergeant Howie), they dumbed down the script and made it a matriarchal society for some who-knows reason (oh us crazy ladies with our periods and pagan sacrifices), and stripped out the eccentricities and eerie mood and replaced it with...bees.



Yup, that happened.

11. We've all seen our share of vampires, zombies, and werewolves on film, but are there any mythical creatures or monsters out there that you think deserve more movies (i.e. golems, changelings, the Minotaur, etc.)? 

Ooh, this is a good one! I'm not sure....oh! Oh! I just looked up "creepy mythological creatures" and I'm going for Aswang from Filipino folklore all the way! 

According to Urban Titan, she's  a cross between a vampire and a witch! And super, duper horrifying: 

Almost always female the creature is a cannibalistic eater of the dead and of the living. They can transform themselves into either a black dog or a black boar. Some of the methods effective in fending them off is the use of garlic and/or holy water. During the day they are in their human form and appear as quiet, shy, elusive characters. At night though they transform into the terrifying creatures whose trademark features include very bloodshot eyes.

Totally know what I'm going as for next Halloween. 

12. Along the lines of "Scary Mary Poppins," can you think of any non-horror flicks that could easily be adapted to fit the genre?
Why not All About Evil, the story of an aging leading actress's demonic possession by a seemingly innocent yet deadly soul-sucking succubus?

I guess that is kind of the plot. Just throw in a scene like Isabelle Adjani's harrowing subway ordeal in Possession, and presto!


13. And now, just for fun, pick one movie monster or villain to be remade into a cuddly plush toy, just for you.


Boris the Lovable Bumbling Monster Guy. He basically is an overgrown plush toy, just made out of dead bodies. He really wants to be your friend!

**********

That was fun, thank you for inspiring me to get on my lazy ass and type, Rachel! I really will try to be a better bloggette/esse/whatever, just the inventive juices haven't been real...good...lately. Maybe I need to see more movies, hmmm.....

I'm the warrior of love. Yes, I am. I'm coming to get you.

One More Classic Film Survey Never Hurt Nobody

Thank Internet for fellow bloggers who pull you out of writer's block with their addictive surveys. This one is brought to you by the lovely Rianna at Frankly, My Dear. I was going to post this before the weekend, but then moving and superbowling and sleeping happened instead. So nothin' like a Monday afternoon meme, amiright?

1. Favorite classic Disney?

Jungle Book counts as classic, right? 1967 isn't pushing it, is it? Art, story, characters, songs--Disney at its best and most frankly fun. I want to join Colonel Hahti's regiment.

Imperialism is fun when it's represented by elephants!


Runners-up are Lady and the Tramp and Sleeping Beauty. Dogs eating spaghetti and dresses changing colors from blue to pink are some of my favorite things.

2. Favorite film from the year 1939?

Man, to be different I really want to put At the Circus, but it's been so long since I've seen that one I can't remember much about it! Wait, was that the one with Lydia the Tattooed Lady?

...Checking YouTube....

Yes, it is!!



Okay, for that song alone I'll say At the Circus. And also because I want to be unique so badly and not say Gone with the Wind even though oh my God I love Vivien so much and Clark Gable can smile at me with his beautiful false teeth anytime and I'll swoon, every time.

3. Favorite Carole Lombard Screwball role?

Twentieth Century. No, wait, My Man Godfrey! D'ohhhh....

She was better in Godfrey, so I'll give that one the nod. Twentieth Century was principally John Barrymore's show, if you ask me--though Lombard was, as always, super swell in that one too. But she was so manically bright in My Man Godfrey that I was pretty sure she was going to explode and start spewing glittery crazy. 

There's a reason she and Gracie are my favorite screwball heroines. Although whoever gave her those godawful bangs in Godfrey should have been dunked in that shower instead.

PS. don't you think if she were a few years younger, Amy Poehler would make a smashing Carole in a biopic? Both tiny blondes brimming with energy, and with zany, devilish expressions.

4. Favorite off screen couple? (It’s ok if it ended in divorce.)

I plan to talk about this more in-depth in a V-Day post, but for now I'll give you a sneak peek and say Charles Boyer and Pat Paterson.

Well, either them or Peter Cushing and Helen Beck. I'll talk about both couples on the fourteenth, so I'll save the reasoning for then. I'll just say this: I really like bittersweet love stories tinged with pathos. Because I'm a total creep.

5. Favorite pair of best friends? (i.e: Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford)

Speaking of Cushing, I'll go with his friendship with Christopher Lee. I read somewhere that the last time they saw each other before Cushing passed away they sang a Jimmy Durante song together. Drac and Van Helsing. Singing Durante. Think about it. Love it.

6. Favorite actor with a mustache? 

Sam Elliott. Because sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you.

7. Favorite blonde actress?

This one's difficult, and changes a lot. One month it'll be Tuesday Weld, the next Sue Lyon. After that, Elke Sommer. After that, Toby Wing. After that, Marion Marsh.

I think my overall answer is Michelle Pfeiffer, but right now I'll go with the recently departed Jill Haworth, since I discovered her not too long ago. She played one of the most adorable, likable one-time characters I've ever seen in a TV series, that of Cathy in a 1963 episode of the original Outer Limits called "The Sixth Finger". She was earnest, sweet, and uniquely drop-dead gorgeous.

The full episode is on YouTube here, and I'd recommend it to scifi, romance, and quirky British mining townfolk fans. Oh, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. fans, too. You'll see.

8. Favorite pre-code?

Naughty, gaudy, bawdy, 42nd Street.

Well, look at that. I got a shot of Toby Wing in after all.

9. Which studio would you have liked to join?

Poor neglected Paramount! Get me some Lillian Roth/Thelma Todd roles in Marx Bros classics! (Count me out when you get to the MGM and Kitty Carlisle years. The boys were still funny, but that's about it).

10. Favorite common on screen pairing that SHOULD have gotten married? 

Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr! They adored each other and he rubbed her feet!

Ha ha, I've made this look far dirtier than it actually is in context.

I love the stories about their working together for the first time on Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison. Mitchum was allegedly apprehensive about starring with a broad who had such a "Great Prim Lady" reputation, but all that changed on one of the first days of shooting when something went wrong and she cussed out John Huston. He about keeled over laughing. 

11. Favorite I Love Lucy episode?

VItameatavegamin is Lucy at her funniest as a comedienne.

12.  Out of these actresses which one do you like best: Lucille Ball, Ingrid Bergman, Natalie Wood, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Greer Garson, or Katharine Hepburn?

Ho dang. Toss up between Kate and Ingrid...I'll go with Ingrid. It's that damn Swedish statuesque aura, it does elevate her so ethereally above us mortal women. And I'm calling it: most beautiful smile ever photographed, ever.

13. Shadowy film noir from the 1940’s or splashy colorful musicals from the 1950’s?

Well, depends. I'll take the worst noir over the worst musical, but the best musical over the best noir. The best musical, of course, being Singin' in the Rain. So just for that, I'll give the nod to musicals, which makes me feel less hardcore and mysterious than the image of myself I've built up in my head.

But whatevs:

14. Actor or actress with the best autograph (photo preferred).

I'm actually going with a writer, one George Bernard Shaw. Why? Because of what's hanging up on my parents' wall.

"I inscribe this volume to Mr. William Henry Crawford whom I do not know at the request of Mr. H. Plunket Woodgate whom I do not know, but who invokes the memory of Jim Penrose whom I remember very well."

G. Bernard Shaw

London

22nd Oct. 1931

This was bequeathed to us by my mother's stepgrandma after said stepgrandma died. Apparently either she or my great-grandfather received this from a guy named William Henry Crawford, who knew a guy named H. Plunket Woodgate, who knew a guy named Jim Penrose, who knew a guy named George Bernard Shaw. So obviously, when Woodgate saw Shaw in a restaurant or something one day, he felt evoking the name of Penrose would yield positive results for one Mr. Crawford in the volume which is now lost somewhere in time--which did indeed yield positive results, since Shaw gave him the above autograph, summing up everything.

And now it's on our wall. 

15. A baby (or childhood, or teenage) photo of either your favorite actress or actor (or both, if you’d like.)

Vivling.

Movie Meme for You and Me but mostly...Me

"Shut up and deal."

The ever-delightful Rachel at Girl With the White Parasol has grown ever-deservedly more popular, reaching the enviable 50-follower mark. She's been tremendously supportive of my own blog and I'm thrilled she's been getting more blogosphere love lately! To celebrate, she's started a  New Year's Movie Meme, which I'm...gonna do, basically.


And here it is!


1. What is your all-time favorite Grace Kelly costume?


I hate to be what's called on the fancy-pants internets a "sheep", since I'm sure many are going to pick this one, but you really can't beat the first number she wears in Rear Window.

Scan compliments of Doctor Macro

This Edith Head piece is not only my favorite Grace Kelly dress or favorite movie dress ever, but my favorite dress, period. I would wear that thing every which way: to the movies, a fancy restaurant, eating cheetos in bed....

And this is why I can't have nice things.

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

I've expressed my disappointment in the 1967 version and speculated about what a '40s cast would have been like here, but I also wouldn't mind a modern take on Far From the Madding Crowd. Whether made at Merchant-Ivory or Miramax, whatever, if in the right hands it could be great (does Merchant-Ivory still make films? God, I suck at film buffing sometimes). So long as Colin Firth plays Boldwood, I'm down.


I really don't know who could play Bathsheba, though. I'm not seeing Gemma Arterton. I love Catherine Zeta-Jones, but you need someone more naive. Who's a striking brunette Brit in her early twenties who could do it these days?


3. Name your favorite femme fatale.

At first I was vacillating back and forth between Gene and Veronica, but Lauren Bacall's autobiography is basically what started me on the genre. So Baby gets it.

Again, compliments of Doctor Macro. I love this site. Love.

Although technically, does she really count as a "femme fatale?" I mean, she's got the smoky noir vibe down natch, but she's almost always revealed to be the palsy dame with a heart of gold. Still, you can't beat her style. And I will always refuse to believe she's about five years younger than I am in that picture.


4. Name the best movie with the word "heaven" in its title.

Even though I haven't seen it the whole way through yet (my life is riddled with half-finished books and movies, the fate that befalls those with attention spans of gnats), but I'll still give the nod to the forebodingly euphoric Heavenly Creatures from 1994.

Just in case Titanic makes you forget Kate Winslet can act, or Lord of the Rings makes you forget Peter Jackson can direct anything but blockbuster epics, see this. Disturbing, erotic, touching, beautiful, and terrifying.

Plus, it introduced me to Mario Lanza's "Donkey Serenade."

That's it, I'm watching the rest of this movie tonight. It's on Instant View, and there's no freaking excuse.


5. Describe the worst performance by a child actor that you’ve ever seen (since Laura gave me the idea).


Durr hee, kindly Rachel refers to my post, yup! The absolute worst? Well, I almost put Kenny from Gamera, but on reflection, that might have more to do with the awful Sandy Frank dubbing than anything else ("Gamera has a good haht!). And also, people don't mean to be obnoxious, it's just that they're all screwed up inside.


So I'll go instead with the twerpy, dimply, monstrous little shrub from the otherwise fascinating 1932 pre-code flick Three on a Match: Buster Phelps as Robert Kirkwood, Jr.

There's nothing that wasn't wretched about him: his constipated little voice screeching away, the urpy expressions, and if you're gonna cast Warren William in your movie, play up his stiff coldness, don't try to make him act like a loving father--not to this imp from hell. I saw this movie after reading FlickChick's apt write-up over at A Person in the Dark. She warned me of Phelps. Wise woman.


But hey, at least an evil Humphrey Bogart gets to menace him a little. Heh heh.


6. Who gets your vote for most tragic movie monster?


I've said it once, and I'll say it again: The Mummy. He's got the lost love, the tortured burying alive scene (which in the Hammer version involved getting his tongue cut out), and then walking around decaying and repulsive to the very vision of the woman he done got tortured for. If those aren't the makings of an epic blues song, what is?

"When you lose your lover you also lose your heart, and my dear, that's when your teardrops will start...."

Also very close in the running were both Andre Delambre and Seth Brundle from the two versions of The Fly now that I've see both, the ever bumbling, well-meaning Frankenstein Monster, and King Kong. 

Poor little guys. Just because they're different!

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


Gah! Westerns. Um. John Ford's 1960 Sergeant Rutledge, I guess. Not because it's a good movie (which it isn't), but Ford combines a lot of interesting elements that you might not expect from a Western: race issues, sexual obsession, a murder mystery, courtroom drama. None of those are particularly well done, what with Woody Strode's titular African-American sergeant used more as a silently suffering symbol than an active presence in the movie, and Billie Burke's tone-deaf comedic performance. But fascinating, nonetheless.


8. Who is your ideal movie-viewing partner?


Someone with my dad's infectious laugh and knowledge of movie trivia, my mom's empathy for characters, my squeamishness (so they don't make fun of me), and someone with a calming aura if scenes get too tense.


9. Has a film ever made you want to change your life? If so, what was the film?


Toni Morrison books have, but I don't know about any particular movies--maybe if I ever saw the film version of Morrison's Beloved, that'd be it.


(Okay, I might have secretly toyed with the secret idea of becoming an FBI agent after watching Silence of the Lambs when I was younger. But deep down, I knew I'd never be able to do a pull-up, much less shoot a maniac wearing women's skin in a pitch-black basement).

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.


When Groucho is forced to be genuinely kind to Kitty Carlisle in A Night at the Opera. You know the scene in her cabin where she's crying and he gives her the note from Allan Jones and she actually...hugs him? I plug my ears and turn away every time.


Speaking of which....


11. On the flip side, think of one really good scene/performance/movie from a performer that you truly loathe.  


The smarmy Allan Jones does a good job of disappearing into his beard and being funny with the rest of the lads when they arrive in America in A Night at the Opera, so bully for him, I guess. 

That one scene is almost enough to redeem that close-up of his face singing "Alone" on the dock. Granted, he's not as funny as Harpo with the glass of water. But he doesn't embarrass himself, I guess is what I'm saying.


12. And finally, since it will be New Year's soon, do you have any movie or blogging-related resolutions for 2012?


Just watch more movies. I've been crazy busy this year, and too exhausted to fully commit to watching all the flicks I should. And the more exposed I am to fabulous blogs such as Rachel's, I realize how far behind I am on a lot of classics.

I haven't seen National Velvet yet! What's wrong with me?!

P.S. I don't know how to change the font in blogger, so that's why when I copy and pasted Rachel's questions over, sometimes my font jumps to her style and then back to mine. Um, sorry for the disorientedness. Blame Blogger for confusing the weak-minded. Yeah, not my fault AT ALL.


P.P.S. Never mind. I totally figured it out. I'm on top of things.


P.P.P.S. Happy New Year.