#dweemeister

Burt Lancaster:

How many movies I’ve seen them in: 8

How I feel about their acting: One of the greatest of all time from the traditional school of action.  A force on screen, up there with Welles and Tracy.

How I feel about them as a person: Never really looked that deeply into his personal life.  It’s almost never a good idea.

My favorite role they played: Elmer Gantry

My least favorite role they played: Didn’t really hate anything he did, but I guess he was my 2nd least favorite Wyatt Earp so Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Jennifer Jones:

How many movies I’ve seen them in: 3

How I feel about their acting: No real opinion, I need to see more of her films.  Duel In The Sun is on my list of films to see.

How I feel about them as a person: No opinion

My favorite role they played: Beat The Devil

1. What are your top 5 favorite films(not in particular order)?

In no particular order is a wonderful thing for my constantly changing opinions:

Casablanca, The Empire Strikes Back, Princess Mononoke, Seven Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia.

2. Who are your top 5 favorite directors(the criteria can be both their professionalism/work ethic/philosophy and their works themselves) (not in particular order)?

Criteria is simply if they make films that amaze me, be it a large body of work or one simple work of brilliance:

Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, Hayao Miyazaki, Nicholas Ray, Francois Truffaut

3. Who are your top 5 favorite actors/actresses(the criteria must be the performances, no matter how nice or bad they are in real life)(not in particular order)?

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Chaplin, Toshiro Mifune, Marlon Brando, Jimmy Stewart

Actresses: Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford, Olivia deHavilland.

4. Movies from which cinematic era(s) do you usually watch?

All of them.

5. What is your favorite film genre(s)?

I love film noir, I love really good science fiction, anything animated.  

6. What are the three most important things in movies in your opinion?

Quality screenplay, a director that’s a storyteller first, the music.

7. Movies from which country(or countries) do you usually watch?

US, Britain, and Japan primarily, some solid exposure to French and Russian film, not nearly enough Indian and Egyptian as I’d like but you have to take what you can get.

8. What would you choose? Sad ending or happy ending?

I feel better with a happy ending, but it has nothing to do with preference.  A good movie has the ending it needs, and how I feel at the end is how I’m supposed to feel.

9. Would you have your favorite leading man/lady to fall in love or be killed(physically or mentally tormented) in the movie?

That’s a creepy kind of question.  No preference as long as it’s handled properly.  There are love stories that are torture to watch, and scenes of torture that are just porn.  Handled properly a love story can be torture and a scene of torture can be a symphony.

10. Who do you prefer your favorite actor to appear in movies as? A character actor or a cameo or as a leading man/lady?

Generally I want my favorite actor to be in the film as much as possible.  A great cameo is wonderfully unexpected treat though.

11. One thing you hate about today’s movies?

The ridiculous continuation of whitewashing roles for no reason other than profit.  It needs to end and we need to stop paying for it when it happens.

That and SHAKY FUCKING CAMERAS FOR NO REASON!!!!  I can almost tolerate it in an action scene though I’d prefer smooth choreography and cinematography but when two characters are having a conversation and some idiot is walking around them in circles with a handheld for no reason I want to just turn the movie off.  

12. One thing you love about today’s movies?

With the internet and digital film and computer technology there are almost no limits on what you can do on screen and no limits on who can make film and be able to get it out to people.  It has grown exponentially bigger and smaller and it’s a great thing.

13. One thing you hate about cinema of the past?

The racism that makes recommending some of these films that are otherwise amazing a real hard thing to do.  It makes me wonder why we’re using technology to add Hayden Christensen to the end of Return of the Jedi and not using it to take Mickey Rooney out of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  

14. One thing you love about cinema of the past?

How it’s kind of a look at history in a way that you wouldn’t get from a history book.  I also really love black and white film.

15. How many times do you go to the movies alone?

Not at all anymore.  It would have to be a special movie, and even then I can usually find someone to go with.  I wish we had a quiet local theater that showed classic films.  I’d go to something like that every weekend.

16. On which devices do you prefer to watch movies?

On a large television.  Small screens are annoying. 

17. What is your favorite acting moment or method?

Method acting is interesting but can also be utter bullshit in unskilled hands.  Some of my favorite acting moments:

Chaplin’s face at the end of City Lights.

Bogart reconstructing the murder in In A Lonely Place.

O’Toole using his knife to check out his new robes in Lawrence of Arabia.

I should write these down more often...

18. What is the secret about movies you have never told anyone about?

Oh noes!

I’ve actually put the sound back on because of course all the intertitles have been removed and some points need explanation, but this over-explanation is killing the movie for me, and it’s not like I’ve even seen the silent version.

Those you adore, those you don’t get the hype about AT ALL or just plain avoid, and those that for you are hit or miss (all pre-1960s heyday):  Adore:  1. Ingrid Bergman (I had a period where I was over her and now I am really over that period) 

2. Jennifer Jones (I was bored by her at one time due to Song of Bernadette, now I’m on the B side of her body of work and loving it) 

3. Elizabeth Taylor (my interest has mostly stayed at the same level of *jaw drop*) 

4. Norma Shearer (I feel her appeal is hard to describe beyond “magnetic”)

5. Gloria Grahame (I feel I have not properly plumbed the depths of her filmography, stay tuned) 6. Judy Garland (I look at her face and am instantly 8 years old and believe in the goodness of mankind)  7. Judith Anderson vs. Thelma Ritter (for the reliably amazing character actress position. Also, I desperately wanted to know Thelma Ritter as a kid, assuming I guess that she would fix all my problems with her magical common sense.)  Avoid:  1. Greer Garson (Yawn but she was probably a lovely person and I do want to see Mrs. Miniver for the propaganda, novel-to-film factor, and scandal on set*)  2. Jane Russell (for bitchy characterizations I don’t remember)

3. Jane Wyman (the bitchy characterizations I DO remember, mostly the unbearable aunt in Pollyanna) 4.  Ava Gardner (my hatred borders close enough to the border of passion that I worry I actually might like her, and I wonder if I’m still angry about The Sun Also Rises like Bradley Cooper’s character in Silver Linings Playbook)  5. Kim Novak (I’m forever scarred by Picnic and by Vertigo and I think she was, too) 

6. Joanne Woodward (yes I HAVE seen all her collaborations with Paul Newman and they are like watching paint dry--talk about a “long hot summer”) 7. Joan Crawford (Her face and expressions and attitude are irrationally displeasing to me, but perhaps this stems from a bad viewing choice--see the final #7 below)  8. Rita Hayworth (yawn for her, slight interest in the crazy sets and costumes she inhabited)

9. LANA TURNER (why, I do not know but it’s real, folks, and maybe I hated how often The Bad and the Beautiful and Imitation of Life used to play on the classic movies channel) 

Hit or miss:  1. Audrey Hepburn (love her in specific films, but find her awkward in others)

2. Lauren Bacall (Nothing beats her performance in To Have and Have Not but that was mostly her real life onscreen, and it’s hard to follow up that act)  3. Grace Kelly (Hitchcock is the only person who can make her weird affectations endearing) 4. Joan Fontaine vs. Debbie Reynolds (I’m just never sure about them as versatile actresses outside of Rebecca and Singing in the Rain but in both cases I think I would have wanted to be one of their friends) 5. Deborah Kerr (I’ve seen her in a fair few films, but I vacillate between liking and disliking her in virtually every movie) 

Unless it’s by a director I won’t go near or someone who is very stylized and recognizable  and I like their canon I generally try approach film on an individual piece basis. Some of my favorite films are directed by people with otherwise really shoddy, boring or blasphemous track records (e.g. Zemeckis, Gilliam, Singh) or have other films I haven’t seen yet (e.g. Lamorisse, Has) or have other work that simply doesn’t interest me so it’s hard to say if they’re my favorite director even if they made some of my favorite films. I’m still getting more familiar with Bollywood too.

People who have directed multiple of my favorite films: Tati, Bergman, Sjöström, Cocteau, WIlder, Cukor, Del Torro, Hawks, Powell and Pressburger, Hitchcock. De Sica, Fellini, Ozu, Kurosawa and Satoshi Kon. I’m particularly fond of the glaring technicolor “MGM Musical” look so I do like a lot of Minnelli, Donen (+Kelly), Sidney. It’s also why I like Ozu’s color films. Jacques Demy has a similar visual style to what I feel like I’ve constructed for myself in my own writing but I cant say all of his films are favorites. Out of those I’d say the musical peeps plus Tati and Hitchcock are the highest up there.

However if I really have to break down the most influential directors for me it would have to be Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Hayao Miyazaki, Hanna/Barbera and the many directors of Disney’s Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. 

The influence of all those animated shorts and their films on me are pretty strong.