Film Quiz Friday

Last week's quote is from Stanley Kubrick's first feature-length film, The Killing (1956). It's a late-period noir that is a treat to watch. Sterling Hayden is tough, gruff, and has his heist, the titular "killing" he's going to make, all planned out.

One aspect of his downfall (there's always a downfall, isn't there?) is his co-conspirator's wife, Sherry. She's the one being referred to in the quote of the week and ends up helping facilitate the destruction of all of Hayden's well-laid plans. If you're in the mood for a surprisingly contemporary-feeling heist film brushed with some old Hollywood glamour and style, The Killing is for you.

Here's an easy one that the Admiral is forbidden from saying anything about. It's far too easy for him. He's the one who introduced the movie to me and lent me his copy of the book. So this is for everyone else:

"I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your home on the wedding day of your daughter. And may their first child be a masculine child. "

Happy Surprises

For me, one of life's great pleasures is when you go looking for something you like and end up finding something you like even more.

I think of this specifically in terms of music. Back in the pre-digital days of albums, if you liked a song, you had to take a chance on buying the whole album and hope the rest of it didn't suck. I remember distinctly seeing the video for Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" on MTV in the basement of my cousin Kathie's house in 1992. The song was so poppy and cool and the video was a mishmash of Japanese anime -- I was entranced. So the very next music shop I saw (remember those?), I found the album, plunked down my fifteen bucks, and proceeded to listen to it for the next twenty years.

Of course, "Girlfriend" will probably always be my favorite track but the real pleasure came in how many other tracks I came to love. "Evangeline," "Does She Talk," "Nothing Lasts," etc. It's one of the most consistently listenable albums I ever bought. I could just put it in my CD player (remember those?) and let it go without having to worry about skipping over the lame songs. Finding the song "Girlfriend" was great but finding the album Girlfriend was even better.

Anyway, part of what makes this discovery of something additional and equally awesome is its rarity. More often than not, an album will have one or two good songs, a couple of middling ones, and several that you just want to automatically skip every time. (There are still portions of U2's latest album that I haven't listened to all the way through.)

These days, you don't have to buy albums at all. You can do a Seal Team 6 search and destroy targeting and find the one exact song you want, not having to bother with the other dozen tracks if you don't want to. On the one hand, this is nice for a dilettante like me who only wants that three-and-a-half minutes and not the whole ninety minute musical experience most of the time. But it does cut down on the likelihood of making that pleasant discovery. Deep cut tracks (as the local DJ calls them) are more likely to stay buried this way.

Fortunately, the shotgun approach of Google and Youtube searches make up for this a bit and you may still stumble across something you've never heard but can never live without now that you have. Having said that, let me just say to the Pretenders' song "Night In My Veins," my dear, where have you been all my life? You're not what I was looking for but am I glad I found you.

Film Quiz Friday

I admit, I was rooting for cousin Karen on this one because Cameron Crowe's 1992 film Singles was filmed entirely in the Seattle area where she used to reside. (Although, she was a suburban girl and wasn't likely to be found hanging out in clubs, watching Alice in Chains perform. I think.) I guess I thought she might have heard of the film simply by virtue of proximity but, alas, I guess not.

Anyway, Crowe wrote the screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High, wrote and directed the John Cusack opus Say Anything, and then did Singles. He's since gone on to bigger and (sometimes) much worse things. (Can you say Elizabethtown?) Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, Almost Famous, etc.

Singles was his transition film between stories about teenagers to more sophisticated, adult fare. It focuses on a group of twenty-somethings in Seattle during the so-called Grunge period. The characters meet, fall in love, break up, listen to music, lose their jobs, go back to school, etc. The film was notable for highlighting bands like Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, and a little band named Mookie Blaylock (later to be known as Pearl Jam.) The film is also distinctive because of it's very writerly screenplay. Crowe is a guy who delights in wry dialogue and in memorable one-liners. He is the guy responsible, after all, for "Show me the money." The quotes both the Admiral and Tracy used in the comments section bear this out. Debbie Hunt is a kind of desperate man-eater character who, at one point, makes a dating video and it has a catchphrase - "Come to where the flavor is. Come to Debbie Country!" She also declares that "Desperation is the world's worst cologne" which was almost my choice for the quote of the week. (On a side note, the guy who "directs" Debbie's video is played by Tim Burton, director of Beetlejuice, Batman, Alice in Wonderland, etc. It's a tiny cameo but very funny.) It's fun to listen to the nuanced character bits that come out just through dialogue.

Anyway, the film also features Kyra Sedgewick in a rare leading film role. It's her former boyfriend, Mr. Sensitive Ponytail Man, who uses the term "emotional larceny."

Matt Dillon plays Cliff Poncier, a deluded, undertalented front man for a band called Citizen Dick. I think Dillon is a talented guy and I think this is one of his great, under-appreciated performances. He plays puff-chested cluelessness perfectly. One of my favorite moments is when his long-suffering girlfriend Janet (Bridget Fonda), suffering from insecurity, pointedly asks him, "Cliff, are my breasts too small for you?" The look of serious contemplation, confusion, and uncertainty on Dillon's face is as classic as his reply: "Sometimes?"

Campbell Scott, the male lead, did not get along with Crowe at all during filming and the two had several well-documented shouting matches on the set. One point of tension was the fact that Scott came to the film directly from filming Forever Young with Julia Roberts. In it, he played a guy dying of cancer. So when he showed up to be a romantic lead, he was bald, skinny, and looked like crap. Crowe wasn't happy to see him like that. Apparently, in the time it took them to locate a decent wig, Scott's hair grew out just enough to begin filming his scenes.

As far as the film representing the grunge era in Seattle, it seems a little too clean and polite to really be any kind of real portrait. Nevertheless, it's one of my faves from way back and writing about it has made me want to track it down on DVD so I can have it on in the background while I'm folding laundry or whatever. It's one of those that I can watch over and over again.


This week's quote is from another favorite of mine, a first film from an important director, and an inspiration to a lot of other films that followed it. I don't anticipate anyone knowing it but I'll pitch a softball next week:

"I know exactly what kind of woman you are. You're a no-good, nosey little tramp... you'd sell out your mother for a piece of fudge. You have a great big dollar sign where most people have a heart."

Film Quiz Friday

I may have to change the name of this little enterprise to "Stump the Admiral." Last Friday's quote was from Guarding Tess, an underappreciated little film in which Nicholas Cage plays a Secret Service agent in charge of protecting a former First Lady played by Shirley Maclaine. Of course, Shirley's character is acerbic and has a will of iron (like most characters she plays) and the conflicts between her and Cage's character are great fun. It's also heartfelt and surprisingly sweet. It's well worth watching, in my opinion.

This week's quote is from a film I watched endlessly in the 90s. I actually wore out my VHS copy of it. Looking back on it now, a film that seemed so current and cool is as dated as any John Hughes high school film from the 80s, just in a different way. Nevertheless, it will always occupy a gooshy spot in my heart.

Here's the quote:

"I think we made a big mistake because, we had good times and we had bad times, but we had times. And I would like to start over. I would like to be new to you. I want to be new to you. I want to be Mr. New. So call me back if you want to. But this is the last time I'll call. And, if you really needed to know how I feel, how I really feel, that's how I feel. I love you. And that's something you should know, so I won't bother you again. So, good night. And good bye. And call me back. Good bye."

High Five

Foreign

I just got word from the head of the Foreign Language department at Wayne State that I passed the Spanish translation exam I completed a few weeks ago. Yay for me. That's one less thing to have to worry about. Now I can focus solely on my prospectus and dissertation this summer and worry about just English.




On another subject, I watched Michel Gondry's The Green Hornet the other day and it only had one major problem: it was written by and starred Seth Rogan. Admittedly, I haven't seen Knocked Up or Zach and Miri or any of the other super-R rated movies that have made him a star, but frankly, I don't get it. His emotionally-retarded stoner man-boy act seems so one-note, I don't understand the appeal. Gondry is a clever director and did some nifty things with the action sequences and Jay Chou's Kato was charming, but overall, it wasn't worth much. Even Christoph Walz who was so brilliant and terrifying in Inglorious Basterds failed to make any kind of real impression. Sigh. I guess it goes to show that the script is king. You can have a brilliant director, an impressive supporting cast, and plenty of money for a budget, but if the characters are underwritten and shallow, if the dialogue is only so-so, the movie will most likely fail to fly.

On the heels of watching the movie, one of the student tutors at the Writing Center, a kid I've had almost no interaction with at all, randomly walked up to me and said, "Has anyone ever told you that you sound and look a lot like Seth Rogan?" I kneecapped him, but I guess it's better than being mistaken for Drew Carey.

Friday Film Quiz

Captain Admiral knew what last week's quote was and Linda seemed to be on the trail but no one actually spoke up so, for the first time in FFQ history, there is no Fabulous Prize to be claimed. It's alright though. I consider Fred Sanford rising from the muddy waters to be my magnum opus so far. I need to rest after something as perfect as that.

Anyway, the quote came from 1941's The Maltese Falcon. Directed and adapted by John Huston, it starred Humphrey Bogart, of course, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, and others. The film begins with the death of Sam Spade's partner and tells the tale of him trying to unravel a very convoluted plot to steal a jewel-encrusted statue of a falcon. It's considered a proto-noir and established a lot of the conventions for movies about world-weary, tough-talking private eyes. Bogart's Spade has more to do with contemporary ideas about private eyes and black and white movies than almost any other single character from the era.

My favorite moment in the movie is when, at one point, the conniving Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Astor) slaps Joel Cairo (Lorre). When Cairo tries to retaliate, Spade grabs him, slaps him a couple more times and says, "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it." It made me laugh out loud the first time I saw it and Avery, my 8 year old, still says it sometimes because she knows it makes me chuckle.

Aaaaaaanyway, here's this week's quote. This film is more contemporary and certainly not as widely seen. Take a guess:

"The President is coming to Somersville. Will you have the cars and the machine guns ready in about an hour?"

This Is Childish But I Still Like It

Fabulous Prize Now!

Here we have the delayed but, I think, well-worth-waiting-for fabulous prize for the Admiral. He guessed the film correctly as Apocalypse Now and requested something to do with Fred Sanford as Captain Ben Willard. This is funny because Martin Sheen, who played Willard, famously had a heart attack on the set and Fred Sanford was constantly faking heart attacks to get out of slippery situations ("I'm coming, Elizabeth!"). This should give you some sense of Captain Admiral's range of pop culture knowledge and the edge of depravity that lines his sense of humor. Enjoy, Captain!



(If you've seen the film, you'll recognize this is the famous scene where Willard rises from the water, camouflaged in mud, on his way to assassinate Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando.)