The DVD Meme

[sistermagpie]

As per trobadora--I really like DVDs and I listen to audio commentaries.:-)



1. Total number of films I own on DVD/video:

I don't know off-hand--pretty many. I used to record them off TV or buy video, but I have been buying DVDs since I got a computer that played them. Last weekend I knocked over the shelf they were all on and had to organize them anyway.

2. The last film I bought:

Candleshoe. And I am ridiculously excited about it. And that was the last of a multiple order. Somebody stop me!!!

3. The last film I watched:

Swing Time on Turner Classic. One of my favorite Astaire/Rogers, especially for the Bill Robinson number (great dancing, unfortunate make-up).

4. Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:

I wonder if I can keep this down to just 5...

1. The Innocents Starring my childhood crush, Martin Stephens, and some chick called Deborah Kerr.;) Best adaptation of The Turn of the Screw ever!

2. Singin' in the Rain A shining star in the cinema firma-mint.

3. Tootsie Somebody recently had the nerve to dismiss this movie as Dustin Hoffman "playing around in drag." Idiot. It is such a smart movie--and hilarious. Besides it always makes me nostalgic for the days I passionately followed soaps--the set design in the climactic scene is so standard soap circa 1982! And now, as an adult, I can appreciate Jessica Lange's character (and a lot of other things) in ways I couldn't when I first saw it.

4. Rope Weird, but true, given the bizarre "pretend I'm the hero because I'm Jimmy Stewart" ending. Something in me just wants to be invited to that party. Also it has one of my favorite Jimmy Stewart lines in it: "Do you deserve justice?"

5. The Others A recent favorite edition. I liked it from the first time I saw it, but it's now becoming one of those comfort movies I just love to have on. Anne and Nicholas are the best movie kids ever, but lately it's become all about Victor for me.

4a. Five episodes from TV shows that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:

1. Blackadder:Amy and Amiability. The final episode is in a class by itself, but this one's more comforting, with the promise of victory for Edmund. Plus it includes a nose so wee it must come from the pixies.

2. The Office: Series 1, Episode 2. Gareth Keenan investigates.

3. Mystery Science Theater 3000: Very very hard to pick one episode, but ultimately I'm going to go with Touch of Satan. Get off the road, Man-Goat!

4. I, Clavdivs: Zeus, By Jove! Because sometimes you just have to declare yourself a God. And marry a horse.

5. Northern Exposure:The Body In Question. Elijah's back and Fleischmann's got him. The first time this ep aired it was part of a string of great eps I hoped weren't too good to last. Oh well. Season three, the last season before things got ugly.

5. Which five people am I passing the baton onto? And why?

This is also hard to get down to 5, and to figure out why, other than by instinct.

1.black_dog He's made great comments about this stuff in here, and I'd love to know what movies he loves and why.

2.ficulations We share a lot of taste in books, and she's written some wonderful film posts, so let's hear about those movies!

3.volkhvoi I have this feeling they'll be really interesting and I might not have seen them so I'll get good recs.

4.morgan_d Pure curiosity after reading thoughts on things we've both seen/read?

5.sine_que_non767 I feel like you'd have a lot of cool ideas from a writer-perspective.

Comments

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Haha, I am actually a terrible pick -- I am so not a video person it's almost sociopathic. I don't watch TV, I don't keep up with current movies at all, and although I occasionally go on rental fits, those times are few and far between. So I must pass on doing the meme in my own journal, but -- just for you! -- I will list five movies I loved, that come to mind.

I like movies that freak me out a little, unsettle me. I don't care about plot, plot is boring and unlifelike and I can never follow it anyway (my father thinks I'm an idiot because when I'm at home and we watch movies on TV, he's all "Aha! Character X must secretly be playing both sides!" And I'm like, "Character X is the one with the beard, right?") Character studies, by the way, make me feel all cozy and domestic, but don't particularly rock me. Action-adventure is like eating Pez. What I want from movies is to be overwhelmed and disoriented. I think that's something the medium is potentially great at, in a way that few other media or events can quite pull off. And I'm either snobbish or picky enough not to feel overwhelmed by special effects, but rather by extreme artifice, bizarre formality, and old-fashioned creepiness and anxiety ratcheted up way beyond normal experience.

So, my list:

1. Paris, Texas. When Nastassia Kinski sits in that peep show booth and says "Every man has your voice" it is either the ultimate in hokiness, or it works better than a dream. For me, that movie pushes all of my buttons -- a child's sense of being utterly lost in the world, terrifyingly lost, but finding a mysterious thread of connections.

2. Solaris. Some of this is almost hypnotically boring, but "hypnotically" is the key. Cosmonauts are sent to a distant Russian space station to see why the previous crew fell apart psychologically. They discover a mysterious force that makes your wishes, regrets, guilts materialize for you so you can re-enact them. Beyond that, it's not clear what's going on. More abstract and less graspable than Forbidden Planet, by contrast.

3. Eraserhead. "How is the baby?" "It's . . . not a baby." When this makes sense, you're in that inimitable David Lynch groove.

4. L'Homme Blesse. Homosexual angst with a nasty, gritty edge. So much the antithesis of slash . . . Again it's the way the movie insists on putting you off, on confronting you with things that make you wince, that wins you over if you let it.

5. I am one of those oddballs who really likes Peter Greenaway, but I can't decide which to put in my top 5 -- Drowning by Numbers, Zed and Two Noughts, maybe also Draughtsman's Contract and The Cook, The Thief etc. I think it goes back to my sense of intellectual passivity in front of a striking, overwhelming set of images -- one of Greenaway's tricks is to transpose classic paintings into movie set pieces.

In a more mainstream direction, the original Alien almost made the list -- the others are crap. I thought Blair Witch Project was scary as hell, in innovative ways. The first half of Being John Malkovich, before it got afraid of its own dream logic and developed a plot. Lots of early Almodovar though they all blur together for me. (Button pushing: Matador's "I want to see you dead" as the ultimate expression of intimacy.) I have a weakness for a certain kind of pop-culture parable, like Groundhog Day or The Truman Show, but they don't have the intensity that gets under the skin. There are probably obvious things missing, since like I said, I just don't keep up at all.

There, you have tapped one of my veins of personal wierdness. Do with it what you will.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ha! You lie--you were not a terrible pick! I hit the goldmine--personal weirdness!

I heard Peter Greenaway speak once, and I think he'd probably be thrilled that you like his movies, and for what reason. He loved David Lynch too. I know just what you mean about movies that suck you into this alternate reality, like a dream state. Eraserhead is truly the ultimate example. One of the things that amazes me about David Lynch is just the way he seems able to recreate that alternate reality feeling, so it makes sense because it sort of leaves linear things like plot and things behind, if that makes sense.

One of my favorite kinds of movies--it's not really a genre, but I love movies where the main character is either dead or could be dead. (I don't count Sixth Sense in that, actually, because I don't really think it's about that--the movie would work exactly the same way without that revelation.) Anyway, it's a similar idea, because those movies tend to have that kind of quality of this being a different experience to just life, like most movies.

Thanks!