As you may already know, in my previous post I reacted to a tweet I’d noticed, which said

A 15 year old girl who has terminal cancer wants to trend on twitter, let’s make that wish come true!! #alicebucketlist Pls RT

…leading to my statement that we have failed as a society. I intended this partly as comic hyperbole, but not entirely.

It simply struck me as silly that being a trending topic on twitter would be a worthwhile aspiration. Is that how low the celebrity status bar has been set? What kind of fulfillment would that provide? Does anybody think that in 30 or 40 years we’ll be sitting around reminiscing about the great twitter memes of yesteryear?

Plus, I figured, it’s probably not even for real. The very mention of a youngster with terminal cancer raised in me a set of red flags normally reserved for chain email hoaxes. I half expected the end of the tweet to tell me to DM all my followers.

Turns out it was even simpler than that — I’m just a cynical asshole:


It’s real, and I’m a huge tool. The Alice’s Bucket List blog is located at http://alicepyne.blogspot.com/, where the cruelly afflicted girl writes touchingly about her situation and her feelings about it.

What really brought the guilt was reading the other items from her bucket list in the right-hand sidebar of her front page. They’re mostly quite simple, modest wishes: to have her hair done (“if they can do anything with it”). Go to Cadbury World and pig out on chocolate. A photo shoot with four of her friends. “Make everyone sign up to be a bone marrow donor.” Design a mug to sell for charity. “A private cinema party for me and my BFFs.” Get a back massage. Have a nice picture taken with her dog.

Damn it — what’s wrong with me? So she wanted to trend on twitter. Why not? What’s the harm? Why didn’t I stop to think for a few seconds, and hopefully realize that there could be a person on the other end of all this? Yep… look at me go, shooting my blogging mouth off without a care in the world.

At least my lack of influence paid off:

What that little graph means is that about 3:30PM Pacific Time, 1.43% of all tweets being written on twitter contained the keyword “alicebucketlist”. So for the purposes of Alice’s list, that’s at least one down and… I can’t tell how many to go.

Alice, if by some chance you end up reading this: I’m sorry. If it makes any difference, I do think I’ve learned something from this… at least, I hope I have.

I don’t know if he still does, but I remember David Letterman used to do top ten lists where the category would be two different things. The name of the list would be an either/or proposition, something like “Top Ten Weather Man or Dog Breed Names.” Anyway, this format occurred to me when I couldn’t decide which of two recent Twitter memes to post my favorites from.¹

List items not authored by me are indicated by links to their creators. Yes, I did favor my own contributions heavily, and no, it’s not fair. Why? Because it’s my blog. Mine! Minemineminemine-mine! (…Er, not that anyone ever said it wasn’t. In other news, I am a very petty little man.)

Enough Prelude Already — To the List!

1. Seabasscuit
2. Phlegmento (mcquickdraw)
3. She’s Gotta Harelip (wongfilms)
4. Dude, Where’s My Carp? (lbgilbert)
5. Ten Things I Hake About You (stephiemalverns)
6. Charlie’s Angels: Full Glottal (AmoebaStampede)
7. The Name of the Roes (julieankerson)
8. Young Mr. Lingcod
9. Drag Me to Halibut
10. The Filling of a Chinese Bookie
11. Wall-E(ye) (mpthomas1)
12. My Marlin Clementine
13. Mrs. Minnowver (StarSparkle_UK)
14. Lingual White Female (word_czar)
15. Dentl

Yes, they were ranked numerically—but not by me. Since some of them are mine, I thought it only fair to consult the Sequence Generator at random.org. If you disagree with any of the rankings, take it up with the SG.

Whaddya think? Got any good ones of your own?

The moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. Here it is, the thrilling conclusion of the quiz from Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule which I began in the post before this one. Let’s get right to the action:

1. Best Film of 1979.
   Absolutely, definitely, unequivocally Manhattan.



2. Most realistic and/or sincere depiction of small-town life in the movies.
   The one that made the biggest impression on me was All the Real Girls.
3. Best horror movie creature (non-giant division).
   Hurh? How big can a creature be and still be “non-giant?” …Whatever, I’ll avoid making a call on that by going with the creepy little thing outside John Lithgow’s airplane window in Twilight Zone: The Movie. And yes, nerds, I’m aware that it was based on an episode of the old TV show where the passenger was played by William Shatner. I’ve seen it, and it’s not scary — the monster was, by the look of it, nothing more than a guy in a gorilla suit. That’s not menacing, it’s comical! In the Lithgow version, though, it’s this bug-eyed, slimy reptilian thing that zips around really fast and pops up right in your face. It looks like it really could claw apart the wing and bring down the plane. I was a kid when I saw the movie in the theatre, and that lizard thing freaked my shit out.
4. Second-favorite Francis Ford Coppola film.
   The Godfather (behind only The Godfather: Part II).
5. Name a one-off movie that could have produced a franchise you would have wanted to see.
   A tough one, because I’m a little weary of movie franchises. You know what? I think I could be psyched for a sequel to Heathers, updated to flip the bird to the pretensions of a later time period. Obviously you wouldn’t have the three Heathers anymore, but so what. All that’s important are the Veronica (Winona Ryder) and J.D. (Christian Slater) characters, and the misanthropic comedy. And yes, musical theatre nerds, I’m aware that they’re adapting Heathers into a Broadway musical. I’d be more intrigued by it if I weren’t depressed by the fact that the only new musicals that get produced on Broadway are stage adaptations of movies. It’s almost enough to make me wish Andrew Lloyd Webber would stumble across another book of poems. Almost. As for the show I predict will be daringly titled Heathers: The Musical, I’ll admit that I did get a kick out of the news that it will include a number called “I Love My Dead Gay Son.”
6. Favorite sequence from a Brian De Palma film.
   I’ve gotta say the prom humiliation/revenge sequence from Carrie. De Palma is sometimes guilty of over-indulging in cinematic flashiness, but the Carrie scene directly called for DePalma’s whole bag of movie magic tricks. And oh, did he bring it: He pulls out slow motion, swelling lyrical music, split screen, trippy kaleidoscopic image and sound editing, and his trademark buckets of blood (in an actual bucket, no less). Put it all together and you’ve got a mini-opera, a dream-turned-nightmare-turned-explosion-of-supernatural-vengeance. Bravura filmmaking, and totally badass.
7. Favorite moment in three-strip Technicolor.
   The dream ballet from Singin’ in the Rain.
   
8. Favorite Alan Smithee film.
   Where Alan Smithee credits are concerned, I think “favorite” is really not the right word. In any case, the only Smithee-credited film I’ve seen is the first segment of the afore-mentioned Twilight Zone: The Movie, on which the 2nd A.D. “smitheed” after actor Vic Morrow was killed during the filming of an action sequence.
9. Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) or Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau)?
   Excuse me? Crash all the way! I’m putting the signs down, Meat. Just follow the signs.
10. Best post-Crimes and Misdemeanors Woody Allen film.
    Bullets Over Broadway. See also the “Part I” post of this quiz re: Jennifer Tilly as Olive Neal.
11. Best Film of 1999.
    Magnolia, hands down.
12. Favorite movie tag line.
    The Fly. Concise, effective, and as it turned out, sticky enough to become part of the general pop culture lexicon.
13. Favorite B-movie western.
    Does Silverado count? Yeah. I say it does.
14. Overall, the author best served by movie adaptations of her or his work.
    Margaret Mitchell, since to my knowledge only the one book of hers was made into a movie.
15. Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) or Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard)?
    I at this time must invoke my right under the fifth amendment to avoid the possibility of, in a manner of speaking, incriminating myself, or at least revealing the depths of my cinematic illiteracy vis-a-vis Bringing Up Baby and My Man Godfrey.
16. Favorite musical cameo in a non-musical movie.
    The only one I can think of at the moment is Dooley Wilson’s iconic rendition of “As Time Goes By” in Casablanca.
17. Bruno (the character, if you haven’t seen the movie, or the film, if you have): subversive satire or purveyor of stereotyping?
    I haven’t seen it, so I’ll say subversive satire. From what I hear, seeing the movie might change my mind, though.
18. Five film folks, living or deceased, you would love to meet.
    I have a hard time answering this kind of question, for the extremely trite reason that there are so, so many people in the history of the movies whose work I admire greatly and whom I would love to meet. Therefore, these five feel quite arbitrary, because I could name dozens of others whom I’d be just as pleased to meet. Anyway, I’ll say Billy Wilder, Meryl Streep, Maggie Smith, Groucho Marx, and Peter O’Toole. The first three simply due to my profound admiration for their body of work, and the last two partly for the same reason but even more because were/are delightful raconteurs. Here’s a little example of the kind of anecdote I’d hope to hear, from a 1993 interview of O’Toole by Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air.” As the clip begins, he’s been talking about the filming of Lawrence of Arabia.

Last July, following his triumph of conceiving what may be my favorite name of a blog ever, cinephile Dennis Cozzalio devised this cinematic quiz-tionnaire for a post at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. Though I am, as is often the case, way late to the party on this mini-meme, I’ve never let that stop me. Anyway, enough prelude.

1. Second-favorite Stanley Kubrick film.
   Second-favorite? Dr. Strangelove.
2. Most significant/important/interesting trend in movies over the past decade, for good or evil.
   The takeover of Hollywood studios’ production slate by the parents-with kids or “family” film genre. In the last few years I’ve been going to the movie theatre less and less often, mainly because there are fewer and fewer movies showing there that I’m interested enough to pay $12-$14 to see. Nothing whatsoever against parents, or kids — I love kids. However, I figure that as long as I don’t have children of my own, I should see as many grown-up movies as possible in case I do end up with kids somewhere down the line. Unfortunately the studios aren’t making movies for people like me anymore. They’re making Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Or, for the older end of their target demographic, Twilight.
3. Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood) or Buffalo Bill Cody (Paul Newman)?
   I’ll go with Newman. Eastwood has been a lot more interesting in other roles.
4. Best Film of 1949.
   The Third Man. Its initial releases at Cannes and subsequently around Europe were in 1949, and it was just in the U.S. that it didn’t open until 1950.
5. Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) or Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore)?
   I’m sure I couldn’t say. Betraying my cinematic illiteracy, I must admit that I’ve seen neither To Be or Not to Be nor Twentieth Century.
6. Has the hand-held shaky-cam directorial style become a visual cliché?
   Maybe in some cases, but I think most of what the question refers to is simply the deployment of new, ultra-portable handheld cameras. To call this a “visual cliché” is an oversimplification: it assumes that the filmmakers went, “Let’s shoot with that shaky, indie-film handheld style because it’ll look all cool and hip and edgy,” which I think is rarely the case. Yes, these tiny new digital video cameras are far cheaper than shooting on celluloid, but that’s not the only reason to use them. They make it possible to achieve a “fly-on-the-wall” point of view, as though the audience is another person in the room with the characters, in a way that couldn’t be done previously. A good example of this is Rachel Getting Married (which I have blogged about previously): the camera becomes another wedding guest in the family’s country home, moving through crowded hallways amidst the bustle of caterers, relatives, musicians and such. The way we have to squeeze past people by the table at the rehearsal dinner amplifies the feeling of uncomfortable proximity when the champagne toasts stray into TMI territory. This couldn’t be done to equal effect without handheld DV cameras.
7. What was the first foreign-language film you ever saw?
   Aw hell, no way can I remember for sure. I remember a time when my parents took us to see Fanny and Alexander and it was completely lost on my young-kid self. That could have been it, but it also could have just been something that came on TV.
8. Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) or Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre)?
   Seriously? I have to choose between different white men who long ago ladled on both make-up and stereotypical affect to play Asian characters in ways that my contemporary viewpoint struggles to set aside? OK, fine, then I’ll take Lorre on the strength of his wonderful work in so many other movies.
9. Favorite World War II drama (1950-1970).
   I’ve been much more impressed by WWII films made more recently, but if I’m staying within the time perameters then I’d go with From Here to Eternity, soapy though it is. Pretty good soap, though.
10. Favorite animal movie star.
    Klaus Kinski [*rim shot*]. Other than him, I guess I’d go with Bart the bear.
    
11. Who or whatever is to blame, name an irresponsible moment in cinema.
    OK, how about RKO’s ruining of The Magnificent Ambersons.
12. Best Film of 1969.
    Maybe it’s a generational thing, but neither Midnight Cowboy nor Easy Rider did that much for me. I haven’t seen Z yet, but from what I’ve heard I suspect it might be my pick if I had. As it is, I’m left on Take the Money and Run.
13. Name the last movie you saw theatrically, and also on DVD or Blu-ray.
    Theatrically: Inglorious Basterds — very satisfying, well worth my $14. DVD: director’s cut (“bootleg version”, as they packaged it) of Almost Famous — liked it even more than I had before, and not just because of the bits that had been cut from the theatrical release version.
14. Second-favorite Robert Altman film.
    Probably Short Cuts.
15. What is your favorite independent outlet for reading about movies, either online or in print?
    The combination of Mike D’Angelo’s catch-all site and blog, and MaryAnn Johanson.
16. Who wins? Angela Mao or Meiko Kaji?
    Shame on me, I am insufficiently versed in early 70′s kung fu movies to render an informed opinion. If I have to take a theoretical shot at it, then I’ll say the winner would be whoever was first to draw an aim a loaded gun at the other, while standing 1) outside of kicking range, and 2) not beneath anything heavy that could be dislodged with a shuriken or similar projectile, resulting in it 2a)falling on her, or 2b) obliging her to spectacularly dodge said falling object, but in so doing allow her opponent to take cover.
17. Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) or Olive Neal (Jennifer Tilly)?
    Totally NOT in the dark here. Props to Tomei for not only being a consistently terrific actress, but Olive was absolutely unforgettable.
    
18. Favorite movie that features a carnival setting or sequence.
    Hmm. I guess I don’t quite have the author’s particular yen for carnivals on film… I’ll say Wings of Desire.
19. Best use of high-definition video on the big screen to date.
    Although my favorite movie thus far shot on DV is (as you may have guessed) Rachel Getting Married, in the specific terms of cinematography achievement with DV, my hat goes off to Sin City.
    
20. Favorite movie that is equal parts genre film and a deconstruction or consideration of that same genre.
    Quibble if you like, but I’m saying This is Spinal Tap.

It’s a long quiz. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion in my next post, which will appear in a day or two.

This particular Twitter meme has been such fertile ground for me that I’m going to report my own contributions, instead of picking out favorites tweeted by others. Then I’ll open it up to submissions of further silliness in the comments.

1. Curious George and Daddy’s Browser History
2. Little House on the Auction Block
3. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. When Are You Going to Get a Fucking Cell Phone?
   
4. Freaky Friday the 13th: Jason Learns to Appreciate His Mother
5. Frog and Toad Are Friends With Benefits
6. Island of the Blue Dog Democrats
7. Everybody Poops (But only Rush Limbaugh Does It Into a Microphone and Calls It Political Discourse)

If I come up with more that I like, I’ll add them here (and on my Twitter page, of course).

How about it? You guys got any good ones burning a hole in your keyboard?