The Center Seat

This one I picked up from my bud David Bishop over at Hoping For Something To Hope For. Here goes:

1. One movie that made you laugh: Juno

2. One movie that made you cry: Dances With Wolves

3. One movie you loved when you were a child: The Neverending Story

4. One movie that you have seen more than 10 times:  The Princess Bride

5. One movie you've seen multiple times in the theater: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (A bit of a backstory here: this one came out when Greg and I were newly married. When we would get into a fight, I would cool off by spending 3 hours in Middle Earth. I must have seen it in the theater 7 or 8 times.)

6. One movie you walked out on: I honestly can't remember one. I tend to stick it out, even through the dreck.

7. One movie that you can and do quote from: Star Wars

8. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it: Crossroads. The key word there is "were"... as many of you know, I have come to embrace the humiliation that comes with loving the Britney Spears movie. I can't help it. I want to be on a road trip with those girls.

9. One movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven't gotten around to watching yet: The Deer Hunter. I've had it from Netflix for the past month or so.

10. One movie you hated: Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. Pistola and I discussed this once.

11. One movie that scared you: Enemy Mine, when I was 5. I tend to avoid scary now.

12. One movie that made you happy: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. I left the theater with an actual spring in my step.

13. One movie that made you miserable: Taxi to the Dark Side

14. One movie musical for which you know all the lyrics to all the songs: The Sound of Music

15. One movie that you have been known to sing along with: Moulin Rouge!

16. One movie you would recommend that everyone see: Casablanca. I admit I stole this one from David, but he's right on.

17. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with: Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) in Forgetting Sarah Marshall

18. One actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie: Edward Norton.

19. One actor that would make you less likely to see a movie: Steven Seagal.

20. One of the last movies you saw: Once

21. One of the next movies you hope to see: Australia ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.

---Spoilers ahead, for anyone who hasn't seen this 32-year-old movie*---

About three months ago, I took a part time job in order to help maintain my lavish (ha!) lifestyle. One big advantage of the job is that I get all kinds of time to watch movies on my portable DVD player; a glaring disadvantage is that I get a lot less theater time, and a whole lot less blogging time. Oh, well. I gots to pay the bills somehow.

In the course of my moonlighting, I get to sit in my car for hours at a time, next to an alley in a really seedy part of town. So I get to see all kinds of exciting things. Like the drug addict who passed out in the alley and was revived by police this last Saturday night. Or the haggard homeless lady who took it upon herself to do a complete wardrobe change in broad daylight, sans underclothes, in the middle of a parking lot.

Travis Bickle saw a lot of interesting shit on his job, too. For those of you who don't know, he was a cabbie who worked some of the shadier parts of New York City in the seventies... Granted, he was also a RAVING LUNATIC... but here's hoping my vocational experiences don't ever lead me to practice whipping out my gun in front of a mirror.

One of the things about having decided only recently to dive headlong into my movie obsession is that I still have not seen many cinematic essentials. Actually, Saturday night was my first ever viewing of Taxi Driver. And so I've seen all kinds of movies which have obviously been influenced by Scorsese's masterpiece, before I saw the original work. For example, when DeNiro's cabbie shaved his head into that mohawk as he was preparing to go medieval on politicians and pimps, I saw blinding flashes of Ed Norton's hardened, murderous skinhead from American History X. I'm sure this happened in reverse for everyone who saw these movies in the order they were released, but for me it was like seeing a prequel and having the pieces finally fall into place.

Also, I bet a lot of people see Jodie Foster in grown-up roles and have flashes of the little twelve-year-old hooker in Taxi Driver... for me, again, it was the opposite. She was so precocious at that young age, I just saw the adult Foster in her little face. Young Harvey Keitel weirded me out... young Albert Brooks weirded me out, too... and of course young DeNiro was weird. But smokin' hot.**

I've been really remiss in my blogging lately, but I have done my best to keep up with the "Viewed But Not Reviewed" list on the sidebar. So if any of you have been following that, you can see that I've been doing my best lately to catch up on must-sees that I've missed till now. At home now I've got Rushmore, Sophie's Choice, and Dr. Strangelove. Any suggestions as to which one I should see on my shift tonight?



*Like me, as of three days ago.
**Rowr. Yes, I'm talking to you, Bobby. ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.