Just one movie

While I’m still blowing away the cobwebs left from yesterday, I thought I’d have a little fun.

This morning, while going through my bookmarks, I saw a new meme on Charlotte’s Web. Annoying things, memes. They get in your head and refuse to budge, a little like that song you heard on the radio, the one that won’t stop playing in your head.

Anyway, this is the One Movie meme. I can’t pretend to be a frequent movie goer but I don’t think you have to be to take part. All you have to be is willing…

1. The first movie you remember seeing on the big screen

   I probably remember the screen more than the movie. My hometown didn’t have a full-time, dedicated cinema. Instead we had a drive-in. A huge screen that could be seen from my best friend’s backyard. Playground full of screaming kids and too-cool teenagers. A kiosk where I was once mistaken for a boy due to my short hair and despite my skirt. Tinny sound through the speakers hooked over the window. During the summer holidays, they used to play children’s movies. Lots of Disney animation, as I recall. And as I recall, a Disney animation is the first movie I saw on the (very) big screen. I have vague recollections of watching animals flee a forest fire, so I guess it was Bambi.

2. Movie from which you can quote multiple lines in your sleep

   I once shared a house with a girl who could, and would, quote Star Wars from beginning to end. I now live with a man who seems to have a script database in his head, from which he can pull a quote for any occasion but more often than not it’s from The Blues Brothers or a Bond film. Me. I can not remember dialogue to save myself. Songs I can remember. So it would have to be a musical. Repeated exposure to The Sound of Music means I know the songs backwards but would I sing them in my sleep? That honour would probably go to Oliver!

3. Director (dead or alive) that you’d most want to have dinner with

   Cameron Crowe – as long as I could bring my husband, who is the fan boy in the house.

4. Movie that should have won an Oscar but didn’t

   Um, I cheated on this one. I have no idea whether particular movies have won Oscars or not. My husband watches the ceremony but I read while it’s on. So, I went here to find some information.

   My nominees for the movie that should have won an Oscar but didn’t are:
   Lost In Translation
   The Piano
   Being John Malkovich
   Breakfast at Tiffany’s
   Vertigo
   North By Northwest

   And my winner is… drumroll, please… Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Sophisticated Audrey Hepburn. Moon River. Vulnerable Audrey Hepburn. Bedraggled Cat. Bedraggled Audrey Hepburn. How did it not even get nominated?

   (The site I linked to is a real eye opener, especially with regard to movies that are now regularly included in the best 50 or 100 movies of all time lists but which did not win Best Picture. And some of the Best Picture winners… well… Gladiator says it all, really.)

5. Movie that didn’t disappoint despite being the adaptation of a book.

   Despite the wholesale transplant of the story from London to Chicago, High Fidelity is my pick here. I liked the book but loved the movie. John Cusack may have had something to do with that but I stand by my choice.

6. Movie you were dragged to by someone else expecting to hate but which you loved.

   The Lion King. I’m saying no more.

7. Movie that scares the crap out of you no matter how many times you see it

   I could almost pass on this question as I steer clear of anything that I think might scare me. However, in a distant past, I saw The Amityville Horror, late at night, on television. I didn’t sleep for a week. I don’t intend to see it again. Ever.

8. Movie that makes you bawl no matter how many times you see it

   City of Angels. The scene in which Meg Ryan’s character is riding back from the shops, so happy to have the man of her dreams in her life that she lets go of the handlebars and just coasts down the road into the path of a log truck, makes me blubber everytime. And then, as she’s dying she says, “When they ask me what I liked best, I’ll tell them, it was you”. D hands me the box of tissues in anticipation when we watch this together.

9. The movie that still has you rolling on the floor with laugher no matter how many times you’ve seen it

   The Life of Brian. The most memorable occasion was while we were travelling in Northern Ireland. We were staying in a B&B in a coastal town. It was the the middle of winter, the heating was on as high as it could go and we were curled up under the heavy blankets, drinking Guinness in bottles. The combination of the Python team and Guinness, it appears, is a match made in heaven.

There you have it. One movie from the point of view of a non-movie goer.