Movie Meme

[kelly_chambliss]

 

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

 

Dozens, perhaps hundreds, including (so far) Seasons 1-3 of Voyager on DVD; I keep waiting for the price to come down on the other seasons (or for them to show up in my local half-price bookstore, which is how I got Seasons Two and Three.  I splurged on Season One.)

 

 

2) The last film I bought:

 

Eternally Yours, a film from 1939 that has one of my old crushes in it (Billie Burke, who played the Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz.  It was about Glinda that I wrote my first fanfic at age 12, although I didn't know it was fanfic then, of course.)

 

 

3) The last film I watched:

 

The Writer of O, a documentary about Dominique Aury, the woman who wrote the S/M classic The Story of O.  I was disappointed in it -- the film seemed as pretentious as the book itself, which might have been okay if the pretension were deliberate or self-aware or ironic or something.  But unfortunately, the makers of both film and book take themselves very seriously and straightforwardly, I think.

 

I've also recently seen Downfall, a German film about the last days in Hitler's bunker.  I found it tremendously compelling, powerful, disturbing, and thought-provoking.  It's long; after over two and a half hours, I felt as if I had been in the bunker, which I suppose was the point.

 

 

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

 

1.  The Wizard of Oz -- a total obsession of mine as a kid.  In those days before video, I got to see it only once a year, but, thanks to a soundtrack record that my mother somehow found for me, I managed to learn all of the songs and a lot of the dialogue by heart.

 

2.  Tootsie -- it came out at a time then I was struggling with sexual identity issues.  It's actually pretty tame in its gender questioning, but at the time, it was rather an eye-opener to me -- a mainstream film that raised questions about gender and sexuality without offering condemnation or titillation or turning it all into too much of a huge joke (just a moderately huge joke).  I haven't seen it since its initial release (when I went to see it eight times in one weekend), because I'm afraid that if I watch it now, when I know so much more than I did then, I will find it disappointing or shallow or even offensive.  I prefer it as it exists in my memory.

 

3.  Sunset Blvd. -- sick and hilarious and beautifully acted and quite moving despite  Billy Wilder's streak of misogyny. 

 

4.  Chutney Popcorn -- a comedy about lesbians that I saw during the early days of my relationship with my partner; the film is entwined with my memories of those fun, exciting, scary times when you've just fallen in love.  (And while we're on the subject of good Indian/lesbian films, I should mention Deepa Mehta's haunting Fire.)

 

5.  Citizen Kane -- It's one "great film" that is not at all over-rated; I think it's just as brilliant as all the film textbooks claim.

 

 

Honorable Mention (one among many) --

 

Walk on the Wild Side -- Yes, it's a terrible, silly, trashy movie.  But it's got Barbara Stanwyck as a murderous lesbian madam.  What's not to love?