Haggai accepted my offer to play the movie DVD game. Some similarities between his list and mine -- we both have a Hitchcock, Ingrid Bergman, 81/2. Looks like I've more of a taste for comedy. Of course, he's now got me rethinking my selections -- The Godfather, how could I leave it off a list, even if it is the number one film on IMDB!

I think we need to invent a "best in genre" game to deal with categories I didn't even think about, like animation. This is even harder than "what's your favorite dish" without being able to say "favorite Indian," "favorite Italian," "favorite Lebanese," etc. In the meantime, he-e-e-ere's Haggai...!

• Total number of films I own: About 165 DVDs
• Last movie I bought: Make that the last six movies I bought, five in one boxset. They were in an Amazon order that came in a few days ago: Steve McQueen Collection, and Jules and Jim.
• Last movie I saw: Jules and Jim. This category changes pretty much every day for me.
• Five favorites: My top five movies are fairly solid, but not the order they come in. With no particular order:
  • Casablanca
  • Lawrence of Arabia
  • The Godfather
  • The Empire Strikes Back
  • Rear Window
  Another five favorites:
  • 2001
  • Chinatown
  • The Searchers
  • 8 1/2
  • The Rules of the Game*
  * [ed. -- A surprisingly common title, so I'm assuming this is Jean Renoir's "La Regle du jeu"]

In terms of frequently watching things, I fall into odd patterns these days. I think the DVD in my collection that I've watched the most often has ended up being Kind Hearts and Coronets. I've been keeping a log of everything I watch since the beginning of this year, and there are two movies I've seen more than once since Jan. 1st: Bambi, and Days of Being Wild (first viewing of that one was in a theater).

Stygius passes me the DVD library movie meme. Just one small problem -- I don't own any movies on DVD (or on any other medium, for that matter). Culturally deprived luddite, and all that. And a few years back, when I had three back surgeries in a 10-month period, I sort of got out of the habit of sitting in movie theaters.

So I guess I'll just have to improvise, with apologies to Stygius and the meme originator.

• Total number of films I own: zero
• Last movie I bought: uh, never
• Last movie I saw: Pirates of the Caribbean (hey, my nieces were in town and brought it with them -- they couldn't bear to be parted from Johnny and Orlando for a week!)
• Five favorites: I suppose this should be translated as -- "what are the five DVDs you would own if you owned any." This sort of open-end exercise -- infinite possibilities and such a tiny number of answers -- is quite a challenge. I can't even do "what's your favorite in each genre," because there are certainly more than five genres. So here's a first crack at a list.

  • Bringing Up Baby -- the perfect ensemble "domestic" farce
  • The Producers -- on my "favorite" list a few decades before the stage show
  • Blade Runner -- "seminal" is too often used used with gay abandon, but Scott defined an aesthetic for an entire generation
  • Notorious -- my favorite Hitchcock, and yes, Cary Grant can show up twice on my top five any day of the week
  • 8 1/2 -- Fellini's masterpiece is either an overwhelming experience or it simply doesn't speak to you

  And I still haven't done any Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot) or an action-adventure (French Connection) or spy thriller (The Third Man) or stage musical (Cabaret) or social comedy (Alfie the original, puh-leez!) or historical (Gladiator -- yeah, I'm a Ridley Scott fan bigtime), or stage-to-screen (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf) or political thriller (Z) or... yeah, I know, I'm cheating. I'm well into my third "top five" list, and there are more genres to go. Sigh.

  So to pass the virus along. First, to Haggai, who I know first-hand is the compleat film freak. I'm quite curious what his choices would be. Haggai's not been blogging much recently, but he's welcome to post his response here if he wants to play. And then:

  • Brad Plumer, who clearly needs a diversion from his current addiction.
  • Needlenose's Swopa -- maybe fubar will let Swopa feature a DVD list in the next installment of the SRIPOTW.
  • Eric Martin (Total Information Awareness -- I'm still hanging on to another baton he passed me earlier and Eric, I promise, I will get to it later this weekend).
  • My list is woefully light on foreign films, so let's go across the pond to Emmanuel of Ceteris Paribus, who can provide his list in the language of his choice. After the events of the past week, maybe Emmanuel also needs a diversion to maintain his Europtimisme.
  • And for a bit more geographic diversity, from down-under Gary Sauer-Thompson at Public Opinion.