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The Movie Geek Gang

Misty:
- What is one of your earliest movie memories? The first movie I remember seeing, and then seeing over and over again would be The Beastmaster. It's phantasmagorical. Still to this day, one of my favorite movies, and I'm still just as terrified of those things with the big wings. Good times, yo.

- List movies you like that give a good idea of your cinematic tastes: The Beastmaster The Blues Brothers Slither The Wizard of Oz E.T. Dirty Dancing The Devil's RejectsPsycho CluelessDude, Where's my Car? Wall-E

- Remakes are generally lame, but if you could remake any movie - what would it be, and what would you do different? Take any movie with Keanu Reeves or Nicolas Cage. Remake it without them. It's bound to be better.

- Name one of your greatest movie geek possessions: Either my Star Trek fleet academy ring, or my Corey Haim autograph.

- If you were a secondary Star Wars character, which one would you be? Eh, I'm not a big Star Wars geek, I'd rather be a secondary Star Trek character. The little mini-skirt uniform is totally awesome. I'd rock that.

Jay
- What is one of your earliest movie memories? Seeing Star Wars, The Private Eyes, Jaws, and Mary Poppins' at the Preston Drive-in.

- List movies you like that give a good idea of your cinematic tastes: The Wizard of Oz Star Wars Psycho The Wild One Rebel Without a Cause To Catch a Thief Vertigo The Birds Fall of the House of Usher House on Haunted Hill
It was really hard to narrow them down to just ten. I could go on to Twenty, But these are the movies that I love and feel make a good "Base" to which I judge all other movies.

- Remakes are generally lame, but if you could remake any movie - what would it be, and what would you do different? Blood Rayne. That was such a disappointment of a movie. I was such a big fan of the Video games. How could they ruin this? It had the perfect geek formula! A. Hot scantily clad, blade wielding, Vampire chick B. Nazis! C. Top secret Nazi experiments gone wrong. D. lots of guns, blood,and gore! E.an interesting back story. None of these were in the Movie! What happened?!? The movie sucked! BIG TIME! So, what would I do different? I would stick to the Video game formula!

- What's your favorite costume any movie character gets to wear? (Brandon Lee) Eric Draven "The Crow" Leather, and electrical tape...simple enough.

- What's the coolest spaceship in a movie? Alien craft from Flight of the Navigator....Dude that thing was fast!

- What's the coolest car in a movie? Last of the V8 interceptors Mad Max2 Road Warrior. Also I'm gonna Add Jim Goose's 1977 Kawasaki KZ1000 from Mad Max 1, not a car I know, but if you know me, you know I love Motorcyles as well! (So suck it!)

- Name one of your greatest movie geek possessions: My trunk of Brandon Lee/Crow Memorabilia

- If you were a secondary Star Wars character, which one would you be? Porkins

Greg:
- What is one of your earliest movie memories? When I was 4, I went on a field trip with my older sister’s class to see The Muppet Movie. It was love at first sight. I saw it two more times in theaters and when we got cable a few years later, it seemingly was on every other day. It was the first movie I remember owning on VHS as well (recorded, of course).

- List movies you like that give a good idea of your cinematic tastes: The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of The Lost Ark, Raising Arizona, The Muppet Movie, The Princess Bride, The Fall, Rashomon, Shaun of The Dead, Monty Python and The Holy Grail, There Will Be Blood, Kill Bill 1&2, The Orphanage, To Kill A Mockingbird, City of Lost Children, Bronson, Moon

- Remakes are generally lame, but if you could remake any movie - what would it be, and what would you do different? I’d like to remake every Transformers movie ever made (including 1986). Michael Bay would not come anywhere near them, it would be intelligent and the characters would look like the originals. In a world where Peter Jackson did justice to a series like The Lord of The Rings, why must Hollywood allow such a great franchise to stoop to having a four-legged Devastator with swinging robotic testicles?

- Name one of your greatest movie geek possessions: My Rocky 3 Eye of the Tiger 45; the B-side is an instrumental. I would make up my own lyrics when I played it on my Dee-Jay turn table while I cleaned my room.

- If you were a secondary Star Wars character, which one would you be? Nien Nunb: I don’t know much about him, but what I do know sounds pretty awesome. He gets to fly the Millennium Falcon, hang out with Lando, and blow up a Death Star. What more could you want?

Fred
- What is one of your earliest movie memories? I actually remember going to the first movie I saw in a theater. It was called "Hang Your Hat On the Wind"--a Disney thing about a boy, a horse, and I was led to believe, a hat. I remember the title really interested me, and I actually expected to learn how to hang my hat on the wind. I remember getting in the car, in the back seat, the bubble patterned plastic seat covers, and expecting to come back changed, because I'd know how to do that.
I don't remember the story, maybe some vague farm mortgage trouble, something something-- stuff older people probably think about, with their wrinkly foreheads. I was watching for the hat. It went on and on with very little regard for hats or wind. I probably got excited if i saw anything move in a breeze, or if anyone was wearing a hat, and looked like they might do something with it. I think I remember at the end, a Mom standing behind a fence, smiling with one of those absolutely powerless movie faces, and I guess the problems got worked out, and I'm positive I remember the kid goes galloping off on his horse and throws his hat. That shot--the Stetson spinning in the sky. Finally. Just that. I can still see it, the cheap camera effect. Wow. That was no help at all. Big disappointment.

- List movies you like that give a good idea of your cinematic tastes: That's hard because I like things a lot of people like, I could say most of the movies I love and make no impression of having a personality. So I'm going to try to think of more odd and annoying opinions. Like--I'm not a big fan of science fiction or any sort of dystopian anything. "Blade Runner" means nothing to me. The story "Heart of Darkness" makes me giggle and "Apocalypse Now" makes me sleepy. I was obsessed with horror when I was a kid, but now I don't like many horror films. Hardly ever, at all. But I did like the "Blair Witch Project," quite a bit, even thought it had some poetic depth, and I'm surprised I haven't heard of something great those people did since. I like to pretend that Wal-Mart doesn't really exist, and those guys made all the documentaries about it, as a joke on an urban myth. Or a suburban myth, I guess. If Wal-mart didn't exist those things would be such great movies, so funny, outrageous.
I think "Citizen Kane" is a great movie in many ways, but I think the story itself is the worst element. It attempts a pretty grown-up story, for a movie, but goes about it in a pretty childish way. The story seems tortured, trying to exploit a real subject, while being careful not to get in too much trouble, and there's a lot of ponderous commentary about Kane from characters sitting around talking--people whose opinions we have no reason to really trust, or not trust, so it adds nothing, at all. The real subject, Hearst, is much more interesting than Kane, and the movie doesn't really become interesting just by pointing a finger at someone. Artistically, that's freaking silly. There are definitely a lot of issues and problems in exploiting real-life events and biographical figures in art. But all those issues and problems, if you really think about it, are so boring. The Coen brothers claiming that "Fargo" was based on a "true story" to trick people into feeling, like, wtf?! a little more intensely when they first watch he movie-- that's as good as that trick gets, and it's as much time and it was just few sentences, before the movie. Nice.
I really liked "Shattered Glass" for some reason--about Stephen Glass, the fabulist reporter, and that scandal. "Camille Claudel" is the only bio-type movie about an artist that doesn't sort of piss me off. "Boogie Nights" was my favorite movie of that decade. "Tomorrow" is a great movie with Robert Duval not many people have seen, for some reason.
Any geek could go on all day on this, right? I love Tarantino but I guess I don't expect him to stun me again. In some ways "Reservoir Dogs" is still my favorite. And some Coen brothers movies are just by-the-numbers, their distinctive comedy form, but they still seem volatile to me, like their best might still be in the works. I think so. I especially like movies about people who want to do something that seems like a really bad idea, and so, they do it, and it goes really bad. I love that, never get enough of that. Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond, "American Graffiti" is my favorite Lucas, I love some movies I saw as a kid that don't really deserve it, and I love the great HBO shows, The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood, as much as any movies being made.

- Remakes are generally lame, but if you could remake any movie - what would it be, and what would you do different? Toy Story--it just didn't work, did it? Kidding. Godfather 3. And no, not a Godfather 4, either. They should make another Godfather 3 like that one never happened.
How about Huck Finn? There are a few, but they can't even cast it, to begin with, let alone make it. Huck Finn isn't Tom Sawyer--that's the mistake. If Hollywood could make a credible Huckleberry Finn it would change movies, wouldn't it? At least, if I'm using the example as a kind of metaphor about Hollywood gunk. I mean, Hemingway thought Twain "invented" American literature with that one book, and movies can't begin to tell it. If you read that book when you're a kid, and it hits you, maybe messes you up a little, or in my case, a lot, then try to watch any of the bullshit young adventure movies, or whatever the hell they are, it really wakes you up to things that are wrong about movies in general. I'd try to find a believable Huck Finn, and I'd try to give it the darkness, the enormous sadness, the god-awful comedy I remember from reading the book once.

- What's your favorite costume any movie character gets to wear? I'm trying to think, but it's like a one-arm bandit spinning, and then, just not stopping…. I'm going to say the rabbit kid? … or maybe the nipple tape in "Gummo," just because it's the only movie I noticed an acting lead was also the costume designer. And I guess I feel bad for Chloë Sevigny. She's a good actress, and people gave her so much grief about "The Brown Bunny." Yeah, it really was awful. It was seriously bad, terrible. But you know what? Everyone who genuinely takes risks sometimes just really sucks. That's how it goes.

- What's the coolest spaceship in a movie? I'm just going to piss people off being an ignoramus about this. I don't know--2001 A space Odyssey, the bone thrown in the air, and it sticks. That's pretty cool, isn't it? There's a great essay, "On the Improbability of the Death Star's Trash Compactor," by Joshua Tyree.

- What's the coolest car in a movie? Not much of a car guy either. Maybe the car in "Brick" because it had a lamp in the back seat? I liked the black station wagon in "Raising Arizona." And kids--never cross the street in front of a car with a matte finish.

- Name one of your greatest movie geek possessions: John Carpenter was my babysitter, and I have a mimeographed fanzine he made when he was 17. I also like having a dvd of "The Painted Hills"--a Lassie movie where Lassie kills a guy. A vhs of "The Adventures of Young Moby Dick", which is a musical. (It's one of those knock off cartoons they make for kids whose parents are too cheap and/or religious to get them a real movie.) We inherited a salmon colored Cadillac like the one in "Goodfellas" with the helicopters circling over him, and we actually drove that thing around. I know--good lord. And we have an afghan on our couch that appeared in some really creepy movie, maybe "the Lovely Bones," or something gross, something murdery, kidnappy, rapey--but we forgot what it was.

- If you were a secondary Star Wars character, which one would you be? I'm a simple guy. I'd be the Jabba the Hutt minion who keeps an eye on Leia during the jump-cut gap when she changes into that harem slave outfit.

Bryan
- What is one of your earliest movie memories? It's cliche among geeks, but it still has to be seeing "Star Wars" in the theater. It was amazing, and inadvertently changed my life. It was probably when the movie geek in me was created. It was the first, and still one of the few times I went back and saw a movie a second time in the theater. I went with my dad, and I remember really enjoying that day. It then led to buying the toys, and probably what caused my "collector mode" to switch on. Posters, t-shirts, under-roos, books, collector's cards, Halloween costumes and countless other items were all collected as part of my childhood. Many, many other movies would affect me over the years. But this is the first one I really remember, and I don't think any other had such an impact.
I also remember as a kid, buying my first blank VHS tape specifically to record "The Beastmaster". One of my favorite movies then, and still to this day it's pretty damned awesome. Perhaps this was the unspoken bond that cemented Misty and my friendship so many years ago.

- List movies you like that give a good idea of your cinematic tastes: First off, anything Hitchcock. I could have done the whole list of just Hitchcock, but I was trying to come up with other movies for a good range. So...
The Sweet Hereafter, The Thing (Carpenter's), Faster Pussycat Kill, Kill,The Secretary, Citizen Kane, Crumb, Rebel Without a Cause, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Let the Right One In, Deathrace 2000, City of Lost Children, Aliens, Spider Baby, Night of the Comet, Planet of the Apes, Lolita (At first the original, but I've really come to like the remake more), Chasing Amy, The Beastmaster, Dawn of the Dead (Both versions are great in different ways), Freaks, 12 Monkeys, Back to the Future, Alien, Evil Dead, Pulp Fiction, Heathers, Viva Knievel!, The Dark Crystal, The Player, Metropolis, The Muppet Movie, Beetlejuice, Ed Wood, Cool Hand Luke, old Godzilla movies that have all run together now into one movie, Coppola's Dracula, King King ('33 and '76, yes I'm the only one that likes the '76 version), Animal House, Some Kind of Wonderful, Big Trouble in Little China, Die Hard, Black Christmas (74), The Jerk, Vacation, Casablanca, Reservoir Dogs, Clerks, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Night of the Living Dead (Romero), The Usual Suspects, The Professional, Jesus Christ Superstar, History of the World pt. 1, Cannibal, the Musical, pretty much all of the Universal Monsters movies and of course Pump up the Volume.

- Remakes are generally lame, but if you could remake any movie - what would it be, and what would you do different? I'd remake "Planet of the Apes", only in my version, all of the apes would be played by Muppets. How awesome would that be?? Ok well, maybe it would get old as a full-length feature. But a condensed five-minute version would be hilarious.

- What's your favorite costume any movie character gets to wear? Judas's resurrection/finale outfit from "Jesus Christ Superstar". Come on, it's sparkly, a neckline that plunges to the navel and arm fringe that reaches the ground. I mean really, what else can you ask for in an outfit? In my "Heaven", I'll be wearing this everyday.

- What's the coolest spaceship in a movie? Skipping the easy answer of the 'Millenium Falcon' (which is pretty damned cool)... I've always been partial to the little-seen 'A-Wing fighters' from the 'Star Wars' universe. They barely show up in 'Jedi', but I had a model of one of them as a kid and it was pretty sporty as spaceships go.

- What's the coolest car in a movie? Ok, it's a tie between Frankenstein's lizard car from 'Death Race 2000' and the time-traveling DeLorean in 'Back to the Future'. Both are awesome. But honorable mention goes to the Delta house modified attack car from the end of 'Animal House'. It's also badass.

- Name one of your greatest movie geek possessions: Hmmm, many to choose from. I'm kind of partial to my "Scream" Jiffy Pop. It's just a promo, with an advertisment for the movie slapped on the front. Most people with sense, just took it home and ate it that night. But of course, not me. I liked it because it seems to sum up movies all together. It's popcorn, with a cheesy horror movie ad right on it. It ties it all together nicely.
And I'm also pretty proud of my photo signed by Siskel and Ebert.

- If you were a secondary Star Wars character, which one would you be? Wampa. He sits in his cave - cold and alone. And even in a universe of weird creatures, he manages to still be a hideous monster.

Marlena coming soon!!

One of us, one of us...