you can be cerebral about things you hate, but most of the things you like tend to be very emotive

8. What’s the scariest film you’ve ever seen?     

    I've got to make a list. (If you don't know me by now...)

        • nightmare inducing: American Me (1992) (not reviewed but mentioned many times). It has two indelible scenes that absolutely terrified me.

        • psychologically scary: Wait Until Dark (1967) (reviewed here). It works on some basic fears and vulnerabilities.

        • horror scary (and specific to my phobia): The Omen (1976) (reviewed here). It's certainly not "a dog movie" but the dog aspects are deeply frightening to me.

        • creepy scary: The Bad Seed (1956) (reviewed here). This one has all the ingredients to a creepy soup—demon kid, oblivious adults, and some surprisingly realistic violence.

        • button-pushing scary: The Night of the Hunter (1955) (reviewed here). My, oh my. An example of how they used to do scary films, with dialog and music and lighting and acting combining for an overall, inexorable tension. Yikes.

9. What’s the most romantic film you’ve ever seen? 

    Sullivan's Travels (1941), reviewed here. There's something really accessible and lovely about it, despite the ethereal gorgeousness of Veronica Lake and Joel McCrea. Nobody in the real world looks that good, and the ultimate point of the movie is that they managed to look not-that-good almost the whole way through. They passed for real people.

10. What’s the first television show you ever saw that made you think television could be more than entertainment? 

    M*A*S*H (1972-1983). I grew up with this series, which was on its original run from my infant to teen years, and it was on our TV that whole time. When I was little, it was a funny comedy show, and I didn't like or was uninterested in the episodes that were not overtly comedic. As it neared the end, though, I had started to realize that it was far more than I'd seen before. I started to look forward to the more melancholy episodes and the more thoughtful characters—and they stuck with me a lot longer and in different ways. I started learning from it, and maybe it helped launch my lifelong fascination with history.

11. What book do you think about or revisit the most? 

    I think most about The Brothers K (David James Duncan, 1992), and I revisit (as in, reread) Alisa Kwitney's entire backlist, in chronological order, every year or so, starting with The Dominant Blonde (2002).

12. What album have you listened to the most, and why? 

    Steve Miller Band Greatest Hits 1974-78. There are "better" albums and more popular and more meaningful, but when it comes down to it, I have consistently enjoyed and played this one since I first had access to it.

13. Is there a movie that you think is great, or powerful, or perfect, but that you never especially want to see again, and why? 

    Schindler's List (1993) (reviewed here), which is too heartrending for me to go through again. I do believe that it is great, and powerful. It is perfect, too, in terms of the way it was filmed (black and white is such a daring move with modern audiences) and acted (nothing over-the-top, and real emotion and vulnerability even among the reprehensible characters). I admire some of the actors so much. It's an unforgettable movie that makes me sob.

14. What movie have you seen more times than any other? 

   according to my recollection, Dodgeball (2004) (reviewed here). It was a staple during the Nick years, and I've seen it several times on TV when nothing else good was available, and I've owned it once or twice but sold a couple copies already. It's dumb, and funny, and oddly inspiring.

 

 [pulled and adapted from The Movie Love Questionnaire; the title quotation is by Chuck Klosterman]