how do you like your steak, Sally?

11. Sexiest actor/actress you’ve seen. (Pictures requested!) 

     apart from those I've shared before... Tony Leung Chiu-wai. Serious, athletic, hysterically silly-funny, debonair, conflicted, and terribly handsome. Watch him in Gorgeous (1999, reviewed here), In the Mood for Love (2000, reviewed here), Hero (2002, reviewed here), Infernal Affairs (2002, reviewed here and here), The Grandmaster (2013, reviewed here and here)....

 

12. What’s a movie that you always recommend?

    besides the many I've pushed here already... A Perfect World (1993), reviewed here and here. Roger Ebert's review is here, and includes this: "This is a movie that surprises you. The setup is such familiar material that you think the story is going to be flat and fast. But the screenplay by John Lee Hancock goes deep. And the direction by Clint Eastwood finds strange, quiet moments of perfect truth in the story. ...A Perfect World has the elements of a crime genre picture, but the depth of thought and the freedom of movement of an art film." 

 

13. Who is an actor you always watch, no matter how crappy the movie? 

    Jason Statham (with the exception of the one with Melissa McCarthy, of whom I am not a fan)

 

14. Who is an actor, living or dead, you’d love to meet? Why do they intrigue you? 

     Tom Hardy, who is a serious actor who tends to choose dark, complex characters—but who, in interviews, is often so disarmingly lighthearted and charming. He is especially sweet with dogs and children, who he clearly loves. The clip below is from a BBC interview where children were allowed to ask questions; the final question and answer still makes me smile big even having watched it countless times.

 

16. You are casting a movie. Pick a few actors you’d hire to be in it and tell why you’d love them together. 

    Leung, Jet Li, Jean Reno, Statham, Andy Lau, Jackie Chan, and Dwayne Johnson--for something like a cross between The Rundown (2003)  + The Thieves (2012) + Leverage (2008-2012): kick ass retribution, a martial arts and more international Expendables, technically skilled and beautifully filmed and surprisingly funny.

 

17. Share 3 of your favorite actor pairings of all time.

    • Sebastian Koch and Carise Van Houten in Black Book (2006; reviewed here and explained here)

    • George Clooney and Julia Roberts—my modern William Powell & Myrna Loy—in Ocean's Eleven (2001) and Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Money Monster (2016, reviewed here) and Ticket to Paradise (2022, reviewed here)

    • Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel in The Crimson Rivers (2000)

 

18. Have you ever watched movies from a decade that was before you were born? If so, which decade is your favorite? 

    uh, yeah. I have. I've seen a few. 

    Number of films I've seen, by decade—1920s: 10, 1930s: 62; 1940s: 141; 1950s: 140; 1960s: 103; 1970s: 86; 1980s: 154; 1990s: 255; 2000s: 352; 2010s: 254; 2020s: 40

    My average ranging for and favorites (10/10) from each decade:

• 1920s:  8.2; Gold Rush (1925); The General (1926)
• 1930s:  6.6; City Lights (1931)
• 1940s:  6.9; Sullivan's Travels (1941), The More the Merrier (1943), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
  
• 
  1950s:  6.2; Sunset Boulevard (1950), Marty (1955), 12 Angry Men (1957)
• 1960s:  6.7; Judgment at Nuremberg (1961); To Kill a Mockingbird (1962); Hud (1963); Charlie Brown Christmas (1965); How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)
• 1970s:  6.1; Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973); Young Frankenstein (1974); Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown (1975)
• 
  1980s:  6.2; The Breakfast Club (1985); Manhunter (1986); The Princess Bride (1987); Mystic Pizza (1988)
• 1990s:  6.5; Trust (1990); The Unbelievable Truth (1990); Schindler's List (1993); The Professional (Léon) (1994); The Shawshank Redemption (1994); American History X (1998)
• 2000s:  6.5; Amen. (2002); Hero (2002); Spring Summer Fall Winter...and Spring (2003); Tae Guk Gi (2004); Letters from Iwo Jima (2006); The Lives of Others (2006); Up (2009)
• 
  2010s:  6.3; The Man from Nowhere (2010); Here Comes the Boom (2012); The Shape of Water (2017); Green Book (2018)
• 2020s:  5.3 (no 10/10 - so far!)

    Due to the statistical insignificance of the 1920s (too few entries), my favorite by number of films rated 10/10 is 2000s, and by rank is the 1940s. That latter would have been my guess, overall! 

 

19. If you were to be in a movie would you rather play the hero, villain or anti-hero? Why? 

    anti-heroes rock! 

 

[snatched from here and edited for length; the title quotation is from A Perfect World]