The Sunshine Blogger Award

The Story Enthusiast has nominated me for the Sunshine Blogger Award!  I love her questions -- you're going to too, I just know it.

But first, a bit of business, in the form of the award's rules:

• List the award’s official rules (doing so now)
• Display the award somewhere on your blog (hope the above image counts)
• Thank the person who nominated you (thank you, Story Enthusiast!)
• Provide a link to your nominator’s blog (did so above)
• Answer your nominator’s questions (will do so below)
• Nominate up to 11 bloggers (I'll get there)
• Ask your nominees 11 questions (what fun!)
• Notify your nominees by commenting on at least one of their blog posts (of course)

On to the questions!!!  (If I've reviewed a film I mention here, I've linked the title to my review.)

1. What British or international film would you recommend to a friend who has never seen one? 

Hmmmmm.  This is a hard question because it doesn't take into account the fact that people like different genres and so on.  And I'm not sure what friends of mine have never seen an international film!  However, if you happen to be into westerns and/or like unusual retellings of Hamlet, I really dig the Italian spaghetti western The Wild and the Dirty (1968), also called Johnny Hamlet.

2. Which classic film director do you prefer and what is your favorite of their films? 

John Sturges.  I don't love all of his films, but I do love several, especially The Magnificent Seven (1960).  And The Great Escape (1963), Hour of the Gun (1967), and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957).

3. Which character actor or actress do you think would have made a great lead? 

I wish Gloria Grahame had gotten to play front and center more.

4. What child actor do you believe should have had success as an adult but didn’t? 

Hmm.  Margaret O'Brien did make a lot of things as an adult, but not with nearly the success she had as a child.  (She's still alive, by the way!  So cool!)

5. What film do you love, but dislike the ending? 

Um.  I don't know if I can think of any.  Endings are super important to me.  If a movie doesn't end properly, I'm not going to love it.  I just looked through my entire list of my 100 favorite films, and I don't dislike a single ending on there.

Now, I can tell you a movie that I would like EXCEPT that the ending ruins it for me, so I can't like it, and that's Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961).  I much prefer the ending of the original story by Truman Capote.  And no, this isn't a case of me reading the story first and then not liking the film -- I saw and disliked the movie twice before I ever read and liked the story.

6. Whose onscreen wardrobe do you covet and would like to claim for your own? 

I want to wear basically every dress and bathrobe and pair of pajamas in White Christmas (1954).

7. Which original film do you think could be improved as a remake and who would you cast? 

Hmm.  How about Breakfast at Tiffany's?  We can restore the original ending and all will be well.  I think Alicia Vikander as Holly and James McAvoy as Paul would be interesting.

8. Which classic film actor or actress do you think would be successful in today’s film industry?

Lee Marvin.  Couldn't you see him in modern action movies, menacing and sidewinding and wonderful?

9. What film trope do you never tire of seeing?

Found families.  I eat them up with ravenous delight.

10. If you could adapt a piece of classic literature that has not yet been made into a film, what book would you choose and who would you cast in the main roles?

If I could be in charge of making a movie version of The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery so that it wouldn't get all screwed up, then that would be a very good book to adapt.  But only if it didn't get all screwed up.  I want Elizabeth Henstridge to play Valancy Stirling and Michael Fassbender as Barney Snaith.  If you can't get Fassbender to play Barney, I want no part of it whatsoever, the end.

11. Which of today’s modern actors or actresses do you think would have been successful in classic films and why?

Michael Fassbender.  He has a classical introspection and a wide range, and I think he'd have been fantastic in '60s films.

And now, my questions:

1.  What movie house would you like to live in?
2.  What movie pet would you like to own?
3.  What book do you wish your favorite actor or actress could have starred in an adaptation of?
4.  Are there any movies you like better than the book they were based on?
5.  What's your favorite movie that's set in the decade you were born in?
6.  Do you collect movie memorabilia of any sort?
7.  What actor and actress have never made a movie together, but you wish would have?
8.  What director would you like to have direct a movie based on your life?
9.  Do you ever like a remake better than the original film?
10. What's your least-favorite movie genre?
11.  Are there any movies in your least-favorite genre that you do like?

And my nominees:

Anna and Irene at Horseback to Byzantium
Cordy at Any Merry Little Thought
Eva at Coffee, Classics, and Craziness
Heidi at Along the Brandywine
Jocelyn at Classic Film Observations & Obsessions
Katie at I'm Charles Baker Harris (And I Can Read)
MovieCritic at Movies Meet Their Match
Natalie at Starry Ramblings
Olivia at Meanwhile, in Rivendell...
Paddy at Caftan Woman
Phyl at Phyllis Loves Classic Movies


Play if you want to!