Day: November 25, 2005

1. Pick fifteen(!) films you love/thoroughly enjoyed.
2. Find screen captures (stills) for each film, preferably from scenes you like. If you can’t find a still, pick a new movie.
3. Post the pictures with the rules; let your readers guess which still is from which movie. (Readers, no cheating. No Google.)
4. Post the answers. [If the pictures have links attached, they’ve been correctly guessed. See the comments below for credit.]

Here, then, are the pictures:

That’d make for one weird double-feature.

Playing around with the feature, I’m noticing that, often, people seem to be more interested in movies about what they supposedly already know. “Local favorites” often translates to favorite movies about the locale.

For instance, four of the top five films in Washington, D.C., are about Washington, D.C. Ditto for Baltimore, MD. Seattle, WA, only manages three out of four, but still, the principle’s pretty much the same. And Miami, FL, skews unsurprisingly toward Spanish-language features and films about nearby Cuba.

The number one rental in Las Vegas is season one of Las Vegas. In Chicago, it’s Eight Men Out about the Chicago White Sox. In Bangor, ME, a Stephen King miniseries wins out. While in Austin, TX, the top rental is Slacker, filmed in town by local Richard Linklater.

It doesn’t always work like this. There’s no sign of anything like Northern Exposure in the top 25 for Anchorage, Fairbanks or Juneau, for instance — just as there’s no sign of Beverly Hills 90210 discs in the rentals for Beverly Hills. New York City’s top 10 are all foreign-language films (the lone exception being 1966’s Blowup, director Michelangelo Antonioni first English-language feature). Often, there are films that, if they do have any local significance, it’s difficult to figure out how.

1. “All the dishes rattle in the cupboards when the elephants arrive”
2. “My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating”
   “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day, guessed by Nyssa
3. “Would you be an outlaw for my love”
4. “Bubble and squeak and jumble says Little Richard and Jerry Lee”
5. “I went to find the truth in the Himalayas, bundled up half-frozen munchin’ Milky Way-uhs”
   “Overkill” by Jimmy Buffett, guessed by Betty
6. “You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much”
   “Born in the U.S.A.” by Bruce Springsteen, guessed by Nyssa
7. “You think that we connect, that the chemistry’s correct”
   “Spiderwebs” by No Doubt, guessed by Sharon
8. “There’s a broken beam inside of the big big bridge”
   “Dolphin” by Poe, guessed by Glen
9. “Tender nights before they fly send falling stars that seem to cry”
10. “I’m all dressed up for the dance, I’m all alone in romance”
    “A White Sport Coat (And A Pink Carnation)” by Marty Robbins, guessed by Betty