Movie Quiz

My buddy, "Z, The Last Letter" sent me a simple movie quiz. The instructions are just to pick one of the three in each group. I took 5 minutes to respond and thought I'd blog my picks. Movie opinions always spark interesting debates so feel free to comment.

1. Goodfellas, Casino, or Godfather? Casino shouldn’t even be in the running.

2. Star Trek, Star Wars, or Stargate? Star Wars was ruined by its creator, the Stargate movie was great, the series was OK, Star Trek still holds the crown.

3. Road Warrior, Waterworld, Escape from New York? Toss up b/t Escape from NY and Road Warrior – the Road Warrior series was better than the Escape sequel but Snake Pliskin is the man.

4. Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours? Tough category. All 3 were groundbreaking, but the chemistry b/t Danny Glover and Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon redefined the buddy flick.

5. Spiderman, Batman Begins, Superman? The 1980 Superman had incredible special effects for the day, which still hold up, the sound track rivals Star Wars and Gene Hackman gave a tour de force performance.

6. Hulk, Daredevil, or Ghost Rider? I refuse to pick one. (Note: I haven’t even seen Ghost Rider.)

7. The Patriot, Glory, Last of the Mohicans? Patriot was weak. Mohicans was good, but Glory noses it out. BTW – 3 Mel Gibson film out of 7 categories? Did this quiz come from Australia or the religious right?

8. Sleepless in Seattle, Serendipity, or A Lot Like Love? Kate Beckinsale > Meg Ryan > Ashton Kutcher.

9. Terminator, Robocop, Universal Soldier? Terminator wins for its vivid, apocolyptic vision of the future, the one-liners and Arnold at the top of his game.

10. Aliens, Predator, or ? No third option here. Aliens wins anyway. It was a great space thriller with a great tag line – “In space, no one can hear you scream.” or something like that.

11. Casino Royale, Bourne Identity, The Saint? Tougher category than I thought. I really like the Saint, but Daniel Craig is the best Bond since Connery.

12. Cars, Shrek, Incredibles? Another toss up. Shrek gets the nod for having more adult humor.

13. The Day After Tomorrow, Armageddon, Twister? If you’re going to make a formula “popcorn” movie your name had better be “Jerry Bruckheimer”. Also, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt suck.

14. Deep Blue Sea, Jaws, Open Water? Jaws would win based on the quotability of the script alone. Everything Quint says can be repeated in a bar.

15. Dodgeball, Anchorman, Old School? 3 great movies, but Anchorman wins on re-watchability. Honorable mention to Dodgeball for Jason Bateman’s performance as an announcer on The Ocho.

16. Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, We were Soldiers? Kubrik outsmarted himself a bit on FMJ. Great movie but Oliver Stone just made a more enjoyable film to watch. Plus, it paved the way for Charlie Sheen to play Bud Fox in Wall Street.

17. Saving Private Ryan, Flags of our Fathers, Pearl Harbor? In all honesty I haven’t seen Flags of our Fathers but I can’t imagine there’s a better scene in any modern war movie than when Adam Goldberg loses his hand-to-hand fight with the Nazi soldier and take a bayonet tip to the heart.

18. We Three Kings, Black Hawk Down, Jarhead? We Three Kings was a good story told well. Plus I have a soft-spot for George Clooney. Jamie Foxx ruined Jarhead.

19. Fight Club, Seven, 8mm? Tough call b/t Fight Club and Seven. I’ve only seen Seven once and I liked it, but after the initial shock I doubt it holds up as well as Fight Club.

20. Rambo, Commando? No question here - Over 20 years later, Stallone's Rambo is just slightly more dated/ridiculous than Schwarzenegger's John Matrix. This movie started the retarded practice of giving Schwarzenegger's characters uber-American names like "John Matrix".

Plus lines like:

Rae Dawn Chung: "What happened to Sully?" Matrix: "I let him go" (after dropping Sully off a cliff)

Matrix to flight attendant: "Please don't disturb my friend. He's dead tired." (after snapping the dude's neck and propping him against the plane window with a pillow)

21. Nightmare of Elm Street, Halloween, or Friday the 13th? I liked the first Halloween the best out of these 3, despite Jamie Lee Curtis.

22. Gladiator, Troy, or Alexander? This isn’t even close.

23. Fifth Element, Independence Day, War of the Worlds? Again, not even close. The 5th element was Luc Besson’s obsession and it shows. The other two were made to sell tickets and it shows.

24. Italian Job, Fast and the Furious, Gone in 60 seconds? Love the “Point Break” remake.

25. Godzilla, King Kong, Jurassic Park? None of these movies will ever make my NetFlix queue.