Just Watch.

Oh no you di'nt!

Listen up, young lady. I know that, now you have that little gold tchotke you campaigned so long and disingenuously for, you're a little full of yourself. You think you can do anything.

But, honey, listen up: I know Joan Crawford. I have seen her butch it up, I have seen her "in that ch-air!," I have seen a monstrous caricature of her chewing the scenery in a movie that should have been made by Lifetime. And you, missy, are no Joan Crawford.

On the other hand. Todd Haynes is supposed to direct it, and I think he should be allowed to do whatever he wants, so maybe this will be incredibly awesome?

Birthday Revisited: Hitch, served 3 more ways

I can't believe I got the date wrong. But we've got 29 minutes to do right by the bald one.

4. Suspicion,
One of my favorites; I wrote my undergrad thesis partly on it. Cary Grant as a baddie? Say it ain't so! And what exactly is in that luminous glass of milk?

5. To Catch a Thief
This is the one with the famous, ever-so-subtle fireworks kissing scene. Grant and Kelly spend the whole time being sun-drenched, langorous, sly and sexy. Escapism at its best

6. Blackmail
Hitch's first sound film; they added the sound halfway through production. His leading lady spoke no English; a woman standing out of frame had to do the dialogue.

Happy 110th, Hitch: 3 Viewing Suggestions

"Always make the audience suffer as much as possible," Alfred Hitchcock once stated. It's an aphorism much in line with the many sniping, misanthropic complaints he made about filmgoers, the business of filmmaking, as well as his caustic contempt for actors.

In an ironic little twist of fate, Hitchcock made the public he reviled suffer to the extreme on April 29, 1980, when the master of suspense shuffled off this mortal coil. Suspense films, such as they still exist, don't come close to his best.  And modern horror, even with its goriest, torture-porn carnagefests, can't hold a candle to what this man did with a shower curtain.

If we -- and please, debate away on this subject -- can deem Psycho, Vertigo, and North by Northwest -- as the Hitchcock films most remembered and canonized by American audiences, let's take a moment, on his birthday, to examine some of his lesser-known works.

John Hughes

I can't get away without writing at least a little something here, can I? Not that I don't want to, it's just that this dead horse (pardon the pun) has surely been sufficiently tenderized at this stage in the game.

It's interesting, this happening so close on the heels of Michael Jackson; a lot of people relate these two to the halcyon days of their childhood innocence. Personally, Michael Jackson was not really part of my childhood, I certainly knew he existed as very notable entity, but I couldn't tell you much about him or his music. Later on, high school probably, I got into "Thriller" and all that stuff and really started to appreciate him as an artist.

Similarly, John Hughesn film's weren't about my high school experiences, partially because I wasn't a teen when they first came out. What his films did give me an inflated, rosy glow outlook on what high school was going to be for me. When reality didn't jibe with this image, I experienced a certain amount of ennui. No guy ever kissed me over a highly flammable birthday cake. No nerds wanted my underpants. What was to become of me?

As I grew up, I came to realize that while John Hughes gave us the fantasy of what we hoped high school would be, while Freaks and Greeks told it like it is.

Nevertheless, there are some Hughes films that are still special to me: Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller, and Some Kind of Wonderful are probably my faves.

Interesting little tidbit: Hughes wrote the first two Home Alone movies. Now that stuff really was my childhood.

10 Rillington Place

Richard Fleischer, 1971

If you enjoy being completely creeped out by a movie, you missed a rare opportunity when this was playing at the Film Forum. This movie fosters a profound, relentless sense of dread; you know what's coming, you hope and pray that you won't have to  watch it, but you always get it up in your face, in horrible, grizzly detail.

The film documents the...um, exploits of notorious serial killer John Christie, who might have murdered his upstairs neighbor Beryl Evans and her child. Timothy Evans, the victim's husband, turned himself in and confessed to the crime; he later recanted and accused Christie of strangling her while pretending to perform a (then illegal) abortion. Evans was hanged for the murder of his daughter; in 1953 new tenants found several female bodies in Christie's crawl space and back garden. Christie was eventually apprehended and confessed to all the murders -- including Beryl Evans's -- and was hanged himself for the murder of his own wife.

While the film claims to be "based on real events," it should be noted that much of the film is purely speculative; in the real world there are some serious doubts about the extent of Evans' complicity. In an intersting cinematic twist, the film is based on a book written by Ludovic Kennedy, who was the husband of the late, great Moira Shearer.

At any rate, this film rides on two performances -- Richard Attenborough as the spookily calm Christie and a young John Hurt as the not-the-sharpest-knife-in-the-drawer Evans. I think it's now well established that I absolutely love John Hurt, so I may be biased, but he's always struck me as very intelligent, both as a person and an actor. There's something about his face that telegraphs intense, cerebral discernment. So this role is a bit of a challenge; he has to play someone stupid and naive enough to confess to a murder he didn't commit. It's a tall order, and there are moments when it strains credibility just a tad. But he acquits himself more than admirably by making his jaw slack -- he looks, to quote "Blackadder," like a guppy fish at feeding time. He tempers this bit with a feeling of terrified vulnerability  and confusion, even on his way to the hangman's noose.

Western Education: Stagecoach

John Ford, 1939

These days I'm trying to watch more westerns. For me, the appeal of this little experiment is two-fold; not only get to broaden my cinematic palate, I also get to hang out with my grandfather, who's never met a John Wayne film he didn't like. 

While we're on the subject; Stagecoach is lauded as one of the greatest westerns ever made; it also made John Wayne a star. Here he's less haggard and grizzled then we've seen him in later on in his career, but the offhand plain talking and that peculiar swagger are all present and accounted for. Thomas Mitchell gives one of the most realistic and avuncular portrayals of a drunk that I've ever seen on film; he was rewarded with an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Stagecoach isn't your typical western, by any stretch.  The fighting is minimal; the story focuses on a group of diverse backgrounds stuck on the stagecoach, fearful that an Apache  ambush is imminent. At first, watching these disparate people spar in confined space lends the film a tenor of frustration and anxiety.