When he wasn't rooting out Communists, cracking down on the mob and spying on civil rights leaders, FBI head J. Edgar Hoover toiled as a one-man culture warrior battling Hollywood decadence. He prevented Charlie Chaplin from reentering the U.S. because of his leftist political views, and he condemned Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life for its “rather obvious attempt to discredit bankers.” So what did he have to say about Alfred Hitchcock, who gave American moviegoers new and strange things to fear? Not a bad word.
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It’s Hitchcock in the morning, Hitchcock in the evening, Hitchcock at supper time given the upcoming Hitchcock movie, the recently-aired HBO flick The Girl, Blu-Ray releases of Dial “M” for Murder (in 3D!) and Strangers on a Train, and now a sumptuous new collection of the Master of Suspense's work. On the other end of the spectrum is a kids’ holiday movie that never got the acclaim it deserved — but now that director Paul Feig has gone on to make a little film called Bridesmaids, maybe it has a shot at cult status. more »
Break open the bubbly! Alfred Hitchcock's newly restored silent comedy, Champagne will get be streamed live and exclusively on the visual arts website The Space on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (or 3:30 p.m. Eastern time). Champagne (1928) was Hitch's eighth film as director and tells the story of a playgirl (Betty Balfour) living off the profits of her father's champagne business, and her father's plan to get rid of her fiance, who he suspects is a gold-digger. Father knows best! more »
Alfred Hitchcock may have been, as the folks behind HBO's upcoming Tippi Hedren telefilm The Girl allege, "a monster," but he was also a cinematic genius, a visionary storyteller, an indelible presence on the pop culture landscape, and, perhaps, a ham. (His words — see below.) So today, on what would've been his 113th birthday, how do you best remember Hitch?
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HBO's upcoming original movie The Girl, previewed last week for the Television Critics Association, tells the story of Alfred Hitchcock (Toby Jones) and Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller) making the films The Birds and Marnie. If you thought this would be a fun story about stepping in bird doodie and making it big in Hollywood, you’re in for a big shock, as Hedren spoke at length about the alleged sexual harassment and abuse she suffered at the hands of the "unusual, genius, and evil" director.
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Also in Friday morning's news round up, Universal is marketing an Alfred Hitchcock box set for its 100th anniversary. Pixar's Brave looks ready to triumph at the weekend box office, and Marcia Gay Harden will play a librarian who finds life in Costa Rica.
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Filming is underway on the other period behind-the-scenes Alfred Hitchcock flick -- this one stars Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, Jessica Biel as starlet Vera Miles, Anthony Hopkins as Hitch and Helen Mirren as his wife Alma -- and the very first photo from the pic has hit the web. In it, buried somewhere beneath layers of prosthetics and make-up and balding hair, is Sir Anthony as the iconic auteur. Toby Jones, eat your heart out.
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Some guy who should probably be running the space program instead focused his efforts on producing a time-lapse video of the goings-on in Rear Window, as seen from the eponymous vantage point in Jimmy Stewart's apartment. I don't really have any words for this beyond that. Just stop what you're doing and have a look.
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The BBC's biopic The Girl aims to explore Alfred Hitchcock's fascination with actress Tippi Hedren, and from the first image of Toby Jones as Hitch and Sienna Miller as his The Birds and Marnie muse this promises to be an intriguing watch. But mimicry/homage aside -- as evidenced by the near-perfect recreation of Hitch & Hedren's famous Birds promo photo -- will The Girl get everything right about their relationship? Like the fact that, as Hedren has been saying for years now, Hitch stalled her career because she turned him down?
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When it comes to frightening cinematic villains, this list will likely seem tame to hardcore horror film fanatics — those who revel in phantasmagoria. But to my mind, horror films are very rarely scary, usually hovering somewhere between slapstick and melodrama. What makes for a really scary character to me has little to do with those qualities most often found with the horror film ghoul, being a penchant for brutality, a supposedly fraught psychological profile, or any underpinning mysticism. Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th films, for instance, can boast all three. Yet, despite this, his appeal translates similarly to that of a clown: He proceeds with a certain inevitable performative gravity. Just as everyone knows that a clown will take a pratfall, we all know that Jason will make his kill. The fun is in just how the ax falls, if you’re into that sort of thing.
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Back in January, actress Kim Novak issued a statement decrying the use of Bernard Hermann's theme from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo in eventual Oscar-winner The Artist, igniting a flurry of debate by calling it an act of rape. (“I want to report a rape," she declared. “My body of work has been violated by The Artist.") And whether or not you agreed then that it was an appropriate way to describe an act of artistic citation -- the Academy Award-winning team behind The Artist would call it homage -- Novak is back with another stunner that may reignite the conversation. "I didn't use that word lightly," she said in a report by The AP's Derrik J. Lang today. "I had been raped as a child."
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No one should be surprised anymore at these announcements, but: DreamWorks and Working Title Films are remaking Alfred Hitchcock's Oscar-winning noir Rebecca, because nothing is sacred. At least they've got people at the wheel with respectable creds; veteran producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are onboard while Eastern Promises screenwriter Steven Knight is scripting based on Daphne du Maurier's original 1938 novel, which saw a few deviations when Hitch made his version (which, incidentally, went on to be the only Best Picture Oscar-winner of his career).
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TCA events bring news that A&E is developing a prequel series to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, to revolve around the early life of one Norman Bates and his beloved mother at the infamous Bates Motel. While intriguing, it prompts more than a few questions... like, who wants to watch teenage Norman devolve into filmdom's most notorious creep on a weekly basis? What gives writer Anthony Cipriano the authority to explore Hitch's iconic killer? And, most depressing of all to ponder -- do people these days even care about Psycho anymore?
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This just in: Kim Novak, star of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, has a beef with Oscar front-runner The Artist and its use of Bernard Herrmann's iconic love theme from the 1958 classic. Let's just cut to the chase and let Novak's words speak for themselves: “I want to report a rape... my body of work has been violated by The Artist."
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This is far too intriguing not to think about for hours: The BBC2 just announced a project called The Girl, starring Sienna Miller as model-turned-actress Tippi Hedren and Toby Jones as Alfred Hitchcock, who obsessed over Hedren as they filmed the The Birds in northern California's Bodega Bay. The extreme relationship between Hitch and Hedren, which included some violent bird-throwing sessions during one climactic scene, is well-documented and ready for re-inspection (as is any film starring the dashing Rod Taylor). But is this the most fascinating Hitchcock story to examine? We offer one other possible Hitchcock era that might be intriguing to revisit.
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