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Dang.

I doubt I can still swing a midnight showing. I suppose I could stop by the theater on the way home and try, but whatever, I can wait. I'm gonna see it with some friends this weekend anyway.

I got to see North by Northwest on the big screen last night. Awesome. Stray observations: that movie was way less action-packed than I remembered; I suppose it's only in comparison to Hitchcock's other films that it seems terribly high-octane, but compared to today's action films it's incredibly patient in developing both the espionage plot and the romance between Grant and Eva Marie Saint. (In fact, I'd say the romance occupies as much screen time as all of the espionage setpieces combined.) Not a criticism at all, just an observation.

I also totally forgot how explicitly sexual this film was; Eva Marie Saint stops just short of asking Cary Grant to stick it inside her. But it all holds up very well. And hot damn is Saint smoking in this movie, without ever showing any skin. A killer combination of sultry dialogue, soft focus, backlighting and confidence at work there.

Some of the humor is kinda quaint and hokey but a surprising amount holds up well, notably the auction sequence and the hospitalized woman who is shocked to find Cary Grant sneaking through her room. ("Stop!...Stooop...")

Totally forgot how abruptly the film ended. It's pretty ballsy and funny, but I could see how it would annoy somebody. Nowhere near as egregious as the awful psychobabble at the end of Psycho.

And, I'm not at all the "They don't make 'em like they used to" type, but how come we never get shots like this anymore?

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Movie Musings - My Reviews & Analysis (read plz)

Wow, that an awesome shot!

It's even more awesome theater-sized, and with an ant-sized Cary Grant running down that big diagonal sidewalk. I'd be tempted to go see it again, were it not a one-night-only thing.

I'm still mad at myself for not finding out about this earlier, thus missing Citizen Kane and The Searchers. Fortunately I found out just in time to go catch A Clockwork Orange. Not sure yet if I'll go catch Cabaret, as I haven't seen it before and Wednesday is generally the busiest bar night among my circle of friends.

This weekend will be a busy one for movies. The Dark Knight Rises, of course, but also Beasts of the Southern Wild and Beyond the Black Rainbow.

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Movie Musings - My Reviews & Analysis (read plz)

I'm big on the Saul Bass-created title sequence:



I saw it on the big screen back in January. It was at 10 am or something, and the rest of the audience was full of retirement home residents. Anyway, when it got to the final shot- a total dick reference if ever there was one- I burst out laughing at Hitchcock being such a dirty old man. And I was the only one laughing. There's also all of those clips of Eva Marie Saint smoking while she's flirting with Cary Grant, which is also pretty funny. Subliminal blowjobs and such.

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There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that that's all some people have? It isn't much, but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.
-John L. Sullivan, Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Yeah, Saul Bass title sequences are always killer. His job on Psycho is amazing, but my favorite is (of course) GoodFellas.

Good call on the smoking. In particular, the first time we see her smoke, Cary Grant lights a match for her. She slowly leans in, grasps his hand in hers, and lights. He starts to pull his hand away but she pulls it back in and slowly blows it out. The only thing missing was a shivery moan and a gravelly voice yelling "BANG BROS."

And yeah, most of my audience was old as heck. The two ladies on either side of me probably totaled 130 years.

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Movie Musings - My Reviews & Analysis (read plz)

So you did them then?

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Hi-Pointe Theatre
The Dark Knight Marathon starts tonight.

BATMAN BEGINS @ 6:30
THE DARK KNIGHT @ 9:10
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES 12:01

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I was a little disappointed in "North by Northwest". IIRC, the leadup to the iconic crop duster scene had Cary Grant being taken around in a car by the baddies. They dump him out into a field in the middle of nowhere--cue the crop duster. I couldn't enjoy the craft of the scene because I was thinking about how ridiculous a way to kill someone that was.

Saw that Cinemark Classics program but was only able to catch "Citizen Kane". Would have loved to see "A Clockwork Orange" on a big screen but I worked a 12-hour day shift that day.

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"This is a heavyweight bout indeed."--John Rooney, Oct. 27, 2011

I think you really have to sort of recalibrate when watching some of the old stuff. I mean Peter O'Toole's facial expressions in Lawrence of Arabia were crazy.

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I had the same thought (minor correction: he's instructed to take a bus to the empty field where the plane attacks him), but it's so ridiculous it becomes funny (while still being exciting, to me anyway). North by Northwest definitely has more of a sense of humor than any other Hitchcock I've seen, excepting The 39 Steps.

Speaking of Lawrence of Arabia, that one is getting a theatrical exhibition in, I think, October. I'm so there, haven't seen it since high school and it's usually one of the first films mentioned when people have the whole cinema-vs.-tv-screen debate.

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Movie Musings - My Reviews & Analysis (read plz)