Search Results for: hitchcock truffaut

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Sock That Choppy I loved Crouching Tiger and all, but it’s no secret there are more ardent fans of martial-arts movies than myself. I like aerial chop-socky the way I like musical numbers in a ’50s Arthur Freed musical — visually exciting and beautifully performed, etc., but if there’s too much exposure to restricted worlds … Read more

“Don’t Disappoint Me, Messala”

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The long-awaited 4K UHD Bluray of William Wyler‘s Ben-Hur finally pops on 2.17.26. Thank God WHE execs didn’t feel obliged to wait for the 70th anniversary of the multi-Oscar-winning film’s theatrical debut, which happened on 11.18.59. It would have been a somewhat bigger deal if the WHE guys had gotten the lead out and released … Read more

Good God, Marty

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Martin Scorsese has committed to producing The Saints, an eight-part, faith-based docuseries about eight saints. The bad part is that he’s doing this for Fox Nation, the conservative streaming channel. I’m not saying this is like Scorsese injecting political cancer cells into his veins, but it sorta kinda feels like he might be doing that. … Read more

HE’s Best Films of 1959

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In HE’s judgment, 25 exceptional, high-quality films were released in 1959. (There were another 9 or 10 that were good, decent, not bad.) By today’s standards, here’s how the top 25 rank: 1. Billy Wlder‘s Some Like It Hot (released on 3.29.59) 2. Alfred Hitchcock‘s North by Northwest (released on 7.1.59) 3. John Ford‘s The … Read more

Sight & Sound Highbrows Lean Wokey

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The 2022 Sight & Sound poll popped earlier this afternoon, and we all knew what the results would reflect, right? Not so much with films directed by older white guys (especially OWG directors with a somewhat dicey or shady reputation), and up with films directed by women and POCS. And so Chantal Akerman‘s Jeanne Dielman, … Read more

Re-Selecting 1959 Oscar Winners

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It’s time to rectify the 1959 Oscars once and for all. Better late than never. The winners of record will still retain their places in history, of course, but 61 years have passed, new perspectives have emerged, and it’s time to ratify the new deal. But without being too rigid-minded. Charlton Heston gave a first-rate … Read more

Curious Optics, Divided Loyalties

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So basically Kent Jones is leaving his honcho position with the New York Film Festival because he and the Film at Lincoln Center board have decided that the optics of his having become a heavyweight narrative filmmaker with Diane while concurrently running a major fall film festival…he and the board have decided that Jones continuing … Read more

Knifing in Marrakech

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All Hitchcock films are incomplete without dialogue, of course, but you can almost always follow their stories if you watch them without sound. I was doing just that this morning, watching the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much in mute mode. Hitch was naturally obliged to use dialogue to move his stories … Read more

Too Fuddy-Duddy For Proverbial Sack

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Several online forums have repeated an Alfred Hitchcock assertion, possibly sourced from his 1962 interview with Francois Truffaut, that one reason Vertigo was a financial failure was because the 49-year-old Jimmy Stewart looked “too old” to be the lover of Kim Novak, who was 25 during filming. (Vertigo was shot between September and December 1957.) … Read more

Time and Tide Wait For No One

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Six days ago Danny Peary posted a q & a with author, film historian, screenwriter and former Variety critic Joseph McBride. The main order of discussion was McBride’s 2017 book, “Two Cheers for Hollywood,” a compilation volume (64 essays and interviews) that I mentioned eight months ago in a piece called “McBride’s Way”. Right in … Read more

McBride’s Way

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From Joseph McBride‘s just-released “Two Cheers For Hollywood,” and more particularly an introductory essay titled “I Loved Movies But…”: “In recent decades we’ve had to deal with the generally awful state American mainstream movies have fallen into, and with the overall collapse of film culture and what used to be called cinephilia. This has led … Read more

Hollywood Elsewhere 1.66:1 Aspect Ratio Festival

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Here’s an open-letter proposal addressed to the Academy, Quentin Tarantino‘s New Beverly Cinema and the programmers of the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian and Aero theatres to devote seven days to the glorious 1.66:1 aspect ratio. They don’t have to call it the Hollywood Elsewhere 1.66:1 Celebration Festival, but seriously…who else has stood up for 1.66:1 like … Read more