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HITCHCOCK photo by Ellen Graham Ellen Graham was one of the great celebrity portrait artists of the 20th century, and — given that she’s still alive — also one of the great quasi-retired celebrity portrait artists of the 21st century. @KeyframeDaily linked to an amazing gallery of Graham’s work, and you can learn a bit more about her and her nifty new book by visiting her site. 

HITCHCOCK

photo by Ellen Graham

Ellen Graham was one of the great celebrity portrait artists of the 20th century, and — given that she’s still alive — also one of the great quasi-retired celebrity portrait artists of the 21st century. @KeyframeDaily linked to an amazing gallery of Graham’s work, and you can learn a bit more about her and her nifty new book by visiting her site. 


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CRITERION ANNOUNCES THEIR JUNE 2012 RELEASES!

a day late and sure to make you many dollars short, Criterion has announced their release roster for June 2012, and it’s a doozy. then again, any month with a new Charlie Chaplin blu is kind of a big deal… they could have announced The Gold Rush alongside a complete box set of Todd Solondz’s home videos and i’d consider it their best slate of the year. okay, let’s get serious. 

NEW RELEASES:

#615 THE GOLD RUSH  (dir. Charlie Chaplin) 1925

Criterion doesn’t mess around when it comes to Chaplin, and it’s no surprise that their release of the most famous Chaplin film they’ve yet to release is gorgeous and loaded, just  like i like my women.  They’ve included the original 1925 silent version (with a 2K restoration) as well as a new restoration of the definitive 1942 sound version, along with a commentary track, 3 programs, and a short doc from 2002. oh, and the thing looks gorgeous. i can dig it.

#616 SHALLOW GRAVE (dir. Danny Boyle) 1994

the film that put danny boyle on the map, this hyper-90s thriller may not share the critical esteem of many Criterion titles, but it’s an effective little movie with a star-making performance from Ewan McGregor and probably his penis (i can’t recall). you get two commentaries (one from Boyle), interviews, a Kevin MacDonald doc on the making of the film, and more. the cover art has a fake criterion cover feel, for whatever reason… can’t say it’s particularly fetching, but it certainly speaks to the film.

#617 AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE (dir. Steven Soderbergh) 2010

Soderbergh’s ultimate tribute to friend and collaborator Spalding Gray, And Everything is Going Fine is a lovely, sensitive, and telling testament to a man who did more with a camera alone in a black room than many filmmakers are capable of doing with the infinite resources of a major studio. Comes with a making-of doc and, most enticingly, video of Gray’s first monologue. the art work, lifted from the poster by Neil Kellerhouse (i think?), is obvious and perfect.

#618 GRAY’S ANATOMY (dir. Steven Soderbergh) 1997

the closest that katherine heigl will ever come to the criterion collection, Soderbergh’s adaptation of one of Spalding Gray’s most famous monologues is a mesmerizingly contained film, reminding me (if no one else) of Malle’s Vanya on 42nd Street. comes with interviews and video of an older Gray monologue. the cover art is simple and strikingly effective, much like Gray himself.

BLU-RAY UPGRADES:

#56 THE 39 STEPS (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) 1935

this Criterion classic may not be my favorite of Hitchcock’s UK-era films, but it’s formative and a heck of a lot of fun, and where the art adorning the previous edition looked murky and stale, now The 39 Steps is a gorgeously packaged piece of work that demands to be seen on your shelf regardless of its place in your life. the transfer is sure to be gorgeous, and Criterion has added a new audio commentary by Hitchcock scholar Marian Keane.

we’re also getting a long-awaited HD upgrade of Hiroshi Inagaki’s beloved Samurai Trilogy, but we’re still waiting on the artwork for that one. 

UPDATE: temporary art for Samurai Trilogy included (via CriterionCast)

Fake Criterion Cover: VERTIGO (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) 1958 so if i had to pick one movie to best represent the feeling i get when i think about my SXSW schedule for the next 7 days… i guess it would be Vertigo. mostly because i’ll be walking in circles trying to recreate the (sunny) experience i had here last year. and also i’ll be drunk.  see you guys at the bottom… p.s. head on over to Box Office Magazine at midnight to read my (rave, spoiler-free) review of SXSW opening night film, THE CABIN IN THE WOODS. danielpwnz: Vertigo (1958) - Fake Criterion

Fake Criterion Cover: VERTIGO (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) 1958

so if i had to pick one movie to best represent the feeling i get when i think about my SXSW schedule for the next 7 days… i guess it would be Vertigo. mostly because i’ll be walking in circles trying to recreate the (sunny) experience i had here last year. and also i’ll be drunk. 

see you guys at the bottom…

p.s. head on over to Box Office Magazine at midnight to read my (rave, spoiler-free) review of SXSW opening night film, THE CABIN IN THE WOODS.

danielpwnz:

Vertigo (1958) - Fake Criterion

Fake Criterion Cover: THE 39 STEPS (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) 1935 Designed by: Suman Chatterjee (i think?) ooooh, a fake criterion cover for a real criterion! fancy. you don’t see these all that often, but honestly The 39 Steps could use the help (the original cover is hideous). this may just be a tweaked one-sheet, but it sure is pretty and playful, elegantly capturing the spirit of the film and looking spiffy from both sides.

Fake Criterion Cover: THE 39 STEPS (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) 1935

Designed by: Suman Chatterjee (i think?)

ooooh, a fake criterion cover for a real criterion! fancy. you don’t see these all that often, but honestly The 39 Steps could use the help (the original cover is hideous). this may just be a tweaked one-sheet, but it sure is pretty and playful, elegantly capturing the spirit of the film and looking spiffy from both sides.

CRITERION REVIEW #3 THE LADY VANISHES (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) 1938   THE FILM: The Lady Vanishes is pretty much a one-stop shop for everything that I love about Alfred Hitchcock: It’s got a crackling mystery, a masterful sense of suspense, an impish ear fur humor, and — most importantly — a luminous brunette (Margaret Lockwood). It was the last film Hitchcock made before he packed up and left England for Hollywood, and to my mind it was also the best.  For the first thirty minutes of The Lady Vanishes, the film’s tone is the only mystery in sight, and  it’s not a particularly urgent one, at that. We begin in the backwater country of Bandrika, a fictional European nation that seems to be aligning itself with some sinister forces (the word “Nazi” is never spoken). An avalanche has stranded a train’s worth of passengers in a little mountain inn, and Hitchcock guides us through a fun and frivolous evening with this motley crew of clashing personalities. There’s a brash young musician named Gilbert (Michael Redgrave), a lovely lady en route to meet her sod of a fiancée (Lockwood), two bantering gentleman who care only for critic, and an elderly woman named Miss Froy who we could all swear that we saw. The dialogue is sharp and unexpectedly dirty, and Hitchcock breezes between the rooms with the same false sense of happenstance that Renoir would later patent in The Rules of the Game. The whole set-piece is such a fluid delight that by the time someone gets strangled to death, it almost feels like part of the fun. When Miss Froy disappears from the train the next day and the other passengers all tell Lockwood that she was never onboard in the first place, the mystery is afoot, and the slap-happy opening act is revealed to be a harbinger of grave things to come. Chugging along on the strength of Hitchcock’s most devilish Macguffin that side of North by Northwest, The Lady Vanishes isn’t just a tart little mystery or a masterclass in suspense (although it most certainly both of those things — the fogged window enduring as one of the cinema’s most deviously designed bits of snack-sized dramatic irony), it’s also a massively entertaining portrait of a world in transition (evoking People on Sunday, in some way). When that train pulls out of Bandrika it rolls away from a more innocent time, fixed on a one-way course towards a darker place where evil isn’t a fever-dream but a very real presence. Hitchcock has no sense for cynicism, but The Lady Vanishes rolls towards a reluctant realism, ultimately promising an extraordinary number of murders to come — murders about which the only mystery will be how people didn’t see them coming. It’s no wonder Hitchcock got out of there. THE TRANSFER: Criterion’s Blu-ray of The Lady Vanishes might actually look a little toogood. I mean, it’s one thing to know that Hitchcock is pulling a fake model car through the fake cobbled streets of a fake European country, but in 1080p the illusion is utterly pulverized and the film begins on a needless note of kitsch, as a result. That being said, the transfer’s unrivaled quality begins paying massive dividends shortly thereafter, offering viewers a remarkably clear and consistent image that should play like mana from heaven for Hitchcock purists. And is it just me, or is Margaret Lockwood actually glowing? THE VERDICT: The deluxe DVD edition that Criterion released in 2007 is still a top-notch product and those who own it shouldn’t feel compelled to upgrade unless their completely understandable love of the film beckons them to do so. Folks looking to add this film to their library for the first time should pull the trigger and never look back. CLICK OVER TO MOVIES.COM TO READ REVIEWS OF CRITERION’S COMPLETE DECEMBER SLATE.

CRITERION REVIEW #3 THE LADY VANISHES (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) 1938  

THE FILM: The Lady Vanishes is pretty much a one-stop shop for everything that I love about Alfred Hitchcock: It’s got a crackling mystery, a masterful sense of suspense, an impish ear fur humor, and — most importantly — a luminous brunette (Margaret Lockwood). It was the last film Hitchcock made before he packed up and left England for Hollywood, and to my mind it was also the best. 

For the first thirty minutes of The Lady Vanishes, the film’s tone is the only mystery in sight, and  it’s not a particularly urgent one, at that. We begin in the backwater country of Bandrika, a fictional European nation that seems to be aligning itself with some sinister forces (the word “Nazi” is never spoken). An avalanche has stranded a train’s worth of passengers in a little mountain inn, and Hitchcock guides us through a fun and frivolous evening with this motley crew of clashing personalities. There’s a brash young musician named Gilbert (Michael Redgrave), a lovely lady en route to meet her sod of a fiancée (Lockwood), two bantering gentleman who care only for critic, and an elderly woman named Miss Froy who we could all swear that we saw. The dialogue is sharp and unexpectedly dirty, and Hitchcock breezes between the rooms with the same false sense of happenstance that Renoir would later patent in The Rules of the Game. The whole set-piece is such a fluid delight that by the time someone gets strangled to death, it almost feels like part of the fun. When Miss Froy disappears from the train the next day and the other passengers all tell Lockwood that she was never onboard in the first place, the mystery is afoot, and the slap-happy opening act is revealed to be a harbinger of grave things to come.

Chugging along on the strength of Hitchcock’s most devilish Macguffin that side of North by Northwest, The Lady Vanishes isn’t just a tart little mystery or a masterclass in suspense (although it most certainly both of those things — the fogged window enduring as one of the cinema’s most deviously designed bits of snack-sized dramatic irony), it’s also a massively entertaining portrait of a world in transition (evoking People on Sunday, in some way). When that train pulls out of Bandrika it rolls away from a more innocent time, fixed on a one-way course towards a darker place where evil isn’t a fever-dream but a very real presence. Hitchcock has no sense for cynicism, but The Lady Vanishes rolls towards a reluctant realism, ultimately promising an extraordinary number of murders to come — murders about which the only mystery will be how people didn’t see them coming. It’s no wonder Hitchcock got out of there.

THE TRANSFER: Criterion’s Blu-ray of The Lady Vanishes might actually look a little toogood. I mean, it’s one thing to know that Hitchcock is pulling a fake model car through the fake cobbled streets of a fake European country, but in 1080p the illusion is utterly pulverized and the film begins on a needless note of kitsch, as a result. That being said, the transfer’s unrivaled quality begins paying massive dividends shortly thereafter, offering viewers a remarkably clear and consistent image that should play like mana from heaven for Hitchcock purists. And is it just me, or is Margaret Lockwood actually glowing?

THE VERDICT: The deluxe DVD edition that Criterion released in 2007 is still a top-notch product and those who own it shouldn’t feel compelled to upgrade unless their completely understandable love of the film beckons them to do so. Folks looking to add this film to their library for the first time should pull the trigger and never look back.

CLICK OVER TO MOVIES.COM TO READ REVIEWS OF CRITERION’S COMPLETE DECEMBER SLATE.

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THE 10 SCARIEST IMAGES IN THE CRITERION COLLECTION

so criterion - as they’ve been doing more and more recently - is hosting a little contest on their FB page, the latest of which has encouraged their fans to sift through the films in the Collection and find the scariest shot they could. in the immortal words of jack skellington, “this is halloween.” 

anywho, presented here for your convenience are the screen-grabs Criterion selected as finalists. i would have entered, but i couldn’t decide on which 10 images from LIFE DURING WARTIME freaked me out the most.

which is your favorite? head on over to their FB page and cast your vote!

feeling the Hitchcock vibe, tonight. tasked to re-watch SHADOW OF A DOUBT for grad school, which is probably my favorite Hitchcock film… until about 20 minutes in, when it becomes utterly insufferable. or as insufferable as something that stars a young Teresa Wright can be. meanwhileinhollywood: Alfred Hitchcock with wife and daughter.

feeling the Hitchcock vibe, tonight. tasked to re-watch SHADOW OF A DOUBT for grad school, which is probably my favorite Hitchcock film… until about 20 minutes in, when it becomes utterly insufferable. or as insufferable as something that stars a young Teresa Wright can be.

meanwhileinhollywood:

Alfred Hitchcock with wife and daughter.

(via fuckyeahdirectors)

“REAR WINDOW goes beyond pessimism; it is really a cruel film. Stewart fixes his glasses on his neighbors only to catch them in moments of failure, in ridiculous postures, when they appear grotesque or even hateful… To clarity REAR WINDOW, I’d suggest this parable: The courtyard is the world, the reporter / photographer is the filmmaker, the binoculars stand for the camera and its lenses. And Hitchcock? He is the man we love to be hated by.”

Francois Truffaut in his 1954 essay on REAR WINDOW. 

10 years later, Truffaut would sit down with Hitchcock and discuss the latter’s films at length, a series of interviews that would eventually be compiled into one of the most invaluable film texts around.