Screening Log
This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.
January 2006 activity
Total Log Entries: 67
- Adam (0)
- Andrew (0)
- Chet (0)
- Chiranjit (9)
- David (0)
- Eva (0)
- Evan (0)
- Ian (15)
- Jenny (4)
- Katherine (0)
- Leo (19)
- Megan (0)
- Rumsey (14)
- Teddy (0)
- Thomas (4)
- Timothy (0)
- Victoria (0)
Total Comments: 30
- Rope (0)
- Funny Ha Ha (0)
- The Wild Bunch (0)
- The Passenger (0)
- The New World (0)
- The White Diamond (2)
- Brokeback Mountain (0)
- Syriana (0)
- Oliver Twist (0)
- Kings and Queen (0)
- Fun with Dick and Jane (0)
- Mother, Jugs & Speed (0)
- Fun with Dick and Jane (3)
- Isle of the Dead (0)
- The Importance of Being Earnest (0)
- My Friend Ivan Lapshin (0)
- Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine (0)
- Buffalo ‘66 (1)
- My Neighbor Totoro (0)
- Rear Window (2)
- Kagemusha (0)
- Sátántangó (2)
- Badlands (5)
- Match Point (1)
- A History of Violence (0)
- Laputa: Castle in the Sky (0)
- A History of Violence (0)
- Twenty Days Without War (0)
- Blue Mountains (0)
- Repentance (0)
- Voyage of the Young Composer (0)
- Ocean’s Twelve (0)
- Ocean’s Eleven (0)
- A History of Violence (0)
- Cache (0)
- Reality Bites (0)
- Y tu mamá también (0)
- Hostel (1)
- Tarnation (0)
- Super Size Me (0)
- The Plea (0)
- Ashik Kerib (4)
- Shadows Of Our Forgotten Ancestors (0)
- Master of the Flying Guillotine (1)
- Paycheck (1)
- Chinatown (0)
- Attack of the Giant Leeches (0)
- Hostel (4)
- Munich (0)
- Open Water (0)
- Psycho (0)
- The Legend of Sea Wolf (0)
- Duel (0)
- Gerry (0)
- The New World (0)
- The Birds (0)
- King Kong (0)
- The First Teacher (2)
- Marnie (1)
- Murder! (0)
- Broken Flowers (0)
- The Man Who Knew Too Much (0)
- Through a Glass Darkly (0)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (0)
- The Family Stone (0)
- Vernon, Florida (0)
- Torn Curtain (0)
Full Archive
Advertisements
Psycho / USA / 1960
Though one is impatient to get to all the stabbing, cross-dressing, and bird-mania, the first half of this film is also rich with detail, fine performances, prototypical Hitchcockian suspense, and an unnervingly normal Phoenix, Arizona. And of course it goes without saying that Janet Leigh’s onscreen presence — stalking around in pointy brassieres, making bird-gestures, and flirting with the pencil-necked, coprophobic Perkins — is one of cinema’s most deliciously perverse pleasures.
It’s also fascinating to watch the number of times in this film that Hitchcock exploits one of his favorite devices: the manipulation of different points of view.
The archetypal breakdown: Marion at the car dealership; a shot from her point of view of the policeman watching her from across the street; cut back to a medium closeup of Marion looking back. The lack of the policeman’s POV is what is disquieting here, and this same type of point of view editing is used throughout, from Marion’s glances in the rearview mirror to her sister’s approach to the house and to “Mrs. Bates” in the fruit cellar. This is, I think, what Zizek calls the “Hitchcockian blot,” and is a textbook device of the horror-movie idiom.
Also, keep your eyes peeled for a cameo by TV’s Ted Knight at the very end.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Universal DVD
06 Jan 2006 12:58 PM | Submit Comment