Posterpalooza Pt 1: Hitchcock, On the Road, The Wolverine

Not all posters inspire multiple thoughts like Django Unchained or The Guilt Trip so let's do a wee collection of new objects du marketing.

To quote Heidi Klum "it looks cheap, no?" I really can't fathom why they can never take photos of stars together during any of the months in which they film to make posters. Why are they always pieced together later by photoshop? Imagine how great movie posters would be if they did them like the promotional photoshoots you'll sometimes see movies do for magazines like Vanity Fair. But enough of that rant. Let's talk about the tagline.

Behind every Psycho is a great woman."

That clearly positions this as a comedy and, perhaps surprisingly, announces Helen Mirren as the MVP. Best Actress here she comes. Given the comic slant its path to Golden Globe Glory and thus Academy eyeballs is secured. I'm seeing the film tomorrow morning. Can't wait.

Three more posters after the jump...

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Oscar Horrors: Looking into PSYCHO

Here lies… a film no other man could have made – Psycho.

Matt here! Alfred Hitchcock directed Psycho just after he made Vertigo and North by Northwest, two gigantic Technicolor productions for Paramount. Imagine the pitch he made – Shoestring budget, black & white, killing off Janet Leigh after 40 minutes, main character’s a schizophrenic taxidermist motel-owner. He shot it in a few months on the Paramount lot using a television crew, paying for everything himself.

The rest is history. After spending roughly $800,000, it has grossed over $50 million and had enormous cultural impact. Recently, it placed 34th in Sight & Sound’s “Greatest Films of All-Time” critics poll. In 1960, it was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Director. One single bathroom sequence revolutionized expectations for audiences, filmmakers, and censors. What business does a true-blue, low-budget horror flick have in the pantheon of cinematic art?

While Psycho may not be Hitchcock’s greatest film, it is the apex of his directorial control, his auteurist posture. More...

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It's Hitchcock's World...

Yesterday I received my invitation to Hitchcock and I nearly let out a scream of delight. Not that the trailer convinced me a masterpiece awaited me or that I've rushed to read "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho" in preparation but I do tend to get excited for most things Hitchcock. The power of branding! I still remember the day I received the Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection box set (a gift from a generous reader some years ago) which felt like 15 Christmases at once.

Wouldn't it be neat if more Golden Age era directors had the sort of modern profile that The Master of Suspense still enjoys? Wouldn't it be neat if baby cineastes pored over every page of "William Wyler and the Making of Jezebel" (not a real book) or if the film version of "Billy Wilder and the Making of Some Like It Hot" (not a real book)  retitled simply Wilder (not a real film) was a sudden hot Oscar buzz prospect for 2013 or if you could say "George Cukor" to anyone and they wouldn't think you were referring to a coworker or neighbor they didn't know. Wouldn't it be great if "King Vidor" didn't sound more fictional to people than Princess Mia Thermopolis of Genova?

But I digress.

My mind suddenly jolted to Hitchcock and his immense fame a record six times already this week: when Manuel Muñoz's (author of the Psycho-adjacent novel "What You See in the Dark") wrote up Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte for the blog; when I read Interiors Film Journal's look at the motel room in Psycho (What an interesting choice as I've never much considered it as a space before... just as a violent eruption of glass shard like images if you will, and again when I was ); when Vanity Fair posted those photos of young prankster Mitt Romney and the one of him with the etch-a-sketch totally had me shivering from its Norman Bates like quality only scarier because I can escape Bates' knife if I don't stay in his motel but how to escape Mitt's destructive capabality if he becomes President?; when Beau sent me a text saying "The Girl" (that other Hitchcock making-of bio) sucked; when the invite arrive and; first and foremost when I my friends covered me in seed and pidgeons landed all over me in Puerto Rico's Old San Juan (I'm just back from a week in the sun!) which made me want to watch THE BIRDS again immediately...

me in Old San Juan earlier this week. Amor a Puerto Rico

Well... immediately after a shower. They're so dirty!

P.S. This image doesn't even hint at how many of those birds land on you when you're holding bags of seed. They peck so furiously that your arms have polka dot imprints afterwards but the sound of their begging cooing right in your ears is remarkably endearing/freaky/surreal.

TALK TO ME... Which classic movie director outside of Hitchcock do you most wish had a higher profile these days? How high would you rate your anticipation of "Hitchcock" on the coming soon meter? Have you seen The Girl?

On an off-cinema note, have you ever been to Puerto Rico?

Oscar Horrors: Terrifying Mrs. Danvers

Oscar Horrors, a daily series for October, looks at Oscar nominated contributions to the horror genre. Here's Jose to talk about one of the best villains of all time.

HERE LIES...Mrs. Danvers, played exquisitely by Judith Anderson who was nominated as Best Supporting Actress of 1940 for her work in Rebecca. She lost the Oscar to Ma Joad and vanished in the fire.

I grew up in a family where Hollywood classics were as revered as Catholic saints. I remember being a child and being freaked out by the black and white people uttering undecipherable phrases from what I assumed was some sort of TV grave. None however freaked me out as much as the wide eyed Mrs. Danvers (did she ever blink?!?) who endlessly haunted the poor new Mrs. de Winter (Joan Fontaine).

The passing years didn't make Mrs. Danvers less creepy. In fact, the more I aged, the scarier she got. It must be due to the fact that she's not only a horror figure in the strict physical sense. Yes, her long black dress, severe hairdo and eerily seductive voice didn't help, but there was something else about her that made me fear the idea of marrying Laurence Olivier and moving to a mansion. 

Reading Hitchcock Truffaut I suddenly got what is it that made her so terrifying and the master himself explained it best:

Mrs. Danvers was almost never seen in motion. [The heroine] never knew when Mrs. Danvers might turn up and this in itself was terrifying. To have shown Mrs. Danvers walking would have been to humanize her.

So, there we have this diabolical creature, almost a human mausoleum, whose entire existence revolved around protecting the legacy of a woman who was never that nice to begin with. The director cleverly framed all of Mrs. Danvers scenes so it always appears that it's Mrs. de Winter who must serve her.

The heroine's submissive position and Mrs. Danvers' ominous presence make for one of the most complex relationships in any Hitchcock movie (the homoerotic and homophobic undertones contained in this movie have inspired countless essays of their own!). Though Hitchcock would go on to shape countless other fascinating character dynamics, Mrs. Danvers still looms large. She's inspired a myriad of characters since that range from the surreal (HAL 9000) to practical carbon copies (Mrs. Obrien in Downton Abbey) whose only purpose is to show their masters who's the boss.

Yes, No, Maybe So: Hitchcock

After a seemingly abrupt transition from 2013's slate to November 2012, Fox Searchlight isn't wasting any time with their Alfred Hitchcock bio. The official site is up, a new poster (to your left) arrives so shortly after the teaser poster, it wasn't much of a tease at all. And, now, the trailer.

It feels like a long time since a Yes No Maybe So breakdown, right? We course correct now to parse Hitchcock --  the trailer for the film about the man, not the man himself or his films! We'd be here for years for the latter. Based on the two minute evidence do we want to investigate the whole two hours? Why and why not? 

You know how this works by now so let's join Alfred & Alma during the making of Psycho...

YES

• 'The Making of Psycho'... we wouldn't have such predictable allergic reactions to biopics if more of them would stay tightly focused on one chapter in someone's life. Cradle-to-grave is just so frought with cliff notes inelegance.
• Psycho is my favorite Hitchcock film, so I'm happy to watch a "making of". Psycho wasn't always my favorite Hitchcock but it just kept climbing the charts over the years until there was no film left to hurdle. But honestly I'd be just as happy to watch "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Torn Curtain" -- pick a film any film -- because behind the scene and screen is a place I love to spend time.
• This Shot!

More 'yes,' the trailer and some 'no's and 'maybe so's after the jump...

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