The Hitchcock Ten

If you haven't checked out the Guardian's very fun infographics on Hitchcock's oeuvre -- just in time for his birthday today! -- you should do that. This is my favorite part because I think it's just brilliant with the top tens from film fans, critics, and the general public overlapping and disagreeing.

What's more I think it's absolutely accurate in its overlaps and exclusions  for all three groups with the possible exception of The Birds not finding its way to the "film fan's top ten". But this can't have been easy to flip around with a stuck landing. 

As for myself I have six total favorites: Notorious, Psycho, Rear Window, Rope, Shadow of a Doubt, and Vertigo. But the rest of his output fights over my leftover affections and wins and loses depending on my moods and depending on which part of the movie we're talking about. 

Happy 114th Birthday, Hitchcock!

Recent Hitchcockian Goodies
Shadow of a Doubt Best Shot
Top Ten Memorable Performances
Great Moments in Gayness: Suspicion 
Oscar Horrors: Terrifying Mrs Danvers in Rebecca 
Introducing...Madeleine in Vertigo 

Woody Allen - The Last 12 Years

Podcast mate and friend Joe Reid polled several critics (including myself) for an article at Tribeca Film detailing Woody Allen's recent output as the critical hit Blue Jasmine hits theaters. I won't be able to see the new entry in his filmography until Sunday since I'm in Chicago for the weekend and limited release films only believe in Los Angeles and New York for their coming out balls. But since I took the time to write Joe notes on each film for this collective list, I thought I'd share them. I regret to inform that in doing this I have just been reminded that my proud familiar refrain "I've never missed a Woody Allen movie in the theater since I saw my first one in 1984!" is not technically true anymore. This article forced me to recall that I did not see and still have not seen Cassandra's Dream (2007) ... though I can't honestly remember why. Have you? 

Here's my ranking from worst to best of Mr Allen's recent work if you'd like to compare it to the consensus list at Tribeca. I've also included their Rotten Tomatoes percentage and box office gross just for survey perspective. 

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Top Ten 1940s

We're almost done with these quickie surveys of my favorites and yours from decades past. Herewith the 1940s which I hesitated jotting down as there are more classics from this decade that I haven't seen than in arguably any other. If I keep waiting until I've watched everything it would never be posted. In truth, I need a project which forces me to fully deal with the gaps in my 40s viewing. A pleasurable project it would be, surely. But for now, off the top of my list-manic head....

Black Narcissus (1947)

top ten
01 The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
02 Casablanca (1943)
03 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
04 Meet Me in St Louis (1944)
05 Double Indemnity (1944)
06 Black Narcissus (1947)
07 Citizen Kane (1941)
08 Notorious (1946)
09 It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
10 Gilda (1946) 

with apologies to other greats
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1945), Beauty and the Beast (1948), Mildred Pierce (1945), The Lady Eve (1941), Red River (1948), The Bicycle Thief (1949), Pinnochio (1940)

honorable mention
Rope (1948), The Heiress (1949), Spellbound (1945), Now Voyager (1942), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), The Search (1948), Fantasia (1940)

I'll admit I don't love these three quite as much you're supposed to... 
His Girl Friday (1940), Rebecca (1940), All the Kings Men (1949)

I've never seen (gulp)
Too many to list. More than in any of these other quickie top tens I'll gladly take your word for it with your top ten lists in the comments. Maybe we'll do a poll to force me into a handful of 40s films as follow up. 

PREVIOUS TOP TEN QUICKIES
1930s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2010s (thus far)  
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To Nicole on Her 46th Birthday

Tim here. The career and talents of Nicole Kidman have been well-examined at the Film Experience through the years, but never by me. So I hope you’ll forgive the indulgence if I take advantage of her birthday to launch into a little celebration of my favorite working actress, one of the only people in the world with a legitimate claim to being both movie star and serious artist. For every big bit of Hollywood nonsense she deepens and improves with her steady presence, there’s an adventurous, even dangerous film that she makes with some of the most interesting directors out there, and she’s equally great in both modes, the odd Stepford Wives remake notwithstanding.

To celebrate, I'd like to share my 5 favorite Kidman performances, in chronological order:

Grace Stewart, The Others (2001)
I yield to no one in my love of Moulin Rouge! and Kidman’s performance therein, but this has always been my pick for her best performance of 2001, and not least because Alejandro Amenábar is less interested in ceding huge chunks of the film’s landscape to her than Baz Luhrmann. Providing the human core to an abnormally handsome, ultimately generic haunted house movie couldn’t have been anyone’s idea of a rewarding assignment, but Kidman dives with intelligence and restraint into the role of a stern matriarch, terrified by the empty old house she lives in. She turns out a leading performance that is deeply sensitive and wounding (that meeting with her husband!) while also paying scrupulous attention to the mechanical needs of the horror script. She’s especially good at converting the twist ending from something ludicrous into a genuinely moving moment.

four more after the jump

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Best Written TV Shows?

If you haven't read the 101 Best Written Television Series list (voted on by the Writers Guild of America), chances are you've been on a wee internet break for the past 24 hours. But I kinda have been (#sorryboutit) so I've included it here for discussion purposes and with a few notes...

1. The Sopranos
2. Seinfeld
3. The Twilight Zone
4. All in the Family
5. M*A*S*H
6. The Mary Tyler Moore Show
7. Mad Men 
8. Cheers
9. The Wire
10. The West Wing

Mad Men (for many years now the best show on television) has won 11 WGA nominations and 6 wins in its six year run... but what I find fascinating is when groups like the WGA vote for something they didn't originally get behind in a big way; The Wire, for example, makes their top ten all time list despite a measily 3 nominations and 1 win in its entire five year run.

91 more series after the jump

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