WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[RedRiver]

I finally found an available copy of HITCHCOCK, the quirky little show from last year. I loved every minute of it! Found it fascinating. The story and the characters are enthralling. The oddities of the famed director charming. Well, maybe that's the wrong word. But definitely interesting! Anthony Hopkins is as good as any actor could be in the role. Such a portrayal can never be a replica, and it shouldn't be. It's an interpretation. It's a great one! Helen Mirren is just as good as Alma. This is no surprise. Ms. Mirren is one of the finest players in movies today.

I wasn't crazy about the fantasy moments involving the real life killer from Wisconsin. Adhering to a realistic format might have served the story better. On the other hand, this was a creative way to show the influence this, and maybe other, macabre incidents had on the filmmaker. I'm not going to complain about a minor drawback that does very little harm. Snip a little. Tighten a knot or two. And you have "the puh-fect Hitchcock pic-cha." Good evening!

[RedRiver]

One point of interest: So much talk of PSYCHO being a Paramount production. Yet the set is now part of the Universal Studios tour. Merger? This is probably common knowledge to some. I don't pay much attention to business deals.

[CineMaven]

I saw and enjoyed "HITCHCOCK." I know it should have really dawned on me before and maybe it did on some level...but when Hitchcock reveals to the press, what his next picture will be, their revulsion really struck me at how unusual a topic this was for a film in 1960.

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On a more beautiful note, here is the result of a flurry of creativity I had today. Italian cinema...very beautiful.



Have fun naming them. Or telling me who I left out by mistake.

[feaito]

Lovely Tess....

From left to right (as far as I can tell): Sophia Loren, Alida Valli, Anna Magnani, Monica Bellucci, Claudia Cardinale, Gina Lollobrigida, Stefania Sandrelli, Virna Lisi, Eleonora Rossi-Drago, Elsa Martinelli, Catherine Spaak, Giulieta Masina, Daniella Bianchi, xx, Silvana Mangano, xx, Lea Massari?, Laura Antonelli, Isabella Roseelini, xx, Yvonne Sanson?, Ornella Muti, xx, xx, Rossana Podesta, Sylva Koscina, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Monica Vitti, xx, Lucia Bose, xx, xx....

[ChiO]

That is impressive, feaito! I love Italian women (not to worry -- before we married, I told Mrs. ChiO that our marriage would be for life...Carlo Ponti's), but I could never name that many.

No room for Lina Wertmuller? Speaking of whom, is Mariangela Melato missing?

I'm assuming that Ingrid Bergman and <sigh> Marisa Tomei and <again, sigh> Mira Sorvino don't count. Italian women can't be contained by mere national boundaries!

[feaito]

Hi Owen, Italian cinema has always been popular in Chile, especially in the sixties and seventies, when it was perhaps more popular than Spanish, British and French Cinema....only behind American Cinema. In fact, my dad's fave actress she he was a youngster was Rossi-Drago.

During the teens such actresses as Lyda Borelli, Francesca Bertini, Italia Almirante-Manzini and Pina Menichelli, among others... le Dive Muette (The Silent Divas), were popular in my country.

Then in the late '40s and '50s, with the rise of Neorrealism and its comedies Italian Cinema began being popular again....

[JackFavell]

I really enjoyed Hitchcock, Red. I thought it handled the fact vs. fiction parts really well - I mean, we can't know intimate details of Alma's and Alfred's relationship, but the movie makes it clear that this is an imagining of their life together and does it with humor and inventiveness. I liked all the Hitchcock touches, and I didn't come out of the movie hating the producers and director for maligning someone I love. In fact, quite the contrary...I ended up looking up director Sacha Gervasi, I thought he was that good.

Gosh, Fernando, I cannot believe how many of those voluptuous Italian actresses you know! That's fantastic. And it helped me to get a name for the ones I had no idea about. For me, the woman who stands out the most in these photos is Rossana Podesta. I know nothing about her, but her pensive look here really catches my eye.

[MikeBSG]

Glad to see someone else liked "Hitchcock." I had a blast when I saw it earlier this year. Can't figure out why some critics hated it.

I think Paramount sold "Psycho" to Universal a year or two after it came out. I had always thought of it as a Universal film. Apparently the dislike toward "Psycho" really ran deep at Paramount.

I noticed all the anti-Jerry Lewis comments in "Hitchcock." I read a biography of Lewis, and Lewis apparently was very open about his hatred of "Psycho," blaming it for everything that went wrong in Hollywood subsequently.

[feaito]

Gosh, Fernando, I cannot believe how many of those voluptuous Italian actresses you know! That's fantastic. And it helped me to get a name for the ones I had no idea about. For me, the woman who stands out the most in these photos is Rossana Podesta. I know nothing about her, but her pensive look here really catches my eye.

Rossana Podestà, had a huge opportunity of becoming a big international star when she was cast in the title role of Warner Brothers' Super-production "Helen of Troy" (1956), which did not make the trick for her. In that film Brigitte Bardot had a small role and she became BIG in France and internationally. She was already well known in Italy and had been in Mario Camerini's "Ulysses" (1954) starring Kirk Douglas and Silvana Mangano. In fact, Robert Wise chose her for the role of Helen of Troy, over very well-know and established American stars. She's related to Mexican superstar singer Luis Miguel, on his mother's side (she was Italian).

[JackFavell]

Oh yes, I remember seeing her in Ulysses. Maybe that's why I picked her out of the group. Gorgeous seems to be the word for Italian actresses.

[feaito]

All the Italian actresses are gorgeous, but as far as looks are concerned Virna Lisi would be my favorite, because she epitomizes the sixties, a decade which produced some of the most beautiful women ever. La Loren, la Cardinale and Gianna María Canale would come after.

[JackFavell]

Virna Lisi is absolutely stunning. I really liked her in Assault on a Queen, which gave her a little more to do than some of her other American films.

[RedRiver]

Lewis apparently was very open about his hatred of "Psycho," blaming it for everything that went wrong in Hollywood subsequently.

I don't think so, Jerry! I guess good movies can breed bad imitators. But that's a hard argument to make.

[JackFavell]

Maybe I'm weird, but I see his point (can't believe I'm agreeing with Jerry Lewis). Perhaps I'm not actually agreeing, but at least understanding his viewpoint. It was so stunning, so defining, that we really can talk about pictures BP (Before Psycho) and AP (After Psycho). But I also think if Hitch hadn't made that picture, someone else would have, and not half so superbly. It would be fun to play It's a Wonderful Life, removing Psycho from the world... just to see what happened.

[RedRiver]

Would we not have had the slasher films of the 1980s?