It seems that everyone has a favourite Alfred Hitchcock film and for some people this chase thriller is theirs. Cary Grant plays an ordinary business executive who inadvertently becomes embroiled in espionage and murder.
It’s an involving movie but, for me, it just doesn’t stand out within the whole breadth of Hitchcock’s work in the same way as films like Rebecca, Strangers on a Train or Psycho. But, maybe that’s because I’m a woman. You see, I get the impression that North by Northwest is more popular with men than it is with women. Pyrotechnics, Grant’s suave, athletic, womanising Bond-like character, his stylish suit (recognised as the best suit in film history by GQ magazine a couple of years ago), the infamous train through tunnel sex euphemism - the film has many qualities appealing to men.
I may be making a sweeping generalisation here, but it would be interesting to know what you think.
In the meantime, here’s a quiz to test your knowledge of this classic movie. You can also find out which Hitchcock film you most resemble by clicking here. Apparently I’m The Birds. I don’t quite know what to make of that…
What is it about Marilyn Monroe that fuels people’s obsessions? Many a glamourous Hollywood actress has come and gone, but it’s Marilyn whose appeal seems to be eternal, fascinating people from generation to generation.
Is it because underneath all the glamour she really was a little girl lost, longing to be loved and taken seriously? Or is the fascination because of her tragic death, which is still shrouded in mystery? Who knows, but what is true is that she was an excellent and somewhat underrated comedienne.
Tonight’s triple bill starts with one of Marilyn’s early efforts, Niagara, which showcases her dramatic talents. The fun really starts though with The Seven Year Itch at 9pm and Some Like it Hot at 10.50pm. These comedies are both superb examples of Marilyn’s comic talent as well as perfect examples of Billy Wilder’s directorial excellence.
Since the classic cocktails Whiskey Sour and Martini are discussed in The Seven Year Itch and Manhattans in Some Like it Hot, I feel it’s only polite to partake of one of these beverages whilst watching. I haven’t decided which one yet, but it would be great to know which one is your favourite.
The girls throw an impromptu party on the train during which they pool their smuggled alcohol to make Manhattans. They mention using bourbon whiskey rather than Canadian, and mix the cocktail in a hot water bottle.
It’s all happening at the Lido this week! No, I don’t mean activities involving uncomfortable bathing suits and deflating lilos. However, there was plenty of water as the 65th Venice Film Festival rolled out the red carpet on Wednesday.
The cinematic festivities began with the screening of the Coen Brothers’ much-hyped crime comedy Burn After Reading, starring Brad Pitt, George Clooney, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand.
With that formidable line-up, I can’t wait to get a first-hand look. The movie will be out in the UK on 17 October. Put it in your diaries now!
Apparently Brad was ‘unable to attend’ last year. That just wouldn’t happen at the Oscars.
The Venice Film Festival is seen by many as the beginning of the awards race that finishes with the above-mentioned Oscars. The English-speaking media has spent many column inches lamenting the lack of US films because of the Hollywood Writers’ Strike affecting movie output. And so, oh woe, there are ‘only’ five US films represented this year. That’s five films out of a line-up of 22. More than enough thank you very much! American films have so many other big platforms to launch from. They should be a minority at this festival and give the ‘smaller’ films a fighting chance.
But then again, if it wasn’t for stars like Brad & George turning up, doing their A-list thing, the festival just wouldn’t get the same media attention. Even now, Venice is slowly being overshadowed by Toronto International Film Festival, on 4-13 September and a direct competitor.
For me, Venice wins. Because it’s prettier, warmer and can boast with things like screening a refurbished print of Vittorio De Sica’s Ladri di Bicicletta (The Bicycle Thief) – attended by the director’s two sons. Ladri is an Italian neo-realist classic and an absolute favourite of mine that I would have loved to revisit on a big screen.
Instead, I’ll be keeping up-to-date with the festival diary, which, let’s face it, is like a famished homeless person pressing up against the window of a bakery. But we can’t all be rich and famous or brown-nosing media schmoozers.
The Venice Film Festival runs from 27 August until 6 September.
François Ozon is playing a risky game with his new movie, Angel. It’s a lush period melodrama about the rise and fall of a bestselling Edwardian novelist and seems, on casual viewing, to be a compendium of clichés, gaffes and over-the-top acting. Is this a case of a French director coming a cropper because of a ‘tin ear’ for English (as one critic has already complained), or is something else going on?
Something else is most definitely being attempted in Angel, but I’m not convinced that Ozon pulls it off.
Based on a novel by Elizabeth Taylor (no, not that one, in case you were thinking you had missed an unexpected career sideline for the screen icon; the English writer), Ozon’s movie stars Romola Garai as a young woman who rises from humble provincial origins to win fame and fortune as the author of a series of florid romances. Garai’s wilful, egotistical Angel Deverell succeeds despite possessing next to no talent and only a hazy understanding of the ways of the world (her first novel has a character opening a champagne bottle with a corkscrew), but her good fortune isn’t destined to last forever.
Ozon films this saga with a straight face, but the overripe dialogue, dodgy back-projection and unrestrained acting all signal that he is smirking behind his hand.
Ozon has flirted with kitsch before. His 2002 movie 8 Women is a tongue-in-cheek mystery-cum-musical that features a snowbound country mansion, a dead body and eight suspects who break into song at the drop of a clue. Self-consciously theatrical and very camp, it comes across as the bizarre offspring of an unlikely marriage between Agatha Christie and Vincente Minnelli.
With Angel, Ozon’s model is the lush, overripe melodramas made by Douglas Sirk in 1950s Hollywood. At the time, critics sneeringly dismissed films such as Written on the Wind, Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession and All That Heaven Allows. Now they’re hailed as classics.
It’s highly unlikely that Ozon’s movie will attain the same status, but a recent film that also pays homage to Sirk may well do so. Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven (showing on TV today) depicts a world of hidden desires in affluent 1950s Connecticut, but his highly stylised use of rich colours and lavish orchestration serves to express his characters’ inner lives rather than mock them.
Haynes surely admires and sympathises with his heroine (magnificently played by Julianne Moore), but Ozon’s attitude to his protagonist is less generous. Garai certainly throws herself whole-heartedly into the part of Angel and her performance is fearless, as if she’s walking a tightrope over an abyss of excess. In the end, though, we don’t care enough about her to make the film a really successful tearjerker. Ozon wants us to look down on Angel’s shallow desires and narrow imagination, not identify with her.
Jim Carrey is a ‘yes’ man. That much is clear from the fact he agreed to star in 2005’s humourless twaddle Fun with Dick and Jane. It seems only right, therefore, that he should play the lead in the forthcoming adaptation of the Danny Wallace memoir Yes Man, about – unsurprisingly – a man who challenges himself to say ‘yes’ when normally he would say ‘no’. Want to see the trailer? No? Here it is anyway…
As well as showing how annoying children can be, the trailer sees Jim Carrey’s character living life to the max by drinking some Red Bull, learning Korean, and driving a motorbike into the path of oncoming traffic. See how much fun life can be when you say ‘yes’ to stuff? No, me neither. Yes Man will be released in December.
Ah, the lovely Julianne Moore in her lovely frocks with her lovely red hair that matches the lovely autumnal colours of a lovely suburban New England neighbourhood. It’s all so perfect, but of course, all is not so lovely under the surface of this beautiful façade.
This delectable movie is director Todd Haynes’s homage to the 1950s movies of Douglas Sirk and captures the period perfectly. It was also nominated for several Academy Awards.
You can easily enjoy it without knowing a thing about the genre Haynes is imitating, but take a look at Sirk’s Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession or Written on the Wind if you want to gain a much richer interpretation and appreciation of Haynes’s skill.
From The Abominable Dr Phibes to Witchfinder General, Derek Pykett’s unique guidebook, British Horror Film Locations, is a must-have for all British horror fans and those fascinated by the making of them.
Covering 100 British horror films between the years 1932 to 2006, the book provides credits, plot synopsis, and a description of the shooting locations for each entry, while separate chapters provide in-depth accounts of the locations themselves.
Amongst the surprises are locations that I have always wanted to visit, but never knew where they were; including Castle Acre Priory in Norfolk, which served as the setting for Roger Corman’s 1965 film The Tomb of Ligeia; Grim’s Dyke hotel in Harrow, where Boris Karloff filmed one of his last films, Curse of the Crimson Altar in 1968 and the fantastic Wykehurst Place in West Sussex which took centre stage as the Belasco House in the granddaddy of haunted house movies, Legend of the Hell House in 1973.
Well done Derek! This is a true labour of love. But my heart goes out to location hunter Simon Flynn, who braved security guards, ferocious guard dogs, barbed wire and nettles in his quest to get the best photographs. Thanks, it was worth the effort.
And thanks to this book, I won’t be going abroad anytime soon as I’m already planning my next holiday taking in some of the book’s amazing destinations. Next stop Norfolk!
Beauty and the beast… A rogue elfin prince, played by former Bros heartthrob Luke Goss, declares war on humankind and red-skinned demon Hellboy attempts to stop him and his coterie of creatures. Look out for the tooth fairies, literally.
Mamma Mia!
Dancing Queen… Meryl Streep can dance. Meryl Streep can jive. Meryl Streep is clearly having the time of her life in this money, money, money-making film version of the musical inspired by ABBA songs.
Get Smart
Mission impossible… A bumbling secret agent is charged with bringing down an evil crime network. It’s like a Bond film, only with a sense of humour.
The Dark Knight
Cape fear… The winged wonder returns and this time his nemesis is the only man in Gotham City with more bats in the belfry than him – The Joker.
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
Follically challenged… Adam Sandler plays an Israeli commando who fakes his death and becomes a hairdresser in New York.
The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor
Digging deep… Archaeologist Rick O’Connel combats a stoney-faced Chinese Emperor and his terra cotta army.
Wild Child
Class act… A rebellious American teenager adjusts to life at an English boarding school – badly.
Wall-E
Circuit bored… Sparks fly when a lonely, recycling robot bleeps goodbye to his mundane existence and embarks on an intergalactic adventure with a sleek and shiny search robot.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Drawn out… Jedi Knights attempt to maintain order in the galaxy in this animated epic. May the force be with them.
Space Chimps
Aping around… This animated intergalactic adventure sees a simian shuttle crew attempt to save the inhabitants of a distant planet from an evil dictator. If they succeed, expect them to go bananas. Go BANANAS!
Am I alone in finding this antisocial time slot an insult to this brilliant movie? A side-splitting spoof of an English heavy rock band on tour in America, it’s one of the funniest movies ever made. Ah well, that’s what recording devices are for I suppose.
Since first seeing this film years ago, I’ve not been able to look at bands like Black Sabbath, Def Leppard et al in the same way. It’s totally changed my appreciation of heavy rock, and heavy rocks for that matter, like “stone-enge”.
Novel approach… A young girl from an isolated island seeks helps from the reclusive author of her favourite adventure books when her father goes missing. Also features a whale.
Never Back Down
It’s a knockout… A rebellious teen is drawn into joining an underground fight club at his new school. He learns mixed martial arts from a wise mentor then kicks and punches people in the face.
27 Dresses
Always the bridesmaid… A lovelorn serial bridesmaid reevaluates her life when her sister bags the man she fancies. It’s a romantic comedy, apparently.
Awake
Under the knife… Hayden Christensen plays a man who ‘wakes up’ during heart surgery only to discover his entire surgical team are trying to kill him. Shame he woke up really.
Vantage Point
Points of view… An attempted assassination is seen from a number of different perspectives – high, low, left, right, skewed, I could go on – in this jigsaw-like mystery thriller.
10,000 BC
Troubled times… This prehistoric epic sees a young hunter going to mammoth lengths to secure the future of his tribe. MAMMOTH lengths!
Step Up 2: The Streets
A young woman pursues her dream of becoming a street dancer by wearing skimpy vests and dancing in the rain. She’ll catch her death!
Son of Rambow
Child’s play… Coming-of-age film in which two schoolboys set out to make their own sequel to Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo: Film Blood. Chances are they’ll do a better job than this year’s actual sequel, Rambo.
In Bruges
Firing line… A pair of Irish hit men lie low in Belgium after a bungled job in London. They try to adapt to local customs but fail and shoot stuff.
Meet The Spartans
The spoof is (still) out there… The ‘creative’ team behind Date Movie and and Epic Movie rely on 300, Spider-Man 3 and Transformers for their latest parody. Their mothers must be proud.
1. Avatar
2. The Lovely Bones
3. The Crazies
4. The Princess and the Frog
5. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
6. Valentines Day
7. Leap Year
8. From Paris with Love
9. A Single Man
10. Invictus
1. This is It
2. The Hurt Locker
3. Jennifer’s Body
4. The Time Traveler’s Wife
5. 9
6. Terminator Salvation
7. Pandorum
8. The Hangover
9. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
10. District 9
