I spent my movie nights this week at the start and finish of the Trojan War: Iphigenia, and The Trojan Women. I don’t know why there have been so few adaptations of the great plays of antiquity. They’re the best stories ever told, they’re endlessly adaptable, and until Disney successfully lobbies to have copyright…

I haven’t, but I’ll give it a go!  Thanks!

I spent my two movie nights this week on Intolerance, split into its two halves. Years ago I used to take this movie out repeatedly from my local library branch not just because I loved it, but also because there wasn’t much else to pick from back then. I would dejectedly spin the movie racks hoping something…

I spent my movie nights this week on The Birth of a Nation, split into two parts. Evidently there is some argument these days as to whether long movies should be split into parts rather than be watched in one go as they were intended. I’m strict regarding most aspects of the movie-watching ritual. I’d never watch a…

Blackface, among its other evils, is just so profoundly STUPID it ruins anything it touches! Its not even just the boot polish, its the inexplicable mannerisms the actors invariably take as part of the act. Inexplicable even in an era of broad performances!

The QPid episode annoyed me mostly because it was a waste of a good premise! There was so much they could have done with a frustrated Q spending the episode irritating Picard while trying to do him a favour! Instead it becomes a Robin Hood fantasy? Am I to guess that inexplicable nonsense was shoehorned in to take…

I spent my movie nights this week on a bunch of D.W. Griffith’s short stories set during the American Civil War. It was indeed a strange war, I’ve learned. Battles were all fought a few yards from home. Half the soldiers were women secretly in uniform. And if you weren’t a soldier or a woman secretly dressed as a…

I save for the last week of every month one or two movies I’m actually looking forward to. Otherwise my movie nights are just an excuse to eat snacks in the dark. My special movies for January were Antigone and Young Aphrodites, both stories from antiquity, both made in the early 60s. They are thoroughly different…

I spent my movie nights this week on Number Seventeen and The Man Who Knew Too Much. The first few minutes of Number Seventeen are really sensational! I suspect Hitchcock had just come back from seeing Vampyr. It’s possible, it’s the same year. I was hoping the whole movie would go on like the first five minutes,…

More Hitchcock. This week I spent my movie nights with Secret Agent and Easy Virtue. The final line of Easy Virtue is possibly the worst line in the history of movies. Hitchcock agrees, its one of the few times I agree him in his Truffaut interviews. The movie ends with the protagonist swooning before waiting…

More Hitchcock this week: The 39 Steps and Blackmail. Blackmail would make a good double feature with Sabotage. I’m reading along with Truffaut’s Hitchcock interviews and continue to disagree with both of them on nearly everything. It is as if we’re watching different movies. Blackmail seems to me infinitely more…

I’m sticking with Hitchcock for my movie nights because I’m enjoying this excursion well enough and I haven’t the will to look for anything else. This week I said good riddance to the last stupid year with The Farmer’s Wife, and welcomed the new stupid year with Champagne.

Despite the festivities this week I made time for two movie nights. I continued Advent with Hitchcock, watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Stage Fright. I’m reading along with Truffaut’s interviews with Hitchcock, and the details they agree are mistakes seem to me the best parts of these movies!

In Murder, too! The supposed scandal is that the murderer is trying to hide that he’s a “half-caste”, but that is so obviously not the actual terrible secret! In Truffaut’s conversations with Hitchcock, when they discuss Murder, they seem to have both forgotten the half-caste subterfuge altogether!  

Fourth week of Advent with Alfred Hitchcock. My movie nights were Murder and The Skin Game. Both are class conflict stories, both about a terrible secret that if revealed would cause scandal and disgrace. I watched both movies without snacks. No snacks, nothing tasty, only disgusting nutritious food for the last week…

Third week of Advent with Alfred Hitchcock. This week I spent my movie nights with The Ring and The Manxman. Each was a story about a loveable lug misplacing trust in his wife, about rings being returned. One story had a lot of punching, the other seemed to be leading to at least one punch but it never materialised.…

Second week of Advent with Alfred Hitchcock. This week I spent my movie nights on The Lodger and Saboteur. I really liked them both. I actually felt invested in Saboteur, which is rare for a Hitchcock movie.

I was mostly glad to see George Sanders playing a hero! And he did it without sacrificing any of his sardonic caddery.

I discovered a pocket of Alfred Hitchcock movies that I’ve never seen, so that should fill my movie nights until the new year. I’ve always found his movies dependably entertaining, and since I’m too weary to make an effort lately, I’ll settle for being dependably entertained. I started this week with Torn Curtain and…

I don’t know the identity of the sweetcorn guy, I’m afraid. As for canned veggies, my favourite is green beans. I prefer canned green beans to frozen or even fresh. There is something about the waxy, vaguely fuzzy, crunchy texture of a fresh green bean I find repellent. Canning beats them nicely into submission.