How to Introduce Someone to Psycho

A few months back, we had a couple of friends over to watch Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Neither had seen it before, though like many, they were both familiar with several of its plot points. Sadly, a lot of Psycho's impact is lost today, though it is a legitimate movie classic and a film that I love.

To help illustrate the impact that it had at its time of release, I put together a Psycho Fact Sheet that I handed to our first timers after the screening. I'm including it here. Warning: It contains spoilers galore, although it seems a little useless to even bother with a spolier warning when it comes to Psycho, such is its infamy. If anyone has anything to add to the sheet, please let me know.

Yours in Psycho,
Dave Stewart

(Click images to enbiggen.)

A Po-em

Monster

Why are you
Making your downward spiral
So public?
Pointing fingers of blame
In every direction
Except one

I’m thinking
This is the only way
You can make sense
Of your love life
Career
Yourself

Sometimes
Creation happens where you
Least expect it

Just like
You’ve been working
At your kids for years
Without knowing it

One day
They’ll see your love
As scrawny and monstrous
And run
In the opposite direction

And you’ll never
Understand why
As you shamble
Through the countryside
Throwing little girls
Into the river
When you’ve run
Out of daisies

TV & ME: Notes on an Aversion

I don't watch a lot of TV. But I used to.

I recall having some sort of course in Junior High back in 1976-77 that attempted to teach us about our role in society or something sociological like that. In this class we were one day asked to list our three favourite TV shows. Mine were, in no particular order: Saturday Night Live, Charlie's Angles and Three's Company. Oy.

I have friends who write for television, and I hear a lot of discussion about TV shows in my office - The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad - so it's all around, but I have a problem with TV... It's too much commitment for me. Even recording a show means that I have to make some sort of commitment to watching it either in a large, mind-numbing mass or over a period of time that's pretty much like watching a show when it airs anyway.

Despite this, however, I recently put my fear of commitment aside and watched the first season of Girls. It was no trouble to make a commitment of only 10 episodes at 30 minutes each. Not so long ago, I also watched the first season of the aforementioned Breaking Bad. I liked the show, but not enough to commitment myself to five seasons of hour-long episodes. I've also successfully revisited the entire run of Brian Clemens' Thriller, made it through The Hammer House of Horror, and am going to undertake William Castle's Ghost Story (aka Circle of Fear). And truth be told, I'm a bit of a Coronation Street fan, but you can miss years worth of this show and come back into the fold without issue.

What this aversion has resulted in, however, are a couple of interesting reflections about my relationship to TV and the TV shows that I truly love(d). In turn, this has begat yet another dreadful list, but it's a list that reflects my personal taste alone, and maybe says more about me than the shows it contains. So, with the notion that I've only included shows which have had some longevity as far as their legacies are concerned, and the fact that it clearly reflects that I was born in the '60's but was a child of the '70s, here are my 10 Favourite TV Shows listed alphabetically:

1. All in the Family
(CBS; 1971-1979)


2. The Bugs Bunny Show
(in all its various uncut incarnations; ABC, CBS; 1960-2000)


3. The Carol Burnett Show
(CBS; 1967-1978)


4. Fawlty Towers
(BBC2; 1975-1979)


5. Pee-Wee’s Playhouse
(CBS; 1986-1990)


6. The Mary Tyler Moore Show
(CBS; 1970-1977)


7. Monty Python’s Flying Circus
(BB1, BBC2; 1969-1974)


8. Seinfeld
(NBC; 1989-1998)


9. Six Feet Under
(HBO; 2001-2005)


10. Thriller (Brian Clemens)
(ITV; 1973-1976)


Now... What are yours?

UPCOMING HOME VIDEO RELEASES

March 12 from Twilight Time (Blu-Ray).

March 19 from VCI. (DVD)

April 2 from VCI. (DVD)

April 9 from Shout! Factory. (Blu-Ray)

April 21 from Scream Factory.
Also includes "The Evictors". (Blu-Ray + DVD Combo)

I SAW THESE MOVIES IN 2012

I realize that I'm going out to the movie theatre less and less each year. I guess being middle aged means that I'm a little less tolerant of the hassles that come with movie-going than I used to be. Despite that, I still think that seeing a movie in a theatre with an audience that is actually there to watch the movie is the best way to go - There, in the dark and on a giant screen, the movie controls you as opposed to the other way around as in home-viewing. With that in mind, here categorically are the movies I left my lair to see in 2012, though not all of them we're released this past year.

I liked these movies:

Django Unchained
Holy Motors
Seven Psychopaths
Killer Joe
Argo
Frankenweenie
Cloudburst
The Expendables 2
Moonrise Kingdom
Ted
The Dark Knight Rises
To Rome With Love
Brave
Prometheus
The Artist
The Woman in Black
Melancholia

I thought these were mediocre:

Lincoln
Sinister
The Master
Snow White and The Huntsman
Dark Shadows
The Raven
Cabin in the Woods

I disliked this movie:

The Grey

XMAS 2012

SLIFR Movie Quiz

Dennis Cozzalio at the great Sergio Leone & the Infield Fly Rule has posted another one of his thought provoking quizes. My answers are below, but you should vist his site. Often.

Click images to read 'em.*

*And I see I forgot to finish #36, so my third party is Quentin Tarantino.