[Movies] The Birds (1963)

I'm continuing my journey through the colorful works of the great Alfred Hitchcock - an interesting journey that has covered movies with very different subjects. And after the brilliance of Rear Window, I'm back in his more horror-like films with The Birds.

I suppose I need to revise my usual statement that "I don't handle horror movies well" to "I don't handle traditional horror movies well." And for good or for ill, Hitchcock is certainly anything but traditional in the way he approaches telling stories through films.

You'd think that know the premise of the movie would be enough to understand it - it's the movie where people are attacked for birds for some reason. But that barely scratches the surface of this story and the fact that there are so many other layers to things is part of what makes it so much more fulfilling than your typical horror fare.

And seriously, where did this man get all of his ideas? I can only hope to tap into a thimble's worth of the same creativity that Hitchcock masterfully demonstrated from film to film. That man's genius just overwhelms me.

[Movies] Rear Window (1954)

After Rope and Psycho, my continuing adventures in Alfred Hitchcock movies has led me to Rear Window, a movie that was recently remade as Disturbia starring Shia LeBeuof. It feels weird to even consider this fact to be true.

What I find to be most interesting about the movies that I've seen thus far is how different each one is versus another. A lot of current movie directors seem to be stuck making certain types of movies or forever rehashing elements over and over again. But for Alfred Hitchcock, each movie feels like a unique creative exploration - a journey that he decided to take. And we're all just lucky to be there along for the ride.

And this was a different kind of storytelling adventure all together. And while it's still a movie with suspense of its primary tone, it still feels quite distinct from the other movies that I've seen. And that's a gift in itself for any a director - and a reward that any movie-goer gets to experience.

And these movies don't really feel all that dated despite the fact that it has been over 50 years since the movie was first released. And I've seen James Stewart in many different classic movies and he still feels different from how he was portrayed here.

[Movies] Psycho (1960)

Psyho is one of Alfred Hitchcock's most famous movies. And up until only recently, I had never actually seen it in full. Sure I had seen clips of the famous shower scene over and over again and I've bumped into the odd excerpt from the movie while channel surfing. But still I had never found the time to watch the movie completely from start to finish.

But after watching the movie Hitchcock, I found myself wanting to address the Alfred Hitchcock shaped hole in my life, one movie at a time. This journey began with Rope and now continues on with the infamous suspense thriller, Psycho.

Normally I don't do well with movies that are described to be shocking or containing horror elements. I just don't do well with attempts to scare me since admittedly I don't handle such content all that well. You can say that I scare easy or that I just don't have a full appreciation for getting scared - whatever. But I do my best to get past this side of me when the movie calls for it. And I already have a greater respect for Alfred Hitchcock even with the little I've seen of the man's cinematic works.


And this was certainly a great movie indeed.

[Movies] Rope (1948)

After watching the interesting biographical movie Hitchcock and with most of our TV shows of interest on season break, I figured it was about time that I addressed the Alfred Hitchcock gap in my film education. And since Tobie already had a rich collection of his movies on-hand the project wasn't too difficult.

And with so many movies to choose from, I can't quite explain why I ended up watching Rope as my very first Hitchcock movie. I suppose I should blame one of those quirky top 50 lists that included this movie as one with potentially LGBT subtext. And while I don't fully buy into that notion, it did remind me that this was certainly a movie that I wanted to see for completely different reasons.

What really drew me to this movie was the fact that it was shot using a series of intricately choreographed long shot sequences. That is hard to pull off with even today's movie standards, so to have a director manage it with an amazing attention for detail is just fantastic. So I definitely wanted to see how he'd pull that off here.

[Movies] Hitchcock (2012)

For one reason or another, I have never seen an Alfred Hitchcock film completely from start to finish. I've seen a generous number of clips from his various movies and I've caught segments of it on TV but I just haven't actually sat down to really watch them. It's one of those weird truths about myself that leaves me feeling rather embarrassed as a movie enthusiast. Seriously, what's the deal with that?

And while I do promise that I'll get around to it one day, this movie came along as an alternate form of entertainment.

Prior to this, I had only heard about Hitchcock almost in passing given it had received a nomination at the Academy Awards. It was one of those movies that got tuned out as so much white noise since it was part of the host of films that I had not been able to see by the time the awards night rolled along.

I actually enjoyed this movie quite a bit. Quite frankly, it was very well done.