Double Feature: THE ROPE and INVITATION show how to throw a killer dinner party
by Kevin Murphy, Staff Writer
As someone with social anxiety, I hate a good dinner party. Trusting other people to make food and manage the gathering? Hard pass.
Paul Newman at 100: TORN CURTAIN was an uneasy meeting of Newman and Hitchcock
by Jill Vranken, Staff Writer
Alfred Hitchcock’s fiftieth film is both a curious anomaly in Paul Newman’s career (a year later he would properly cement himself as an icon in Stuart Rosenberg’s Cool Hand Luke) and the beginning of the end for its director. But what made this pairing and its creative result such a mismatch?
Goth Week: The First wives of gothic romance, from REBECCA to CRIMSON PEAK
by Shayna Davis, Staff Writer
Over all these centuries, filmmakers have been able to twist the typical notes of Gothic stories in new, interesting ways, and the “First Wife” has gotten a compelling treatment among them.
Ghost Week: The unseen ghost in REBECCA
by Melissa Strong, Staff Writer
MJ’s Ghosts, Goblins, Ghouls, Goths, and Grotesqueries! theme is a great time to revisit the Alfred Hitchcock classic Rebecca (1940).
Ryan Silberstein's Best Discoveries of 2022
by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring
This is my favorite list to put together all year. I watched a ton of “new to me” movies in 2022, and so many of them brought me joy that it was hard to even narrow down to just 12.
MovieJawn Sound & Vision Poll: Ashley Jane Davis' Ballot
by Ashley Jane Davis, Staff Writer
Welcome to MovieJawn’s first ever Sound & Vision Poll, where our writers share why they love their 10 favorite movies of all time!
MovieJawn's Sound & Vision Poll: Billie Anderson's Ballot
by Billie Anderson, Staff Writer
Welcome to MovieJawn’s first ever Sound & Vision Poll, where our writers share why they love their 10 favorite movies of all time!
MovieJawn's Sound & Vision Poll: A. Freedman's Ballot
by A. Freedman, Contributor
Welcome to MovieJawn’s first ever Sound & Vision Poll, where our writers share why they love their 10 favorite movies of all time!
I Bid You Welcome to 24 Hours in My Cinematic Crypt
by Batzina Belfry (aka Rosalie Kicks, Old Sport)
I bid you welcome creepies, ghoulies, goblins and spookies to The Cinematic Crypt for a twenty-four hour watch-a-long.
Women in Horror - Strangers in a Strange Land
by Ashley Jane Davis and Jaime Davis, Staff Writers
Some of our favorite spooky/creepy/scary/terrifying stories are all about women, and let’s just say it - oftentimes complicated women - who find themselves, horrifically, in new and unexpected territories.
Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1939) and Notorious (1946)
by Fiona Underhill
If there is one name you associate with the word thriller, it has to be Hitchcock. Of course, his psychological technicolor masterpieces from the 50s and 60s are his best-known works, but his earlier black-and-white films have at least as much to offer the genre. The provincial and parochial Great Britain of Jamaica Inn (1939) and the train journeys of The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Strangers on a Train (1951) all had themes foreshadowed by The 39 Steps (1935), with its long train journey to rural Scotland. Made in the pre-war period when the rise of fascism and communism was threatening Europe, The 39 Steps deals with a non-specific foreign power trying to obtain military secrets from the UK. The spy genre was popular in the 30s because of the rapid rise in arrests and trials of Soviet spies in Europe. The 39 Steps fulfills many tropes of the genre; such as an ordinary man being under suspicion, falsely accused, on the run and desperate to clear his name (later used by Hitch in North by Northwest, of course).
Read MoreCinema Immersion Tank, Round 2 - The Birds
by Emmi Kurowski
This was difficult. Unsettling, even. I was cooped up in a claustrophobic cage for five days; a cage known as the Cinema Immersion Tank (here’s looking at you, Matt Sloan), with Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. As a huge Hitchcock fan, this was the only one I so easily dismissed (not including Frenzy, which is ew) only seeing it once previously some 20 years ago. It was the one after Psycho with the unknown bodacious blonde babe, the lead dude who isn’t even remotely cute who wears cargo pants and an ascot (?), and the ending that explains nothing.
Read MoreRear Window
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1954)
by Sandy DeVito
The reason Hitchcock will always be synonymous with great filmmaking is because he knew how to make a seemingly banal setting into a grand dramatic stage, and could convey "normal" people the way we, humanity, really are -- convoluted, morally ambiguous beyond our liking, and each living our own complex and layered experience. Nowhere is this more magnified than in Rear Window, a masterpiece of subtle loveliness, suspense, and sophisticated narrative.
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