Matt Damon Movie: *** Inception (2010)

 This movie is very hard to understand.  Cobb (Matt Damon) is someone who helps draw information from people's subconscious as a form of industrial espionage.  However this time he is employed by Saito (Ken Watanabe) to put an idea into somebody's mind, Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy).  This movie has lots of excitement an action but I have difficulty understanding what is going on as they are in dreams inside dreams inside dreams.  It is really difficult.  Cobb recruits Ariadne (Ellen Page/ Elliot Page) as a designer.  In the movie we discover that Cobb's wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard) committed suicide because after a dream state she no longer believed the world was real.  At one point we get a dream in the snow on a mountain.  It just doesn't make sense at times.  Why did they need so many layers of dreams?  It is the new lady that is in onto Cobb and his instability mentally after his wife died.  he often sees her in his dreams and she is always violent.  Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Eames (Tom Hardy) help Cobb in his endeavors.

This movie had great success and received four Oscars.  I think people like not being able to understand as long as there is lots of gun shooting and explosions.  

Alfred Hitchcock Movie: ***^The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

 This movie was remade in 1956 with Doris day and James Stewart.  The movies are similar but not the same.  The Lawrences (Edna Best, Leslie Banks and daughter Betty, Nova Pilbeam) travel to Switzerland for a skiing event.  There mother participates in a shooting contest, and loses as one of the finalists to Ramon Levine (Frank Vosper),  In addition to being a marksman he is part of an terrorist group headed by Abbott (Peter Lorre).  That evening at dinner their new friend, Louis Bernard (Pierre Fresnay) is shot.  Before he dies he tells them to get a note intended for the British consul.  They find the note which tells of an assassination plot.  However before they can tell anyone, their daughter is kidnapped.  However they understand that the bad guys are headed to London as the assassination is to take place at the Royal Albert Music Hall.  Clive (Hugh Wakefield) and father, Bob look for the girl .  The track one of the kidnappers to a temple of a sun worshipping cult.  Father is captured but Clive gets away and helps to expose the group.  Mrs. Lawrence goes to the concert indicated on the note.  Her scream effects the aim of Levine and he wounds rather than kills the intended victim.  But he gets away, sneaking out in the chaos, but they are able to track his vehicle to the sun temple, which sets up a final gun battle.  Many police die, as do all the criminals, including Betty's nurse and Abbott love (Cicely Oates).  Father found his daughter and helped her escape, but Levine was after her and catches her on the roof.  They are exposed to the police below.  It is a tricky shot and the police officer marksman hesitates.  Mrs Lawrence takes te gun and makes the shot.  Abbott is hiding in a closet and his watch gives him away, so he takes his own life.

This is a very good early Hitchcock movie.  It also takes on the spy theme which becomes a Hitchcock trade mark.

Alfred Hitchcock Movie Review: ***^ Dial M for Murder (1954)

 A murder show, but not a mystery because we know who did it.  A man (Ray Milland) wanting to get rid of his wife (Grace Kelly), after discovering she has a new love, Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings) (but not her money) arranges her murder.  He does this by blackmailing an old college roommate (Anthony Dawson).  However when he does this, after planning the murder for several months, something goes wrong.  Instead of the murderer killing the wife, the wife defends herself, and finds a pair of scissors on the table and uses them to kill the murderer.  The husband then quickly sets in motion another lan, frame his wife.  He does this by giving bad advise, and destroying evidence; and his plan works.  She is condemned to death for the murder of her supposed blackmailer.  However there is something about the keys the has the inspector (John Williams) puzzling.  Also something about his gambling debts.

TV Review: Miss Scarlett

 PBS Masterpiece Theater, 3 seasons

Alfred Hitchcock Silent Movie: **^ The Ring (1927)

 One Round Jack Sander (Carl Brisson) works at a carnival as a boxer.  He takes on all challengers and if they can last a round with him they win and get money.  However Jack never loses.  He is smitten by the ticket taker (Lillian Hall Davis).  She catchers the eye of a man in the crowd, Bob Corby (Ian Hunter).  Turns out he is a boxing champion and wins the match.  However he is impressed with Jack and hires him as a sparring partner.  He is also helping him train as a boxer rather than a carnival performer.  He weds the ticket taker, and thimgs appear to be happy.  However she spends considerable time with Bob and he bercomes increasingly jealous.  He is losing his love.  Finally Jack meets Bob in the ring.  Bob handles him easily for several rounds and Jack is knokced down several times, one time saved by the bell.  His wife had been in Bob's corner, but as she sees Jack putting up a struggle, she slowly switches sides and ends up in Jack's corner.  This reanimates Jack and he is able to win the fight and his girl.  The ring is the boxing ring, but also the wedding ring given her by Jack, and a bangle given her by Bob with the money he won from winning the carnival fight.  

It is interesting the way Hitchcock often uses close ups of faces to show emotions at the carnival.  

TV Review: ****^ Wednesday Season One (2022)

 This TV series is like nothing you have ever seen from Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) putting piranha in the swimming pool getting herself kicked out of regular school, and ending up in the school where her parents attended, Nevermore Academy.  Wendy is a lovely show.  I really like the character Wednesday as well as her friend, Enid (Emma Meyers).  The first season Wednesday is trying to solve a murder, and using her limited psychic ability to do so.  Sometimes if she touches an object she sees a vision of what happened.  She has run ins with the town sheriff, the school principle, and about anyone else you can think of.  During the year Wednesday's father  (Luis Gomez) is arrested and accused of murder.  And Wednesday learns thinks about her parent's time at the school.  Her mother (Katherine Zeta-Jones) is worried about Wednesday using her psychic ability.  She too has this ability.  

There is a monster about, a "Hyde."  And Wednesday is caught between two suitors, Tyler (Hunter Doohan) and Xavier (Percy Hynes White).  However she also suspects Xavier of being the monster.  This all changes when she kisses Tyler and her psychic sense reveals hm to be the monster.

Wednesday needs the help of all her friends to solve the problems.  The Hyde has a master, Marilyn Thornhill (Christina Ricci) who is a teacheer.  The principle Larissa Weems (Gwendoline Christie) is also complicit in that she is fooled by Thornhill.  Thornhill kills her in the finale.  The final goal of Thornhill is to bring back a deceased villain with incredible powers in an effort to destroy the school.  She does not like the outcasts (those with magical abilities).

I find this series very fun.  My only regret is there is too much time between seasons.  Other fun characters are Thing (a hand which is alive and Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen).  

Alfred Hitchcock Movie: ***The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1928)

 This is an early Alfred Hitchcock Silent movie.  There is a serial killer on the loss in London.  He kills every Tuesday and leaves a card "The Avenger."  About this time a new lodger (Ivor Novello) asks for a room at a boarding house.  The whole area is uptight as it seems the murders keep getting closer and closer to the boarding house.  The landlady (Marie Ault) suspects the new lodger, and the police come to question him.  In the meantime a young lady (June Tripp) at the house is falling for him.  He is quite an improvement over another lodger who is always trying to hit on her, and even locked her up in handcuffs against her will.  The police come back with a search warrant, and find a map of all the murders in the lodger's room, as well as a picture of one of the victims.  The detective arrests him for murder.  He claims his innocence and the young lady believes him and helps him escape.  They meet up an he explains the victim was his sister and he has been trying to find the murderer.  The murders have lead him to the boarding house as the most recent was very close and the murderer seems to be migrating.  When the London peole discover him they believe he is the murderer and all chase him and in the end capture him.  However the detective is able to intervene and lets the people know he has learned the murderer has already ben captured.  

A bit hard to follow at times.  They were trying to use news type for a scene but the picture didn't work so I couldn't read it.  However the story is good, and shows how hard it is to judge others.