The Birds (Universal 1962)

Human beings...well...we're not as smart as we think we are.

We think we can control anything, and if we can't control it...well then...there has to be something wrong with it, right? And somebody has to be blamed for it!

Take, for instance, our fascination with the environment. One side of the issue realizes the importance of protecting the earth, but they're also concerned with things called FACTS!

The other side sees this as a political opportunity to frighten individuals to vote for them and/or support a cause based on total and complete nonsense.

The truth is we can't control the temperature of our planet. We think we can...but folks it's not happening. Scientists from around the world are now starting to examine solar flares from our sun that are affecting temperature changes...and the last time I looked we weren't very good at controlling the sun.

We can't even control the birds of the sky. Don't believe me? Then you should watch this week's Edge's Conservative Movie the 1962 Alfred Hitchcock classic The Birds. This is the third film from Hitch to make it to ECM (Rear Window, North By Northwest)

It's a scary flick, so don't watch it with kiddies. Hitchcock will have you looking at our fine feathered friends a little differently than you did before. Here is the synopsis from IMDb...

Spoiled socialite and notorious practical joker Melanie Daniels is shopping in a San Francisco pet store when she meets Mitch Brenner. Mitch is looking to buy a pair of love birds for his young sister's birthday; he recognizes Melanie but pretends to mistake her for an assistant. She decides to get her own back by buying the birds and driving up to the quiet coastal town of Bodega Bay, where Mitch spends his weekends with his sister and mother. Shortly after she arrives, Melanie is attacked by a gull, but this is just the start of a series of attacks by an increasing number of birds.

The conservative point in this movie is a simple one. We are not in control of everything...AND...WE CAN NEVER BE IN CONTROL OF EVERYTHING. This point isn't meant to scare you, but it is meant to open your eyes and control the things YOU can control...like your health, your checkbook, your actions, how YOU live your own life.

So why you're trying to figure this out, don't look up in the sky with your mouth open anytime soon.

Here is the trailer created by a fan of the movie...

North by Northwest (MGM 1959)

My Granddad, who passed away last year at the age of 97, had an old saying just about every time I saw him...

So, what have you done for the good of your country today?

I would always tell him that I went to school, to work or to church. His reply was almost always the same...

Hmmmph!

The movie that we will be reviewing today asks that same old question, what have you done for the good of your country today? Hopefully for us it won't go the extreme like Cary Grant's character in Alfred Hitchcock's classic North by Northwest! Here is the movie review from IMDb.

New York advertising executive Roger Thornhill is kidnapped by a gang of spies led by Philip Vandamm, who believe Thornhill is CIA agent George Kaplan. Thornhill escapes, but must find Kaplan in order to clear himself of a murder it is believed he committed. Following Kaplan to Chicago as a fugitive from justice, Thornhill is helped by beautiful Eve Kendall. In Chicago, she delivers a message to Kaplan that almost costs Thornhill his life when he is chased across a cornfield by a crop-dusting plane.

Here is the trailer!



One of the most memorable scenes in movie history!

Rear Window (Paramount 1954)

We've all done it. Watched our neighbors. Just seeing what there up to today. But only the great Alfred Hitchcock could make a film that would take something so innocent...and turn it into something so deadly.

In 1950-something New York, an adventuresome free-lance photographer finds himself confined to a wheelchair in his tiny apartment while a broken leg mends. With only the occasional distraction of a visiting nurse and his frustrated love interest, a beautiful fashion consultant, his attention is naturally drawn to the courtyard outside his "rear window" and the occupants of the apartment buildings which surround it.

Soon he is consumed by the private dramas of his neighbors lives which play themselves out before his eyes. There is "Miss Lonely-hearts," so desperate for her imaginary lover that she sits him a plate at the dinner table and feigns their ensuing chat. There is the frustrated composer banging on his piano, the sunbathing sculptress, the shapely dancer, the newlyweds who are concealed from their neighbors by a window shade, and a bungling middle-aged couple with a little yapping dog who sleep on the fire escape to avoid the sweltering heat of their apartment.

...And then there is the mysterious salesman whose nagging, invalid wife's sudden absence from the scene ominously coincides with middle-of-the-night forays into the dark, sleeping city with his sample case. Where did she go? What's in the trunk that the salesman ships away? What's he been doing with the knives and the saw that he cleans at the kitchen sink?

Even if you don't like Jimmy Stewart (Brooke) this is a good movie with a GREAT conservative theme (especially when you consider today's climate with the War on Terror) ... keep your eyes and ears wide open for anything... because folks, you just never know.

The trailer from Rear Window.



A Documentary on Rear Window from Central Florida film students.