#tippihedron

[jenjen4280]

Seeing this for the first time ever at the gorgeous, historic Senator Theatre.

[gspotla]

Night. #Repost @friday_fright_night with @get_repost ・・・ 123 Days Left Until Halloween🎃  THE BIRDS (1963) #thebirds #halloween365 #horrorfan #scarymovies #horrorfilms #tippihedron #melaniegriffithsmother #alfredhitchcock #halloween #whenbirdsattack #fridayfrightnight https://www.instagram.com/p/BzXJajml0aq/?igshid=1jr1jrgmf8lnn

[prettynposh2]

CINEMA FAVES : Marnie by michelle858 featuring satchel bags ❤ liked on Polyvore

Attico pointed-toe pumps, $860 / Brahmin satchel bag / Bobbi Brown Cosmetics glossier lip gloss

[brisbaneartkid]

Tippi Hedren and her pet lion

#petlion #lion #tippihedron #1970s

[joeboettcher]

MR16: The Birds (1963)

This movie is a great two-for-one: It’s both a great horror movie and a hilarious unintentional comedy. What makes The Birds a truly great horror film is that it makes ordinary birds terrifying. There’s a scene in this movie where I was legitimately creeped out by the sight of a flock of birds perched on a jungle gym. Chalk that one up to Alfred Hitchcock’s mastery of directing suspense. I’ve seen many of Hitchcock’s films and can say without a doubt that he’s the best I’ve come across at generating horror from ordinarily mundane situations. This movie is arguably his greatest achievement in that department.

I also have to admire Hitchcock’s cinematography. This movie features a lot of beautiful wide shots and terrifying closeups that exemplify Hitchcock’s renowned attention to detail. Definitely one of main reasons to watch this movie is to simply admire Hitchcock’s visionary visual directing, which was groundbreaking at the time and is the inspiration for a lot of the great cinematography we see today in movies. In fact, I wish more movies these days would learn from Hitchcock’s slow methodical directing style. I’d love to see more wide still shots of landscapes in today’s movies because I think we’ve become to obsessed with jump cuts and fast moving transition scenes. I think there’s something to be said for letting a movie breathe a little, for taking a moment to let the viewer appreciate the beauty of the visuals. Hitchcock does that really well in The Birds. 

What Hitchcock does not do well in this movie, and this holds true for a lot of his movies unfortunately, is create strong characters and dialogue. This is what makes The Birds a spectacular unintentional comedy. The characters are wooden and their motivations don’t always make all that much sense. This is most true for the film’s main character Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren). The decisions Hedren’s character makes to set the film’s plot in motion are so laughably unbelievable that they left me scratching my head for the rest of the film. She meets a mysterious man with an impressive chin named Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) and decides to follow him to his small town lake house where he lives with his unstable mother (Jessica Tandy) and chipper younger sister (Veronica Cartwright). None of this really matters to the overall plot of birds randomly attacking people for no reason, but Hitchcock seemingly throws these characters in there in order to have a human story that will pad the film’s running time out to two hours. Really, I think this movie could have been one hour and still have had the same horrific effect.

And then there’s the dialogue between these wooden characters and a bunch of other throwaway background characters that are so ridiculously cheesy that I defy you not to laugh at them. There’s a scene in a diner about half way through the movie in which a bunch of characters argue about the bird attacks in a way that no rational people who weren’t already on drugs would argue. I affectionately refer to this scene as “the gas leak scene” because that’s the only rational explanation I can think of for why the characters act as strangely as they do in it. It’s scenes like this that make this a great movie to watch with friends and make jokes about while you watch it. I watched it with my dad and we had a great time joking about how weird Jessica Tandy’s character behaves for no apparent reason and how ridiculously big Rod Taylor’s chin is, amongst other things. Ah, yeah, good times.

One last thing that bugged me about this movie is how abruptly it ends. I was hoping for more resolution than I got, and I’m not really sure if that’s a good thing or not. I kind of like Hitchcock’s choice to end the film where he does, even though it leaves a bunch of questions unresolved. I’m just not sure it was the best choice. I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to watch it again in order to make up my mind.

All in all, The Birds is a lot of fun, both intentionally and unintentionally. I would definitely recommend that you check out this horror classic along with some of Hitchcock’s other great films, like Rear Window, Psycho, and North by Northwest.

Final Score: 7.5/10

-Joe

To check out more of my 2016 movie reviews, click here.

[crushlabproductions]

Starting this Wednesday in Los Angeles, Roar, the terrifying yet intriguing 80s film, will have a limited theatrical release. Partnered with Olive Films, Drafthouse Films has decided to finally screen and reveal to America the film known to be the most dangerous movie ever made.

Roar features director Noel Marshall and his then wife Tippi Hedren, their real children and over a hundred wild, untamed “big cats.” The plotline centers on Hank (played by Marshall) living peacefully alongside 100+ wild big cats, until his family visits. Then things get ugly.

The inspiration for the movie first hit Marshall and Hedren during their touring of the safari preserves. Shocked by the overhunting of lions, tigers and jaguars, they wanted to raise awareness of the cruel captivity and treatment of wild big cats. They then literally adopted, bred and raised countless lions for the shooting of the film.

The movie was shot and produced over the course of 11 years with a $17 million budget, but it unfortunately only made around $2 million worldwide.

According to the trailer, “no animals were harmed in the making of this film. 70 members of the cast and crew were.” While no cast member was injured to the point of dying, a few were dangerously close. The initial release in 1981 was described by Variety as “the most disaster-plagued film in the history of Hollywood.” It’s fair to argue that no other movie in the history of film has had this level of high risk and danger. 

Though the production of the movie was a physical and financial disaster for Noel Marshall and his family, the movie itself is described by many as one of the most epic and meaningful animal thrillers out there. As Tim League, the founder of Drafthouse Films, states, “you’ve never seen a movie like Roar and there will never, ever be a movie like Roar again.”

Roar will be screened at The Cinefamily and ArcLight Cinemas in Los Angeles. Needless to say, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to watch an epic classic on the big screen featuring dangerous and risky elements that will probably never be seen again in the film world.

Watch the trailer at http://www.cinefamily.org/films/roar/.