Word: hitchcock
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...innovations, the sacrifices, the / speculative attacks, the kind of stuff a patzer like me tries out in Washington's Lafayette Square, not the kind world champions play with $1.7 million at stake. I asked the great and wizened Tal what he thought of the opening games of the match. "Hitchcock movies," he replied with a grin...
Beauty, truth and Hitchcock. Now, that's entertainment. Benjamin Franklin, when ambassador to France, was known to spend most of his time at the Cafe de la Regence playing chess. Why did he so rarely go to the Paris opera? "I call this my opera," explained Franklin. He'd have camped at the Hudson...
...filmmakers also fail to cure the central defect of the novel's plotting. Carolyn's murderer has an excellent motive both for killing her and for making sure Sabich, Carolyn's sometime lover, is accused of the crime. Sabich is like the traditional Hitchcock hero: not guilty of the crime he is accused of but guilty of other moral malfeasance. But it is hard to accept the possibility that the real perpetrator would leave his escape from the trap entirely to chance...
While Marshall and the film's writers have consciously drawn themes from Hitchcock, they are not above taking liberties with them, and provide Arachnophobia with welcome comic relief. Marshall's wit (he co-wrote Blazing Saddles) is evident in his direction of a series of suspense-ridden false alarms. He keeps the audience off-balance by allowing it at times to come away with a laugh when expecting another gruesome killing. A typical example is the shower scene, an obvious allusion to Psycho, which comes to a far more humourous conclusion than Hitchcock's version...
Jennings, like Hitchcock and the best of Spielberg's heroes, is an ordinary man driven to heroism only because of unusual circumstances. He is the reluctant hero seeking to protect his family and his newly adopted hometown, motivations which make the flimsly premises supporting this summer's blockbusters seem far-fetched and ludicrous in comparison. Rather than a series of explosions, shatterings of plate glass, or sickening gore, Arachnophobia uses the little things one can't take for granted today, believable characters and good old-fashioned fear, to keep your attention...