The year 1939 is usually regarded by historians, film buffs and scholars as the greatest year in film history. During the course of those twelve months audiences saw the premieres of films like The Wizard of Oz, Ninotchka, Love Affair, Wuthering Heights, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Young Mr.Lincoln, La Grande Illusion, Goodbye Mr. Chips, [...]

Considering all the essays, sequels, theories and spoofs it has inspired, it’s strange for a film to remain as refreshingly thrilling as Psycho. The film begins in the most inconspicuous of places; a hotel room in Phoenix where lovers Marion and Sam Loomis share a passionate post coital embrace. They can’t be together for economical reasons, Sam has alimony and debts to pay. A despaired Marion steals forty thousand dollars from her employer and runs away to California where Sam lives. A heavy storm forces her to stop on her way..

Looking at Alfred Hitchcock’s filmography, which spans fifty years and just as many films, Notorious arguably stands as its centerpiece. Filmed in 1946, the movie is filled with what would become known as Hitchcockian themes and trademarks, but does it so subtly that it’s debatable whether he was nervously experimenting with them or injecting them right into the spine of the film in a way they’d remain almost undetected. Set in 1946, the film opens in Miami where a doctor Huberman is convicted of being a Nazi spy..

There are not many films that urge the audience to get involved and direct the course of the film. The audience is made into puppets whose emotions are controlled by the strings attached to the director’s whims. Koyaanisqatsi takes the meaning of independent viewing to a whole new level, with the film achieving form as decided by the viewers. Hence the film becomes a unique experience for each viewer and differing largely from others’. Koyaanisqatsi is a non-narrative film whose USP remains…

“Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird… Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.” [...]