To thine own self be true

with its political agendas is now truer than ever in the West. Every day now, citizens and workers are told what the latest offensive terms are, and some absurd new wording is being coined in the name of political correctness. Nonsensical and absurd. Agendaists continue to take language apart willy-nilly. Much as countries like the U.S. and U.K. deconstruct themselves. And many people continue to ‘do it to themselves’ and ‘do it to others’ frequently. We are witnessing The Great Deconstruct of stability, tolerance, understanding, decency and sanity in our times; the end of any kind of rational authority as we enter a new era of irrational hate and unnecessary violence against ourselves and others. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a very dark, long day’s journey into night. Back to the Dark Ages, too, with all the ignorance caused by technology, the decline of books, rational discourse, common sense, and human kindness.

Dr. Strangelove

Psycho

Citizen Kane

2001: A Space Odyssey

Casablanca

Lawrence of Arabia

The Third Man

The Godfather: Part II

Annie Hall

The Graduate

Nashville

JFK

Hamlet

Macbeth

Lord of the Flies

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Brave New World

A Christmas Carol

The Great Gatsby

To Kill a Mockingbird

Animal Farm

The Grapes of Wrath

don’t own a book.

No one could have played Winston Smith, Raskolnikov, and the Elephant Man more ‘hurt’ than him.

Liberals Look to Artificial Intelligence

(since they have none of their own?)

Mary Tyler Moore, 80.
Star of one of TV’s greatest-ever sitcoms. Fabulous cast of characters.
Her complete show collection is consistently entertaining season by season.

is Frenzy with Anthony Schaffer. Spoiler alert: It exceeds its source material, by providing a more appropriate resolved ending in which the ‘born loser’ finally wins and is vindicated of suspicion in the necktie murders, the added, hilarious inspector-wife gourmet dinner subplot, and additional Hitchcock touches such as close-ups and other camera shots. This was an incredibly well-acted, well-cast movie; everyone looks and acts right in their roles. However, the original novel is worth a look for its trial scenes (considerably shortened by Hitchcock) and the less satisfying ending. But above all, what is memorable about the read is how much Hitchcock reproduced the best of the book and actually enhanced it, and created a powerful classic movie about a sexual psychopath in the process, easily one of his best.

(1982, Warner, 1st printing, signed by author)

Robert Bloch’s classic thriller. The book that inspired the movie. A great read for contextualizing the movie, to see how faithful Hitchcock was to the original, and how strong his adaptation was. But even better, the shifting points of view in Bloch’s original book, its smooth transitions, and how it gets more to the core of Norman’s deep problems. Suspenseful right through to the last sentence. Totally entertaining and insightful in and of itself. Well-worth seeking out all for the additional information behind the characters, especially Norman.