I've lost count of how many times these movies have been released on DVD, but (wow) I don't own any of 'em yet, so here's a perfect excuse. DVDActive has the (very thorough) information on Universal's upcoming "Legacy Series" editions of (ready?) Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, Vertigo, and Psycho! Each package is a two-disc affair, complete with all sorts of goodies both old and new. (Yes, I love film historian audio commentaries. Sue me.)

Street date for all three releases is October 7, and if you'd like a complete listing of what each disc offers you can click one of these: Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho. Also from Universal Home Video on October 7 ... it isn't Hitchcock, but it sure is awesome: Orson Welles' 1958 mega-classic Touch of Evil, which is a whole lot more than one impressive tracking shot, believe me. Like the Hitch titles, Touch will come complete with all sorts of new bells and whistles. Plus all four of the DVD covers are all sorts of retro-cool. Can't wait to dig through these discs.

As Scott pointed out in his review, you need not fear that this week's Superhero Movie is another brainchild of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose satanic perversions of the parody genre -- Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans -- have been terrorizing unsuspecting audiences every year since 2006. Superhero Movie was actually directed by Craig Mazin, a protégé of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker dream team responsible for Airplane! and The Naked Gun, and produced by David Zucker himself. But it, too, is plagued -- albeit to a much lesser degree -- by what's turning out to be the problem with the entire modern generation of spoofs going back to Scary Movie: relentless pop culture specificity.

The basest incarnations of this, of course, are the Friedberg-Seltzer monstrosities, which may be worthless as comedies but which could prove valuable to historians because they indicate precisely what dominated the American zeitgeist in the few months before their release. It's too generous to call these films' vulgar spasms "jokes," but to the extent that's what they are, they depend entirely on either audience members' awareness of US Weekly-type factoids such as Britney Spears' shaving her head or their recall of particular scenes and characters in recent box-office hits. That's not to say that these kinds of jokes can't be funny -- the problem with Friedberg and Seltzer, as others have pointed out, is that they think throwing something current on the screen ("Look, Paris Hilton!") constitutes humor. But they do limit comedies' universal appeal and staying power.

When I saw Ira Sachs' Married Life at the New York Film Festival last fall, I had a lot of problems with it. But one thing I didn't have any complaints about is how gorgeous Rachel McAdams looks in the film. And now, thanks to Rope of Silicon, you can see for yourself how amazing the actress looks as a '40s-era blonde beauty. My favorite photo is the third, in which McAdams almost looks like a dead-ringer for Kim Novak in Vertigo. But I'd be fine with looking at any of them. In fact, I'm not just a fan of the way McAdams looks in the film; I also love the three-piece style of Chris Cooper, the open-collared playboy thing that Pierce Brosnan has going on and the partially see-through top that Patricia Clarkson wears in the second-to-last pic. (Clarkson is so stunning in the film, she actually gives McAdams a run for her money, and makes it hard to believe Cooper would cheat on her with anyone.) But aside from simply looking terrific, all four of the stars of Married Life give wonderful performances, as usual.

The film, which opens in limited release March 7, is based on John Bingham's 1953 pulp novel Five Roundabouts to Heaven. Cooper and Clarkson play a married couple, and Cooper's character has a mistress (McAdams). He makes the mistake, though, of introducing the girl to his best friend, played by Brosnan. Not knowing that his mistress is having another affair with his best friend, Cooper's character decides to murder his wife, because it's a more humane thing to do than break her heart. It's a very Hitchcockian plot, which makes sense since Bingham's books were adapted into episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. And it's a good enough movie to recommend, especially because of those great-looking actors. I just wish that Sony Classics would do away with Brosnan's awful and unnecessary voice-over before releasing the movie into theaters.

If you've ever sat through a dreadful film and thought to yourself "Man, I could do a better job directing than (insert name of hack director here)," then this announcement might be just what you've been waiting for. According to Variety, social networking site MySpace is joining forces with production companies Film4 and Vertigo Films to give one lucky MySpace member a shot at directing a feature film. Before you go hitting your browser to fire up your MySpace page in all its eclectic glory, one word of warning -- you can only participate this time if you happen to live in the United Kingdom. Yes, that's in Europe. Sorry.

The lucky winner of the contest, dubbed the "MySpace Movie Mashup," will be picked by a combination of celebrity jury -- which includes such actual celebs as actress Sienna Miller and director Anthony Minghella -- and an online tally of votes from the winning director's short films on MySpace. After the director is selected, MySpace users will then be invited to contribute to the development, casting and marketing decisions for the film, which is scheduled to shoot in October for a Summer 2008 release. The competition will be officially launched Feb. 7 at a party in central London.

Even though this is only for those of you who live in the UK I have a hard time believing that it will continue that way for very long. If this first contest is even remotely successful and yields any sort of decent product, they would have to consider doing a version here in the US. After all, this is where MySpace started and where we have more wanna-be directors than any other country in the world. So, be patient and get your short films ready. Our time is gonna come soon enough.

So here I was thinking we had all seen the last of the remakes. We've had curses, ghosts, bad plumbing, and soggy little girls climbing out of TV sets -- the whole kit and caboodle. It looks like I spoke too soon though, because Vertigo Entertainment (producers of The Grudge and The Ring remakes) are at it again.

The Hollywood Reporter announced that Vertigo will produce an English language remake of the popular Filipino horror film Sigaw (The Echo). The story revolves around an ex-con who manages to awaken a curse when he interferes with an abusive cop and his family. The new script is being written by Eric Bernt and the original director, Yam Laranas, is on board to direct again.

Since English language remakes of Asian horror have worked at the box office before; I won't be surprised if Sigaw isn't the last of the horror imports. You have to wonder though how these movies will hold up as compared to the current crop of horror films -- curses and ghosts haven't exactly been a staple of the genre lately. Does anyone else think it's time to give these remakes a rest? Or, do they serve as a nice alternative for people who enjoy a good scare but not necessarily a high body count?

[via Dark Horizons]

Had Alfred Hitchcock been remarkably long-lived, he would have turned 107 today (in reality, he died at 81 in 1980). A brilliant self-promoter whose wonderfully droll way of talking about his career and works created a character -- we'll call him Hitch -- whose fame extended above and beyond even that of his films, Hitchcock had a remarkably light touch as a director. Able to move with no apparent effort from clever humor (The Lady Vanishes) to intense psychological horror (Vertigo, Psycho) and forbidden homoeroticism (Strangers on a Train, Rope), he left behind a complex legacy, arguably still unmatched among mainstream directors.

While I love a wide-range of his films (my favorites are probably Strangers on a Train, Shadow of a Doubt and Lady Vanishes; I'm terrible person for not really liking Vertigo), the best thing about Hitchcock for me is listening to him talk. I remember seeing a documentary (no idea what it was called, sorry) in which he discussed raising tension on his movies. He explained his approach by planting a theoretical bomb under a cinematic desk, and then letting the man working there go about his daily business: Talking on the phone, signing checks, going over his schedule. Within the film, everyday life is occurring, but the audience, Hitchcock said -- in his distinctive slow, emphatic way -- is frantic, muttering "But there's a bomb ... under ... the desk!" at the screen. The obvious glee with which he told that story is, for me, what's so endearing about Hitch -- he got as big a kick out of the nastiness in his films as we do.

Back when I was but a young and sponge-like movie nerdlet, I chanced upon Brian De Palma's Body Double on HBO one night. Aside from being dazzled by the movie's, ahem, erotic nature, I found myself absolutely fascinated by the non-sexy bits, too. After seeing it a second time, I was convinced (well, as convinced as a 15-year-old geek could be) that Body Double was easily as good as De Palma's Carrie, Dressed to Kill and/or Blow Out. (OK, maybe not Blow Out.) But "the critics" didn't seem to dig the flick, generally dismissing it as a thinly-veiled rip-off of Alfred Hitchock, particularly the master's Vertigo and Rear Window.

These criticisms inspired me to seek out those "old-fashioned black & white" movies, and (obviously) I became a huge Hitchcock fan overnight. So while some critics chose to see De Palma's affectionate homage as De Palma's shameless rip-off, I was just grateful that Body Double introduced me to the wonderful world of Hitchcock. And yeah, I still think Body Double is one of De Palma's best, and I've been following the guy's career since before I could drive.

So for the price of one aimless anecdote you now get the news: Sony Home Video will be releasing a Special Edition of Body Double on October 3rd. Extra goodies include four featurettes, some new cast & crew interviews and a sparkly new anamorphic transfer. No commentary, unfortunately, because guys like De Palma (and Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen and Clint Eastwood) don't like doing audio commentaries.

For those with hazy memories, Body Double is the one with the porn stars, the massive power drill, and the Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

Oscar-winning art director and production designer Henry Bumstead has died from prostate cancer, according to the Los Angeles Times. Bumstead, who was born in Ontario, California, in 1915, began his career during the Depression as an apprentice draftsman at RKO Studios but was quickly hired by Paramount Pictures where he was taken under the wing of art-department head Hans Dreir (Oscar-winning art director for Sunset Boulevard). After World War II he began designing films for Paramount and by the middle of the next decade his stint at the studio led him to work with Alfred Hitchcock on The Man Who Knew Too Much and then Vertigo, the latter which got him his first Academy Award nomination. In 1960 he moved on to Universal and collaborations with Robert Mulligan. He won his first Oscar in 1963 for Mulligan's To Kill a Mockingbird. Then the 70s saw him working a few times with George Roy Hill and earning his second Oscar for The Sting.

Bumstead had a fairly weak period during the 1980s, but after teaming with Martin Scorsese on the remake of Cape Fear in 1991, he was hired by Clint Eastwood for Unforgiven, which led to another nomination. From that point he worked with Eastwood on eight more films up until he was diagnosed with cancer during production of Million Dollar Baby. In 1998, Bumstead, who was known as "Bummy" to friends and colleagues, received a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Art Directors.

In an interview with MovieMaker Magazine, Henry Bumstead summed up his life as a great success: "I'm very happy. Nobody could've had more fun than I had. I've seen the world first class and worked with lots of talented and wonderful people. Sometimes I wake up in the night and just can't believe that I've been able to raise four kids, send them all to universities and, at the same time, been so lucky to do what I've always loved to do. It's been a great life every minute of it."

 
A rare glamour shot of Barbara Bel Geddes. The actress, who died this week from lung cancer at the age of 82, lost her contract with RKO in the late 1940s, when new studio head Howard Hughes decided she wasn't sexy enough. Though she earned an Oscar nomination in 1948 for her work in the film Remember Mama, she was best known, before her stint on Dallas, as the frumpy friend in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.