[Editor’s note: this list was originally published in May 2023. It has since been updated with new entries in honor of Mother’s Day 2024.]
Movies offer an excellent excuse to ruminate on your deepest fears, and they’re certainly cheaper than therapy. So if you’re struggling with some deep mommy issues, why not cue up a matriarchal tale of terror and sort through some of that trauma in style?
Auteurs have been hashing out their issues with their mothers on the big screen for decades, to varying degrees of success. Consider mother-centric horror as its own subgenre, and you’ll notice there’s a tendency among filmmakers to take more than one stab at the thorny subject matter. Alfred Hitchcock used the real crimes of serial killer Ed Gein and added a profoundly morbid murder of a mother at a motel to brilliantly realize Norma and Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) for his exquisite “Psycho” in 1960, of course. But he’d whipped up something just as insidiously spectacular with Leopoldine Konstantin for his earlier...
Movies offer an excellent excuse to ruminate on your deepest fears, and they’re certainly cheaper than therapy. So if you’re struggling with some deep mommy issues, why not cue up a matriarchal tale of terror and sort through some of that trauma in style?
Auteurs have been hashing out their issues with their mothers on the big screen for decades, to varying degrees of success. Consider mother-centric horror as its own subgenre, and you’ll notice there’s a tendency among filmmakers to take more than one stab at the thorny subject matter. Alfred Hitchcock used the real crimes of serial killer Ed Gein and added a profoundly morbid murder of a mother at a motel to brilliantly realize Norma and Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) for his exquisite “Psycho” in 1960, of course. But he’d whipped up something just as insidiously spectacular with Leopoldine Konstantin for his earlier...
- 5/11/2024
- by Wilson Chapman
- Indiewire
Writer/director Eskil Vogt joins hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss a few of his favorite movies.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
The Worst Person In The World (2021)
The Innocents (2022)
The Godfather Part II (1974) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
Trust (1990)
Fight Club (1999)
Evil Dead II (1987) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s review
Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
The Getaway (1972) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
The Getaway (1994)
Junior Bonner (1972) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Star Wars (1977)
The Limey (1999)
Point Blank (1967) – John Landis’s trailer commentary
Out of Sight (1998)
The Hunger (1983)
Providence (1977)
Blind (2014)
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
The Card Counter (2021)
First Reformed (2017) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Taxi Driver (1976) – Rod Lurie’s trailer commentary
Light Sleeper (1992)
American Gigolo (1980)
Notorious (1946) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
Torn Curtain (1966)
Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
Lolita (1997)
Deep Water...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
The Worst Person In The World (2021)
The Innocents (2022)
The Godfather Part II (1974) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
Trust (1990)
Fight Club (1999)
Evil Dead II (1987) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s review
Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
The Getaway (1972) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
The Getaway (1994)
Junior Bonner (1972) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Star Wars (1977)
The Limey (1999)
Point Blank (1967) – John Landis’s trailer commentary
Out of Sight (1998)
The Hunger (1983)
Providence (1977)
Blind (2014)
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
The Card Counter (2021)
First Reformed (2017) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Taxi Driver (1976) – Rod Lurie’s trailer commentary
Light Sleeper (1992)
American Gigolo (1980)
Notorious (1946) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
Torn Curtain (1966)
Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
Lolita (1997)
Deep Water...
- 5/10/2022
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Den of Geek Staff Jun 17, 2019
With the release of Anna upon us, we look back at 11 of film and television's most badass women spies and assassins.
This article is sponsored by the upcoming movie Anna.
The Cold War may be long over, but espionage is making a comeback. Every day brings new details of spy rings in capitals, and commanders-in-chief welcoming the aid of foreign intelligence to win elections, but on the big screen the thrall of spooks has never been long dormant. For instance, this month brings the release of Anna, the latest Luc Besson-directed action movie about women spies who can kick some serious ass. Only this Russian supermodel turned superspy does it all herself, like the best of them. As played by real-life model Sasha Luss, the eponymous spy comes to Paris in this movie claiming to be working a fashionable job, yet the business she...
With the release of Anna upon us, we look back at 11 of film and television's most badass women spies and assassins.
This article is sponsored by the upcoming movie Anna.
The Cold War may be long over, but espionage is making a comeback. Every day brings new details of spy rings in capitals, and commanders-in-chief welcoming the aid of foreign intelligence to win elections, but on the big screen the thrall of spooks has never been long dormant. For instance, this month brings the release of Anna, the latest Luc Besson-directed action movie about women spies who can kick some serious ass. Only this Russian supermodel turned superspy does it all herself, like the best of them. As played by real-life model Sasha Luss, the eponymous spy comes to Paris in this movie claiming to be working a fashionable job, yet the business she...
- 6/14/2019
- Den of Geek
Eleanor Parker: Palm Springs resident turns 91 today Eleanor Parker turns 91 today. The three-time Oscar nominee (Caged, 1950; Detective Story, 1951; Interrupted Melody, 1955) and Palm Springs resident is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of June 2013. Earlier this month, TCM showed a few dozen Eleanor Parker movies, from her days at Warner Bros. in the ’40s to her later career as a top Hollywood supporting player. (Photo: Publicity shot of Eleanor Parker in An American Dream.) Missing from TCM’s movie series, however, was not only Eleanor Parker’s biggest box-office it — The Sound of Music, in which she steals the show from both Julie Andrews and the Alps — but also what according to several sources is her very first movie role: a bit part in Raoul Walsh’s They Died with Their Boots On, a 1941 Western starring Errol Flynn as a dashingly handsome and all-around-good-guy-ish General George Armstrong Custer. Olivia de Havilland...
- 6/26/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Notorious
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Ben Hecht
Starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains
Of the fourteen films that Hitchcock directed in the forties the critical consensus tends to focus on Shadow Of A Doubt, Hitchcock’s personal favourite of his fifty-three pictures, and Notorious, the romantic spy caper which features the alluring pairing of Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in the second of his four and her three collaborations with the master of suspense. This period was also marked with the singular set concentrations of spatial suspense in both Rope and Lifeboat, and the first of his overt flirting with psychoanalysis and symbolism in Spellbound the year before, but I concur with the critical fraternity that Notorious is the high water mark of this decade of experimentation and development, with its nervous romance between the conflicted protagonists foreshadowing the similarly legendary couplings of the following decade, whilst...
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Ben Hecht
Starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains
Of the fourteen films that Hitchcock directed in the forties the critical consensus tends to focus on Shadow Of A Doubt, Hitchcock’s personal favourite of his fifty-three pictures, and Notorious, the romantic spy caper which features the alluring pairing of Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in the second of his four and her three collaborations with the master of suspense. This period was also marked with the singular set concentrations of spatial suspense in both Rope and Lifeboat, and the first of his overt flirting with psychoanalysis and symbolism in Spellbound the year before, but I concur with the critical fraternity that Notorious is the high water mark of this decade of experimentation and development, with its nervous romance between the conflicted protagonists foreshadowing the similarly legendary couplings of the following decade, whilst...
- 8/24/2012
- by John
- SoundOnSight
The moral ambiguities of Hitchcock's tale of an attempt to trap a group of Nazi spies give this thriller its lasting power
Notorious is perfect. Everyone knows that. It's a testament to Ben Hecht's complex, headlong script that so many people have tried to rip it off and a testament to Hitchcock's genius that no one has ever succeeded. Take a look at the gabby, inconsequential, forgotten Mission Impossible: II and you'll see what I mean. The more obvious glories of Notorious include a revelatory performance from Cary Grant as the morally exhausted American agent Devlin, a terrifying Nazi-mother super-villain played by Leopoldine Konstantin and cinema's most cunningly prolonged kiss.
According to the Hays censorship committee, no on-screen kiss could last longer than three seconds. So Hitchcock had Grant and Ingrid Bergman kiss for two seconds, then break, nuzzle and start again, until he had three minutes of highly charged smooching.
Notorious is perfect. Everyone knows that. It's a testament to Ben Hecht's complex, headlong script that so many people have tried to rip it off and a testament to Hitchcock's genius that no one has ever succeeded. Take a look at the gabby, inconsequential, forgotten Mission Impossible: II and you'll see what I mean. The more obvious glories of Notorious include a revelatory performance from Cary Grant as the morally exhausted American agent Devlin, a terrifying Nazi-mother super-villain played by Leopoldine Konstantin and cinema's most cunningly prolonged kiss.
According to the Hays censorship committee, no on-screen kiss could last longer than three seconds. So Hitchcock had Grant and Ingrid Bergman kiss for two seconds, then break, nuzzle and start again, until he had three minutes of highly charged smooching.
- 6/16/2012
- by Frank Cottrell Boyce
- The Guardian - Film News
Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, The Lady from Shanghai Orson Welles' career as an actor was both fruitful and frustrating. From Citizen Kane (1941) to Someone to Love (1987), Welles appeared — mostly in supporting roles — in about 70 features made in various parts of the world. There was one brilliant performance in one brilliant film, Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, but the rest of what I've seen has been either forgettable or memorable for the wrong reasons. Subtlety is a quality with which Welles the Actor was totally unfamiliar. Whether or not you admire Orson Welles' work in front of the camera, Welles fans are being treated to 13 films featuring Welles as both leading man and supporting player, all day Monday, August 8, on Turner Classic Movies. The only TCM premiere in this "Summer Under the Stars" Orson Welles Day is the 1952 British-made crime drama Trent's Last Case, directed by veteran Herbert Wilcox,...
- 8/8/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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