It would seem Alfred Hitchcock is silhouetting himself into the public consciousness once again. He’s everywhere these days. For one thing, Vertigo recently (finally!) rose above Citizen Kane to top Sight and Sound Magazine’s best movies of all time. All time. The end. For another, there are Hitchcock biopics aplenty on the horizon. On October 20, HBO premieres The Girl, based on Tippi Hedren’s account of working with Hitch on The Birds, and the feature film Hitchcock — starring Scarlett Johansson, Helen Mirren, and Anthony Hopkins as the man himself — hits the big screen November 23. Behold, the trailer:

When the first glimpses of Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln surfaced, I thought, is there anything Day-Lewis can’t do?  Now that the first full trailer of Lincoln is here, I know the answer is nope.  Lincoln, directed by Stephen Spielberg and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Jared Harris, Sally Field, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, opens in select theaters on November 9 and nationwide on November 16.

Last Days Here, directed by Don Argott and Demian Fenton, opens with a frazzled, fifty-four-year-old Bobby Liebling on the sofa, living in his parent’s sub-basement, tugging on bandages that wrap open sores, and reflecting on the only things he knows how to do: rock-n-roll and drugs.  Liebling’s band, Pentagram, had been in the early seventies an even grittier, American answer to the likes of Black Sabbath, but botched auditions, ever-evolving line-ups, and Liebling’s drug-abuse had derailed Pentagram’s career.  Enter fan Sean “Pellet” Pelletier to nudge Liebling toward sobriety and back onto stage for a Pentagram revival.  There are moves, a girlfriend, prison, Fig Newtons, deals, paisley shirts, and marvels beyond the fact that Liebling has made it to fifty-four.  But mostly there’s the music.  I recently asked Pelletier about Last Days Here, Liebling, and life after the documentary’s release.

At some point in Hello I Must Be Going, Amy (Melanie Lynskey) trips on a beach and asks, splayed flat on the rocky shore, “where the motherfucking fuck is motherfucking bottom!”  In the aftermath of a surprise divorce, she’s moved back into her parent’s house, and in the way of their home renovations and retirement plans, when she begins a fling with a younger man (played by Girls’ Christopher Abbott).  And it’s Amy’s seemingly bottomless, endless sense of stasis that director Todd Louiso and screenwriter Sarah Koskoff navigate with such care … and a little humor.  I recently spoke with Louiso and Koskoff via phone about Hello I Must Be Going, the cast, the Marx Brothers, and defying the status quo (and the weather) to create a candid, female-centric film.

Please explain what just happened.

Just got back from San Diego Comicon. It’s like Woodstock for nerds. Which is why I love it! I did a panel for my new film about artist Drew Struzan titled Drew: The Man Behind the Poster. I was lucky enough to share the stage with my favorite artist Drew Struzan, actor Thomas Jane, producer Charles Ricciardi, cinematographer Greg Boas, editor Jeff Yorkes, Steve Saffel (Titan Books), composer Ryan Shore, and Zach Martin from Skywalker Sound. We had a great time doing it, and it really helped bring attention to the film.

What is your earliest memory?  

Okay, this is super nerdy, but my earliest memory is seeing the original Star Wars in the theatre when I was a little kid. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Darth Vader totally scared me. And Han Solo became my hero. I know it’s geeky, but true.

News came late Sunday that British-born director Tony Scott has died after jumping from a bridge in Los Angeles County. Authorities discovered notes with contact information in his car parked nearby and a suicide letter in his office.

From The Wrap:

Please explain what just happened.

Just sat down at a cafe in Gastown with an espresso.

What is your earliest memory?

Watching karate movies and then attacking my older brothers.  That, and hiding when I heard the wolf howl on Michael Jackson’s Thriller album.  Must have been around 3 years old.

If you weren’t a director, what other profession would you choose?

Probably a ninja.

Fans of writer/director/artist extraordinaire Terry Gilliam (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Brazil, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) may be interested to know that Gilliam’s daughter Holly Gilliam has been sorting through her father’s extensive archive and sharing some of her discoveries online as of this month.  As she explains on her blog “Discovering Dad”:

The nearly five-minute trailer for the adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas found its way to the web this morning. The film, set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, is directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) along with Lana Wachowski and Andy Wachowski (The Matrix) and stars just about everybody including Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Sturgess, Hugh Grant, James D’Arcy, Jim Broadbent, and Susan Sarandon.  Click below to view (via The Hollywood Reporter):

Director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) returns this December with screenwriter David Magee’s adaptation of the Yann Martel bestseller Life of Pi. Here’s the first trailer:

On the morning of July 20, I was preparing to post a list of my favorite movie villains in conjunction with the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises when I discovered that a real-life villain had emerged during a midnight showing of the same.  A new Batman movie debuts, and, chillingly, James Holmes and I had the same thought: the villain is the draw.

Three of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy villains had made my list.  Nolan’s villains have proven to be particularly memorable, not exactly because they are physically intimidating but because they are enigmatic mad geniuses driven by the idea that only chaos can wipe the slate clean.  Emphasis on genius.  Part of the fear and fascination with Heath Ledger’s Joker, for example, lies in the way he manipulates his cronies in the bank-robbery scene, ending in a school-bus get-away camouflaged upon its impeccably-timed exit by a line of other school buses.

The first full trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s highly anticipated The Master, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman, has been making the rounds on the web today (and getting yanked just as quickly).  Watch it now before it vanishes again:

The Dark Knight Rises starts next week, and I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, Hey, I’m kind of missing Michael Keaton, and, where has that guy been anyway?  He’s been hanging out at Amelia’s Espresso and Panini with Daniel Kellison.  That’s where.  And you can the read their whole exchange at Grantland in which the typically media-shy Keaton (Batman, Beetlejuice, Mr. Mom) discusses his new project-in-the-works with Larry David, the one time he watched Quentin Tarantino get sloshed on Jägermeister “like some kind of frat boy,” Night Shift, politics, and working on the set of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.  Really:

This week at Comic Con, writer/director Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom) and film composer Nathan Johnson are scheduled to appear on “The Character of Music” panel to discuss the soundscapes of their upcoming film Looper. From the press release:

Looper is perhaps [Nathan’s] most unique score to date, featuring a host of indecipherable instruments along with intertwining rhythms and textures. In preparation for the project, Nathan began gathering a wide range of field recordings and then he and his team created a sort of playable, hybrid found-sound orchestra using those original recordings.

But just in case you can’t make it to San Diego, Ain’t It Cool News has posted this exclusive featurette on Nathan Johnson’s Looper score with a listen to the track “Time Machine”:

Please explain what just happened.

Just ordered some coffee. This happens a lot. It’s 8:42 a.m., and I’m in Stockholm at a nice spot called “Coffice.” And it looks like the kind of place where they’re going to be ok with me sitting here writing. There’s this “no-laptops” trend, which seems to be going wide in the coffee houses in Europe and the U.S. Probably a good thing. It is a vibe-killer to walk into a joint and be confronted with a sea of Macbooks. It’s like a sweatshop or something.