Comments on: Notorious

By: Luke Harrington

Luke Harrington — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:37:07 +0000

Thanks guys. Seriously though, it’s not like Hitchcock owns the word “notorious,” or anything like that. The title (while admittedly a bit lazy) is an apt one for the movie…and there are only so many one-word titles possible, after all. Now, if they had called it Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines, or It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, or Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, I’d be a little bit more bothered, I think.

Incidentally, should I be equally bothered by the 2002 doc Spellbound?

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:06:05 +0000

Nice review. I always wondered how they had the chutzh-pah to name the film “Notorious.” Perhaps a little un-subtle irony here? As in “you just think Bergman and Grant are tough …

By: Sam Juliano

Sam Juliano — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 01:56:23 +0000

“From what I know, this is all fairly accurate, but interesting it’s not. In fact, all I could think while watching the film was, Do famous musicians really all have the same life? Do they really all have trouble staying faithful to their wives and girlfriends? Do so many people really find this story interesting, the sixth, seventh, eight time? Do you have to be a drug-abusing womanizer to make good music?”

There you have it Luke. I’d certainly ask myself the same questions, and I also must assuredly am not in the “target demographic” for it. LOL! I saw this film was playing at the multiplex I visited for HOTEL FOR DOGS, and all I could really think of was how the revered hitchcock title could be unintentionally exploited in this way. I’m sure I would probably wind up saying much of the same as you, like for example, yearning for something with a “bit more depth and resonance.” And like you I admit I normally have a partially to anty film about music, but am just as quick to see when the subject is violated.

Very nicely-written and observant essay here.