78/52 (2017)

Very disappointing...

Boring

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Whether you like Hitchcock or not (you should) and whether you think Psycho was an important film for him or not (it was), this is a fantastic deep dive behind the shower curtain. If you know Hitchcock there might not be too many surprises here, yet for even the aficionados, the way this documentary is constructed is captivating. The shower scene is a film within a film. Technical perfection.

Considering that "Psycho" has long been a "top movie of all-time" in my book, I knew I would be watching this documentary when I first saw the trailer. Considering how many times I've seen the movie and how many stories I've already heard from it, perhaps the most impressive thing I gleaned from "78/52" was how it was able to approach the topic from such a new, fresh perspective.Basically, this documentary looks at "Psycho" from the perspective of its now-infamous "shower scene". While other topics are discussed and other stories are told, the narrative always shifts back to the construction of that sequence, which was truly momentous both in its time and even today. It completely changed the game of American cinema forever.I really liked how this documentary was basically just a whole bunch of film geeks and/or industry insiders sitting around watching/talking about certain scenes. I mean, that's what it's all about, right? As movie fans, a large part of the fun of the experience is to discuss it with others after the fact, and that is the tone that "78/52" hits on. I felt like I was sitting around discussing the shower scene and everything that springs forth from it with family or friends.So, I highly recommend "78/52" to any fans of "Psycho", obviously, but also for those who just love to discuss movies! It's technical enough to be enlightening, but not technical enough to keep it from being a great discussion/history of certain aspects of the scene, "Psycho" as a whole, & Hitchcock (and Co.) in general.

An unprecedented look at the iconic shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960), the "man behind the curtain", and the screen murder that profoundly changed the course of world cinema.While it might seem like quite a feat to devote 90 minutes of coverage to a one-minute segment of a film, this documentary pulls it off. By exploring every possible angle -- the sounds, the editing, the casting -- we see just how much went into getting the notorious shower scene just right. Most interesting is how many clues are in the film leading up to this moment that may not be obvious, but were sprinkled there by Hitchcock with a knowing wink."78/52" is playing on July 20, 2017 at the Fantasia International Film Festival. In this golden age of documentaries, this film still stands out as the cream of the crop.

He says Donat and Mr. Memory appear "at the same theater" in the opening and concluding scenes. I don't think so. The first is a raucous music hall with a lively bar crowd. The last is the more-sober London Palladium. It is now incumbent upon me to provide a full five lines as the site requires.