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A group of unique directors and the essential works that you've got to see.

||| Alfred Hitchcock |||
Alfred Hitchcock

This is perhaps an obvious choice, however, most people tend to overlook the Master of Suspense’s early work as well as the relevancy of his last film as a key element in the continuing transition and development of the genre he defined.

One of Hitchcock's early triumphs, this predecessor to the mistaken identity man on the run scenario Hitchcock turned to time and again, stars Robert Donat as the innocent wrongly accused of murder and pursued by both the police and enemy spies. This is the first example of Hitchcock’s mastery over the suspense tale, giving us a glimpse of the greatness to come.

Considered to be one of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest works, this story of two men who meet by chance on a train and frivolously discuss swapping murders is a prime example of a common Hitchcock theme of the man who suddenly finds himself within a nightmare world over which he has no control. You can easily see how this film lays the ground work for the more popular “North by Northwest”.

Alfred Hitchcock's final film is a light-hearted thriller involving phony psychics, kidnappers and organized religion, all of which cross paths in the search for a missing heir and a fortune in jewels. Here, Hitchcock has brilliantly developed his signature form to include the now common, and often overused, device of plot twist, after plot twist, after plot twist. Widescreen!

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Comebacks, The

By BrianOrndorf

October 19th, 2007

Emboldened by their alarming success with "Date Movie" and "Epic Movie," 20th Century Fox has ordered up another round of lampooning that doesn't send-up its targets as much as it tweaks, ever so slightly, established buffoonery. The bottom line is "The Comebacks" is a loathsome filmgoing experience, created by the brain-dead for the brain-dead.

Comebacks, The

After decades of coaching travesties, Lambeau Fields (David Koechner) has been offered a football slot at Heartland University. Assembling a ragtag group of kids to play for him, Fields takes the squad and teaches them the basics of inspirational sports movies, along with the requirements that their grades must be atrocious and their drinking out of control. Spending the season trying to shape these losers into a winning team, Lambeau finds his greatest challenge is to beat his old assistant coach (Carl Weathers) at the 2nd Annual Toilet Bowl.

Full disclosure: I was the guy who liked director Tom Brady’s previous feature film, “The Hot Chick.” I’m not proud of it, but there was something sinister and astute in the way “Chick” broke down the absurdity of the female teenage years. I wasn’t expecting Brady to follow-up “Chick” with this monstrosity of spoof; a gluttonous, lazy collection of lifeless callbacks and uneventful sight gags, parodying films that were already skating on the thin ice of legitimacy.

Unlike most of this new trend of pea-brain, dime-store lampoons, there’s not one overall picture “Comebacks” is riffing from. Instead, the feature cherry picks its targets from all over the cinematic map. There’s a little “Radio” to be found in the character of iPod (try to guess what they call his specialty dance!), some “Friday Night Lights” in the fringes of verbally abusive, cross-dressing football fathers, a huge lift from “Stick It” (going against the established rule that films satirized should be pictures people have actually seen), and assorted nuggets from “Field of Dreams,” “Rocky Balboa,” “Invincible,” “Miracle,” and “Dodgeball.”

Strangely, Brady isn’t always convinced his audience is grasping the target, so he’ll have one of the characters state the name of the movie in their dialogue (“Don’t go all ‘Blue Crush’ on me,” “This is my ‘Gridiron Gang’”), presumably for the younger viewers who will be the majority to actually pay to see this garbage.

Not convinced “Comebacks” is witless, charmless, laugh-free creation? Check this comedy cameo list out: Andy Dick, Bradley Cooper, Will Arnett, Dax Shepard, Eric Christian Olsen, Finesse Mitchell, Drew Lachey, Stacey Keibler, and Frank Caliendo (doing his tired John Madden impression for umpteenth time). Wow. It’s like a who’s who of the dreadfully unfunny.

Still not convinced? Brady calls in Dennis Rodman to appear as Lambeau’s basketball-dominating prison warden. I think the child sitting behind me put it best when he turned to his parent and asked, “Who’s that, mommy?”

Toss in a teeth-grinding non sequitur musical number set to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” a couple of bus-speeding-through-the-frame-and-striking-a-character gags, various moments of Koechner with a strange flop-sweat look on his face as though he knows he’s in the middle of a career-ending turkey, not one, but two jokes about the Duke University lacrosse team, and voila! You have one of the worst excuses for a mainstream comedy to be found this year.

My rating: F