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Hitchcock | 2012 | PG-13 | - 4.5.3

A look at the romance between Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) and the painstaking process of making one of his most successful films, "Psycho." Also with, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Toni Collette, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Wincott, Jessica Biel and James D'Arcy. Directed by Sacha Gervasi. [1:38]

SEX/NUDITY 4 - A woman sees through a window a man and another woman kissing on the floor of a cabin; the man is bare-chested and the woman is wearing a bra and shorts (they stop when they realize they are being watched).
 A husband and his wife kiss a few times. A man and a woman kiss in bed (during a movie shoot); he's bare-chested and she wears a bra and slip that reveal cleavage, bare shoulders and her bare back. A man and a woman (not his wife) move close together and touch each other's hands as if they are going to kiss (they are interrupted). A woman kisses man on the cheek.
 A man looks through a peephole in his office and we see a woman undressing (we see her wearing a bra that reveals cleavage and bare shoulders). A woman implies that an actor is gay and uses a suggestive hand gesture.
 A woman in a shower scene in a movie is shown from the upper chest up (we see her bare shoulders and upper chest). A husband is shown in a bathtub covered to the mid-chest by water while his wife dresses nearby (we see her wearing a bra and slip that reveal her bare abdomen and cleavage and part of her bare leg as she pulls on stockings). A woman wears a low-cut dress that reveals cleavage and bare shoulders. A woman wears a swimsuit in a couple of scenes (we see cleavage, bare shoulders, arms and legs). The camera lingers on a woman's clothed buttocks as she walks through a restaurant. A woman wears a low-cut dress that reveals cleavage and bare shoulders. A female corpse is placed in an empty bathtub and we see her wearing a bra and girdle that reveal cleavage and bare abdomen.
 A man makes a flirtatious, suggestive remark to a woman in a crowd. A woman says of a man, "I doubt he has had a climax in years." A husband watches his wife dressing and she remarks, "They had their eyes gouged out for lesser crimes." A woman talks about a perfume named "My Sin." A husband tells his wife, "I smell the scent of sex all over you." A man becomes angry with his wife and accuses her of being "smitten" with another man. A man asks his wife if she is having an affair with another man and she becomes angry. A woman looks through a film viewer and tells a man, "You imp, you've got nudity in there" and the man replies, "Well her breasts were rather large." A woman points at herself and says that from the waist up, she is not exactly boyish (suggesting that she is well-endowed). A reference is made to protecting viewers from filth and indecency.

VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - We see a fire burning in a field and two men with shovels are digging in the area; one man strikes the other man in the head with the shovel and the man fall to the ground as a narrator talks about "brother killing brother" and that the murderer convinced the authorities that the dead man died from smoke asphyxiation.
 A man imagines another man climbing into bed with his mother's corpse (we see the woman's face discolored and decayed). A man imagines another man dragging the dead body of a woman up a flight of stairs (we hear the thumping of the body hitting several stairs and we see blood on the head of the corpse) and then being placed in an empty bathtub; the man then imagines the corpse lunging toward him and he is startled awake. A man imagines another man crying and running to another room when he hears police sirens blaring.
 We see a black-&-white photograph of a corpse, headless and cut in half vertically, as it is passed around a gathering and people, who react with disgust. A man shaves another man using a straight razor and nicks his neck (we see a spot of blood appear).
 On a movie set, a man grabs a knife away from an actor and slashes the blade toward an actress in a shower (in order to demonstrate how he wanted the scene to look); the actress screams and appears genuinely frightened and the man imagines several other people in the actress' place. A woman screams when she sees a dummy in her dressing room (looking like a dead character in a movie she is filming). A man collapses on the floor and lies motionless as others try to attend to him. A man coughs and is feverish while recovering in bed.
 A man becomes angry and pounds a filter net on top of a swimming pool several times. A man is angry and yells at another man and pounds on his door, to no avail.
 A man yells at his dogs and says "Naughty boys." A husband becomes angry with his wife and accuses her of being "smitten" with another man. A husband and his wife argue. A man talks about being "guilty" all his life and that as a boy he had wished that his father would "drop dead and he did." A man tells a woman that her writing is "still born." A man talks about 10 female heads with the tops sawed off and the lips being used as light string pulls, being found in a mass murderer's home. A woman reads an excerpt from "Psycho" and says, "The blade cut off her scream and her head." A man jokes about making the "Diary of Anne Frank" into a movie and that she'd spend the whole movie looking for the corpse he hid in the attic. A man speaks about heinous crimes. A husband watches his wife dressing and she remarks, "They had their eyes gouged out for lesser crimes." A man makes reference to "the boy who dug up his own mother." A woman makes several comments to a man about his weight. A man and a woman talk about "killing off your leading lady." A man says, "They put me in a coffin and now they are nailing down the lid." During a meeting with a censor board, a man says there can be no "knife penetrating a woman's flesh or suggestion of nudity." A man talks about "impulses." A woman says of a man, "He is always watching." A man says, "All men are potential murderers." An audience screams repeatedly in a movie theater during a violent scene. A reference is made to not being able to "show a toilet and flushing it" during a censor board meeting.
 A man eats several tins of pâté, directly from the tin, after becoming upset.

LANGUAGE 3 - 1 scatological term, 1 anatomical term, 3 mild obscenities, 1 derogatory term for homosexual, name-calling (nut-case, minions, putz, pest, puppy dog, talent less mommy's boy), exclamations (bloody), 5 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A reference is made to sleeping pills (in reference to less than interesting books). A bottle of alcohol is shown in a bathtub tray while a man sits in the tub (we do not see the man drinking), a man drinks alcohol and hides his glass when his wife enters the room, a woman makes comments to her husband about his weight and drinking too much, people drink alcohol at a gathering, a man drinks a martini, a man smokes a cigar and drinks a brandy, a man drinks wine, and a man drinks brandy and pours some in a dish for his dogs (we see them drink from the dish). A man smokes cigars in a few scenes, cigarettes burn in an ashtray during a meeting, and a man tries to light a cigar but is unable to.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Love, relationships, obsessions, creative minds, Hollywood, movie making, murder, mass murder, incest, voyeurism, violence, horror, aging, repetition, risk taking, experimentation, freedom, transvestitism, suspicion, fantasy romances, admiration, praise, imitation, censorship, sacrifice, loneliness, jealousy, disappointment, professional respect, secrets, failure, betrayal, choosing family over career.

MESSAGE - Strong relationships are worth fighting for. Breaking out of a mold is not easy.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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