Fifth Annual

Towards a Metalanguage of Evil

New Years Day Movie Marathon

January 1, 2022

02:00     Dynasty (episode: The Aftermath, Robert Scheerer, 1984)

03:00     Dallas (episode: Who Done It?, Leonard Katzman, 1980)
"Demonstrations of the game are now available on TV shows like Dynasty and Dallas."

04:00     The Oscar, Russell Rouse, 1966
"Gone is the ritualized cautionary debacle featured during the finale in earlier fictive explorations of the game, such as in the 1966 film, The Oscar."

06:00     Strangers on a Train, Alfred Hitchcock, 1951
"In the movie Strangers On a Train, adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novel, the semantic differences of two men are fought out in a life and death struggle."

08:00     Frenzy, Alfred Hitchcock, 1972
"In Hitchcock’s film, Frenzy, this discoloration is visually realized in the slightly artificial red hair of the psychopathic killer, actor Barry Foster."

10:00     Blow Up, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966

Break for Lunch​​

14:00     Blow Out, Brian De Palma, 1981
"In movies like Antonioni’s, Blow Up, as well as in the film Blow Out, it is through the exhumation of photographic images and their repeated screening that Y searches for telling detail."

16:00     Play Misty for Me, Clint Eastwood, 1971
"In the film Play Misty For Me, the first crack in the psychopath’s façade is in her obscene hatred of strangers and innocent bystanders."

18:00     Aliens, James Cameron, 1986
"In the film Aliens the psychopathic innards escape and jump from host to host, bursting unexpectedly from their bodies."

20:00     Kiss Me Deadly, Robert Aldrich, 1955
"In the Robert Aldrich film, Kiss Me Deadly, the psychopathic presence is realized in the form of a ‘Pandora’s box’, which contains a vicious toxin."

22:00     The Stepfather, Joseph Ruben, 1987
"In the recent film, The Stepfather, the psychopath, in the guise of a real estate agent chats amiably with a psychiatrist who is pretending to be a house hunter, but who is there to gauge the mental health of the ‘real estate agent’."

All Quotes: Cady Noland, Towards a Metalanguage of Evil, BALCON No. 4, 198​9