Watched and Read - September 7, 2025

 

Here’s what I watched and read last week:

MOVIES

Caught Stealing (2025). I didn’t think the contrast of humor and extreme violence always worked. But there were some good moments, especially the third act.

The Crow (1994). The visuals were excellent. Great gothic / noir atmosphere. But I didn’t connect with the story.

Tomorrowland (2015). Not a bad Disney film. Some cool old school sci-fi stuff, which I always enjoy. The effects were great. But the story was clunky at times.

Network (1976). A masterpiece by Lument. Written by one of our greatest writers, Paddy Chayefsky. Timeless film.

Winter Kills (1979). Watched it on the Criterion Channel. Had no idea this was a dark comedy. I thought it was going to be an intense thriller like The Parallax View. Overall, I was mixed on the film, but I really enjoyed Jeff Bridges.

Love letters (1984). Also watched it on the Criterion Channel. Good movie. Excellent performance by Jamie Lee Curtis.

Can’t Stand Losing You (2012). Great documentary about Andy Summers and The Police. We watched it this past weekend at The Aero with Q&A with Summers.

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TV

Still watching the seventh season of Little House. Still enjoying it.

I’ve caught up with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I really liked episode 7—which was a documentary on the crew. Very cool idea. Episode eight, though, was not that good.

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BOOKS

I didn’t finish any books this week, so I thought I share some of the academic articles and chapters I’ve read. I am writing a book on Hitchcock and am working on the chapter on Psycho.

Elsa Court, The American Roadside in Emigre Literature, Film, and Philosophy. I read the chapter on Psycho and its connection to motels and the constructions of highways in post WWII America. Excellent reading of the film.

Bernice M. Murphy, The Highway Horror Film. Read the chapter on Psycho. Murphy lays out tropes associated with horror and motels - Psycho being the first to do so. Very good chapter.

Laura Mulvey, Death 24x a Second. I’ve read this book numerous times. Very good reading of stillness and movement and the uncanny in Psycho. But I disagree with her reading of the death drive at the end of the film.

Robin Wood, Hitchcock Revisited. Wood was one of the early writers on Hitchcock. His chapter on Psycho is excellent, offering interesting insights into the act of watching and highlighting our complicity with Norman Bates after Marion’s death. I usually assign this chapter when I teach the film, and it was enjoyable to read it again.

Peter Wollen, “Hybrid Plots in Psycho.” Interesting short piece about plotting in Psycho, Marnie and North By Northwest. Wollen claims Psycho has a fairy-tale structure.

Watched and Read - August 31, 2025

 

Here’s what I watched and read last week:

Movies

Orpheus (1950). Beautiful film by Jean Cocteau. Love the story and special effects. The underworld sequences are superb and great examples of the fantastic.

Marnie (1964). I’m starting to see why a lot fans of Hitchcock like this one - at least from what I’ve been reading. This was my third time seeing it since the early 2000s and I really enjoyed it. Marnie breaking into Rutland’s safe is classic Hitchcock and great example of his commitment to pure cinema.

Topaz (1969). The first half was very good and suspenseful, especially the opening sequence. But the second half of the film was a let down. Minor film by Hitchcock.

Broken Flowers (2005). One of my favorites of Jarmusch’s. Great and subtle performance by Bill Murray. Jeffrey Wright is so funny as Winston who does the investigating for Murray. I also love the soundtrack, which I still own on CD. Slow cinema greatness!

The Majestic (2001): Nice film. Has a kind of Frank Capra vibe. I love the way Frank Darabont captures the small town of Lawson. I also enjoyed the 1950s invasion narrative that Darabont was engaging with. Nice performance from Jim Carrey.

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TV

We started the seventh season of Little House on the Prairie. Some good episodes so far. Curious to see how the characters develop. I really like the episode that featured Madeleine Stowe.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The first episode was a washout for me. Too much time had passed since the second season for me to remember what happened in the last episode — even with the recap. The same thing happened when I tried watching the second season of Severance — I had no idea what was going on. Overall, based on the first six episodes I’ve watched, the third season of SNW includes some questionable choices by the writers, but I’m sticking with it.

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Books

Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light by Patrick McGilligan. Outstanding read. What a journey to read about Hitchcock’s life in film. I read Donald Spoto’s book on Hitchcock back in 2015. Now having read both books, I feel I have much better understanding of Hitch’s work. One of our greatest filmmakers.

Enjoying Right & Left by Todd McGowan. Excellent read. McGowan, as always, does a great job of explaining the concepts - focusing on the differences between belonging and nonbelonging and their relationship to enjoyment. McGowan offers lots of great examples to explain how the right and left organize enjoyment and the important role of contradiction. I love the chapter on Christmas movies and the last chapter on Heathers.

Watched and Read - August 23, 2025

 

Here’s what I watched and read last week:

Movies

I’m continuing my Jim Jarmusch marathon.

Night on Earth. Very enjoyable. The first story with Winona Ryder was my favorite.

Dead Man. I haven’t seen this since it was first released on video in 1996. The movie is starting to grow on me, but still my least favorites of Jarmusch’s.

Coffee and Cigarettes. The name says it all. A collection of stories or conversations. My favorite ones are Jack and Meg White and Steve Coogan and Alfred Molina.

Sinners. Very good horror film. Really liked that Coogler allowed us to know the characters and their world before getting into the horror.

In Time. Great premise. Loved the first part of the film. But I felt some of the acting was not good, and kind of surprising given Niccol had written and directed Gattica, which I love.

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TV

We finished the sixth season of Little House on the Prairie. The last three episodes were classic. The sixth and second seasons, so far, are my favorite. Michael Landon has a great eye for composition. The high definition images look great on Peacock.

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Books

Foul Play Suspected by John Wyndham. A crime novel written under the name John Beynon. I wasn’t expecting something like The Day of the Triffids or The Midwich Cuckoos, but there are some interesting topics discussed—stuff that he would later explore in his sci-fi books. I’d consider it a minor work of his, but worth checking out. The book reminded me a little of the film noir Kiss Me Deadly.

Watched and Read - August 17, 2025

 

Watched and read this past week:

Movies

Karate Kid: Legends. Enjoyable and fun. I just wished they let the story breathe a little bit.

The Life of Chuck. Nice adaptation of King’s novella. I like that Mike Flanagan continues to adapt King’s work for the screen. Both Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game are great interpretations of his books. Still can’t believe he pulled off Gerald’s Game!

Watched four by Jim Jarmusch. Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law, Mystery Train, and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. All excellent films. Love RZA’s score for Ghost Dog. Mystery Train might be my favorite of Jarmusch’s. It was sad seeing Joe Strummer. Wish he was still with us.

Everything’s Going to Be Great: Nice coming of age story. Great performance by Allison Janey.

Psycho Beach Party: Fun, but I felt it was a little too long. Cool to see Amy Adams in one of her earlier films.

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad. Still holds up and still hilarious!

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TV

Halfway through the sixth season of Little House on the Prairie. Big improvement from the fifth season. But the two-part episode, “May We Make Them Proud,” was devastating and perhaps too much. I think Mary has been through enough.

Finishing up the latest season of Bob’s Burgers. Need more Teddy episodes!

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Books

Todd’s McGowan’s Introduction to Jacques Lacan. Outstanding. See my post.

Jack Finney’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Excellent read. One of my favorite sci-fi films (1956 version). The 1956 version left out the section where they discuss space spores, which was one of my favorite parts of the novel.

Review - Todd McGowan's Introduction to Jacques Lacan

Todd McGowan's new book is an excellent read and important book for those who are interested in Lacan. Over the years, I have read a lot of Lacan, along with Zizek, McGowan, Copjec, etc, and this by far is one of the best introductory books with lots of great examples. 

 

I love McGowan’s interpretation of Kant and Hegel in contextualizing Lacan’s three stages. The connection between Kant’s sensibility, understanding, and reason nicely line up with Lacan’s imaginary, symbolic and the Real in the first stage of Lacan’s work. But Lacan’s middle period turns to Hegel’s dialectic with his introduction of objet a (object cause of desire). McGowan claims that objet a, which is linked to the Real, is the fundamental object and perhaps one of Lacan’s greatest contributions. 

 

 

An example is Lacan’s concept of the gaze (which should not be confused with the look). The gaze (as the visual drive) demonstrates how our unconscious desire distorts the visual plane, something we don’t recognize in the everyday, but something movies can make apparent. McGowan offers Spielberg’s Duel as a great example. Lacan's examples are paintings, such as Las Meninas (see image below). The painter is painting a couple who we think are in the mirror image, located in the far background. For Lacan, the canvas is too big to be the mirror image. The canvas embodies the gaze because it does not fit within the representational world of the painting. As McGowan explains, the canvas demonstrates a resistance toward representation. 

  

Another example is The Ambassadors (see my blog post). When we encounter the gaze, we realize how our desire distorts the visual plane. The gaze is objet a within the field of vision. Encountering the gaze exemplifies that our spectatorship is not from a transcendent standpoint but within the painting or movie itself. That's where we locate the dialectic component of Lacan's work on desire.

I agree with McGowan that Lacan is the philosopher of the subject. The subject is always a split subject, a subject that is never at home with itself because of the unconscious. Lastly, it was great to read how many of Lacan’s concepts changed throughout his three periods, particularly the Real and jouissance. Highly recommend!

Newsletter #3

The weather is getting hot, and I’m just about done teaching for the summer semester.

Zworsky’s Children

The final book in the Zworsky’s Children series will be sent off for copyediting this summer. I’ve changed the title to Last Stand—I wanted a title that made it clear this is the final book. Stuart Bache will be designing the cover, which I’ll share in September. Last Stand will be available in October.

Hitchcock Project
 

Still no update on my Vertigo article, but the Hitchcock project is really coming together. This spring, I wrote a rough draft on The Birds and apocalyptic cinema. I’m currently working on the book’s introduction, which is quite a task. I’m laying out my claim and the theory to support it, exploring the logic of fantasy and its relationship to genre. Hitchcock often felt imprisoned by the suspense genre, but my argument is that these limitations were actually productive. Psycho changed the horror genre! I’m thinking of calling the book The Limitless Alfred Hitchcock—but I’m not sure yet.

 

 

My Lovely Dark Summer
 

This is my new mystery and coming-of-age novel. I’ll be sending it off for copyediting in November and hope to have it available in early February 2026.

Charlie One

Charlie One is doing quite well in the UK—it was my most-read book on Kindle Unlimited in June. Thank you so much, UK readers!

 

 

Books Read and Reading 

I really enjoyed Stephen King’s new book, Never Flinch—King knows how to write villains. I also liked Todd McGowan’s The Fictional Christopher Nolan. I’ve read much of McGowan’s work, and this was by far the hardest—but I mean that in a good way. I enjoyed Grady Hendrix’s Witchcraft for Wayward Girls and loved Owen King’s short story “Letter Slot.” I’m currently reading Hendrix’s The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires.

Well, that’s it for me.

Enjoy the summer.

Keep reading.

Tom C.

www.tomconnellyfiction.com

Newsletter #2

Hope the year is going well for everyone.

Spring has been busy for me. I am working hard on a bunch of projects. My article on Vertigo is going through a revision process, which means it wasn’t rejected—at least not yet. The reviewers liked what I wrote but had a lot of suggestions. My revisions must be completed by next month. Hopefully I’ll know by the summer if its been accepted. 

 

I really enjoyed writing on Vertigo, so I wrote a rough essay on Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. You probably know where I’m going with this. A book on Hitchcock. I’m thinking five films, focusing just on horror.

Zworsky’s Children Series. The third book, The Metachromes, is just about done, and I will be sending it to my copy editor this summer. Stuart Bache will be designing the cover. If everything goes as planned, the book will be available in late October. I’m excited to share the conclusion of the series.

Dark Escape. A short novel connected to the Zworsky universe. It focuses on a character from Rise of the Creepers. I’ll share more details about it next year. If you haven’t checked out Creepers, it is available to purchase.

My Lovely Dark Summer. My newest book is a young adult story written for teens and adults. I cannot wait to share this one. It is a mix of mystery, science fiction, and coming-of-age. If you like Charlie One and/or The Mansion, I think you’ll really dig it.

Audio books. Amazon sent me a notice that I could create audio books using their virtual voices. I would love to hire someone to narrate my books, but I can’t afford it right now. You can listen to Suburban Tales 1 & 2 and The Postcard. The price is super cheap. I haven’t gotten any feedback, but I think the virtual voices sound really good.

Flight Unknown is inching toward 100 ratings on Amazon. I’m very thankful for all the ratings and comments.

Well, that’s it for me. I’m looking forward to sharing more news as it comes along.

Keep reading.

Tom C.

www.tomconnellyfiction.com