The Hypo-Chondri-Cat (1959)
From Chuck Jones and Mel Blanc, this is Merrie Melodies silliness about two mice on the run from a bizarrely yellow cat, and how they outsmart the cat with drugs and pranks. It’s more weird than funny, and one of the mice sounds curiously like Bugs Bunny.
Verdict: MAYBE.
♦ ♦ ♦
#365
March 21, 2025
Hypocrites (1915)
This tells two different stories with the same cast. In medieval times, a monk sculpts truth in the shape of a naked woman, which gets him martyred by disapproving townsfolk. In the modern era, a preacher is haunted by the same naked woman who’s again the embodiment of truth.
No offense to my granddad, but you expect a silent movie made in 1917 to be thoroughly, well, 1917. Movies were a new concept, which makes this surreal philosophical piece a surprise. The stories are helped along by some appropriately surreal music in the restored version I watched, and the whole shebang is what a hundred years later we’d call an art movie, complete with some tasteful nudity by Lady Truth.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
Hypothèse Beta (1967)
This short is French, but it doesn’t matter since there’s no dialogue. It’s an animated punch card, where one punch wants to be something more than just another hole.
Doubtless this was wild stuff in 1967, and it’s still kinda cute, but the wildness hasn’t survived.
At a computer facility nearly 50 years ago, I worked with punch cards, punching them and processing them. Gotta wonder if anyone these days would even recognize one.
Verdict: MAYBE.
♦ ♦ ♦
Hysteria (1965)
William Windom has amnesia, a mysterious benefactor paying his bills, and an unhealthy crush on a woman he only knows from a photograph.
As you can tell, the plot’s preposterous. This is one of those psychological dramas of its era, where the real action takes place inside someone’s head, but I couldn’t quite find my way to giving a damn.
It’s from Hammer Films, famous for horror, but if you’re expecting something scary you’re watching the wrong movie. Swingin’ mid-’60s score, though.
Verdict: MAYBE.
♦ ♦ ♦
… and out of alphabetical order …
Code Rush (2000)
Step back in time, to an era when home computers and the internet were new for most folks. Netscape Communications Corporation had a top-selling browser, but Microsoft had introduced a free competitor, the Internet Explorer browser, which torpedoed Netscape’s sales.
The company’s response was to release its source code — 2,000,000 lines of programming — to the world, free. The idea was, making it “open source” would allow all the world’s coders and hackers and nerds to improve the code and make the browser better than Microsoft’s. And it worked — the open source project was code-named Mozilla, and eventually birthed the company and browser I’ve been using for decades, Mozilla Firefox. And it’s still miles better than anything from Microsoft.
Filmed as it happened, this documentary shows Netscape’s mad rush to get the code ready for release, with the fate of the company hanging in the balance. The movie is big on tension, but bigger on the adrenaline of a bunch of smart people working in collaboration at the dawn of everything that’s come after (for good or bad). It’s dang faskinating, and in a small cameo role, Bill Gates comes off as the shitty human you might’ve forgotten he always has been.
“We’re at the beginning of an industry, and who knows where that industry’s gonna go? This could all turn into television again. It could be controlled by a small number of companies who decide what we see and hear.”
Verdict: YES.
3/21/2025
Logo illustration by Jeff Meyer.
No talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff.
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