The Boston Globe
June 19, 2000
A Film With That Other Hitchcock
by Alison Bethel and Jim Sullivan
With a nice chunk of sarcasm, Robyn Hitchcock talked about the triumphs of capitalism when he introduced Jonathan Demme's rarely seen Storefront Hitchcock at the Coolidge Corner Theatre Saturday night. The English singing/guitar-playing songwriter said that Orion had planned to distribute the film (copyright 1997), in which he performs 15 of his songs in a Manhattan warehouse. (He likened the film to "a reverse Picture Of Dorian Gray" in which he gets to see himself preserved as he was three years ago.) But according to Hitchcock, when Orion was "gobbled up by" MGM, the behemoth decided not to release the film, sniffing at its mere $1 million budget. A loss for everyone involved, including fans and filmgoers -- who almost never get to see it -- because Demme captured Hitchcock doing two of the things he does best: bantering, and playing a varied set of songs that made people laugh, cry, even think. Before the film rolled, Hitchcock performed a few songs and took questions from the audience. He made a subdued plug for his latest CD, A Star For Bram, outtakes from his previous album, Jewels For Sophia. He said it's available only over the Internet and "at occasions like these".
COPYRIGHT NOTICE