Moronic Logic

18/07/2024

On August 1st, Golden Boy returns! 12 movies were nominated for best picture at the 8th Academy Awards. Mutiny on the Bounty won the Oscar...but which one will win the Golden Boy? Check us out at Moroniclogic.com and at Moronic Logic on Youtube or at Moronic Logic wherever your fine podcasts are stored.
Notice anything missing in this picture? I'll give you a second to look. Ok, you're taking too long. Cary Grant is MISSING his MUSTACHE. Find out why, potentially, when our new episode drops in like two weeks.

19/04/2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB7uaShNkl0
Forget about radioactive spiders and gamma ray blasts- The Tramp got HIS super powers the old fashioned way- from he**in and co***ne! Moronic Logic puts a spotlight on one of Chaplins most off color, "don't attempt this at home," hilarious gags.

*DISCLAIMER* He**in does NOT give you super-powers! Say no to drugs and if you have a problem please seek help! There's only one of you, and we need you! Lov...

18/04/2024

The 1936 Academy Awards was the last ever to feature 12 best picture nominees. Mutiny on the Bounty won the Oscar in 1936....will it win a Golden Boy in 2024? New episode May 1st

02/04/2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbZ9M4ON3rM&t=10108s

Welcome to Golden Boy: An Academy Awards Podcast! Join Moronic Logic monthly as Kenny enlists a rotating co-host from an assemblage of interesting and unique...

20/02/2024

FINALLY. New episode is available on podcast services everywhere, should be on Youtube March 1st! Many thanks to co-host Sarah Louise Reiter for watching 12 movies for the seventh Academy Awards from 1935.

Welcome to Golden Boy: An Academy Awards Podcast! Join Moronic Logic monthly as Kenny enlists a rotating co-host from an assemblage of interesting and unique voices to watch every movie nominated for Best Picture in a given year and decide who SHO...

02/02/2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlIvTECHAHg

On January 1st of 2024 one of the best silent era films that nobody has heard of entered the public domain. The Crowd was originally picked to win the Oscar for Best Unique and Artistic Picture in 1929 but the founder of the Academy, Louis B. Mayer hated it- calling it "That damn toilet picture" because it was the first movie to feature a toilet. So instead, one man changed the pick to Sunrise by FW Murnau. Sunrise went on to be an influential film, the first silent film available on blu-ray, while The Crowd languished in obscurity, and people began to forget about director King Vidor entirely.
We here at Moronic Logic were prepared on January 1 to make this movie available on our channel for all of our friends and supporters. As this was a silent film, the only soundtrack available was NOT in the public domain. Kenny took the challenge upon himself to painstakingly craft a soundtrack using songs available on Epidemic sound that felt thematically relevant to the scenes in the film. As a bonus, two songs featured in the movie (one on a record title, and one sung after a party) have been included in the soundtrack so that a modern audience can appreciates two songs that would have been well known in 1929.
If you love film, cinema, and history, you should watch this movie. It will challenge your notions of the silent era and show that auteur directors were making great movies despite the limitations of the time.
Golden Boy will return VERY SOON with episode 7. We are very excited to share that, and reveal the identity of the guest host. The channel will also be hosting a LIVE Oscar special on March 10th with guest hosts and live Oscar reactions. You too will be able to join in through chat and post your picks for best movie. It's going to be a total mess, but hopefully fun! Shorter content is also in the works, and a BIG announcement for 2025 is in the works. Thanks for continuing to support your old pals here, now go watch The Crowd! ❤️

Couple of notes! 1) This movie is only available with one official soundtrack (that I'm aware of), made by Carl Davis in 1981. That soundtrack is NOT in the ...

20/12/2023

Happy Holidays! Episode 7 will be appearing in January 2024 but with a new premiere date. This is due to a healthy mix of 12 movies this go around- the holidays- and Covid knocking me out for almost two weeks. But the movies have been watched, apologies to the guest host have been made, and the show must go on. Here's some notes on finding these films...
"The White Parade" is currently only available to be watched by scheduling a special viewing at UCLA where the only copy of the movie currently resides. Unfortunately, this means neither of us will have been able to watch this movie. If you have, we definitely want to hear about it in the comments!
"Cleopatra" and "Flirtation Walk" are NOT available to be streamed anywhere. For these two films you will need to head to Amazon and purchase a DVD.
"It Happened One Night" and "Imitation of Life" are both available on Criterion DVD/Blu-Ray, but are NOT currently on the channel.
This channel really wants to add positivity to the art of film criticism, and with our first half year ending, I want to thank the commenters, subscribers, people who hit "like", guests, and IRL supporters that have made this something I'm excited to do every month. We might not agree on everything, but I love to hear and read your thoughtful analysis. See everyone in the New Year!

14/11/2023

December 1st is right around the corner, and with it the final episode of Golden Boy in 2023! As always, here's your homework. I don't THINK we'll be adding any wildcard movies this time, but if that changes keep your eyes out here.
I'll try to post links to harder to find entries in the comments, but for the most part these should be rentable on Amazon or Apple in the $3 range. 🎬

09/11/2023

It's the END of the Jazz Age in Golden Boy Episode 5: The 5th Academy Awards! Big thank you to guest host Toni Fellela for bringing some expert analysis to the proceedings. Prepare to expand your vocabularies folks!

Welcome to Golden Boy: An Academy Awards Podcast! Join Moronic Logic monthly as Kenny enlists a rotating co-host from an assemblage of interesting and unique...

15/10/2023

November 1st is right around the corner! Here's your homework folks! Which one of these movies would you award the Golden Boy to?

02/10/2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp1tJV0oPh8&t=1228s

Big thanks To Lantz Hawthorne for guest hosting this episode!

Welcome to Golden Boy: An Academy Awards Podcast! Join Moronic Logic monthly as Kenny enlists a rotating co-host from an assemblage of interesting and unique...

03/09/2023

Welcome to Golden Boy: An Academy Awards Podcast! Join Moronic Logic monthly as Kenny enlists a rotating co-host from an assemblage of interesting and unique...

03/09/2023

Big thank you to Gavin Castleton for stepping in to help break down the third Academy Awards in Golden Boy Episode 3! Does All Quiet on the Western Front win the Golden Boy? The results certainly surprised Kenny!

Welcome to Golden Boy: An Academy Awards Podcast! Join Moronic Logic monthly as Kenny enlists a rotating co-host from an assemblage of interesting and unique...

14/08/2023

Happy 124th Birthday Hitch from the Moronic Logic family!

Celebrate the way Hitch would have wanted by eating his favorite meal- steak with peas and mashed potatoes.
Then party like it's 1930 with a White Lady. (1/4 lemon juice, 1/4 Cointreau, 1/2 dry gin. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.)
For the daring- finish with an ice cream parfait!

Film recommendation today- Suspense (1913) It's a 13 minute silent film directed by Lois Weber- a forgotten auteur from the silent era- that would have certainly terrified a young Hitchcock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4no2UkPpPkA
Or just watch "The Lodger" to relive his first cameo in one of his own films 97 years ago.

02/08/2023

New month, new episode, Golden Boy is heating up! Extra special thanks to this weeks guest- Robert William Albanese III!

Welcome to Golden Boy: An Academy Awards Podcast! Join Moronic Logic monthly as Kenny enlists a rotating co-host from an assemblage of interesting and unique...

15/07/2023

https://www.moroniclogic.com/2197617/13213278-the-hitchcock-challenge-2-the-mountain-eagle-hitchcock-s-lost-1926-film

Our most popular episode of Presenting Alfred Hitchcock, now remastered for all of your favorite podcast listening platforms! This episode has some added commentary and descriptive language to cover the visual elements, so if you've watched the video before let the soothing sounds of our voices guide you on your jog, day at the beach, hike in the woods, or while you fold socks!

Next up will be Golden Boy #2 on August 1st. That episode is shaping up to be something special!

Welcome to the second episode of The Hitchcock Challenge! Episode 2 Features a deep dive into Hitchcock's lost film, The Mountain Eagle! This episode has been adapted from our Youtube video where we SHOW each surviving photograph in (our theoreti...

02/07/2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOiAIf450SU

Golden Boy Episode 1 is in the books! Thank you Cyrus Leddy for taking some time to watch 8 silent films with me from the years 1927-1928 to decide which movie deserved to win the Golden Boy. And we actually agreed! So until you let us know otherwise in the comments, the decision is unanimous!

Welcome to Golden Boy: An Academy Awards Podcast! Join Moronic Logic monthly as Kenny enlists a rotating co-host from an assemblage of interesting and unique...

01/07/2023

Golden Boy Episode 1: The 1929 Academy Awards is now available on all of your podcasting services! Listen now at https://www.moroniclogic.com
The YouTube live action video version will be available later today for those of you that prefer to see pictures with your audio and/or just like to see our handsome faces. (our Moms)
Many thanks to Cyrus Leddy for co-hosting the first episode with me and watching 8 old films in a month and helping decide what film ACTUALLY should have gotten the golden boy! Check him out on his radio talk show "Bucci" on WFMU, Tuesdays 6-7pm EST. Listen live on 91.9fm in NYC/NJ or at wfmu.org. Archive can be found https://wfmu.org/playlists/B2

Conversational documentarians discuss film history, directors' filmographies in chronological order, and decide what really should have won at different film award shows. Golden Boy: An Academy Awards Podcast will premiere simultaneously as both ...

28/05/2023

It's been awhile, but the channel is dusting off the mothballs (after a disaster with the external hard drive) and getting back into the business of making "Conversational Documentaries," a term we are stealing from a commenter that recommended one of our videos on Letterboxd.
This page has always been rather useless for promotional purposes, but I (Kenny) have enjoyed keeping it as a historical record of our progress, and for that purpose if nothing else I've kept it running.
So here's where the channel is today- 124 Subscribers! A huge amount considering we only have 9 videos. The Mountain Eagle episode is our clear winner with over 2,000 views.
Episode 6: The Ring is much delayed and continues to be as we address technical problems. But more than that, a lot of love and research goes into the post recording phase, and I simply can't edit when I am feeling anything less than mega excited to share what I am working on. My happiness has been down a bit, and real life work has taken up quite a bit of my time, unfortunately. We loved The Ring, and Lilian Hall Davis was such a gem in that film that I went out and bought a photo with her actual signature on it. (the picture below!) Her tragic life story is heartbreaking and I am completely in love with her- meaning this episode has a bit of a heightened emotional stake for doing it justice.
MEANWHILE...Moronic Logic will be producing a new show, a guaranteed MONTHLY show starting in July 2024. We don't want to put out content just for the sake of putting out content, so this show will have a definite purpose and stand strong separately next to our Hitchcock programming. It is NOT another director spotlight. It will be live, with minimal editing, and will feature Kenny with a different co-host each installment. More information will trickle out in the coming weeks! (Don't want someone else to copy the idea before it's ready lol)
So that's it! We're back, always coming back, your pals,
Kenny, Sam, Lantz, Jessa, and the upcoming mystery guests of Moronic Logic.

16/01/2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-cm1euSlF4

NEW EPISODE TONIGHT! Your hosts were unexpectedly frozen in carbonite for a few months but we TOTALLY got better. Easy Virtue is Alfred Hitchcock's fifth movie, and until the 1970's it was considered LOST. That's a long time to be MIA, almost 50 years! It really puts into perspective how SHORT a time span six months is. In a way it's like this video isn't late at all! Okay, we're happy to see you again, and we'll get better at staying in touch!
- your friends, Kenny, Sam, and Lantz.

Join Kenny, Sam, and Lantz as Moronic Logic watches and discusses Alfred Hitchcock's fifth movie, Easy Virtue from 1927! We'd love to hear your thoughts and ...

31/07/2022

Starting with "The Pocket Book of Great Detectives", published in 1941, Alfred Hitchcock took the unusual step for a director at the time of branding his name and likeness, licensing it to anthologies of horror and suspense books throughout the 40's and 50's, cementing his legacy with a new generation of readers and future cinephiles.
In 1957, hoping to capitalize on the success of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series, Dell Publishing began releasing over 60 anthology titles, many reprinted multiple times, with often terrifying and hilarious commissioned artwork. (Check out our episode on The Mountain Eagle to see the cover for "More Stories Not For The Nervous" which contains an uncredited still- though slightly repurposed!- from Hitchcock's lost film The Mountain Eagle. Kenny gave a copy to the fella's last Christmas!)
According to the Hitchcock Zone, Hitch himself most likely had very little to zero involvement in these books, his introductions "typically being ghostwritten by the publisher's in-house editor assigned to compile each collection." So you won't find any reliable Hitch anecdotes or lore in these books. But you have to hand it to him, turning himself into a commodity almost 75 years before the internet encouraged everyone to do exactly that on sites like TikTok, Twitch, Patreon, and YouTube! (Punch that subscribe button!)
The picture below is a collection of paperbacks Kenny picked up last year at an antique store and hopes to give away during future promotional drives on the channel. Do you own any Hitchcock anthologies? Or have a recommendation for a particularly memorable short story found in one? A favorite cover? Let us know in the comments!

Happy Sunday folks!
your pallies, Kenny, Lantz, and Sam

25/07/2022

Sunday Social Media Update:
Whew! Moronic Logic's spokeshuman attended a three day wedding this weekend so the weekly update is a bit hungover and late we regret to report. The wedding was a huge success, with zero run away brides and grooms, and after a few glasses of water, editing will resume on our Episode 5! (Shooting for an August release)
To tide you over until next week you can support the groom who interrupted our programming by listening to Bucci's New York based call-in radio show with links over here: https://www.instagram.com/bucciwithbucci/
If you are looking for the opposite of a Hitchcock deep dive, you might be looking for a radio show that asks its viewers, "What is your legacy?" and "What food should a radio host eat during the show to sound "cool"?
In the meantime, here's an attractive image of Ivor Novello and Isabelle Jeans from their hit 1925 film The Rat.
Sorry so sloppy, love your buds Kenny, Sam and Lantz!

17/07/2022

Ivor Novello. There are not enough words to describe the impact Novello has left on pop culture, even today, over one hundred years after his debut. An awards show carries his name. A statue was erected of him in Wales in 2009.

He was a composer that wrote "Keep the Home Fires Burning," one of the most famous British patriotic songs from World War 1, before he was even 21. He became famous on the stage soon after. His play The Rat, cowritten with his writing partner Constance Collier, was selected to become a movie starring himself and rising star Isabel Jeans. He was much more famous than Alfred Hitchcock when he became the star of his third and fourth films, The Lodger (1926) and Downhill (1927). Though Downhill isn't as well regarded nowadays, when watching these two films back to back as they were filmed we can see the dramatic range Ivor Novello possessed. Both characters bearing little similarity to the other, almost as if two different actors were portraying them.

After a brief stint in Hollywood, he returned to London and dominated the stage until his untimely death only a few hours after performing in his own play "The King's Rhapsody". His funeral was televised and seemed to show all of London in attendance. If you love cinema, history, Hitchcock, or just watching a talented performer that hypnotizes you with his craft, check out the silent movie classic The Lodger, it is a compelling and fascinating film that turns 95 this year.

For more gushing about Novello, check out our 3rd and 4th episodes over at Moronic Logic on YouTube! If you can leave a "Like," "Comment," or "Subscribe;" it helps grow our channel by letting YouTube know it should recommend us to new viewers!

10/07/2022

Social Media Sunday Update!

We're moving very slowly at the moment but we are not stopping! I'm going to try to post updates here weekly now, mostly as a diary for myself and the handful of faithful film fanatics that pop in now and then. The Hitchcock Challenge is a labor of love that costs us much more than we take in, especially as we toil as laborers and desk jockeys... but we are determined to see this challenge through! We knew the risks before we started. So where are we at?

Episode 4: Downhill is out! Check it out, and if you like it please consider leaving a like, comment, or subscribe! These things help boost our channel and let other people find it more easily on YouTube!

MoLogic Challenge: The Record in Downhill (Cut from the larger episode) was released last week and has already resulted in the lost record being found! (Our Google skills failed us on this one) Big thanks to Cyrus Leddy for finding the video and a really BIG THANKS to YouTuber Tof Philippo for posting a sampling of the record with a scene from Downhill. Links are all in the comments on YouTube.

Episode 5: Easy Virtue is being edited as we speak. It is moving more quickly the Episode 4 did due to the templates we've built, the new hard drive purchased, and the familiarity of the task at hand. Ideally it will be out between July 24th-August 28th. We're at about two months per episode and hoping to speed up to a month between episodes.

We will be breaking up the show into seasons moving forward. Season One: The Silent Era, will consist of out first 10 episodes. We are internally debating further editing these episodes down and releasing them as a podcast when we are finished. Stay Tuned on how those discussion go! We have recorded the entirety of season 1 and are currently tweeking the formula, the intro, the music and artwork for Season 2: The British Sounds. We are also upgrading our microphones!

This site has been a place for me to spotlight actors and other things I find merit spotlighting from Hitchcock's past movies and it will continue to do so from time to time.

If you are finding this site from the future please leave a like for past Kenny, Lantz, Sam and all of the friends that share your interests, whatever they might be. They are a rare commodity at any age, but especially as we get older and life starts to get in the way. It's good to have reminders that we are not alone in this crazy, distressing, all too hostile world!
Until next week, the edit continues,
your best bud Kenny signing off 🐢

26/06/2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiOufC8PY98
New episode premieres tonight!
And be warned- This episode contains a very hot take late in the video. While we are not experts and these are our carefully thought out opinions, we believe we have discovered an undocumented Alfred Hitchcock cameo in the movie Downhill (1927). We welcome any information that proves us definitively wrong, and will gladly discus any sources that might have mentioned this previous to us in a future video. Intrigued? Watch Downhill and join us back here!

Love, Kenny, Sam, and as always, Lantz

Join Kenny, Sam, and Lantz as Moronic Logic watches and discusses Alfred Hitchcock's fourth movie, Downhill from 1927! We'd love to hear your thoughts and an...

23/04/2022

Cast as Mabel, the store clerk that wrongfully accuses our young hero Roddy of knocking her up and thus setting him on his downhill trajectory in Alfred Hitchcock's 4th film, the aptly titled Downhill, Annette Benson in 1927 is a rising silent film actress about to see her career cut short in 1930 by the arrival of sound.
Though this is the only Hitchcock film she appears in, the two share credits on two earlier films, The Man From Home (1922), and Three Live Ghosts (1922). In these two films Hitchcock was still only getting started in his career, credited as designing the intertitle cards used throughout. The Man From Home was "rediscovered" after years of being thought lost, sitting on a shelf at the EYE Institut in Amsterdam. Available to be watched on YouTube, the film lets Annette do some stunt work, tussling with a co-star in a daylight outdoor brawl, and in a pivotal scene throwing herself in front of a horse drawn carriage.
Check her out in "Downhill" (1927) before our next episode premieres on May 8th!

08/04/2022

April Update: Hello everyone! I just want to take the time to thank all of our early supporters for watching, liking, and supporting our videos. We are still hard at work editing episode 4 at the moment. These take a bit longer to produce than we initially anticipated- our hour and a half length episodes are cut down from three hour+ discussions on the films that then need all of the images, fact checks, dates, research, and explosions we add afterwards making for a ton of work for Kenny after he gets out of his paying job. But we love doing it and look forward to a time when we are publishing more content at regularly scheduled intervals.
For now here's a screen grab from Presenting Alfred Hitchcock Episode 4: Downhill with the type of Information you should come to expect from us!
Please like, subscribe and try to let them play through until the end if you are able because it helps get YouTube to recommend us to new viewers. And absolutely feel free to leave your thoughts and personal movie reviews in the comments sections! We read everything and it def provides motivation to keep going.
We will soon be announcing the winner to our first subscriber challenge, (Somebody has won a copy of Hitchcock/Truffaut!) and are planning two new challenges post Downhill so stay tuned! So again thanks to our early subscribers and expect more Hitchcock centric content here leading up to Downhill.

06/02/2022

We're back! And this time we'll be discussing Alfred Hitchcock's third movie, The Lodger from 1927. This is a great entryway into the world of silent film as it's a Jack the Ripper style murder mystery that will leave you on the edge of your seats, maybe!
Watch the movie on the Criterion Channel app or pick yourself up the DVD/Blu-Ray before watching our video to join the conversation and find out what we found interesting, as well as gaining some insight into the backstory of the film Hitchcock himself called the first true "Hitchcock Movie."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCypbbVExBE&t=1373s

Join Kenny, Sam, and Lantz as Moronic Logic watches and discusses Alfred Hitchcock's third movie, The Lodger from 1927! We'd love to hear your thoughts and a...

25/11/2021

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here at Moronic Logic we are very thankful for the support we have received from friends, family, and new friends from the online community; it is much appreciated and the fuel that keeps us going!

*UPDATE* Episode 3: The Lodger is coming soon! Editing these hour and a half long videos can be a bit more time consuming than we initially anticipated - we will realistically be shooting to release new episodes every three weeks once the kinks get worked out. We have some great stuff planned for 2022, thanks again for your patience and continued support!

10/11/2021

"The fans," she said, "just assumed that I was in real life as I appeared on the screen. Women loathed me. I was warned not to appear on the public beaches and everywhere I went people used to look upon me as something unreal — like griffins and unicorns."

Nita Naldi, one of the leading Vamp femme fatales of the silent era, was cast against type in Hitchcock's lost movie, The Mountain Eagle, as a school teacher in a rural mountain town. Naldi was born in a New York City tenement in 1894 and rose her sisters after her mother died when she was only 19. Taking a job in vaudeville she quickly rose to superstardom and was often paired in films with Rudolph Valentino, a star in his own right. See her performance in the few photographs that still remain in our latest episode of Presenting Alfred Hitchcock: The Mountain Eagle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmZjO2xV89k&t=220s

If you like what we are doing please consider subscribing and leaving a comment on the video as it really helps the channel!