4

SUNDAY

When it came to craziness, Alfred Hitchcock did not discriminate. Just when you start hating Vertigo’s nasally, nerdy Jimmy Stewart for suddenly acting cold toward obsessive Lover No. 1 and condescendingly pushing himself on suicidal Lover No. 2, Mr. Wonderful Life goes batshit himself. Terrifically proving that mad love isn’t reserved for lonesome blondes, Stewart’s Scottie loses it after a paramour’s death, follows a purty woman he spots on the street up to her apartment, and procures her as his own personal Barbie, demanding that she change her hair color and angrily sending away department-store models who aren’t offering the forced-happy couple the exact suit favored by Scottie’s beloved deceased. Whew! At least Norman Bates tried to stick to dead chicks. Watch Hitchcock’s real psychos when Vertigo screens Friday, Aug. 2, and Saturday, Aug. 3, at 9 and 11 p.m. and tonight at 8:30 p.m. at the American City Diner, 5532 Connecticut Ave. NW. Free. (202) 244-1949. (Tricia Olszewski)