While sending my sincere wishes to all you fine and upstanding mothers a very happy day today, it’s time to continue an FtY holiday tradition of honoring cinematic parents whose severe dysfunction shows a certain amount of style.

Today we have a brief and highly corrupted and commercialized salute to one of my favorite evil movie mom’s, Anna Sabastian from Notorious — the first of several twisted movie mothers emanating from the camera eye of Alfred Hitchcock. In fact, so vidid was the role that, as implied by her IMDb mini-bio, the brilliant Madame Leopoldine Konstantin decided not to pursue further movie work: “My very first part and they made me in this monster!”(sic)

Like all great movie monsters, however, Mme. Sabastian is entirely human. What parent wouldn’t relate to her reaction to the news that her naive, overly sensitive, high-ranking Nazi son may have married an American spy?

First, shock, concern, but then the pleasure of being proven right.

But don’t worry, liebling, everything’s going to be alright.

Mama will do her best to make it better, with the help of well known beverage purveyor.

I’m all wrapped in the election right at the moment, but it’s definitely past time to give a mention to Invitation to the Dance Blogathon brought to us by Ferdy on Film. The ‘thon continues through the 10th and featuring all kinds of good stuff, including some material from last year’s Fossethon. If I come up with an idea, there may be another entry but, assuming another split decision in tonight’s election, I wouldn’t bet on it. But I’m mildly psychotic when it comes to the Democratic primary. That shouldn’t stop you. Check it out.

He let Jack Nicholson give it to Hillary! Thanks a lot, Tom Hanks — still, better late than never.

I’m not quite sure this is one the same level as “losing Cronkite” re: Vietnam, but there is no more well-liked person in show business. It’s a pretty great message too, I think.

A few more links — these in a more cheesily cinematic vein, saluting the lingering influence, for good and ill, of the late Dr. Hoffman. (The official RIP is below.)

Suggestions for further clips will be gratefully entertained.

In 1943, a chemist rode a bicycle in Switzerland and wound up changing a small chunk of the universe. That bicyclist who, having accidentally ingested through his fingertips a tiny amount of a new chemical he’d developed, was Dr. Albert Hofmann, who died today at age 102, just over 55 years after that fateful April 16th when the first LSD trip took place.

As mentioned in his Wired obituary, Hoffman often referred to lysergic acid as his “problem child” and, indeed, its effects on individual humans ranged from the apparent beneficial influence on the mental state of psychiatric patient Cary Grant on the one hand to the apparent disastrous impact on, among many others, a self-medicating Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, perhaps the most obvious and saddest known “acid casualty” in popular culture. Other prominent users, like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, had few apparent ill effects. (Lennon, fellow Beatle Ringo Starr, and mutual friend Harry Nilson certainly had far worse problems with far more addictive drugs like heroin, pills, and alcohol.) Lots of others, like Brian Wilson, fell somewhere in between. Mental explorers are, on the whole, probably better off meditating.

Whatever unwitting blame Hofmann shares for the problems with LSD, he also gets unwitting credit for making our mental landscape a little more interesting and fun. Below is a highly idiosyncratic selection of some great musical moments which I think were in some way influenced — one or two possibly indirectly, but no less powerfully — by Dr. Hoffman’s discovery. One great thing about psychedelia is that you can be influenced by it without ever taking a single drug.

Please enjoy these videos responsibly. As the somewhat less responsible Dr. Leary suggested, “set and setting.”

I’ve never even seen Les Miz, but you gotta love these kind of scenes so ably played tribute to above by Neil Patrick Harris (dubbed NPH by the fan base, I’ve noted) and Jason Segal. I certainly would’ve enjoyed the final Wright-Obama contretemps resolution a lot more if it had been conducted in song.

Oh, and just so I can ease back into the film blogging thing here at FtY, I saw Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanomo Bay last night. Not nearly as good as the first one — and I’d once hoped it might actually be better — but still watchable. John Cho and Kal Penn can act…considering that it did pretty well, it looks like they might get the opportunity, and let’s hope some of the time it’s in roles that don’t hinge on their ethnicity, for a change. And, I need to add in light of certain cinematic events, a hearty “NPH lives!”….

…Particularly in light of his upcoming Internet musical starring role. EW’s Popwatch has a very funny and slightly informative video interview. H/t Whedonesque.

…about the election.

Also, catch my possibly correct b.o. prognostication and general wankery bloviation over at Premium Hollywood.

Reminding us why all we are all kind of lucky to be here….

The Google blog, of all things, has more, including the fact that Mr. Lehrer, famously a mathematics professor for most of his life, only wrote 37 songs and performed a mere 109 times. He made them count.

For some reason I keep thinking of this…..

Watch at your own peril.

Regular blogging to return soonish.