News In Brief

Moonstruck moonwalker?

Neil Armstrong, the first astronaut to set foot on the Earth's oldest satellite, has apparently lost none his fascination with the moon. A recent report says he's applied to enter Iran to witness tomorrow's eclipse, when the moon will slip between Earth and sun, throwing a dark shadow over a narrow strip of Europe, the Middle East, and India. For this lunar encounter, however, Armstrong won't be alone. Some 20,000 foreigners are expected in Iran.

BRITAIN RETURNS TO BLACKOUT

News-starved British tabloids have been making the most of the eclipse, of course - including a campaign to deactivate thousands of photo-sensitive street lights, which would otherwise turn themselves on about 11 a.m. local time. That might be helpful to people trying to get on with ordinary life, but it would dim the experience for most of the population. One tabloid pointed out that on the day of the country's last total eclipse, in 1927, the badgers and bats emerged from their lairs.

Top-10 Hitchcock movies picked by panel of directors

In honor of Friday's Alfred Hitchcock centenary, an international group of top directors assembled by the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound magazine has selected "Psycho" as the British suspense master's greatest work. In many of the more than 50 Hitchcock films, ordinary people become tangled in sinister events. The magazine's panel included Martin Scorsese, Atom Egoyan, and Bruce Robinson, each of whom voted for "Psycho." Three others - Milos Forman, John Carpenter, and Baz Luhrmann - selected Vertigo. The panel's Top-10 Hitchcock hits:

1. "Psycho" 1960

2. "Vertigo" 1958

3. "Notorious" 1946

4. "The Birds" 1963

5. "North by Northwest" 1959

6. "Shadow of a Doubt" 1943

7. "Foreign Correspondent" 1940

8. "Frenzy" 1972

9. "The Lady Vanishes" 1938

10. "Marnie" 1964

(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society