A bit late again. Good thing there wasn’t a lot on Monday or Tuesday worth looking at anyway. So we’ll start in on Wednesday. The movie channels apparently decided to dump EVERYTHING they had for the turn of the new year, because the 31st and 1st are jam packed. Craziness. I also threw in some listings from the Fox Movie Channel, since I noticed some great stuff while setting my DVR this week.

Wednesday, December 31

6:00am / 5:00am – TCM – Stagecoach
TCM is apparently doing a John Ford/John Wayne tribute today, and that’s never a bad thing. In this 1939 film, Wayne is an outlaw traveling in a cramped stagecoach along with a prostitute (Claire Trevor, who turns in an amazing performance) and various other staple characters of the Western genre perfectly calculated for maximum uncomfortability.

7:45am / 6:45am – TCM – They Were Expendable
One of the best WWII films made during the war (1945). Wayne is the only one who thinks u-boats have any use in combat, but he proves everyone else wrong. Equal parts action and pathos, this is one that seems fairly routine at any given moment, but put all the moments together (especially the last few) and you get blown away by how good it is.

12:30pm / 11:30am – TCM – The Quiet Man
Ford and Wayne are probably best known for the westerns and war movies they made together, but this romantic drama may be the best of the bunch. Wayne is an American former boxer who travels to Ireland to seek his roots; he finds frequent costar Maureen O’Hara there and wants to marry her, but has to overcome her stubborn streak and her lunkish brother’s objections before he can. Filled with charm and humor, Ford received one of his Oscars for it. One wonders if it would’ve won Best Picture if it had come from a major studio instead of upstart Republic (consider that overblown corker The Greatest Show on Earth won that year). Must See

7:00pm / 6:00pm – Fox Movie Channel – Planet of the Apes
I saw this not knowing anything about the ending. I suggest that if you haven’t seen it and don’t already know the ending that you do the same. One of the classic sci-fi films.
(repeats at 4pm EST on the 1st and 3:30am EST on the 2nd)

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – That’s Entertainment!
If you like musicals, you’ll love That’s Entertainment!, MGM’s celebration of its history of movie musicals. If you don’t like musicals…you won’t. It’s that simple. This was put together in 1974 as a theatrical release in honor of MGM’s 50th anniversary, so it’s really well put together and hosted by many of the stars who were there at the time (and some whose connection to MGM is tenuous at best – like Paramount’s Bing Crosby).

10:00pm / 9:00pm – Sundance – Adaptation
Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman’s follow-up to Being John Malkovich is slightly less bizarre, but still pretty out there – just in a more subtle way. Nicolas Cage plays a screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman who’s stuck in his attempt to adapt a bestseller; it doesn’t help when his successful brother (also played by Cage) shows up. The end feels like it’s going off the rails, but that’s all part of the genius.
(repeats at 5:00am EST on the 1st)

10:30pm / 9:30pm – TCM – That’s Entertainment, Part 2
MGM couldn’t get all their great musical clips into one compilation film, so two years later they made another one. And it’s almost as good, especially because it includes some great non-musical moments as well.

12:00am / 11:00pm – Sundance – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Charlie Kaufman again, this time with Michel Gondry instead of Spike Jonze, and this may be his greatest collaboration – in fact, neither Kaufman nor Gondry apart from each other have matched the perfection of this film. After a painful breakup with his girlfriend Kate Winslet, Jim Carrey decides to undergo a procedure to remove her completely from his memory. But is forgetting the bad times worth losing the good? Must See

12:45pm / 11:45pm – TCM – That’s Entertainment III
This completes the That’s Entertainment! series, really (they did a straight-to-video That’s More Entertainment later), and they are starting to run out of clips. Still. If you liked the first two, it’s worth a watch.

3:00am / 2:00am – TCM – That’s Dancing!
The only downside to the That’s Entertainment series is that it only includes MGM films. That’s Dancing does rectify that, bringing in clips from other studios, but it doesn’t have the panache of MGM’s series.

Thursday, January 1

6:00am / 5:00am – Cartoon Network – Looney Tunes Marathon
Okay, folks, there’s a lot going on today moviewise, and you probably have other stuff going on on New Years, but Cartoon Network is showing like fourteen straight hours of Looney Tunes. This is like a gold mine. These cartoons are like sixty years old, and they’re still among the most hilarious and innovative films ever made, cartoon or live-action, short or feature-length. I’m pretty much going to be parked here all day, since I’ve seen almost all the stuff on TCM today. :) Not that I haven’t seen most of the Looney Tunes…never mind, reasoning broke down.

6:00am / 5:00am – TCM – Nothing Sacred
And TCM is devoting New Year’s Day (during the day at least) to screwball comedy, and that’s hard to pass up. In this one, terminally ill Carole Lombard gets a big newspaper to pay her way to New York and the high society life in exchange for her human interest story. Except she’s only pretending to be terminally ill. Oops.

6:00am / 5:00am – Fox Movie – The Seven Year Itch
I actually can’t remember much about this film (Tom Ewell had a mid-life crisis and dabbles with neighbor Marilyn Monroe), but it is the one with the iconic image of Marilyn’s skirt being blown up as she walks over a grate. So there’s that.
(repeats at 1:30pm EST)

9:00am / 8:00am – TCM – Libeled Lady
Throw William Powell, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, and Jean Harlow all together in an MGM comedy, and you’re almost guaranteed a winner. And Libeled Lady delivers with a twisty story, fast-talking script, and the best these stars have to offer.

11:00am / 10:00am – TCM – Bringing Up Baby
Poor Cary Grant just can’t get away from delightfully ditzy Katharine Hepburn, especially after her dog steals his museum’s priceless dinosaur bone. Oh, and after her pet leopard escapes (and a dangerous zoo leopard escapes at the same time). Incredible situation follows incredible situation in this zaniest of all screwball comedies. Must See

4:15pm / 3:15pm – TCM – The Awful Truth
Married couple Cary Grant and Irene Dunne can’t stand living together any more and divorce, but they also can’t live apart and end up working overtime to sabotage each other’s new relationships. Epitomizes the battle-of-the-sexes aspect of screwball comedy perhaps better than any other film.

6:00pm / 5:00pm – TCM – It Happened One Night
Spoiled heiress Claudette Colbert runs off to marry against Daddy’s wishes, but gets sidetracked by reporter Clark Gable, who wants her story but ends up winning her heart. (Damn, that was corny. I apologize.) MGM sent Gable to Columbia to make this picture as a punishment for getting too big for his contract’s britches, but it backfired – he won an Oscar for his role, as did Colbert, director Frank Capra, writer Robert Riskin, and the film itself. Must See

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – King Kong
The 1933 special effects are a bit creaky at times, but by and large with a little imagination, King Kong more than holds up to its remakes and imitators. I’m one that didn’t mind Peter Jackson’s version as much as a lot fo cinephiles did, but for the real King Kong, go back to the original.

10:00pm / 9:00pm – TCM – Them!
Atomic anxiety strikes again, this time in the form of radiation-created giant ants that threaten Texas and then California. I was actually far more entranced with this surprisingly solid 1950s sci-fi B-movie than I expected to be. Frankly, I loved it, and I wish we could still manage to make creature feature as simple and as simply great as this one.

11:00pm / 10:00pm – Fox Movie – Die Hard
All John McClane wants to do is get home for Christmas. But plans change, especially when a bunch of terrorists take over his wife’s office building and McClane has to take them out almost singlehandedly. And give us one of the best action movies ever made. The sequels are not that good. Skip ‘em.

Friday, January 2

The networks overcrowded the 31st and the 1st, and ran out of good stuff for the 2nd. But then found a bunch more for the 3rd. Go figure.

Saturday, January 3

10:00am / 9:00am – IFC – The Cat’s Meow
I throw this in here because for a while it was one of my arguments that Kirsten Dunst is actually good if given the right part. Now Marie Antoinette is my argument for that, but The Cat’s Meow remains a fun little Hollywood period piece. Dunst plays Marion Davies, a 1920s actress who’s now better known for being William Randolph Hearst’s mistress – the film is set at one of Hearst’s parties at which producer Thomas Ince mysteriously died. Director Peter Bogdanovich has made 1920s-1930s nostalgia (often with a cinematic twist) his specialty, and while The Cat’s Meow ain’t no Last Picture Show or even Paper Moon, it’s still enjoyable.
(repeats at 4pm EST)

12:00pm / 11:00am – Fox Movie – Two for the Road
Once in a while a film comes out of nowhere and blindsides me with brilliance. Two for the Road is directed by Stanley Donen, best known for lighthearted musicals, comedies, and mysteries. It stars Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney; Hepburn at least also best known for lighthearted, whimsical fare. But Two for the Road is one of the most thoughtful and adult films of the 1960s, and I mean that in a good way. It dissects Hepburn’s and Finney’s relationship, cutting back and forth between their meeting, their marriage, and their separation almost as if all three are happening at the same time – every moment of their life together becomes part of who they are and part of the sum of their relationship, and Donen has found the perfect way to depict that. Must See

2:00pm / 1:00pm – TCM – Invasion of the Body Snatchers
My favorite thing about this 1956 sci-fi classic is that it can be read either as pro-Left or pro-Right with very little difficulty (which shows just how close totalitarian Fascism and Communism end up being in practice). So it’s politically charged, but never in a way that feels overly heavy-handed and manipulative. Aliens are invading by taking over people’s bodies, turning them into emotionless pod people. They’ve tried remaking it a couple of times, but somehow it never ends up packing quite the punch of the original.

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – Modern Times
Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece (to my mind, anyway) thrusts our hapless Little Tramp into an overly mechanized factory world, brilliantly skewering the industrial revolution and its reduction of humanity to gears and cogs. He escapes with the gamine Paulette Goddard, who shines as much here as in any of her other films. It’s a mostly silent film, despite being made in 1936, but it’s hard to argue with any conviction that Chaplin was behind the times. Must See

8:00pm / 7:00pm – IFC – Fargo
This blackest of black comedies has it all: hitmen, theft, blackmail, murder, and woodchipper-as-body-disposal-mechanism, not to mention an extremely pregnant policewoman to sort it all out. The Coen Brothers spin one of their finest yarns (I place it third behind O Brother Where Art Thou and No Country For Old Men, which still leaves it really darn high in my overall film list), proving why they’re the masters of the everyday macabre. Must See
(repeats at 1:00am EST on the 4th)

11:00pm / 10:00pm – TCM – The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
Ooh, I haven’t seen this for such a long time! Let’s see what I remember…it’s based on a Dr. Seuss story about a kid who dreams his piano teacher is an evil prison-master. What I really remember is that it’s just about the most surreal and innovative children’s movie I’ve ever seen. I’d compare it only to Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s The City of Lost Children, except I wouldn’t actually show Jeunet’s film to kids. In any case, Dr. T‘s a trip that’s well-worth taking.

2:30am / 1:30am (4th) – TCM – Shall We Dance
Not one of Fred and Ginger’s best, but hey. It’s still Fred and Ginger.

Sunday, January 4

10:30pm / 9:30pm – TCM – The Red Shoes
Real ballerina Moira Shearer plays an aspiring ballerina in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s version of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale. Actually, the fairy tale is the story within the story – the main story is more Svengali and Trilby, as a producer extraordinaire takes Shearer under his wing, but is outraged when she falls in love with poor young composer instead. In between all this is probably the greatest ballet sequence ever put on film (on a set that would never have fit on any stage), as the Anderson story becomes Shearer’s signature role. The Technicolor is breathtaking, too.

Non-related, probably non-interesting side note. I write a lot more when I’m tired (i.e., longer descriptions of the movies). Apparently the energy-intensive part of writing for me is not the actual writing, but the editing. Or the writing concisely.

Merry Christmas, everyone! I apologize for not getting this out on Sunday. I was having eureka moments in programming and it completely slipped my mind.

Tuesday, 23 December

12:35am / 11:35pm (24th) – Sundance – 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
Another chance at one of the best movies from last year.

Wednesday, 24 December

11:10am / 10:10am – Sundance – Fahrenheit 451
Truffaut’s first English-language film, an adaptation of Bradbury’s famous anti-censorship, anti-passive media novel. Rewatched it recently, and found it better than I had remembered.

6:00pm / 5:00pm – TCM – The Bishop’s Wife
Not one of my favorite Christmas films, but its popularity continues despite my ambivalence. :)

1:00am / 12:00am (25th) – TCM – Meet Me in St. Louis
I forget to count this as a Christmas film, but it is the origin of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” so I guess it is. It’s also just plain great.

Thursday, 25 December

4:00pm / 3:00pm – Sundance – The Constant Gardener
I’d have to check and make sure, but I think The Constant Gardener is sitting pretty right at the top of my Best of 2005 list. Its combination of love story, conspiracy thriller, and human rights drama meshes perfectly, and isn’t hurt by gorgeous cinematography, a moody and contemplative tone, and a terrific performance from Rachel Weisz (which earned her an Oscar).

4:00pm / 3:00pm – TCM – Ben-Hur (1959)
TCM showed the silent version of Ben-Hur a couple of weeks ago; here’s the Charlton Heston version. They’re also doing King of Kings and The Greatest Story Ever Told earlier in the day, if your need for life-of-Jesus epics isn’t satiated.

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – Casablanca
Bogart. Bergman. Witty bon mots. Thwarted romance and nobility. Classic.

10:00pm / 9:00pm – TCM – The Big Sleep
Bogart and Bacall in Howard Hawks’ version of Raymond Chandler’s best detective novel. Can’t get any better than that.

12:00pm /11:00pm – TCM – The Maltese Falcon
Bogart inhabits Dashiell Hammett’s private eye Sam Spade, creating pretty much the definitive on-screen hard-boiled detective. Not mention setting the early benchmark for noirs films.

2:00am / 1:00am (26th) – TCM – The African Queen
I didn’t love The African Queen as much as I wanted to, and I don’t know why. Bad mood probably. I felt like Bogart, despite his Oscar win for this, was phoning it in a little, and Hepburn felt over the top. Anyway, it’s still one you oughta see once, just so you can say you have.

4:00am / 3:00am (26th) – TCM – High Sierra
Bogart’s breakout role as an on-the-run con man who gets involved with the lame Joan Leslie. (No, I mean actually crippled.) He’d been bumming around as a Warner second lead or villain, but with 1941′s double punch of High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon, he unequivocally arrived.

Friday, 26 December

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – Lawrence of Arabia
There were a lot of epics made in the 1950s and ’60s. Today most of them are laughable to one degree or another. But Lawrence of Arabia stands as tall as it ever did, refusing to reduce its enigmatic subject into the confines of normal biography or explain his conflicting actions and traits. Plus, the most gorgeous desert cinematography you’ll ever see. Ever.

Saturday, 27 December

8:00am / 7:00am – IFC – The Seven Samurai
Akira Kurosawa’s Samurai epic usually appears very near the top of any list of favorite/best foreign films. My difficulty with Japanese cinema means it’s not that high for me yet, but I respect it for its influence alone. It’s basically Kurosawa’s take on the Western, and in return it spawned the revisionist Western of the 1960s with its complicated heroes and moral ambiguity.

12:00pm / 11:00am – TCM – The Great Escape
Steve McQueen, cool as only Steve McQueen could be, leads an elaborate escape attempt from a WWII POW camp. It’s a lot more fun than that sounds.

3:00pm / 2:00pm – TCM – True Grit
John Wayne won an Oscar for his role in this. I feel like it may have been a lifetime achievement sort of thing, despite being in a competitive category, but hey – what do I know? I actually haven’t seen it yet.

3:30pm / 2:30pm – IFC – Howl’s Moving Castle
My favorite of Hayao Miyazaki’s fantastic animated features.

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – Woman of the Year
Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, together for the first time. And would you believe that this is one of only a couple of their eight films together that I haven’t seen yet? I’ve DVR’d it at least twice, but it keeps getting deleted before I watch it. Third time’s the charm?

10:45pm / 9:45pm – IFC – The Cooler
I mentioned The Cooler as one of my favorite Maria Bello films in my 20 Favorite Actresses post, and in fact, it’s one of my favorite recent indie films, no qualifications. William H. Macy, who’s always worth watching, turns in one of his most sympathetic performances, and Alec Baldwin hones his ironic boss skills before he moved on to 30 Rock.

2:00am / 1:00am (28th) – TCM – Annie Hall
I’ve been denigrating Annie Hall in favor of Manhattan for a long time now, but I just rewatched Annie Hall last week, and wow. It’s way better than I remembered. I still love Manhattan to bits, but it’s at least a tie now between them. Brilliant writing. Brilliant.

Sunday, 28 December

8:00am / 7:00am – IFC – Rashomon
I actually like Kurosawa’s Rashomon quite a bit better than The Seven Samurai, and I imagine that’s due to my love of ambiguous narratives. A woman and two men meet in the woods. One man is killed. But what caused his death is unknown – we have conflicting stories from three witnesses, but cannot judge the truth. Rashomon is the first film to a) have completely unreliable cinematic segments and b) refuse to tell the audience which is true. It breaks the rule that what you see on screen is real, and it doesn’t allow either the characters or the audience any way to figure out what is real. Truly groundbreaking.

5:00pm / 4:00pm – IFC – The Princess and the Warrior
Tom Tykwer’s second film with Franka Potente isn’t as frenetic as the first (Run Lola Run), but has a quieter sort of mesmerizing power all its own. It never gained the traction that Lola did, but it deserves more of an audience than it’s gotten.

3:00am / 2:00am (29th) – TCM – Mr. Hulot’s Holiday
French writer/actor/director Jacques Tati specialized in nearly-silent physical comedy that reminds one at times of Chaplin or Keaton, but with a slightly more ironic French flair about it. In Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, a trip to the seashore turns out to be anything but relaxing.

The film blogosphere has another meme going around, this time started by Nathaniel R. of Film Experience, who has called for bloggers to celebrate twenty of their favorite actresses. No one’s tagged me, but that never stopped me before! So many actresses are worthy to be on a list like this, but in the end, I went with the actresses that can sell me on a film – the ones I’ll see in anything, just because they’re in it. Oh, and the level of my girl-crush on them is factored in as well. ;)

I originally wrote a paragraph about each actress (like Arbogast did in his very informative take on the meme), but opted instead for a more minimalist approach. If you want more info on the actresses or why I love them, let me know.

Maria Bello (especially: The Cooler, Thank You For Smoking, A History of Violence)

Click here to read on!

Though I obviously recommend all these films (or I wouldn’t list them here), I’m going to start putting MUST-SEE on ones that I’d say you, well, must see. That is, if you aren’t able to catch them on TV this week, put them in your Netflix queue. Or buy them. Something.

Thanks to those of you who’ve mentioned liking these recommendations. If you do end up seeing any of them, it’d be fun to hear what you thought!

Monday, 15 December

10:30am EST / 9:30am CST – TCM – My Favorite Wife
Cary Grant and Irene Dunne made three films together, and though My Favorite Wife doesn’t hold a candle to their earlier outing The Awful Truth, it’s still an enjoyable screwball comedy, if you’re a fan of that sort of thing. Dunne returns to her husband Grant after seven years of being shipwrecked and believed dead, only to find him about to be remarried. Oh, and she’s brought fellow shipwreckee Randolph Scott with her.

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – Guys and Dolls
Marlon Brando gets his musical on as charming gambler Sky Masterson and romances straight-laced Jean Simmons as part of a bet – at first. But Frank Sinatra and Vivian Blaine steal the show as the city’s go-to craps game host and his long-suffering fiance.

9:00pm / 8:00pm – IFC – Trainspotting
Days in the lives of Scottish heroin addicts. Sounds like a downer, and I won’t say it’s not, but it’s also brilliant and searing. Danny Boyle is a director who can take stories that could be routine and make them into something special. His current film Slumdog Millionaire is getting rave reviews, so check that one out, too.
(repeats at 1:00am EST 16th)

10:45pm / 9:45pm – TCM – Hamlet (1948)
Is Laurence Olivier’s moody Dane the definitive Hamlet? I’m not sure, so take a look for yourself and get back to me.

Tuesday, 16 December

11:25am / 10:25am – IFC – Howl’s Moving Castle
Hayao Miyazaki has been a leader in the world of kid-friendly anime films for several years now, and while many would point to Spirited Away as his best film, I actually enjoyed Howl’s Moving Castle the most of all his films. Japanese animation takes some getting used to, but Miyazaki’s films are well worth it, and serve as a wonderful antidote to the current stagnation going on in American animation (always excepting Pixar).

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – Shadow of a Doubt
Said to be Hitchcock’s personal favorite of all of his films – an interesting choice, given the plethora of more iconic films from him, but Shadow of a Doubt definitely has its charms. The ever-great and too often underused Teresa Wright is young Charlie, who idolizes her namesake Uncle Charlie, who we know (though she does not) is the infamous Black Widow murderer.

12:00pm / 11:00pm – TCM – The Third Man
Orson Welles is the elusive Harry Lime in this intelligent thriller from director Carol Reed and screenwriter Graham Greene, Joseph Cotten the journalist trying to track him down. From the moody noir lighting to Lime’s ingenious monologue about power and cuckoo clocks, The Third Man is one of the greatest films of all time. MUST SEE

1:00am / 12:00pm (17th) – Sundance – Topsy-Turvy
Gilbert & Sullivan played a large part in the development of the musical comedy, and Topsy-Turvy details their tumultuous working relationship and their stage successes. This film flew under the radar a bit a few years ago, but got a fair amount of critical praise and deserves more play than it’s had.

Wednesday, 17 December

2:45pm / 1:45pm – TCM – The Apartment
Billy Wilder had a knack for combining comedy and drama into bittersweet goodness, and that’s exactly what he does here, garnering Oscars for Picture, Director, and Screenplay in the process. Jack Lemmon lends his apartment to his boss Fred MacMurray for romantic trysts – a situation that gets even more complicated when MacMurray trysts with Shirley MacLaine, who Lemmon happens to love from afar. Everything comes together perfectly in this film, one of Wilder’s best. MUST SEE

5:00pm / 4:00pm – TCM – The Great Escape
I expected to mildly enjoy or at least get through this POW escape film. What happened was I was completely enthralled with every second of it, from failed escape attempts to planning the ultimate escape to the dangers of carrying it out. It’s like a heist film in reverse, and extremely enjoyable in pretty much every way.

10:00pm / 9:00pm – Sundance – 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
In case you hadn’t noticed, I pretty much think this film is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Okay, that might be a little much. (Or not, since I’m not really a sliced bread fan. But that’s by the by.) Anyway, I’ve hyped 4 Months just about every chance I’ve gotten, so why should I stop now? See it. See it now. Or, like, Wednesday at 10pm. MUST SEE

Thursday, 18 December

2:00pm / 1:00pm – TCM – Topkapi
If The Great Escape is the greatest example of a reverse heist film, then Topkapi is at least one of the top five actual heist films. I love me some heist films.

10:00pm / 9:00pm – TCM – 12 Angry Men
My dad is fond of pointing out that 12 Angry Men must’ve been one of the most economical movies to make ever, given that it basically only needed one set. And yet, watching and listening to twelve jurors debate the fate of one defendant accused of murder remains a riveting experience, even sixty years later.

Friday, 19 December

9:45am / 8:45am – TCM – Paths of Glory
In this early Stanley Kubrick film, Kirk Douglas argues against implacable military brass for the lives of his soldiers, accused of cowardice in battle because they refused to obey an idiotic order calling for a suicidal charge. I didn’t love it as much as I wanted to, but there are definitely a lot of interesting things going on – I particularly liked the exploration of the disconnect between old military tactics and new warfare reality (which is a particular favorite historical topic of mine, somehow, and likely the source of my fascination with World War I).

7:15pm / 6:15pm – IFC – The Player
I forget what all happens in this Robert Altman film. I remember it being good, except that Tim Robbins for some reason annoys me so I had a difficult time caring about his character, which was kind of a problem. So why did I put it on here? Because it has an amazing opening tracking shot, intentionally meant to beat the record for longest opening tracking shot but also serving as an extremely good introduction to the world of the Hollywood film studio within which the film is set.

9:30pm / 8:30pm – IFC – The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
This is the one Wes Anderson film I haven’t seen. I need to rectify that, because I LOVE everything else he’s done.

Saturday, 20 December

10:25am / 9:25am – IFC – Strictly Ballroom
The first in Baz Luhrmann’s informal Red Curtain trilogy, set in the world of Australian ballroom dancing, which gets shook up when one of the dancers dares to introduce *gasp* his own flavor of Latin dancing into the highly-regulated competition.
(repeats 3:15pm EST)

12:15pm / 11:15am – TCM – Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Naive and idealistic James Stewart gets appointed junior senator at the behest of conniving senator Claude Rains, who expects to control the state with Stewart in his pocket. But Rains underestimated Stewart’s drive for goodness and justice, which leads to one of the most famous filibusters in cinematic (or probably real-life) history. Capra favorite Jean Arthur is on hand as the hardboiled cynic warmed by Stewart’s presence. MUST SEE

6:35pm / 5:35pm – IFC – Gosford Park
Murder, intrigue, and understated class strife rule the day in Altman’s foray into British drama, though he keeps his signature ensemble cast.
(repeats 1:15pm EST on the 21st)

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – You Can’t Take It With You
Capra again, with Stewart and Arthur again, this time as a newly affianced couple whose families – one conservative bankers, the other unconventional kooks – clash as they get to know each other.

10:00pm / 9:00pm – Sundance – All About My Mother
I have yet to see all of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar’s films, but if he had just made this one, he’d go down as a master in my book. A mother loses her son in a car accident, and in the process of mourning him returns to her home town to reconnect with her past. Oh, and there’s a lot of theatre (the title is a take-off from theatre story All About Eve), a pregnant nun, and some transvestites. Par for the course for Almodovar, really, but All About My Mother has such heart and depth that I can’t help falling in love with it every time, due in no small part to a terrific performance by Cecilia Roth. MUST SEE

Sunday, 21 December

6:30am / 5:30am – TCM – The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
As far as I know, this is the only film Hitchcock made twice, directing a remake in 1956 with James Stewart and Doris Day. I actually haven’t seen the earlier version myself yet, but it has Peter Lorre in it, and that’s never a bad thing.

8:00am / 7:00am – TCM – Good News
If you’re the type of person who a) likes people randomly breaking out into song and b) is willing to believe that thirty-somethings June Allyson and Peter Lawford could be college students, you’ll probably like Good News. It’s mindless fun of the type MGM did so well, as braniac Allyson takes on the arduous task of tutoring jock Lawford in French. One of those that isn’t that great a film, but everyone seems to have had a lot of fun making it, and I’m willing to reciprocate by enjoying myself watching it.

1:15am / 12:15am (22nd) – TCM – Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1926)
Everyone knows about Charlton Heston’s Ben-Hur. You know, the one that won eleven Oscars, a record which stood for, like, fifty years? This isn’t that one. This is the 1926 silent version of the same story, with pre-talkie hearththrob Ramon Novarro as Ben-Hur, and an equally impressive (for its time) chariot race sequence. In some ways, I actually prefer this version to the bombastic 1959 version, and it’s definitely worth a watch.

3:45am / 2:45am (22nd) – TCM – The 400 Blows
Ah, Truffaut. Oh, The 400 Blows. Words can hardly describe how much I love this film, and what it has meant to me, cinematically speaking. It was the beginning of my love affair with the French New Wave, one of the first non-English films I whole-heartedly loved, and really opened up a whole world of filmic experience and critical thought to me. Beyond that, it’s a beautiful and unforgettable film in and of itself, a remarkably real, moving, and unmanipulative (okay, maybe a little manipulative) foray into the life of a young Parisian boy on the cusp of adulthood. Don’t miss it. MUST SEE

Really well cut together collection of inspirational speeches from the movies. Hits all the obvious ones (Braveheart, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) plus some you might not expect (Animal House, The Muppets). The ending is a bit abrupt, but I can’t complain.

Because they’re hot on my mind, I’m going to highlight the two bands I’ve seen most recently. They go together nicely, too – indie-pop husband/wife duos.

The Rosebuds

The Rosebuds, aka Kelly and Ivan, hail from North Carolina, and take on a number of stylistic hats in their various albums, from the sunny yet dark-undertoned folksy pop of 2008′s Life Like to 2007′s synth-inflected Night of the Furies. I haven’t heard Birds Make Good Neighbors, but I’ve seen it labeled “alt country,” which usually means something like Rilo Kiley’s More Adventurous. I prefer Life Like, but it’s great to see bands try different things and do well at them all. They were especially good at encouraging audience participation, leading call-and-response singing on “Nice Fox” and teaching us to dance with them on “Bow to the Middle.” The dancing didn’t work out as well since there wasn’t a lot of room to move around, but hey. It was fun anyway.

The Rosebuds – Nice Fox
The Rosebuds – Get Up, Get Out

Life Like (2008) Amazon MP3 Amazon CD	Night of the Furies (2007) Amazon MP3 Amazon CD	Birds Make Good Neighbors (2005) Amazon MP3 Amazon CD

The Submarines

I mentioned on FriendFeed last week that LA-based band The Submarines (Blake and John) hit all of my current hot buttons for liking bands, but I didn’t elaborate. Those buttons are: both male and female vocals, mostly guitar but with some other instruments thrown in (they had xylophone, tambourine, and a keyboard-pipe thingie that I should know what is called but don’t), and catchy poppy tunes with lyrics that have a darker undertone (“every day I wake up, I choose love, I choose light, I try, but it’s too easy just to fall apart” from “You, Me, and the Bourgeoisie,” which is also possibly the peppiest attack on bourgeois complacency in recent memory – making it an interesting choice for the iPhone G3 commercial). Plus, they’re totally adorable. I just wanted to put them in my pocket and take them home. They’re almost sickeningly adorable, and I suspect that some will find them too precious. But I’m in a precious phase.

The Submarines – Swimming Pool
The Submarines – Clouds

Honeysuckle Weeks (2008) Amazon MP3 Amazon CD	Declare a New State! Amazon MP3 Amazon CD

Also fitting this category are married duo Mates of State (Kori and Jason), but I’ve already featured them a time or two, so I won’t do it again. They’re fantastic with just keyboards and drums. Heh, I just realized that the girls in all three of these bands are blondes. Maybe that’s a pre-req for being in a husband-and-wife indie-pop duo?

Monday, 8 December

None. Can you believe it?

Tuesday, 9 December

11:30am / 10:30am – TCM – The Bad and the Beautiful
TCM is running a Kirk Douglas festival, but including both The Bad and the Beautiful and Two Weeks in Another Town (at 6pm) makes a nice double feature of Douglas/Vincente Minnelli/Hollywood-on-Hollywood films. Gloria Grahame won her Best Supporting Oscar for this one.

1:05pm / 12:05pm – IFC – Les enfants du paradise (Children of Paradise)
A shy mime loves a popular actress in this classic French film set in the artsy district in Paris. This is one of the most magical, beautiful, captivating films I’ve ever seen. It’s almost three hours long, and it feels like half that.

6:00pm / 5:00pm – TCM – Two Weeks in Another Town
I haven’t actually seen this one, but as a post-Bad and the Beautiful Minnelli/Douglas collaboration, I want to.

6:15pm / 5:15pm – IFC – Garden State
Somehow it has apparently become fashionable to hate on Garden State, but I refuse. I love it, and I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon.

4:00am / 3:00am (9th) – IFC – The Cooler
In this under-the-radar film, William H. Macy plays a loser whose bad luck gets him a job as a “cooler” at a casino – his luck spreads and cools off any hot winning streaks that might be going on. But when he starts a relationship with Maria Bello, his new-found love and acceptance turns his luck. This film reinforced my knowledge of Bill Macy’s talent, introduced me to Maria Bello, and gave Alec Baldwin pretty his best role until 30 Rock.

Wednesday, 10 December

Nothing again! Wowsers.

Thursday, 11 December

8:30am / 7:30am – IFC – Strictly Ballroom
Baz Luhrmann’s Australia is now in theatres, and though I liked Australia quite a lot, it isn’t actually nearly as Australian as this first entry in his informal “Red Curtain” trilogy (the others being Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!). Strictly Ballroom has a Latin dancer shaking up the world of Australian ballroom competition by introducing his own moves. The film is exuberant, colorful, in-your-face, and fabulous.

11:35am / 10:30am – IFC – A Hard Day’s Night
Part concert film, part documentary, and part musical comedy, Richard Lester’s film depicts a day in the life of The Beatles, at the height of the British Invasion in 1964. It’s like a breath of fresh air when compared with the over-produced, bloated monsters that most musicals had become in the 1960s, and remains one of the best music-centric films ever made.
(repeats at 6:25am EST on the 12th)

11:45pm / 10:45pm – TCM – High Society
This is not one of the best music-centric films ever made, but it is the musical version of The Philadelphia Story, with both Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra crooning it up with songs by Cole Porter. Oh, and one of Grace Kelly’s last roles before she retired to become a princess and stuff. Still, you wish with that pedigree that it were better than it is. Ah, well.

Friday, 12 December

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – Little Women (1933)
A repeat from last week, but mentioning it again because this time it’s followed by its 1949 remake. This is the Katharine Hepburn-led version.

10:00pm / 8:00pm – TCM – Little Women (1949)
And this is the June Allyson-led version, though it tends to be marketed now (when it’s marketed at all) as the Elizabeth Taylor version – she plays Amy. The interesting thing is that the 1933 version and the 1949 version have basically the same exact script. I mean, almost to the word. Yet, the 1933 version is actually good, and this one is mediocre at best. Watch both and tell me I’m wrong.

Saturday, 13 December

2:15pm / 1:15pm – TCM – Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
I dare anyone to watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes all the way through (and Some Like It Hot) and tell me that Marilyn Monroe either was a dumb blonde or played only dumb blondes. Her Lorelei Lee seems like the quintessential airhead, but she’s not – it’s a highly calculated act. Similarly, the film seems like a total fluff piece, but I rank it among my favorite comedies of all time. Jane Russell is equally brilliant as Lorelei’s smart-alecky cohort, and Howard Hawks proves yet again that he can direct any genre and make it amazingly special.

4:00pm / 3:00pm – TCM – Christmas in Connecticut
Geez, Christmas is coming close fast. How does this happen every year? Barbara Stanwyck has a way of making even routine films seems special, and that’s what she does here (and in the next film, Remember the Night). She’s a popular columnist who writes about her wonderful family and cozy farm, which is all well and good except she hasn’t got a wonderful family or cozy farm, and her editor has invited himself and a lucky soldier over for Christmas to experience the great things she writes about. Madcap coverups ensue, and her falling for the soldier doesn’t serve to untangle matters at all.

6:00pm / 5:00pm – TCM – Remember the Night
Again, not really a great film, but Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray (four years pre-Double Indemnity) make it an enjoyable one. Then again, I did see it when I was in the midst of a super-Stanwyck-fan phase, so I might have a biased memory of it.

Sunday, 14 December

5:30am / 4:30am – TCM – Singin’ in the Rain
If you haven’t seen this potentially greatest movie musical of all time, DO IT NOW. If you have? WATCH IT AGAIN.

8:00am / 7:00am – IFC – Jules et Jim
Francois Truffaut directs this enigmatic love triangle of a film, as Jules and Jim have their close friendship threatened by their mutual love for the elusive Catherine (the ever-perfect Jeanne Moreau). I’m due for a rewatch on it myself; I expect I’ll get a lot more out of it now than I did when I saw it several years ago, with only one other Truffaut and no other New Wave films under my belt.

10:00pm / 9:00pm – Sundance – Adaptation
Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman followed Being John Malkovich with this film, which seems to be just as polarizing. In typical Kaufman-esque self-referentiality, Nicolas Cage plays a writer named Charlie Kaufman struggling to adapt a book to film. Adding to his difficulty is his doppelganger, Donald Kaufman, who writes blockbuster movies with ease. The film becomes an exploration of the adaptation process, as well as the Hollywoodization of screenplays. Many people think it falls apart toward the end, but I think it only seems to; in fact, what happens to Charlie’s sceenplay within the film happens TO the film as well. It’s trippy, but it’s brilliant.

2:15am / 1:15am (15th) – TCM – Das Boot
Another one I haven’t seen, but gets highly recommended to me quite often. Wolfgang Petersen’s most well-known pre-Hollywood film set aboard a submarine. Yeah, I really don’t know much more about it than that, but it routinely makes it onto “best non-English language film” type lists.

3:30am / 2:30am (15th) – IFC – Chicago
This is one of the films that started making movie musicals a viable genre again, and for that, I thank it. I also happen to like it quite a lot on its own terms.

I’ve never been a big fan of horror films and usually try to avoid them, but the horror genre has become such a significant gap in my cinematic experience (“you’ve never seen Night of the Living Dead?! OMGWTFBBQ!”) that I decided to make a concerted effort during the month of October to catch up on some horror classics and expand my horror repertoire. I didn’t get through nearly all of the recommendations I got for the project, but hey! I’m all set for next year. :) Anyway, October’s long gone, but here’s a brief rundown of the Horror Experiment, which I actually enjoyed quite a lot.

Val Lewton series

The Silent Movie Theatre devoted October to horror, as well, including a double-feature series of Val Lewton-produced films, which are among the best classic horror films ever made (along with the Universal monster series). I wrote a bit about most of Lewton’s films in this Film on TV post, when TCM played a Lewton festival. I won’t repeat myself on Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie or Isle of the Dead, or The Body Snatcher, except to say that I saw all of them for the second (or third, or fourth) time in October, and they get better each time. The only film in the Silent Movie Theatre’s series I hadn’t seen was The Ghost Ship (not to be confused with the 2002 film Ghost Ship), which isn’t particularly a horror film. It was a well-done psychological drama, exploring (as all of Lewton’s films do) the potential horror that anyone may carry within themselves – in this case, a ship’s second in command becoming paranoid that the captain may want him dead. It reminded me of The Caine Mutiny more than anything else.
Cat People – USA 1942; directed by Jacques Tourneur; starring Simone Simon, Kent Smith – IMDb
I Walked With a Zombie – USA 1943; directed by Jacques Tourneur; starring Frances Dee, James Ellison – IMDb
The Ghost Ship – USA 1943; directed by Mark Robson; starring Richard Dix, Russell Wade – IMDb
The Body Snatcher – USA 1945; directed by Robert Wise; starring Boris Karloff, Henry Daniell – IMDb
Isle of the Dead – USA 1945; directed by Mark Robson; starring Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew – IMDb
Amazon (box set of these all these Lewton films, plus a couple of others)

Night of the Living Dead

Zombies have always been a particular dislike of mine, keeping me away from pretty much all of George Romero’s films. But I bit the bullet and crossed the best-known zombie movie of all time off my list. And you know what? It’s good. And I think my blind hatred of zombies is fading (more on that in a bit). I found it especially interesting that the hero character is black – in 1968, Romero reversed racial stereotypes that still plague horror films today. I can’t decide whether I liked that the zombies were caused by radioactivity. It’s very classic sci-fi nuclear paranoia, but I sort of like horror to be more unexplained.
USA 1968; directed by George A. Romero; starring Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea
IMDb | Amazon (note: there are at least eight editions of Night of the Living Dead on DVD; from a bit of quick research, the Millennium Edition I’ve linked here seems to be unanimously the best print)

Rosemary’s Baby

I put this one off for a long time because I was afraid that a Roman Polanski-directed film about the birth of the anti-Christ would be too freaky. It isn’t. Most of it was actually a little boring. Lots of Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer being subtly odd and Mia Farrow being subtly creeped out. The part where she was impregnated by the devil was definitely freaky, but in a very over-the-top way that made it not quite work for me. I did, however, learn that if you do happen to be impregnated by the devil, be prepared for an extremely uncomfortable pregnancy.
USA 1968; directed by Roman Polanski; starring Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon
IMDb | Amazon

Tales from the Crypt

This got recommended me after I mentioned that 1945′s anthology film Dead of Night was one of my favorite horror movies. In this anthology horror film, five people get lost while exploring a crypt and the crypt-keeper tells them grisly stories that may be in the future – or in their past. The five stories are all interesting and macabre, almost like Twilight Zone episodes. I really like the anthology format; most horror films seem to have about a half-hour or hour long story stretched into two hours anyway.
USA 1972; directed by Freddie Francis; starring Ralph Richardson, Joan Collins, Peter Cushing
IMDb | Amazon

Retribution

I’ve delved a very little bit into the world of Japanese horror (with Kwaidan, which still deserves a rewatch from me, and Ringu, which I honestly didn’t like as much as its American remake), and though I’m still struggling with my understanding of Japanese cinema, Retribution is definitely my favorite Jhorror so far, and I’m looking foward to seeing some of director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s other films. A detective is haunted by a woman in a red dress and has to delve deep in his memories to figure out why. It’s thoughtful, creepy, has lovely cinematography, and somehow the jump scenes didn’t bother me as much as usual. The end was a little disappointing, though – like Kurosawa didn’t quite know how to finish and just threw something on that doesn’t really make sense.
Japan 2006; directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa; starring Kôji Yakusho, Riona Hazuki
IMDb | Amazon

Planet Terror

Here’s how I know my zombie-hatred is on the way out. I LOVED Planet Terror. I avoided even the idea of seeing Grindhouse in theatres, because it sounded so totally not my thing, and I never thought that I would remotely enjoy Robert Rodriguez’s part of the double-feature more than Tarantino’s. (I never did make it through Death Proof, out of sheer boredom.) But Planet Terror takes Night of the Living Dead, Resident Evil, Kill Bill, and I don’t know what all else and turns up the gleeful schlock meter to eleven. You’ve got zombies, gratuitous blood, sharpshooters, explosions, girls with machine gun legs, and dialogue like “Looks like a no-brainer!” (from an ER doctor regarding a patient – in the next shot, we see she literally has no brains, presumably because the zombies have eaten them). My liking Planet Terror as much as I did is basically a giant flashing neon sign that I have been avoiding horror movies for far too long, at least the schlocky b-movie kind.
USA 2007; directed by Robert Rodriguez; starring Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez
IMDb | Amazon

Let the Right One In

At the other side of the spectrum from Planet Terror is this unusual Swedish vampire flick, which may still be playing in limited release. Catch it if you can. A young boy, ridiculed and bullied at school, befriends his new neighbor, a mysterious girl who seems much sadder and wiser than her apparent age. Then there are some murders and it starts getting harder for her to keep her true nature hidden, and the boy has to choose how to react to her after he finds out what she is. The pacing is leisurely, the photography moody – wait, it’s a Swedish film, these things are taken for granted. There are a couple of incongruously comic scenes that I didn’t care for too much, and I think the film has been overhyped by critics, but in general, it is a welcome and refreshing change from the average horror film.
Sweden 2008; directed by Tomas Alfredson ; starring Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson
IMDb | Amazon (coming to DVD March 9, 2009)