I‘ve never made it to a musical festival before (largely because I didn’t really get into festival-type music until a few years ago), but when this year’s Coachella featured several of my favorite bands I decided to spring for it, since it’s the biggest festival close enough for me to drive to rather than fly. And even though everything’s overpriced, it’s hotter than Hades, and I ended up only seeing full sets from seven bands rather then the eleven or twelve I wanted to see, it was worth it. The downside is I think I’ve caught the festival bug – I’m drooling over the Lollapalooza lineup Andrew posted the other day, and though I won’t make it Lolla this year, I’m seriously trying to work out getting to Austin for Austin City Limits.

Anyway, here’s a recap of my subset of Coachella, which woefully underrepresents the available audio overload. Especially since I skipped Sunday altogether – fewer bands I wanted to see meant I didn’t care to spend the money for the extra day and night.

Please go to Row Three: More Pop to read the rest of this entry. It has pictures and .mp3 files, so I promise it’ll be worth it!

Blowup, playing on TCM at 4:00am on May 2nd

Tuesday, April 28th

7:00am – IFC – Umberto D
Neo-realist masterpiece from Vittorio DeSica. I think I’ve talked about the main character and his dog before – have I mentioned the young girl who works in Umberto’s apartment building? Stunning natural performance from a non-actress that DeSica cast from an open audition. She wanted to get acting lessons, but he forbade her. Good move, because she’s great – formal training would’ve ruined her.
(repeats at 12:15pm)

10:15am – TCM – You Can’t Take It With You
Interestingly, this film rather than Mr. Deeds or Mr. Smith or It’s a Wonderful Life got Frank Capra a Best Picture Oscar. I think it’s a bit lesser than any of those, but it’s still quite good.

6:00pm – IFC – Miller’s Crossing
The Coen Brothers do 1930s gangsterland as only they can do it. And by that, I mean AWESOMELY.
(repeats at 4:00am on the 29th)

Wednesday, April 29th

6:00am – TCM – Father of the Bride (1950)
Spencer Tracy is the father, Elizabeth Taylor the bride in the original classic.

9:30am – TCM – The Bad and the Beautiful
Vincente Minnelli directs Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Dick Powell, Gloria Grahame, and others in one of the best dark-side-of-Hollywood noirish films this side of Sunset Boulevard.

1:30pm – TCM – Anatomy of a Murder
One of the best courtroom dramas ever made – James Stewart vs. George C. Scott as lawyers on a murder/rape trial that may not be quite what it seems. And that’s aside from the top-notch jazz score by Duke Ellington, which is in itself reason enough to see the film. Must See

4:35pm – Sundance – The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Luis Bunuel takes aim at his favorite target once again, eviscerating the bourgeoisie through absurdity and surrealism.

6:00pm – TCM – Roman Holiday
Audrey Hepburn. ‘Nuff said.

10:45pm – TCM – The Birds
Psycho notwithstanding, this is Hitchcock’s most intense film, for me anyway. Must see

Thursday, April 30th

8:00am – IFC – Millions
Simple story of two brothers who find a whole lot of British pounds (on the fanciful eve of Britain’s switch the Euro) and have to decide what to do with it – but in Danny Boyle’s hands, it becomes much more interesting and unique than any synopsis could convey.
(repeats at 2:30pm and 5:15am on the 1st)

12:30pm – TCM – Mildred Pierce
Exhibit A of what the Hollywood studio system was capable of on a good day. Also Exhibit A of what melodrama can be. Joan Crawford’s best role. Must See

8:00pm – TCM – Glory
Matthew Broderick commands an all-black unit of the Union army during the American Civil War. Director Edward Zwick has made movie after movie that seem to be blatant Oscar-bait, but he’s never bettered this one.

9:45pm – IFC – Fargo
Coen Brothers. ‘Nuff said.
(repeats at 3:30am on the 1st)

10:00pm – Sundance – 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
Oh, just click the tag at the bottom to see how many times I’ve said “Watch this!” Must See

10:15pm – TCM – Philadelphia
Tom Hanks sues his former company for firing him because he has AIDS. Powerful.

11:30pm – IFC – Blue Velvet
David Lynch’s best-known movie, probably, though one I have never been able to get into as much as many of his others. I need to give it another chance. I love the beginning, but then it devolves into pointlessness. Still, it’s Lynch. And thus ought to be seen. :)

Friday, May 1st

8:00pm – TCM – Dr. No
We’re up to, what, twenty-two Bond movies now? Here’s the first, back with the REAL Bond, Sean Connery. (Just kidding, I love Daniel Craig too, actually.) But really, Dr. No still stands as one of the best Bond films.
(repeats at 2pm on the 2nd)

10:00pm – TCM – From Russia With Love
And this second Bond film is also one of the best.
(repeats at 4pm on the 2nd)

4:00am (2nd) – TCM – Blowup
In Michelangelo Antonioni’s first (only?) English-language film, a photographer captures an image in the background of a shot that may or may not be a murder. Sounds like a detective film, but it’s far more abstract and distancing than detective stories can usually afford to be. Full of sixties-ness. Must See

Saturday, May 2nd

6:00pm – TCM – A Shot in the Dark
The second and arguably best of the Pink Panther movies. The original ones. The new ones don’t count.

8:00pm – TCM – I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang
Paul Muni as a man falsely accused of a crime and sentenced to a chain gang. One of Warner Bros’ best “ripped from the headlines” socially conscious films – they did a lot of them in the 1930s.

Sunday, May 3rd

12:00N – TCM – Kiss Me Kate
Shakespeare (“Taming of the Shrew”). With Cole Porter music. ‘Nuff said? ‘Nuff said.

1:50pm – IFC – The Cat’s Meow
Slight but enjoyably nostalgic Peter Bogdanovich film about the events surrounding silent film producer Thomas Ince’s death – which occurred during a party on the Hearst yacht. Film buffs will definitely get a kick out of it.

9:15pm – IFC – The Cooler
This under-the-radar film is probably not so much under-the-radar anymore for my readers, since I recommend it every time it’s on. But it’s that good, really. A small, quiet gem.
(repeats 4:15am on the 4th)

Stage Door, playing at 1:45am on April 22 (TCM)

Monday, April 20th

11:00pm – TCM – Top Hat
Must See

12:45am (21st) – TCM – A Night at the Opera
The title of “Best Marx Brothers Film Ever” is pretty much a dead heat between this film and Duck Soup. I throw my vote to A Night at the Opera, though. Must See

2:30am (21st) – TCM – Dinner at Eight
MGM could put together a killer ensemble cast when they wanted to, and Dinner at Eight is one of the best early 1930s examples – John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Billie Burke, Marie Dressler, and others – plus it’s seriously funny.

Tuesday, April 21st

8:00pm – TCM – The Women
Talk about your ensemble casts: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Mary Boland, Virginia Weidler, Hedda Hopper, Marjorie Main, and not a man in sight. Add in one of the best (and most bitingly catty) scripts ever written, and you’ve got a film that always draws a huge audience when it’s revived. Not so much when it’s remade, though.

12:00M – TCM – Topper
Socialite couple Cary Grant and Constance Bennett take one inebriated drive too many and end up as ghosts. The fun starts when they decide to help Grant’s staid boss Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) learn to live a little. Screwball comedy meets the supernatural, and it’s a winner.

12:00M – IFC – Amores Perros

1:45am (22nd) – TCM – Stage Door
I cannot describe to you how much I love this film. I’m not sure it’s wholly rational. Katharine Hepburn plays an heiress who wants to make it on her own as an actress, so she moves (incognito) into a New York boarding house for aspiring actresses. Her roommate ends up being Ginger Rogers (who’s never been better or more acerbic), and the boarding house is rounded out with a young Lucille Ball, a young Eve Arden, a very young Ann Miller, and various others. The dialogue is crisp and everyone’s delivery matter-of-fact and perfectly timed, and the way the girls use humor to mask desperation makes most every moment simultaneously funny and tragic – so that when it does turn tragic, it doesn’t feel like a shift in mood, but a culmination of the inevitable. Dang, now I want to watch it RIGHT NOW. Must See

Wednesday, April 22nd

8:00am – IFC – Millions

1:15pm – TCM – Kiss Me Kate

11:00pm – TCM – The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
Preston Sturges zaniest and most irreverent comedy gives Betty Hutton her best role as Trudy Kockenlocker, who goes out for a night on the town with a group of soldiers about to ship out. A few months later, she finds out she’s pregnant and can only vaguely remember an impromptu wedding ceremony with a soldier who may or may not be named Ratskiwatski. I’m always impressed that Sturges got away with as much as he did in this film in 1944.

Thursday, April 23rd

9:15am – IFC – Jules et Jim
(repeats at 2:35pm)

9:30am – TCM – The Adventures of Robin Hood
This is one of the first movies I can remember seeing. And all these years later, it remains one of the greatest adventure movies ever made. Errol Flynn was born to play Robin Hood, and Olivia de Havilland is a luminous Maid Marion. Also one of the first Technicolor films. Must See

11:30pm – IFC – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
(repeats at 5:30am on the 24th)

3:45am (24th) – TCM – On the Town
Sailors on leave Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin hit New York City, spending the day sightseeing and searching for Kelly’s dream girl Vera-Ellen, meanwhile picking up Betty Garrett and Ann Miller for the other boys. Not much plot here, but enough to precipitate some of the best song and dance numbers on film. Also one of the first musicals shot on location. Must See

Friday, April 24th

4:15pm – TCM – The Trouble With Harry
Hitchcock’s films usually have some degree of macabre humor in them, but The Trouble With Harry is probably the funniest. Harry is dead. And everyone else in the film (including a young Shirley MacLaine) is trying to somehow hide his body, mostly unsuccessfully and with hilarious results.

Saturday, April 25th

8:00am – TCM – Yojimbo
Yojimbo gets talked about probably more than any of Akira Kurosawa’s samurai movies other than The Seven Samurai. Maybe Rashomon, if you count that as a samurai movie. But I haven’t seen it. Maybe this will be the time? We’ll see. :)

10:00am – TCM – The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

5:00pm – TCM – I Married a Monster from Outer Space
Okay, I have never heard of this movie, and I have NO IDEA what it is. But it is called I Married a Monster from Outer Space. How can it not be awesomely bad, and thus imminently worth watching?

10:45pm – TCM – The Lion in Winter
Kate Hepburn won an Oscar for her portrayal of Elinor of Aquitaine (wife of England’s Henry II and mother to Richard the Lionhearted and John I). Peter O’Toole handles Henry II with equal aplomb, and the two competitive brothers are Timothy Dalton and Anthony Hopkins in early roles. It’s a fascinating time in history to me, as well, and this is one of the better films that depicts it.

1:15am – TCM – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932)
Fredric March does right by the famous doctor and his alter-ego, though he did have a lot of help from makeup. ;)

3:00am – TCM – The Champ (1931)
Just saw this Wallace Beery pic a couple of months ago, and thought it was mighty solid. It’s much less of a boxing picture than I originally thought – much more about washed-up boxer Beery’s relationship with his tough-talking son Jackie Coogan, who’s fantastic in his part. It’s simple, but effective in its early 1930s Warner Bros. way.

Sunday, April 26th

8:00am – TCM – Dark Victory

12:00N – TCM – The Band Wagon
There are many reasons to consider The Band Wagon among the best movie musicals ever made. The satirical plot involving a Shakespearean director who tries to turn a lighthearted musical into a doom-and-gloom version of Faust, the bright yet sardonic script and score by Betty Comden and Adolph Green (who basically appear in the film as the characters played by Nanette Fabrey and Oscar Levant), the last really great role for Fred Astaire (maybe Funny Face is a contender, but barely), and of course, the never-surpassed beauty of dance numbers like “Dancing in the Dark” with Fred and Cyd Charisse. But even if it didn’t have all that, I’d still rank it among my favorites for the epic “Girl Hunt Ballet” number spoofing hard-boiled detective fiction. Must See

6:00pm – TCM – The Night of the Hunter
If there’s ever a film that defined “Southern gothic,” it’s this one. Underhanded “preacher” Robert Mitchum weasels his way into a young widowed family to try to gain the money the late father hid before he died. But what starts off as a well-done but fairly standard crime thriller turns into a surreal fable somewhere in the middle, and at that moment, jumps from “good film” to “film you will be able to get out of your NEVER.” In a good way. Must See

Haven’t done one of these in far too long. Which is doubly bad because I’ve been getting more new music than ever before. I have enough music at this point to do a Music (Some)day twice a week all year. Or close to it. Don’t count on that actually happening, though. I’m just saying, I could. It’s become more an issue of a crippling range of choices rather than lack of choice in what to post.

This week, two bands at relative opposite ends of the fame spectrum. They’ve got nothing to do with each other; just both on my mind this week.

Hello From Reno

Hello From Reno, despite the name, are from LA. They opened for Headlights on Sunday night and I enjoyed their set so much I ran back to get their album immediately – turned out to be a self-produced LP that they were selling for $5. I’ve heard it through several times now, and I still quite like it – often bands I like at shows end up not being as good on disc. Definitely will keep them on my radar and hope to see them again before too long. I do apologize for the quality of the picture – the iPhone takes crappy shots in the dark.

Hello From Reno – It Comes and Goes
Hello From Reno – Little Johnny (He’s a Rebel)

Links
Amazon.com MP3
MySpace (but don’t go there unless you have some MySpace-happy-making Greasemonkey scripts going on – no, REALLY, I promise, you’ll be sorry…*sigh* You went anyway, didn’t you? Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Metric

Metric is pretty big in the world of indie rock – I judge this by the fact that when they come to LA in June, they’re playing at the Wiltern, a middle-to-large-sized venue, rather than the small clubs that I go to most of the time. As someone pointed out to me, it’s not the Staples Center, but still. I’ve had Metric songs lying around on my hard drive for a couple of years, then finally buckled down to get an album last June or so. Sometime between then and now they’ve zoomed to the top of my favorite band list (as I picked up their earlier albums), getting pretty close to duking it out with Rilo Kiley, even. THAT IS HUGE. But they have a very different sound from RK – a bit harder and more synthy. Emily Haines’ breathy voice contrasts nicely with the band’s driving rhythms and arrangements. If you like Emily’s voice and songwriting, but not so much the band, try Emily’s solo stuff – she does a lot more mellow and acoustic style music under the name Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton. It doesn’t do as much for me, though.

Their newest album, Fantasies, came out yesterday on disc (the digital version has been available for download since March 31), and I can confidently say it’s one of my favorite releases so far this year. It’s been on repeat since I bought it a couple of weeks ago. It’s a bit softer than their previous disc Live It Out, and probably better balanced. Take a listen – these are the first two songs on the album (I didn’t plan it that way, I swear – “Sick Muse” is my current favorite, and “Help I’m Alive” is the first single).

(note: the two Fantasies songs will take a few seconds longer to buffer – they’re higher quality than most of my rips)

Metric – Help I’m Alive
Metric – Sick Muse

And one old one, just for kicks: Metric – Grow Up and Blow Away (from 2001′s Grow Up and Blow Away)

My second favorite from the new album is actually “Gimme Sympathy,” but the video for it is so cool, I had to include it rather than the MP3. It’s one take, folk. ONE TAKE. See the second video for the making of.

Links
Official Site
Amazon.com
MySpace

Monday, April 13

2:00pm – TCM – Kiss Me Kate
It’s hard to improve Shakespeare, but Kiss Me Kate comes pretty close by couching Taming of the Shrew in a backstage show business story and adding Cole Porter tunes.

8:00pm – TCM – The Letter
A cut-above Bette Davis melodrama – great example of Warner Bros. studio style.

10:00pm – TCM – Grand Illusion
You ever get that feeling when you’re watching a film that you’ve somehow become privvy to something wonderful? The sense that being allowed to see such an incredible film is a great privilege. I get it once in a while, and it’s usually on a film that I expected not to like that much – I mean, come on, French prisoners of war? Meh. But Grand Illusion is pretty much the opposite of “meh.” It’s extremely special. Must See

2:00am (14th) – IFC – Before Sunrise
It takes a special kind of filmmaker to make a moving, entertaining, and engaging film out of two people talking all night, and Richard Linklater is just that special. Of course, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy help him out by being highly engaging and entertaining.

Tuesday, April 14

6:30pm – IFC – Garden State
(repeats at 12:30pm on the 15th)

8:00pm – TCM – Gone With the Wind

12:00M – TCM – Singin’ in the Rain
Must See

12:00M – IFC – Trainspotting
(repeats at 4:00am on the 15th)

12:00M – Sundance – 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days

2:00am (15th) – TCM – Angels With Dirty Faces

Wednesday, April 15

9:30am – IFC – The New World
(repeats at 3:45pm)

11:15am – TCM – The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
I rewatched this the last time it was on TCM, and it’s pretty much just as bizarre as I remember – turn Dr. Seuss loose on Hollywood with Technicolor, and this is what you get. No, seriously, he wrote it. The main character is a kid who hates taking piano lessons, so he daydreams a world in which his teacher, Dr. Terwilliker, is an evil mastermind forcing children to play the piano against their will.

8:00pm – TCM – Double Indemnity
Must See

8:00pm – IFC – Night Watch
The first of a planned vampire trilogy, I wish Night Watch were better – it has so many good ideas and backstory, but it ended up fairly incoherent. It’s still worth watching, and I’m still hoping the rest of the trilogy pulls it out.
(repeats at 2:15am on the 16th)

10:00pm – IFC – Day Watch
The sequel to Night Watch. Haven’t seen it yet, so I’ve yet to discover if my hopes for the remainder of the planned trilogy are realized.

10:00pm – TCM – Swing Time

11:30pm – Sundance – Oldboy

Thursday, April 16

6:00am-6:00pm – TCM – SUPER MONDO CHAPLIN FESTIVAL
TCM is running Charlie Chaplin films all day today, and they are ALL WORTH WATCHING. They’re starting with some early shorts and short features, then moving on to the absolute classics – I’ll highlight the best below with the actual times, but seriously. All worth watching.
(see below for highlighted listings)

8:30am – TCM – The Kid
Chaplin’s Little Tramp persona comes into its own in one of his first feature-length films (and by feature-length, that’s like an hour, here). Add in an adorable kid that the Tramp tries to keep from having to take care of, but of course, he ends up taking care of him.

9:15am – Sundance – The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Luis Bunuel’s biting critique of the bourgeoisie. Quite surreal, so don’t expect anything else.
(repeats at 3:45pm)

11:30am – TCM – The Gold Rush
The Little Tramp takes up prospecting in one of Chaplin’s most enduring films, with great set pieces including the house that’s about to fall over the cliff, and memorable scenes like the starving Tramp boiling and eating one of his boots.

12:45pm – TCM – Modern Times
My absolute favorite Chaplin film has him as a cog in the wheel of a factory, rebelling against the mechanization of the industrial age. It was made in 1936, long after synchronized sound was introduced in film (1927), but is mostly silent. Which doesn’t hurt the film at all. Must See

2:15pm – TCM – The Great Dictator
Chaplin’s first completely talking film, and one in which he doesn’t play his Little Tramp character. Instead, he’s both Hitler and a Jewish man who looks strikingly like Hitler. This obviously creates confusion. Brilliantly scathing satire – always amazes me that it was made as early as 1940.

8:00pm – TCM – Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Friday, April 17

8:00am – TCM – Sunset Boulevard
Recently rewatched this as part of a series at the local repertory cinema, and totally loved it – before I had admired it but it hadn’t quite grabbed me. This time it grabbed me, and most every bit of it is perfect. Still easily the best “dark side of Hollywood” ever made. Must See

8:00pm – TCM – The Maltese Falcon

11:30pm – TCM – Silk Stockings
The musical version of Ninotchka, about a staid, repressed Communist woman who goes to Paris on a mission, only to get loosened up by a Western guy. You’re better off with Ninotchka, honestly, which has the triple-threat of Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, and Greta Garbo behind it. Silk Stocking substitutes Cyd Charisse (who’s really only ever convincing when she’s dancing), Fred Astaire (who’s fine, though a bit on the old side by 1957), and adds Cole Porter music, which is really the major reason to check this version out.

Saturday, April 18

6:00am – TCM – Dead of Night
An omnibus horror film from 1945, set at a country house where each guest tells his or her horror story. The frame story I love (a man is drawn to the house, where he seems to know everything that will happen before it does, though he can’t figure out how); the other stories are pretty varied, a couple of them even comedic. But Michael Redgrave’s evil ventriloquist dummy story is one to watch. It’s quiet horror, but that makes it all the better for me.

8:00pm – TCM – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

10:00pm – TCM – The Graduate

Sunday, April 19

11:00am – TCM – Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

3:00pm – TCM – Oklahoma!

6:00pm – IFC – Miller’s Crossing
(repeats at 5:00am on the 20th)

8:00pm – TCM – A Shot in the Dark
Here’s your counter example for the “sequels are never as good as the original” argument. This second film in the Pink Panther series is easily the best, and stands as ones of the zaniest 1960s comedies ever.

12:00M – TCM – City Lights
TCM didn’t get City Lights in on their Chaplin day, but apparently decided to make up for it a couple of days later. This one is from 1931, but is silent. The Little Tramp helps a blind girl get the operation she needs to see again, but doesn’t immediately reveal himself to her. One of the most beautiful and poignant final scenes in film history. Must See

1:45am (20th) – Sundance – 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days

4:00am (20th) – TCM – The More the Merrier

Well, I had a bit of an internet outage this week, preventing me from posting the Film on TV post. I would’ve just skipped it, but Saturday has a HUGE AMOUNT of fantastic movies playing. So a late and truncated post will have to do. Please direct any complaints to Time Warner Cable of Los Angeles. They should be used to it by now.

Saturday, April 11

6:00am – IFC – A Hard Day’s Night
(repeats at 12:35pm)

6:00am – TCM – The Kennel Murder Case
Before taking on the role of detective Nick Charles in the Thin Man movies, William Powell did a couple of films as Philo Vance, another witty private eye. Here he’s joined by Mary Astor, who nearly matches Myrna Loy as his counterpart.

7:30am – TCM – The 39 Steps
My vote for Hitchcock’s finest British-era film follows Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll though a twisty and witty tale of spies and mistaken identities.

8:00am – IFC – Throne of Blood
Shakespeare often seems to work better, or at least take on new vitality, when transposed into different times and places – here his Macbeth moves into medieval Japan in the capable hands of Akira Kurosawa.

9:50am – IFC – American Splendor
Harvey Pekar is one of the more idiosyncratic graphic novelists there is (“comic book” doesn’t quite cover his very adult, neurotic art), and Paul Giamatti brings him to life perfectly.
(repeats at 3:30pm)

12:00N – TCM – They Were Expendable

5:00pm – TCM – The Bridge on the River Kwai

8:00pm – TCM – Saboteur
Not a particularly memorable Hitchcock film, but it does have a great sequence with the hero and villain chasing each other and hanging off the Statue of Liberty.

10:00pm – TCM – Shadow of a Doubt
And this is a somewhat lesser-known Hitchcock film that ought to be top-tier. Small-town girl Teresa Wright idolizes her uncle Charlie, but we know that he’s an infamous murderer on the run. Hitchcock once made a distinction between mystery and suspense: mystery is when there’s tension because the audience doesn’t know whodunit, suspense is when there’s tension because the audience does. This film is a perfect example of suspense, and Hitchcock’s preference for telling the audience whodunit very early in the film and letting them squirm.

12:00M – TCM – Foreign Correspondent
Another lesser-known Hitchcock film that’s nonetheless well worth watching.

2:15am (12th) – TCM – Rebecca
Hitchcock’s first American film isn’t one of my favorites, but a lot of people like it quite a lot. For me it’s more that the ending cops out from the book, and I know that’s the studio’s influence, not Hitchcock’s. And that bugs me.

Sunday, April 12

4:30am – TCM – Spellbound
Hitchcock + Ingrid Bergman + Gregory Peck + Freudianism + Salvador Dali dream sequences. There was something else you wanted? I didn’t think so.

8:00am – IFC – Au revoir, les enfants

12:30pm – TCM – Ben-Hur (1959)

1:05pm – IFC – Millions

7:00pm – TCM – Easter Parade
One of the better examples of MGM’s opulent musical style – having Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, and Ann Miller on board doesn’t hurt.

10:15pm – IFC – Amores Perros

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Brick, 2006′s brilliant juxtaposition of high school and film noir? I probably have. If you’ve ever talked to me about film in real life, I’m sure I have. Well, Brick was director Rian Johnson’s first film, and The Brothers Bloom is his second. It looks entirely different, and yet still totally awesome. The studio has pushed its release date back so many times that even though it’s been set for May 15th for a while now, I’m still wary. But whenever it comes out, I’m there on opening weekend. I mean, Rian Johnson + Rachel Weisz + Mark Ruffalo + Adrian Brody + zany con artist story + globetrotting? How can I NOT be?

Once in a while, a first-time director jumps onto the scene with a film that is so assured and so well-made and has such an air of vitality and realism that it’s difficult to believe he hasn’t made a dozen films already. Cary Fukunaga has pretty much done that with Sin Nombre, a favorite at this year’s Sundance Film Festival that’s now in limited theatrical release.

The story is relatively straight-forward. In one thread, teenage Sayra travels with her uncle and estranged father from Guatemala through Mexico toward the United States, where the father has started a new family in New Jersey, riding illicitly along with hundreds of others on the tops of freight trains. In the other, Caspar, a young member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, tries to balance his loyalty to the gang with his love for a girl from the right side of town. The threads inevitably come together, and while it’s not difficult to figure out most everything that happens, suspense is not what keeps you interested in the film and the lives of the people it depicts. The delicate balance between emotional care for these individuals and their situations (and the broader context of illegal immigration) and the unsentimental, unwavering style kept me rapt for the entire film, and I wanted to keep the experience with me all day.

Read the rest at Row Three