It’s February. That means TCM is pulling out their big guns in honor of the Oscars. Which means lots of good movies in the next few weeks. :)

All times are Eastern. Subtract 1 hour for Central, 2 for Mountain, 3 for Pacific. Don’t necessarily trust what I just said – double check your listings because movie channels don’t follow the same logic as primetime network programming.

Monday, February 9

9:15am – TCM – The Apartment
One of Billy Wilder’s best, a bitter-sweet romantic comedy-drama (Wilder sometimes has issues sticking to one genre, and in this case, that’s a compliment) involving lower-level company employee Jack Lemmon, who lends his apartment to his hotshot boss Fred MacMurray, who uses it for trysts with various secretaries including Shirley MacLaine, who Lemmon coincidentally loves from afar. Think Mad Men, except actually made in 1960.

9:20am – IFC – Strictly Ballroom
The first of Baz Lurhmann’s “Red Curtain” trilogy, about a Latin ballroom dancer who shakes up the Australian ballroom competition circuit with his unorthodox choreography. Among other things.
(repeats at 2:45pm)

1:45pm – TCM – Citizen Kane
Just pointing out that it’s on. No need to sell it.

3:45pm – TCM – Mildred Pierce
I used to think melodramas were just silly, crappy movies. Then I saw Mildred Pierce which can BY ITSELF give the melodrama genre respectability. It’s that good. It’s also one of the few movies in which I actually like Joan Crawford.

Tuesday, February 10

6:00am – TCM – Waiting for Guffman
The first of Christopher Guest’s brilliant series of mockumentaries (followed by Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration, and possibly others – I lose track); in this one a bunch of Midwesterners try to put on a stage show, with awkwardly hilarious results.
(repeats at 10:35am and 4:05pm)

2:45pm – TCM – Henry V (1944)
One of my favorite things to do is compare different versions of Shakespeare’s plays, because there are so many different ways to stage/film them and they still work. Case in point: Laurence Olivier’s Henry V (this one) was made at the tail end of WWII and is a gung-ho rallying cry around an English war hero. It’s very stylized, with the set design based on English and French renaissance art. Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 version is very gritty and realistic, and questions Henry’s war-mongering, becoming a troubled anti-war story rather than a call to arms. Yet the script is almost 100% the same (yes, I have checked this; I wrote a paper about it). Both films are quality. So see both; it’s interesting.

3:45am (11th) – TCM – Rebecca
Hitchcock’s first American film and the first to garner him an Oscar nomination. The film has a lot of supporters, but I still think it would’ve been a lot better if they’d stuck to Daphne du Maurier’s novel’s original ending. And I’m rarely a book purist. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth watching, because it is.

Wednesday, February 11

1:30pm – TCM – Mon Oncle
Jacques Tati’s Chaplin-esque character, Mr. Hulot, this time takes on modern life in the form of his sister’s house that has been mechanized with all the most modern electronic aids – think Disney’s 1950s House of Tomorrow. Of course, everything goes wrong. Of the Hulot films I’ve seen, this is my favorite.

3:30pm – TCM – The Birds
Everyone knows they’re supposed to be scared by Psycho, so I wasn’t. But The Birds scared the crap out of me, and even though I’ve now seen it five or six times at least, it still does. One of the most perfectly paced films of all time.

10:00pm – Sundance – Wristcutters: A Love Story
Patrick Fujit (Almost Famous) slits his wrists and finds himself in a strange, limbo-like place where all the suicides get stuck after they die. But then he meets Shannyn Sossamon, who claims she’s there by mistake, and embarks on an odyssey to get her out of limbo. It’s something of a strange film, yes, but it’s also very sweet and if you like quirky, Sundancy films, you’ll enjoy this one.
(repeats at 4:00am on the 12th)

10:00pm – TCM – Lassie Come Home
Family classic that has every kid wanting a collie at some point in their lives. Hint: Get a border collie. Regular collies are quite high-strung.

11:45pm – TCM – National Velvet
Family classic that has every kid wanting a horse. I plead guilty to both the collie and the horse, by the way.

Thursday, February 12

1:00pm – TCM – White Heat
James Cagney in one of his most powerful roles as the slightly (okay, make that more-than-slightly) unbalanced criminal Cody Jarrett. Probably counts as one of the last truly great Warner crime films, too.

8:00pm – TCM – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932)
Fredric March won an Oscar for his portrayal of the title character(s), with some truly amazing makeup work as well.

12:00am – TCM – The Man With the Golden Arm
After winning a supporting actor Oscar for From Here to Eternity, Frank Sinatra solidified his serious acting ability with this drug-user film – always a good subject for anyone trying to solidify acting skillz, incidentally. Not to be confused with The Man With the Golden Gun, which is a James Bond movie from the Roger Moore years – one of the better ones, but still.

2:15am (13th) – TCM – Easy Rider
The story of Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda trying to make this film is almost as interesting as the film itself; if you get a DVD copy of this, make sure to watch the documentary about it. It’s fitting, though, that a film about bikers on the fringe of society, completely outcast in some places, would be made at great personal difficulty outside the studio system. As a whole, the tension works for the film, which is brilliant, iconoclastic, and marks, along with Bonnie and Clyde, the beginning of the New Hollywood that would blossom in the 1970s.

4:00am (13th) – TCM – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
It’s interesting to watch and compare this version of Jekyll and Hyde with the 1932 version (see above). The earlier one uses extensive makeup to depict the transformation from Jekyll to Hyde, but in this one, Spencer Tracy shows the change purely by his facial expressions and acting style. It’s been a while since I saw either one, but I remember Tracy being surprisingly convincing, even though the 1941 version seems to be largely forgotten.

Friday, February 13

8:00am – TCM – Lilies of the Field
Sidney Poitier made history with this film, becoming the first black actor to win an Oscar for a leading role (Hattie McDaniel had won a supporting award for Gone With the Wind back in 1939 – between 1939 and 1963? No-one). I, uh, haven’t seen it, but I thought that was worth mentioning.

12:30pm – TCM – Topper
A truly zany, delightful screwball comedy with a twist. Constance Bennett and Cary Grant are a high-rolling society couple who get killed in a car crash. But they hang around as ghosts and take it as their mission to teach harried businessman Roland Young to learn how to live again. The film spawned a couple of sequels (Topper Takes a Trip, with Young and Bennett but no Grant, and Topper Returns, with Joan Blondell taking the Bennett role), both of which are fun, but no match for the brilliant original.

Saturday, February 14

4:15pm – TCM – The Awful Truth
If you’re talking screwball comedy, The Awful Truth is going to come up. It’s that definitive and that fantastic. Gold standard of screwball, battle-of-the-sexes, 1930s comedy right here.

10:00pm – TCM – The King and I
I love most of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musicals more than I probably should, but The King and I is a step above all the others. Perhaps it’s Yul Brynner, perfectly at home in the role he originated on Broadway. Perhaps it’s Deborah Kerr, a more accomplished actress than usually appeared in R&H musicals. Perhaps it’s the real-life story of the conflict between tradition and modernization, regional culture and imperial imposition. I dunno. But I think it’s the best of the bunch, objectively speaking. (Subjectively speaking, I love Oklahoma! best, but that’s neither here nor there.)

10:00pm – Sundance – Paris, je t’aime
Eighteen directors each contribute a short film about Paris, ranging from tiny but poignant vignettes to ironic comedy to romantic drama to horror. The films are obviously of varying quality, but taken as a whole – let me just say that if you don’t already love Paris, you probably will by the time the film is over. The directors include: Joel & Ethan Coen, Alfonso Cuaron, Isabel Coixet, Gerard Depardieu, Wes Craven, Tom Tykwer, Gurinder Chadha, Alexander Payne, and Gus Van Sant.
(repeats at 4:30am on the 15th)

12:00am – IFC – Garden State
Unfashionable though it may be at the moment, I still love Garden State unconditionally. So sue me.
(repeats on the 15th at 6:10am and 12:15pm)

Sunday, February 15

9:00am – TCM – An American in Paris
Expat artist Gene Kelly in Paris, meets Leslie Caron, woos her away from rival Georges Guetarey, all set to Gershwin music and directed with panache by Vincente Minnelli. All that plus Kelly’s ground-breaking fifteen-plus-minute ballet to the title piece.

9:30pm – TCM – Funny Face
If there’s a list of most fashionable films, Funny Face has to be on it. Fred Astaire is a fashion photographer who finds the fresh face he’s been looking for in Audrey Hepburn and whisks her off to Paris for a shoot. Throw in Gershwin songs and some Sartre-ridden existential jazzy nightclubs, and you’ve got…well, okay, not one of the all-time great musicals perhaps, but a very solid one.

11:45pm – IFC – Amores Perros
Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarrítu specializes in films with multiple intersecting storylines, and he does it best here, in his breakthrough Mexican film (starring Gael Garcia Bernal, also just beginning to become a household name at this point). The three largely independent stories are tied together by the characters’ relationship with dogs and involvement in a climactic car crash – though this may sound like his later film Babel or Paul Haggis’ Crash, Amores Perros differs from films by being, like, actually GOOD, not heavy-handed or anvil-obvious.

2:00am (16th) – TCM – Blow-Up
Michelangelo Antonioni made his English-language debut with this 1966 swinging London film, focusing on a photographer (no pun intended) who may have accidentally photographed a murder in the background of one of his shots. A frustrating film for those who seek closure, but a revealing one for those who prefer ambiguity, Blow-Up is a detective story that refuses to abide by the rules of detective stories. If that sounds interesting to you, you may like it. If not, you probably won’t.

Next Week Sneak Preview

Monday, February 16th
10:00am – TCM – Angels With Dirty Faces
3:30am – TCM – Double Indemnity
8:00pm – TCM – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
9:35am – IFC – A Hard Day’s Night (repeats 2:45pm)
10:00pm – TCM – Some Like It Hot
2:45am (17th) – TCM – Shaft
4:30am (17th) – TCM – The Public Enemy

Tuesday, February 17th
8:15am – TCM – The Red Shoes
3:30pm – TCM – Royal Wedding
12:45am (18th) – TCM – Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
2:30am (18th) – TCM – 42nd Street
4:15am (18th) – TCM – Gold Diggers of 1935

Wednesday, February 18th
6:05am – IFC – Strictly Ballroom (repeats 1:20pm)
3:00pm – TCM – Anatomy of a Murder
6:00pm – TCM – Witness for the Prosecution
10:00pm – TCM – The Caine Mutiny

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.