I picked out a bunch of classics to pull over from this week’s Film on TV post over at Row Three. Some film noir, some Depression-era musicals, some 1950s creature features, and some Czech New Wave classics. Okay, just one of each of those things. But these are all solid films with some variety, and there’s definitely a lot more to choose from if you click over and see the whole post.

Gold Diggers of 1933

Tuesday, March 20 at 8:00pm on TCM
The story’s nothing to get excited about (and in fact, the subplot that takes over the main plot wears out its welcome fairly quickly), but the strong Depression-era songs, kaleidoscopic choreography from Busby Berkeley, and spunky supporting work from Ginger Rogers pretty much make up for it.
1933 USA. Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Starring: Joan Blondell, Warren William, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Aline MacMahon, Ginger Rogers, Guy Kibbee.

This Gun for Hire

Wednesday, March 21 at 1:30am on TCM (that’s late Tuesday night)
This early noir depicts a hitman (Alan Ladd in his first big role) trying to revenge himself on a former-employer-turned-police-informant, while evading the police (led by Robert Preston), with the help of the policeman’s girlfriend (Veronica Lake), who also happens to be a spy trying to ferret out information on the informant, who is smuggling bomb plans out of the country. Confused yet? It’s intricately-plotted, but most of it makes sense, and the shifting alliances make for engaging viewing. Throw in a sultry magic act for Lake posing as a showgirl, and This Gun for Hire is a more than solid example of a 1940s B-level crime film.
1942 USA. Director: Frank Tuttle. Starring: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar.

Them!

Thursday, March 22 at 6:15pm on TCM
I love a good classic sci-fi film and this one hits all the high points. Radioactive material? Check. Mutant insects? Check. Scientists? Check. Nuclear paranoia? Check. Giant mutant ants (created by radioactivity left by atomic bomb tests in Arizona) start attacking people, first in Arizona, then to Texas and Mexico, and finally in the middle of Los Angeles. A team of scientists works with the police to take the monsters down. One of the better examples of the “atomic mutant” sci-fi films, of which there were many; it builds intensity perfectly (in fact, it’s at least half an hour in before you come close to finding out what’s happening, adding in a very welcome mystery element) and doesn’t spend to long on its obligatory romantic subplot.
1954 USA. Director: Gordon Douglas. Starring: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, James Arness.

Bunny Lake is Missing

Friday, March 24 at 5:45pm on TCM
As the title suggests, this is a missing person mystery, but with a twist. When four-year-old Bunny Lake goes missing, her mother frantically tries to track her down, but no one else, including her nursery school teachers, will acknowledge the child ever existed. Is this a vast conspiracy, or a woman gone mad? Otto Preminger keeps the tension tight in this foray into British cinema, and I’ll set this credit sequence against anything else Saul Bass has ever done.
1965 UK. Director: Otto Preminger. Starring: Carol Lynley, Laurence Olivier, Keir Dullea, Martita Hunt, Anna Massey.

Closely Watched Trains

Monday, March 26 at 4:30am on TCM (that’s late Sunday night)
One of the most highly regarded films of the Czech New Wave is, typically, about a seemingly mundane subject – a young man who takes a job as a conductor at his tiny town’s train station and seeks to come of age sexually. The basic story has been told many, many times, but the undertones of the Czech resistance to Nazi occupation along with the surprisingly sweet treatment of Milos’ personal quest make this engaging and memorable. Also, you’ll never look at stamp pads quite the same way again.
1966 Czechoslovakia. Director: Jirí Menzel. Starring: Václav Neckár, Josef Somr and Vlastimil Brodský.

Nicholas Ray Blogathon, hosted by Tony Dayoub at Cinema Viewfinder

I noticed Jake Cole doing a bunch of Nicholas Ray posts over the past week or so, and turns out they’re part of a much larger blogathan celebrating the great director (Rebel Without a Cause, In a Lonely Place, Johnny Guitar, etc.). Ray would’ve been 100 years old this year, so it’s fitting to see a great turnout for the blogathon, and a variety of people participating. I haven’t had time to look through everything yet, but this should be some very good reading.

Too Much Madness to Explain in One Text by Oliver Lyttelton at The Playlist

Only a few weeks after Joe Cornish’s excellent genre film Attack the Block was released in US theatres, we started hearing reports of riots in London perpetrated by “hoodies,” gangs of kids wearing hooded sweatshirts from the poorest part of London. Hoodies also happen to be the main characters and indeed, the heroes of Attack the Block. Far-removed from both the real-life riots and the setting of Attack the Block in the US, it’s impossible to see one and not think of the other. The rioting has died down now, but this article from Oliver Lyttelton (residing in South London) is still an excellent reading of the two against each other. He wrote it on time; blame me for the delay in recommending it. :)

How to Make an Intelligent Blockbuster and Not Alienate People by Mark Kermode

This article (excerpted from Kermode’s newest book) has been stirring up discussion and controversy since it was posted a week or so ago. The basic premise is that people go to see movies based on hype and are often disappointed and don’t like the tentpole blockbusters even though the box office receipts prove they paid to see them. Kermode argues, if people are going to see a tentpole release because it’s a tentpole release, then they don’t have to be dumb to succeed – you can make intelligent blockbusters ike Inception and make a ton of money AND have audiences who are better satisfied at the end of it all. I think his argument is a bit facile (there are plenty of tentpoles that fail despite hype, and Inception is a fringe case based on Nolan’s name that’s not easily repeatable), but his general stance that we shouldn’t settle for whatever dumb tripe the studios throw at us even if it’s shiny and glossy I can get totally get behind.

Play It On the G Strong by Brandie at True Classics

Starting off with a general history of burlesque, then moving on to its most famous practitioner Gypsy Rose Lee, then on to Lady of Burlesque, the film version of Lee’s novel The G-String Murders, this post is entertaining from start to finish. Lee was originally meant to star in the film adaptation of her novel, but the role eventually went to Barbara Stanwyck instead, and Brandie reviews the film, recognizing Stanwyck’s contribution to what it otherwise a relatively routine film. I’ve seen the film, but finding out about the background of burlesque and the project’s history was really interesting.

Looking Different Today by David Bordwell at Observations on Film Art

Here Bordwell talks about editing trends in the 1910s, showing the very birth of mature continuity editing as editors start cutting to closeups and insets to add emotional and thematic content to the story. He also looks at some very early 1910s compositions, noting that they often have a lot more going on in the frame than later films – sometimes too much for us to easily figure out what’s going on, as our attention is distrated to different parts of the frame. (Note this is a different thing than using deep focus – a good deep focus shot will have everything available to see, but still be able to draw our attention as necessary for the narrative.) His hypothesis is that people actually understood images differently then, and we have lost the ability to understand compositions like that. Based on my own experiences with certain styles of painting and stained-glass windows, I think it’s an intriguing possibility.

Remember My Forgotten Man by Lara at Backlots

An exposition and appreciation of one of my all-time favorite musical numbers from one of my all-time favorite musicals. I love Gold Diggers of 1933 to bits, and the musical numbers are some of the best Warren and Dubin ever wrote, or Busby Berkeley ever filmed. The film is notable for its very head-on approach to the Depression, and nowhere is that more evident than in this number, as Lara indicates very well.

Chaos Cinema by Jim Emerson at scanners::blog

Jim Emerson has made no bones of his dislike for incoherent action scenes (and I agree with him upon this point), and here he goes into again, discussing the current trend toward what he calls “chaos cinema” and going back and forth on what filmmakers have said about it themselves and then what they actually do in their films. Hint, they’re not always consistent. He also includes a video from Matthias Stork that details, with video clips, the kind of thing they’re talking about. It’s a really good video, and a good article.

Yes, Really with Wilde.Dash #23: Love Story by Wilde.Dash at Love and Squalor

A genuinely hilarious review of the film that has, in some ways, become the template for romantic dramas. And yet, does it deserve to be? I haven’t actually seen Love Story myself, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the hell out of Wilde.Dash’s approach to reviewing it. I literally laughed out loud a few times, and it’s rare that I read reviews that are that engaging.

What’s on TCM September 2011 by Angela at Hollywood Revue

Angela runs down the whole month of TCM programming, with some excellent recommendations. I do this weekly in my Film on TV posts, but Angela’s focus on TCM means her coverage of their programming is even better than mine, and has more of a focus on classic Hollywood fans. She especially highlights The Story of Temple Drake (Sep 14) and The Constant Nymph (Sep 28), two films that haven’t been seen basically since their release due to censorship and copyright issues, until TCM worked with restoration teams at MoMA and the Library of Congress to bring the two films to the TCM Film Festival. This month is the first time the two films have played on the channel, though, and believe me, they’re both worth it.

Movie Titles That Deserve Their Own Hall of Fame by Jeff Stafford at Movie Morlocks

A really fun post from the Morlocks, highlighting a whole bunch of bizarrely-titled films – some of the usual suspects like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, but also a bunch that I have never heard of before and definitely gave me a good laugh. Not to mention the posters that go along with them are usually priceless as well.

Private Lives, playing on TCM on Friday

Almost a manageable number of films this week – only three or four per day, with nothing particularly of note on Sunday at all. Well, okay, maybe that’s not actually manageable unless you’re retired or something. Whatever. A lot of those are repeats, but we do have some good newly featured ones, too. Like 1975′s Oscar sweeper One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on Tuesday. And the above-pictured Private Lives, which is a treat if you like early 1930s comedies, and the Lena Horne-featuring Cabin in the Sky on Friday. Also just, as a heads-up, Sundance is playing several films throughout the week that I haven’t seen (so am thus not including because I find it difficult to write about things I haven’t seen), but I’m interested in checking out myself, including Jindabyne, Chalk, War Dance, Man on Wire, and Intacto, so check out Sundance‘s schedule for yourself on those. Hopefully they’ll pop up in future editions of the column. And if anyone wants to speak up for those or anything else playing that I’ve left off, feel free to do so in the comments.

Monday, May 17

9:45am – IFC – Manhattan
In one of Woody Allen’s best films, he’s a neurotic intellectual New Yorker (surprise!) caught between his ex-wife Meryl Streep, his teenage mistress Mariel Hemingway, and Diane Keaton, who just might be his match. Black and white cinematography, a great script, and a Gershwin soundtrack combine to create near perfection.
1979 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Mariel Hemingway, Alan Alda.
Must See
(repeats at 2:45pm)

5:55pm – IFC – Annie Hall
Often considered Woody Allen’s transition film from “funny Woody” to “serious Woody,” Annie Hall is both funny, thoughtful, and fantastic. One of the best scripts ever written, a lot of warmth as well as paranoid cynicism, and a career-making role for Diane Keaton (not to mention fashion-making).
1977 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane.
Must See

Tuesday, May 18

6:00am – TCM – Gold Diggers of 1933
The story’s nothing to get excited about (and in fact, the subplot that takes over the main plot wears out its welcome fairly quickly), but the strong Depression-era songs, kaleidoscopic choreography from Busby Berkeley, and spunky supporting work from Ginger Rogers pretty much make up for it.
1933 USA. Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Starring: Joan Blondell, Warren William, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Aline MacMahon, Ginger Rogers, Guy Kibbee.

8:00am – TCM – Gold Diggers of 1935
This movie is not even as good as Gold Diggers of 1933 (to which it is unrelated in plot), but it does have one thing that makes it eminently worth watching – the epic “Lullaby of Broadway” number that closes the show, with a full story-within-a-dance playing out through three verses of the song. It is possibly the most definitive number of 1930s backstage musicals.
1935 USA. Director: Busby Berkeley. Starring: Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Gloria Stuart, Alice Brady.
Newly Featured!

8:00am – IFC – The New World
Terrence Malick may not make many films, but the ones he does make, wow. Superficially the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, The New World is really something that transcends mere narrative – this is poetry on film. Every scene, every shot has a rhythm and an ethereal that belies the familiarity of the story we know. I expected to dislike this film when I saw it, quite honestly. It ended up moving me in ways I didn’t know cinema could.
2005 USA. Director: Terrence Malick. Starring: Colin Farrell, Q’orianka Kilcher, Christian Bale, Christopher Plummer.
Must See
(repeats at 2:05pm)

10:00pm – TCM – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Criminal Jack Nicholson gets put into a psychiatric hospital to see if maybe he’s crazy, and he ends up shaking the place up a bunch, especially the extremely strict by-the-book Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). I like this film but I’m not as big a fan as a lot of people; but if you’re a fan of Nicholson, he’s never better than here.
1975 USA. Director: Milos Forman. Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Dourif.
Newly Featured!

Wednesday, May 19

7:00am – IFC – Primer
Welcome to sci-fi at its most cerebral. You know how most science-dependent films include a non-science-type character so there’s an excuse to explain all the science to audience? Yeah, this film doesn’t have that character, so no one ever explains quite how the time travel device at the center of the film works. Or even that it is, actually, a time-travel device. This is the sci-fi version of getting thrown into the deep end when you can’t swim. Without floaties.
2004 USA. Director: Shane Carruth. Starring: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Casey Gooden, Anand Upadhyaya, Carrie Crawford.
(repeats at 1:00pm)

2:30am (20th) – Sundance – 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
This unflinching Romanian film remains one of the most powerful things I’ve seen in the last several years. Set in the mid-1980s, it builds a thriller-like story of a woman trying to help her friend obtain a dangerous illegal abortion – yet it’s a thriller so deliberate that its very slowness and lack of movement becomes a major source of tension. When the camera does move, it has an almost physical force. I can hardly describe how blown away I am by this film…tough to watch, but incredibly worth it.
2007 Romania. Director: Cristian Mungiu. Starring: Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov, Alexandru Potocean.
Must See

4:25am (20th) – Sundance – That Obscure Object of Desire
Luis Buñuel, ever one to come up with outlandish conceits, here directs two women playing the same role. The result is trippy and mesmerizing.
1977 France/Spain. Director: Luis Buñuel. Starring: Fernandy Rey, Carole Bouquet, Ángela Molina.

Thursday, May 20

10:00am – TCM – Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Frank Capra puts on his idealist hat to tell the story of Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), an inexperienced young man appointed as a junior senator because the corrupt senior senator thinks he’ll be easy to control. But Smith doesn’t toe the party line, instead launching a filibuster for what he believes in. Wonderful comedienne Jean Arthur is the journalist who initially encourages Smith so she can get a great story from his seemingly inevitable downfall, but soon joins his cause.
1939 USA. Director: Frank Capra. Starring: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Eugene Pallette, Thomas Mitchell.
Must See

4:00pm – TCM – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Three of the greatest names in westerns – John Ford, John Wayne, and James Stewart – teamed up to make this film just as the classical western was fading out of popularity. Perhaps fittingly, then, it’s a film about western myth and the transition from outlaw gunslingers to government rule, a transition aided in one town at least by the man who shot outlaw Liberty Valance.
1962 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O’Brien.

6:15pm – TCM – The Man From Laramie
One of several westerns that James Stewart and Anthony Mann made together, and this one is one of the most solid; in this one, Stewart is a wagon train leader who gets pulled into a territorial feud against his will when one side torches his wagons. These westerns begin to show the dark side of the west, where the hero is only a hero because it’s expedient for him, or because he has some personal gain to get out of it.
1955 USA. Director: Anthony Mann. Starring: James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp, Cathy O’Donnell.

Friday, May 21

6:45am – IFC – Hannah and Her Sisters
Though I love Manhattan and Annie Hall to bits, I throw my vote for best Woody Allen movie ever to Hannah and Her Sisters. It has all the elements Allen is known for – neurotic characters, infidelity, a tendency to philosophize randomly, New York City, dysfunctional family dynamics, acerbic wit – and blends them together much more cogently and evenly than most of his films do.
1986 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Barbara Hershey, Mia Farrow, Carrie Fisher, Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest, Woody Allen.
Must See
(repeats at 1:15pm)

7:15am – Sundance – Ran
Akira Kurosawa’s inspired transposition of King Lear into medieval Japan, mixing Shakespeare and Japanese Noh theatre tradition like nobody’s business.
1985 Japan. Director: Akira Kurosawa. Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu.
Must See
(repeats at 1:20pm)

8:35am – IFC – Away from Her
A very strong directing debut film from actress Sarah Polley, about an older woman (Julie Christie) suffering from Alzheimer’s and her husband’s difficulty in dealing with essentially the loss of his wife as she has more and more difficulty remembering their life together. It’s a lovely, heartbreaking film, bolstered by great understated performances.
2006 Canada. Director: Sarah Polley. Starring: Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent, Olympia Dukakis, Stacey LaBerge.
(repeats at 3:05pm)

9:30am – TCM – Private Lives
A sparkling battle-of-the-sexes comedy from the witty pen of Noel Coward. Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery play a divorced couple recently remarried to other people – until they end up honeymooning in adjoining suites and can’t manage to stay away from each other. It’s deliciously pre-code in dialogue and innuendo. It is pretty clearly early in the sound era, though, which tends to make some of it come across a little shrill.
1931 USA. Director: Sidney Franklin. Starring: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Reginald Denny, Una Merkel.
Newly Featured!

9:30pm – TCM – Cabin in the Sky
In honor of Lena Horne’s passing last week, TCM is playing three of her films. This is the only one I’ve seen, but it’s the middle of the three if you’re interested in checking out the others. This is also Vincente Minnelli’s first directorial effort, a musical fantasy about the battle over a man’s soul. If you happen to check out the post I just did on Row Three about the Out of Circulation Cartoon program at the TCM Festival, you’ll find a lot of the same stereotypes and storyline here as you will in those cartoons, but it does have stylish direction and some great musical moments from Ethel Waters, Horne, Louis Armstrong, and others.
1943 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Ethel Waters, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Rex Ingram.
Newly Featured!

Saturday, May 22

8:45am – IFC – Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Lawrence Sterne’s 1769 proto-postmodern novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy has long been considered unfilmable. So what does director Michael Winterbottom do? He makes a film about the difficulty of filming Tristram Shandy. Winterbottom’s film is something of an experiment, but it’s a delightful one, showing the behind-the-scenes antics of production as well as highlighting the circularity and self-defeating narrative of Sterne’s novel in the film-within-the-film.
2005 UK. Director: Michael Winterbottom. Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Keeley Hawes, Shirley Henderson, Jeremy Northam.
(repeats at 1:45pm)

4:15pm – TCM – Tarzan, The Ape Man
Get your pre-code action right here, as swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller brings Tarzan to life and Maureen O’Sullivan teaches him the ways of the human world as Jane. Generally, the sequel Tarzan and His Mate is considered the best of the series, but hey. Gotta start somewhere.
1932 USA. Director: W.S. Van Dyke. Starring: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O’Sullivan.

8:00pm – TCM – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Charles Laughton plays the put-upon hunchback Quasimodo, a young Maureen O’Hara the lovely Esmerelda in one of the best film versions of Victor Hugo’s classic of gothic romanticism.
1939 USA. Director: William Dieterle. Starring: Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Hara, Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell, Edmond O’Brien.

8:00pm – IFC – Blow Out
Sound man John Travolta is recording sound samples one night, and may have accidentally recorded a murder occurring. As he tries to investigate, he’s drawn into a dangerous conspiracy. Inspired to some degree by Antonioni’s photography-based Blow-Up, but this is definitely DePalma’s film all the way.
1981 USA. Director: Brian DePalma. Starring: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz.
(repeats at 1:30am on the 23rd)

Sunday, May 23

Catch-up day, apparently!

Kiss Me Deadly, playing on TCM on Saturday

Two birthday marathons on TCM this week – Akira Kurosawa on Tuesday (one of a multiple mini-marathons leading up to his centennial birthday on the 23rd) with heavy hitters The Bad Sleep Well, High and Low and Red Beard and some lesser-known ones; then Ginger Rogers on Wednesday, mostly concentrating on her pre-code stuff, including 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933, as well as a bunch of other obscure ones that probably aren’t quite “good” in the strictest sense of the word. Other newly featured stuff includes Ealing’s The Lavender Hill Mob on Tuesday, Kiss Me Deadly and 12 Angry Men on Saturday, and the Billy Wilder-penned Midnight on Sunday.

Tuesday, March 16

11:30am – TCM – The Lavender Hill Mob
Alec Guinness leads the Ealing Studios regulars in this delightful heist comedy, one of the greats among a bunch of great late ’40s, early ’50s Ealing films. Also look for a really young Audrey Hepburn in a walk-on (this is her first film, I believe).
1951 UK. Director: Charles Crichton. Starring: Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sid James, Marjorie Fielding.
Newly Featured!

1:00pm – 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.
1963 USA. Director: John Sturges. Starring: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasance, James Coburn, James Donald.
Must See

4:00pm – TCM – Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Musical tones and volcano images haunt Richard Dreyfuss, eventually leading to an encounter with some of the most strangely beuatiful and mysterious, yet apparently friendly, aliens ever put on film.
1977 USA. Director: Steven Spielberg. Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Francois Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Bob Balaban.

8:00pm – TCM – Akira Kurosawa centennial marathon
So, TCM’s playing Kurosawa films because it would be his 100th birthday on the 23rd of March. Predictably, I haven’t seen any of the offerings tonight, though, also predictably, I’m hoping to change that. Tonight, they’ve got The Bad Sleep Well followed by High and Low, and Red Beard, and then on into the morning with I Live in Fear and Scandal.

Wednesday, March 17

8:00pm – TCM – 42nd Street
By 1933 when 42nd Street came out, the Hollywood musical had already died. So excited by the musical possibilities that sound brought in 1927, Hollywood pumped out terrible musical after terrible musical until everyone was sick of them. 42nd Street almost single-handedly turned the tide and remains one of the all-time classic backstage musicals. It may look a little creaky by later standards, but there’s a vitality and freshness to it that can’t be beat.
1932 USA. Director: Lloyd Bacon. Starring: Warner Baxter, Ruby Keeler, George Brent, Bebe Daniels, Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers, Una Merkel.

9:45pm – TCM – Gold Diggers of 1933
The story’s nothing to get excited about (and in fact, the subplot that takes over the main plot wears out its welcome fairly quickly), but the strong Depression-era songs, kaleidoscopic choreography from Busby Berkeley, and spunky supporting work from Ginger Rogers pretty much make up for it.
1933 USA. Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Starring: Joan Blondell, Warren William, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Aline MacMahon, Ginger Rogers, Guy Kibbee.

Ginger Rogers marathon on TCM – The above two films are part of TCM’s birthday tribute to Ginger Rogers; if you’re a fan, keep watching the rest of Wednesday night and most of Thursday. They’re playing a lot of her little-known films, a lot of them pre-code, which can be a lot of fun. I haven’t heard of most of them myself, but I’m probably gonna keep my TV tuned to TCM and check some out.

Thursday, March 18

9:45am – Sundance – Metropolitan
If Jane Austen made a movie in 1990 and set it among entitled Manhattan socialites, this would be it. The film follows a group of such entitled teens from party to party, focusing especially on the one outsider, a boy from the blue-collar class who has to rent a tux and pretend he likes to walk to avoid letting his new friends know he has to take the bus home. Though they find out soon enough, they keep him around because his intellectual nattering amuses them. In fact, it’s quite amazing that this film is interesting at all, given the amount of pseudo-intellectual nattering that goes on, from all the characters. But from start to finish, it’s both entertaining and an incisive look at the American class structure.
1990 USA. Director: Whit Stillman. Starring: Edward Clements, Chris Eigeman, Carolyn Farina, Taylor Nichols, Dylan Hundley.
(repeats at 4:45pm)

9:55am – IFC – Paranoid Park
I go back and forth on whether I think Gus Van Sant is brilliant or a pretentious bore – maybe some of both. But I really quite liked the slow, oblique approach in this film about a wanna-be skateboarder kid who relishes hanging out with the bigger skateboarders at the titular skate park – but there’s a death not far from there, and it takes the rest of the movie to slowly reveal what exactly happened that one night near Paranoid Park. Gets by on mood and cinematography.
2007 USA Director: Gus Van Sant. Starring: Gabe Nevins, Daniel Lu, Jake Miller, Taylor Momsen, Lauren McKinney.
(repeats at 2:45pm)

8:00pm – TCM – My Darling Clementine
John Ford’s version of the famous confrontation at the OK Corral actually focuses more on Wyatt Earp’s fictional romance with the fictional Clementine than on the real-life Earp/Clanton feud, but history aside, this is one of the greatest and most poetic westerns on film, proving yet again Ford’s mastery of the genre and of cinema. (TCM is also playing a few other versions of the Wyatt Earp/OK Corral story following this one, so if you’re interested, stay tuned.)
1946 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Linda Darnell, Cathy Downs, Walter Brennan, Tim Holt.
Must See

8:00pm – IFC – Before Sunrise
Before Sunrise may be little more than an extended conversation between two people (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) who meet on a train in Europe and decide to spend all night talking and walking the streets of Vienna, I fell in love with it at first sight. Linklater has a way of making movies where nothing happens seem vibrant and fascinating, and call me a romantic if you wish, but this is my favorite of everything he’s done.
1995 USA. Director: Richard Linklater. Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy.
Must See
(repeats at 4:00am and 12:45pm on the 19th)

12:00M – IFC – The Cooler
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, made me take notice of Maria Bello, and gave Alec Baldwin pretty much his best role until 30 Rock.
2003 USA. Director: Wayne Cramer. Starring: William H. Macy, Mario Bello, Alec Baldwin.

Friday, March 19

6:35am – Sundance – Nights of Cabiria
Nights of Cabiria, one of the films Federico Fellini made during his sorta-neo-realist phase, casts Masina as a woman of the night, following her around almost non-committally, yet with a lot of care and heart. And Masina is simply amazing in everything she does – not classically beautiful, but somehow incredibly engaging for every second she’s onscreen.
1957 Italy. Director: Federico Fellini. Starring: Giulietta Masina, François Périer, Franca Marzi.
Must See
(repeats at 1:30pm)

Saturday, March 20

8:05am – IFC – The Station Agent
One of the most pleasant surprises (for me, anyway) of 2003. Peter Dinklage moves into a train depot to indulge his love for trains and stay away from people, only to find himself befriended by a loquacious Cuban hot-dog stand keeper and an emotionally delicate Patricia Clarkson. A quiet but richly rewarding film.
2003 USA. Director: Thomas McCarthy. Starring: Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannavale.
(repeats at 1:35pm)

8:30am – TCM – Kiss Me Deadly
Fairly iconic noir film, with hard-boiled action, nuclear paranoia, and one of the more memorable non-Hitchcock McGuffins in movie history. Plus some great LA locations. I didn’t quite love it as much as I wanted to the first time I saw it, but I’m due for a rewatch, and it definitely needs to be seen at least once, especially if you’re a noir fan.
1955 USA. Director: Robert Aldrich. Starring: Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Cloris Leachman, Marian Carr.
Newly Featured!

8:30am – Sundance – Eraserhead
David Lynch’s first feature is a weird post-apocalyptic dreamscape of a film – what, you were expecting something normal? When you can have industrial decay and mutant babies?
1977 USA. Director: David Lynch. Starring: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart.
(repeats at 4:00pm)

2:00pm – TCM – Stalag 17
William Holden won an Academy Award as a POW in this Billy Wilder film. Wilder had a knack for making top-of-the-line films in just about every genre, so even though I haven’t gotten around to seeing this one myself yet, I’m willing to give it a shot just based on Wilder’s involvement.
1953 USA. Director: Billy Wilder. Starring: William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Robert Strauss, Harvey Lembeck, Peter Graves.
Newly Featured!

4:15pm – TCM – 12 Angry Men
A brilliant exercise in minimalist filmmaking; after a brief courtroom scene, twelve jurors discuss the fate of a young man accused of murder. What’s assumed to be a cut-and-dried conviction is contested by Henry Fonda, who isn’t convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt, and slowly works through the evidence to pull the other jurors one by one to his side. The stifling heat, claustrophobic room, prejudices and preconceptions of the jurors, logic and emotions, everything plays into this film, which is much more engaging than it has any right to be.
1957 USA. Director: Sidney Lumet. Starring: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Klugman, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Ed Begley.
Must See
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – TCM – Lawrence of Arabia
Most epics are over-determined and so focused on spectacle that they end up being superficial – all big sets and sweeping music with no depth. The brilliance of Lawrence of Arabia is that it looks like an epic with all the big sets and sweeping music and widescreen vistas, but at its center is an enigmatic character study of a man who lives bigger-than-life, but is as personally conflicted as any intimate drama has ever portrayed.
1962 UK. Director: David Lean. Starring: Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness, Jose Ferrer.
Must See

Sunday, March 21

10:00am – TCM – Midnight
Solid Billy Wilder/Charles Brackett-penned screwball comedy that ought to be better known than it is. Claudette Colbert ends up in the middle of a millionare-wife-gigolo triangle, paid by the millionaire husband to break up the wife and gigolo by impersonating a baroness; meanwhile, a poor taxi driver she’d met previously is smitten with her and seeks her out, only to find her in her new guise. Sparkling dialogue and a strong cast give this a sophisticated twist that doesn’t quite match Lubitsch at his best, but is on the same track.
1939 USA. Director: Mitchell Leisen. Starring: Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore, Mary Astor, Francis Lederer.
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – IFC – Kill Bill: Vol. 1
A lot of people would point to Pulp Fiction as Tarantino’s best film, and I think Inglourious Basterds is right up there, too, but I vote Kill Bill Vol. 1 for sheer amount of fun. He homages spaghetti westerns, Hong Kong fighting flicks, and revenge-sploitation, and ties it all together with incredible style.
2003 USA. Director: Quentin Tarantino. Starring: Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Daryl Hannah, David Carradine.
Must See

10:00pm – TCM – The Magnificent Seven
Homage comes full circle as American John Sturges remakes Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai as a western – Kurosawa’s film itself was a western transposed into a Japanese setting. Sturges ain’t no Kurosawa, but the story of a group of outcast cowboys banding together to protect an oppressed village is still a good one, plus there’s a young Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson in the cast.
1960 USA. Director: John Sturges. Starring: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson.

10:30pm – IFC – Kill Bill: Vol. 2
On the one hand, Kill Bill Vol 1 isn’t quite complete without Kill Bill Vol 2. And there are a lot of good parts in here – the film noirish opening as the Bride catches us up on what’s going on, the fight with Daryl Hannah in the trailer, training with the kung fu master, her getting out of the coffin, etc. But the ending lags a little too much for me to truly say I enjoy watching it as much as Vol. 1.
2004 USA. Director: Quentin Tarantino. Starring: Uma Thurman, Daryl Hannah, David Carradine, Michael Madsen.

Lawrence of Arabia, playing Monday at 11pm on TCM

This is February, which means Oscars are coming up, which means TCM has launched into their annual 31 Days of Oscar lineup, meaning every film they play in the month of February has been at least nominated for an Academy Award. Now, that could mean it was nominated for Best Costume Design in 1937, but hey. Generally it means a fairly high overall quality of programming, and a number of films they don’t play very often the rest of the year.

Monday, February 1

8:55am – Sundance – Metropolitan
If Jane Austen made a movie in 1990 and set it among entitled Manhattan socialites, this would be it. The film follows a group of such entitled teens from party to party, focusing especially on the one outsider, a boy from the blue-collar class who has to rent a tux and pretend he likes to walk to avoid letting his new friends know he has to take the bus home. Though they find out soon enough, they keep him around because his intellectual nattering amuses them. In fact, it’s quite amazing that this film is interesting at all, given the amount of pseudo-intellectual nattering that goes on, from all the characters. But from start to finish, it’s both entertaining and an incisive look at the American class structure.
1990 USA. Director: Whit Stillman. Starring: Edward Clements, Chris Eigeman, Carolyn Farina, Taylor Nichols, Dylan Hundley.
(repeats at 3:40pm and 10:30pm, and 5:45pm on the 6th)

8:00pm – TCM – Funny Girl
Barbra Streisand tied Katharine Hepburn, no less, to win an Oscar for her role as Ziegfeld comedienne Fanny Brice. I’m neither a big Brice fan nor a big Streisand fan, so I haven’t seen it, but maybe I’ll get around to it one day.
1968 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif, Kay Medford, Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon.

11:00pm – TCM – Lawrence of Arabia
Most epics are over-determined and so focused on spectacle that they end up being superficial – all big sets and sweeping music with no depth. The brilliance of Lawrence of Arabia is that it looks like an epic with all the big sets and sweeping music and widescreen vistas, but at its center is an enigmatic character study of a man who lives bigger-than-life, but is as personally conflicted as any intimate drama has ever portrayed.
1962 UK. Director: David Lean. Starring: Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness, Jose Ferrer.
Must See
Newly Featured!

Tuesday, February 2

5:30am – TCM – Great Expectations
David Lean’s definitive version of one of Charles Dickens’ most well-known books, about the boy Pip and his rise to fortune through the aid of a mysterious benefactor. I’ve avoided this because of my distaste for Dickens, but hey. The movie can’t have time to ramble on like Dickens does, so maybe I’d like it.
1946 UK. Director: David Lean. Starring: John Mills, Tony Wager, Valerie Hobson, Jean Simmons, Bernard Miles, Martita Hunt.
Newly Featured!

8:05am – IFC – The New World
Terrence Malick may not make many films, but the ones he does make, wow. Superficially the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, The New World is really something that transcends mere narrative – this is poetry on film. Every scene, every shot has a rhythm and an ethereal that belies the familiarity of the story we know. I expected to dislike this film when I saw it, quite honestly. It ended up moving me in ways I didn’t know cinema could.
2005 USA. Director: Terrence Malick. Starring: Colin Farrell, Q’orianka Kilcher, Christian Bale, Christopher Plummer.
Must See
(repeats at 1:35pm)

8:00pm – TCM – The Thin Man
If there’s such a genre as “sophisticated comedy-mystery,” The Thin Man is the apex of it. William Powell and Myrna Loy starred in thirteen films together, but never did their chemistry sparkle quite so much as here, in their first of six outings as husband-and-wife detectives Nick and Nora Charles. In between cocktails and marital moments, they investigate the disappearance of the titular thin man (later in the series, “thin man” erroneously became associated with Nick). There’s so much to love about this film – the great dialogue, hilarious supporting characters (only a few of which go too far over the top), and honestly, most of all, the amazing portrayal of a solid, loving marriage in the midst of so much chaos.
1934 USA. Director: W.S. Van Dyke. Starring: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O’Sullivan.
Must See

10:00pm – TCM – The Best Years of Our Lives
One of the first films to deal with the aftermath of WWII, as servicemen return home to find both themselves and their homes changed by the long years of war. Director William Wyler and a solid ensemble cast do a great job of balancing drama and realism without delving too much into sentimentality.
1946 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, Herbert Russell, Cathy O’Donnell.
Newly Featured!

3:15am (3rd) – TCM – Sergeant York
Gary Cooper won his first Oscar for his portrayal of WWI hero Sgt. Alvin York, a pacifist who somehow decided that the fastest way to stop the killing was to join up and kill as many Germans as he could to end the war.
1941 USA. Director: Howard Hawks. Starring: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, George Tobias, Margaret Wycherly, Ward Bond.
Newly Featured!

Wednesday, February 3

6:00am – IFC – Garden State
First-time director Braff brings his quirky personality and taste in indie music to this story of a young man who returns to his home town for the first time in years for his mother’s funeral. While there, he meets a girl who teaches him how to feel for the first time since his father started prescribing meds to him as a child. It’s become a popular pastime to hate on Garden State and its self-conscious quirk, but I refuse. I loved it when I first saw it, and I love it now.
2004 USA. Director: Zach Braff. Starring: Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard.
(repeats at 11:15am and 4:35pm)

7:15am – TCM – The Champ
Wallace Beery earned an Oscar for his role as a has-been prizefighter, living hand to mouth with his adoring son. But then the boy has a chance to go live with his mother, long-divorced from Beery and now married to a well-to-do man. This is a great example of a high-end Warner Bros. programmer from the early 1930s – it’s very lean, nothing extra in it, but it’s got a heart that I didn’t expect.
1931 USA. Director: King Vidor. Starring: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Roscoe Ates.

7:45am – IFC – Hannah and Her Sisters
Though I love Manhattan and Annie Hall to bits, I throw my vote for best Woody Allen movie ever to Hannah and Her Sisters. It has all the elements Allen is known for – neurotic characters, infidelity, a tendency to philosophize randomly, New York City, dysfunctional family dynamics, acerbic wit – and blends them together much more cogently and evenly than most of his films do.
1986 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Barbara Hershey, Mia Farrow, Carrie Fisher, Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest, Woody Allen.
Must See
(repeats at 1:00pm, and 4:35am on the 4th)

10:45am – TCM – The Public Enemy
Famous for the scene where James Cagney smashes a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face, this is one of the gold standards of early gangster films, along with Little Caesar and Howard Hawks’s Scarface.
1931 USA. Director: William A. Wellman. Starring: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell, Mae Clarke.

12:15pm – TCM – Yankee Doodle Dandy
James Cagney won an Oscar putting on his dancing shoes to play song-and-dance man and Broadway composer George M. Cohan in this biopic. Though it seems strange to think of gangster picture regular Cagney in a musical, he actually got his start in show business as a hoofer, and returned to musicals many times throughout his career, though this remains the most notable example.
1942 USA. Director: Michael Curtiz. Starring: James Cagney, Joan Leslie.

Thursday, February 4

7:30am – IFC – Manhattan
In one of Woody Allen’s best films, he’s a neurotic intellectual New Yorker (surprise!) caught between his ex-wife Meryl Streep, his teenage mistress Mariel Hemingway, and Diane Keaton, who just might be his match. Black and white cinematography, a great script, and a Gershwin soundtrack combine to create near perfection.
1979 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Mariel Hemingway, Alan Alda.
Must See
(repeats at 11:30am and 4:30pm)

7:15am – TCM – Captain Blood
This was Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland’s first of eight films together, and it’s one of the best. Flynn is the eponymous captain, a dentist named Blood who gets captured by pirates and ends up escaping and taking over the pirate ship himself. Full of swashbuckling and derring-do.
1935 USA. Director: Michael Curtiz. Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill, Basil Rathbone, Guy Kibbee.

9:45am – IFC – Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Lawrence Sterne’s 1769 proto-postmodern novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy has long been considered unfilmable. So what does director Michael Winterbottom do? He makes a film about the difficulty of filming Tristram Shandy. Winterbottom’s film is something of an experiment, but it’s a delightful one, showing the behind-the-scenes antics of production as well as highlighting the circularity and self-defeating narrative of Sterne’s novel in the film-within-the-film.
2005 UK. Director: Michael Winterbottom. Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Keeley Hawes, Shirley Henderson, Jeremy Northam.
(repeats at 2:50pm)

8:00pm – TCM – The Uninvited (1944)
Not to be confused with the 2009 film The Uninvited, which is actually a remake of Korea’s A Tale of Two Sisters, this unrelated ghost story film is a lovely example of a certain style of 1940s horror – quiet, understated, atmospheric, and yet chilling and haunting.
1944 USA. Director: Lewis Allen. Starring: Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp.
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – 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.
2002 USA. Director: Spike Jonze. Starring: Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Tilda Swinton, Chris Cooper.

12:00M – TCM – The Adventures of Robin Hood
I will state almost categorically that this is the greatest adventure film ever made. Maybe it’s a dead heat between this one and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Errol Flynn is Robin Hood, Olivia de Havilland is Maid Marion, a whole raft of fantastic character actors fill out the rest of the cast, and it’s all done in gorgeous Technicolor (it’s one of the earliest Technicolor films).
1938 USA. Directors: William Keighley & Michael Curtiz. Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Claude Rains, Basil Rathbone, Eugene Pallette, Alan Hale, Patric Knowles, Una O’Connor.
Must See

4:15am (5th) – TCM – Little Women (1933)
This first sound version of Little Women has a young Katharine Hepburn in the lead, along with a roll-call of great 1930s starlets and character actors. It’s a bit wooden compared to the 1994 version, but it’s got a lot of charm nonetheless.
1933 USA. Director: George Cukor. Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Paul Lukas, Edna May Oliver, Jean Parker, Frances Dee.

Friday, February 5

7:45am – Sundance – Paris je t’aime
I have a huge soft spot for Paris – basically any movie set there I will like to at least some degree. So an anthology film with eighteen internationally-renowned directors giving their take on Paris with eighteen short films all mashed together? Yeah, instant love. Obviously some sections are far stronger than others – the Coens, Gus van Sant, Alexander Payne, Isabel Coixet, Tom Tykwer, and Wes Craven turn in my favorites.
2006 France. Director: various. Starring: many.
(repeats at 3:00pm)

10:45am – TCM – Gold Diggers of 1933
The story’s nothing to get excited about (and in fact, the subplot that takes over the main plot wears out its welcome fairly quickly), but the strong Depression-era songs, kaleidoscopic choreography from Busby Berkeley, and spunky supporting work from Ginger Rogers pretty much make up for it.
1933 USA. Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Starring: Joan Blondell, Warren William, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Aline MacMahon, Ginger Rogers, Guy Kibbee.

8:00pm – TCM – True Grit
John Wayne had a career full of iconic western roles before he won an Oscar for this one, as tough old U.S. Marshall “Rooster” Cogburn, recruited by a young woman to help her avenge her father’s death, a quest that takes them deep into Indian territory.
1969 USA. Director: Henry Hathaway. Starring: John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Kim Darby, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper.
Newly Featured!

2:30am (6th) – TCM – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Interracial marriage may not be quite the hot topic now that it was in 1967 (although if you check some parts of the American South, you might be surprised), but at the time, Katharine Houghton bringing home Sidney Poitier to meet her parents Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (in his last film) was the height of socially conscious filmmaking.
1967 USA. Director: Stanley Kramer. Starring: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton, Cecil Kellaway.
Newly Featured!

Saturday, February 6

12:30pm – TCM – The Magnificent Seven
Homage comes full circle as American John Sturges remakes Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai as a western – Kurosawa’s film itself was a western transposed into a Japanese setting. Sturges ain’t no Kurosawa, but the story of a group of outcast cowboys banding together to protect an oppressed village is still a good one, plus there’s a young Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson in the cast.
1960 USA. Director: John Sturges. Starring: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson.

5:00pm – 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.
1963 USA. Director: John Sturges. Starring: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasance, James Coburn, James Donald.
Must See
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – Sundance – The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Luis Bu˜uel made a career out of making surrealist anti-bourgeois films, and this is one of the most surreal, most anti-bourgeois, and best films he ever made, about a dinner party that just can’t quite get started due to completely absurd interruptions.
1972 France. Director: Luis Buñuel. Starring: Fernando Rey, Paul Fankeur, Delphine Seyrig, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel.
(repeats at 4:00am on the 7th)

12:00M – TCM – Bonnie and Clyde
This is a perfect film. If you have not seen it, see it. If you have seen it, see it again. In either case, rather than write again how much I love it, I will just refer you here.
1967 USA. Director: Arthur Penn. Starring: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons.
Must See

2:00am – Sundance – 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
This unflinching Romanian film remains one of the most powerful things I’ve seen in the last several years. Set in the mid-1980s, it builds a thriller-like story of a woman trying to help her friend obtain a dangerous illegal abortion – yet it’s a thriller so deliberate that its very slowness and lack of movement becomes a major source of tension. When the camera does move, it has an almost physical force. I can hardly describe how blown away I am by this film…tough to watch, but incredibly worth it.
2007 Romania. Director: Cristian Mungiu. Starring: Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov, Alexandru Potocean.
Must See

Sunday, February 7

1:45pm – TCM – Rebecca
Hitchcock’s first American film, based on Daphne du Maurier’s romantic novel. Rebecca is actually the previous wife of our mousy narrator’s new husband – her greatest fear is that he still loves Rebecca too much to care for her, but the truth may be more sinister than that. A lot of people really love this film, but I personally dislike the Hollywoodized ending enough that I’m not a huge fan.
1940 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, Judith Anderson, George Sanders.

4:00pm – TCM – Wuthering Heights
William Wyler’s moody 1939 version of Emily Bronte’s moody gothic novel, with Laurence Olivier as the moody Heathcliff. It’s moody. Get it? It’s also probably the best film version of the story up till now.
1939 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon, Geraldine Fitzgerald, David Niven, Flora Robson.

6:00pm – TCM – The Pink Panther
Most people would agree that A Shot in the Dark is the best of the Pink Panther series, but the first entry is still well worth watching. Peter Sellers is perfect as bumbling detective Jacques Clouseau, trying to recover a stolen diamond for David Niven.
1963 UK/USA. Director: Blake Edwards. Starring: David Niven, Peter Sellers, Robert Wagner, Capucine.

8:00pm – TCM – 8 1/2
Federico Fellini translates his creative block in making his next film into a film about a director with a creative block – and in so doing, makes one of the most elusively brilliant and creative films of all time.
1963 Italy. Director: Federico Fellini. Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée.
Must See

10:30pm – TCM – Juliet of the Spirits
I’ve seen this Fellini film, but darned if I could tell you anything about it except Guilietta Masina has crazy weird surrealist visions. It’s gorgeous looking, at any rate, and would be worth a rewatch on my part, for sure.
1965 Italy. Director: Federico Fellini. Starring: Giulietta Masina, Sandro Milo, Mario Pisu, Valentine Cortese.
Newly Featured!

3:15am (7th) – TCM – On the Beach
After nuclear war, most of humanity is destroyed; a small outpost in Australia survives, but not for long. See David’s longer take here.
1959 USA. Director: Stanley Kramer. Starring: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire.
Newly Featured!

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, playing on IFC at 10:00pm on Monday, October 19th.

Mostly repeats this week again. Of the new stuff, check out IFC’s ongoing tribute to Monty Python, which has Holy Grail and Life of Brian playing a couple of nights each, as well as a bunch of Flying Circus episodes and other archival docs and footage of the zany comedy group. That’s going on every weeknight starting at 6pm EST, I do believe. Also watch out for Shadow of the Vampire on IFC on Saturday night and its inspiration, the original Nosferatu on TCM late Sunday night.

Monday, October 19th

5:15am – Sundance – Nights of Cairia
Nights of Cabiria, one of the films Federico Fellini made during his sorta-neo-realist phase, casts Masina as a woman of the night, following her around almost non-committally, yet with a lot of care and heart. And Masina is simply amazing in everything she does – not classically beautiful, but somehow incredibly engaging for every second she’s onscreen.
1957 Italy. Director: Federico Fellini. Starring: Giulietta Masina, François Périer, Franca Marzi.
Must See

7:35am – IFC – Jules et Jim
Jules and Jim are best friends. Then Catherine falls into their lives like a hurricane – she’s almost a force of chaotic primal nature. She marries Jules, but when Jim reconnects with the couple after WWII (in which the two friends fought on opposite sides), their relationship gets…um…complicated. This is one of the classics of the New Wave, and exemplifies the movement’s realistic style, dispassionate camera and narration, and intellectual pursuits.
1963 France. Director: François Truffaut. Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre.
(repeats at 12:35pm)

10:00pm – IFC – Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Easily one of the most absurd, random, hilarious, and quotable comedies of all time. A more hapless bunch of Round Table knights couldn’t be found, and Monty Python has never been better than they are here.
1975 UK. Directors: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones. Starring: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones.
Must See
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 1:00am on the 20th, 10:00pm on the 22nd, and 1:00am on the 23rd)

Tuesday, October 20th

10:00pm – IFC – Monty Python’s The Life of Brian
After demolishing the legends of Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Python troupe takes on the Bible, as early A.D. baby Brian is mistaken for the Messiah and hilarity ensues. I don’t think it’s as good as Grail myself, but there are those who would place Brian at the top of the Python foodchain.
1979 UK. Directors: Terry Jones. Starring: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 11:35pm on the 23rd and 1:00am on the 24th)

Wednesday, October 21st

11:45am – Sundance – Ran
Akira Kurosawa’s inspired transposition of King Lear into medieval Japan, mixing Shakespeare and Japanese Noh theatre tradition like nobody’s business.
1985 Japan. Director: Akira Kurosawa. Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu.
Must See
(repeats at 5:45am on the 22nd)

10:00pm – TCM – The Third Man
Novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) searches for his elusive, possibly murdered friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in post-war Vienna. A little bit of American film noir, a little bit of European ambiguity, all mixed together perfectly by screenwriter Grahame Green and director Carol Reed.
1949 UK/US. Director: Carol Reed. Starring: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles.
Must See

12:00M – TCM – Suspicion
Joan Fontaine, playing another of those mousy roles that she does so well that you can’t help but like them, is a newlywed wife who begins to fear that her husband (Cary Grant) is poisoning her. A gutsy move from Hitchcock, casting hero Grant in such an ambiguous role. The film as a whole doesn’t hold up quite as well as Hitch’s best, but it’s well worth a look.
1941 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Nigel Bruce.
Newly Featured!

12:00M – Sundance – Metropolitan
If Jane Austen made a movie in 1990 and set it among entitled Manhattan socialites, this would be it. The film follows a group of such entitled teens from party to party, focusing especially on the one outsider, a boy from the blue-collar class who has to rent a tux and pretend he likes to walk to avoid letting his new friends know he has to take the bus home. Though they find out soon enough, they keep him around because his intellectual nattering amuses them. In fact, it’s quite amazing that this film is interesting at all, given the amount of pseudo-intellectual nattering that goes on, from all the characters. But from start to finish, it’s both entertaining and an incisive look at the American class structure.
1990 USA. Director: Whit Stillman. Starring: Edward Clements, Chris Eigeman, Carolyn Farina, Taylor Nichols, Dylan Hundley.
(repeats at 12:00M on the 22nd)

2:45am (22nd) – Sundance – INLAND EMPIRE
David Lynch’s latest magnum opus, which pretty much can’t be understood by any use of normal narrative logic. However, it works thematically and emotionally as well as any movie I’ve seen ever. Stories weave in and out of each other, characters merge and separate, the plot you thought you had a hold of becomes elusive and it’s essentially impossible to tell what’s real. But if you let yourself go to it, you’re in for a special treat. You know those 3D images that you can only see by throwing your eyes out of focus? Do that with your mind in order to “see” INLAND EMPIRE.
2006 USA. Director: David Lynch. Starring: Laura Dern, Justin Theroux, Jeremy Irons, Jan Hencz, Karolina Gruszka, Grace Zabriski
Must See

Thursday, October 22nd

8:00pm – TCM – Gold Diggers of 1933
The story’s nothing to get excited about (and in fact, the subplot that takes over the main plot wears out its welcome fairly quickly), but the strong Depression-era songs, kaleidoscopic choreography from Busby Berkeley, and spunky supporting work from Ginger Rogers pretty much make up for it.
1933 USA. Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Starring: Joan Blondell, Warren William, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Aline MacMahon, Ginger Rogers, Guy Kibbee.
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – TCM – The Purple Rose of Cairo
A love letter to cinema, The Purple Rose of Cairo has Woody Allen at his most romantic. Unhappy housewife Cecilia (Mia Farrow) escapes to the cinema to see The Purple Rose of Cairo again and again, where she fantasizes over hunky character Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels). Much to her surprise (and the other characters’ consternation), Baxter steps off the screen to join her. It makes it even more complicated when Gil, the actor who played Baxter, turns up as well.
1985 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, Danny Aiello.

Friday, October 23rd

9:15am – IFC – Paranoid Park
I’ve not generally been a fan of the indie, meditative side of Gus Van Sant (I find it a big pretentious), but I quite liked this little film about a boy who may know more than he’s telling about a death on the railroad tracks near the titular skate park where he hangs out. It’s slow and oblique, but also thoughtful and moving. Might be time to give Elephant another try.
2007 USA. Director: Gus Van Sant. Starring: Gabe Nevins, Daniel Liu, Jake Miller, Taylor Momsen, Lauren McKinney.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 2:50pm, and 5:45am on the 24th)

8:00pm – TCM – 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 head NEVER.” In a good way.
1955 USA. Director: Charles Laughton. Starring: Robert Mitchum, Lillian Gish.
Must See

3:30am (24th) – Fox Movie Channel – Barton Fink
One of the Coen Brothers’ most brilliant dark comedies (heh, I think I say that about all of their dark comedies, though), Barton Fink follows its title character, a New York playwright whose hit play brings him to the attention of Hollywood, where he goes to work for the movies. And it all goes downhill from there. Surreal, quirky, and offbeat, even among the Coens work. It’s based loosely on the experiences of Clifford Odets, whose heightened poetic style of writing has clearly been influential on the Coens throughout their career.
1991 USA. Director: Joel Coen. Starring: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner, Tony Shalhoub.

Saturday, October 24th

10:15am – Fox Movie Channel – The Mark of Zorro
Not perhaps one of the greatest adventure films ever made, but a perfectly servicable one, and quite enjoyable for fans of Zorro. Tyrone Power was Fox’s version of Errol Flynn, and though he doesn’t have quite the panache that Flynn does, he’s still fun.
1940 USA. Director: Rouben Mamoulian. Starring: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard, Eugene Pallette.

11:35am – IFC – Millions
In this Danny Boyle film, a young British boy finds a bag with millions of pounds in it; the catch is that Britain is days away from switching to the euro, so the money will soon be worthless. The shifting ethical questions combined with a sometimes almost Pulp Fiction-esque style and a fascinating religious backdrop (I’m still not sure where he was going with that) at the very least means an intriguing couple of hours.
2004 UK. Director: Danny Boyle. Starring: Alex Etel, Lewis McGibbon, James Nesbitt, Daisy Donovan, Christopher Fulford.
(repeats at 5:15pm)

8:00pm – IFC – Shadow of the Vampire
What if actor Max Schreck, who played the vampire in F.W. Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu, actually WAS a vampire and kept eating various members of the cast and crew? That’s the premise set forth by this entertaining film, with John Malkovich as Murnau and Willem Dafoe as the eccentric Schreck.
2000 USA. Director: E. Elias Merhige. Starring: John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Cary Elwes, Catherine McCormack
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 2:30am on the 25th)

8:00pm – TCM – The Letter
In this cut-above-average melodrama, Bette Davis shoots a man in self-defense. Or was it self-defense?
1940 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall.

Sunday, October 25th

7:30am – TCM – The Mystery of the Wax Museum
A master wax sculptor has to start from scratch with his museum when his collection is burned in a fire; unfortunately, he is injured as well, so he has to resort to…unorthodox means to replace his creations. I actually saw this at a repertory cinema recently and hope to have a full review of it up soon. In the meantime, it’s no classic for the ages, but if you enjoy 1930s film or vintage horror, it’s really enjoyable.
1933 USA. Director: Michael Curtiz. Starring: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell.
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – Sundance – The Squid and the Whale
Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney are married writers/academics who finally drive each other too crazy to keep living together, bringing their two adolescent sons into their turmoil when they separate. Everything about the film works together to create one of the best films of the past few years. Writer/director Noah Baumbach has crafted a highly intelligent script which is achingly witty and bitterly funny; the acting is superb all around; the music fits beautifully, and even the setting (1980s Brooklyn) is something of a character.
2005 USA. Director: Noah Baumbach. Starring: Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline.
Must See
(repeats at 5:05am on the 26th)

12:30am (26th) – TCM – Nosferatu
Made in 1922, this is still one of the greatest vampire movies ever made, and possibly the best version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (names are changed due to rights issues, but it’s Dracula at the core). F.W. Murnau epitomizes German Expressionism here with his use of moody light and shadow, while Max Schreck is the embodiment of the horror of Dracula, back before vampires got all sexy and stuff.
1922 Germany. Director: F.W. Murnau. Starring: Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schroeder.
Must See
Newly Featured!

2:15am (26th) – TCM – Les Diaboliques
In Henri-Georges Clouzot’s thriller, a man’s wife and mistress plot together to murder him (gee, I wonder why?), but find it more difficult than they expected to get rid of him for good. Twisty turny gem of a thriller with a few terrifying moments.
1955 France. Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot. Starring: Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse.

Volver, playing on IFC at 12:35pm on the 31st and 4:15am on the 1st

I apologize in advance for the relative brevity of this week’s post. I’ve been fighting a fever all weekend, so I pretty much only included things I had already written about somewhere or could throw something up without thinking. The quality of my prose probably isn’t that great either.

Monday, July 27

6:15pm – TCM – Tarzan, the Ape Man
Get your pre-code action right here, as swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller brings Tarzan to life and Maureen O’Sullivan teaches him the ways of the human world as Jane. Generally, the sequel Tarzan and His Mate is considered the best of the series, but hey. Gotta start somewhere.
Newly Featured!

8:15am – IFC – A Hard Day’s Night
Richard Lester’s 1964 Beatles-starring film straddles several genres – musical, concert film, documentary, comedy. The good news is that it’s an excellent film in any genre. You’ll be hard-pressed to find any film an exuberant as this one, and with the Beatles right on the cusp of becoming the greatest band of all time… Must See
(repeats at 1:15pm)

8:00pm – IFC – The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Certainly not Wes Anderson’s best – it seems a bit too self-consciously quirky and a bit too awkwardly artificial even for him. It’s as if he took “Wes Anderson-ness” and turned it up just a little too far and it couldn’t sustain itself. But there are still a number of good moments that make it worthwhile, especially for Anderson fans.
(repeats 4:00am on the 28th)

Tuesday, July 28

8:00pm – IFC – Chasing Amy
Kevin Smith’s third film, not as low-fi indie as Clerks, as goofy as Mallrats, as irreverently genius as Dogma, as self-referential as Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, or as racy as Zach and Miri Make a Porno, but perhaps sweeter than all of them – Ben Affleck falls for Joey Lauren Adams, with the only slight obstacle being that she’s a lesbian.
(repeats at 3:30am on the 29th)

Wednesday, July 29

2:45pm – TCM – Funny Girl
Barbra Streisand tied Katharine Hepburn, no less, to win an Oscar for her role as Ziegfeld comedienne Fanny Brice. I’m neither a big Brice fan nor a big Streisand fan, so I haven’t seen it, but maybe I’ll get around to it one day.
Newly Featured!

5:15pm – Sundance – Ran
Akira Kurosawa’s inspired transposition of King Lear into medieval Japan, mixing Shakespeare and Japanese Noh theatre tradition like nobody’s business. Must See

9:15pm – TCM – Gold Diggers of 1933
Still one of my favorite Warner Bros. pre-code show business musicals, even if the romantic subplot is decidedly sub-par. The musical numbers and comic supporting roles make up for it.
Newly Featured!

11:00pm – TCM – Footlight Parade
James Cagney is well-known for playing gangsters and hoods, but he was also a talented dancer, and this is a rare chance to see him showcase that side of his abilities. He’s opposite standard 1930s Warner Bros’ leading lady Ruby Keeler.
Newly Featured!

Thursday, July 30

7:15am – TCM – Twentieth Century
In one of the films that defines “screwball comedy” (along with The Awful Truth and Bringing Up Baby), John Barrymore plays a histrionic theatre producer trying to convince his star Carole Lombard to come back to him – both professionally and personally. Lombard is luminous as usual, and Barrymore can chew scenery with the best of them, which is precisely what his role calls for.

12:45pm – TCM – Out of the Past
Out of the Past comes up in most conversations about film noir. It’s got all the elements: low-key lighting (due in this case to budgetary concerns), an existential anti-hero (Robert Mitchum), a femme fatale (Jane Greer), etc. It’s honestly not my favorite noir, but it’s a good one to see once.

4:00pm – TCM – While the City Sleeps
The head of a New York newspaper dies, leaving it in his son Vincent Price’s hands to choose someone to promote: managing editor Thomas Mitchell, lead reporter Dana Andrews, or a couple of other people. The way to get the job? Get the scoop on the serial killer taking out women around the city. It gets a little plot-heavy at times, but it’s so full of classic character actors and the noirish feel that director Fritz Lang does so well that it’s still very worthwhile.
Newly Featured!

6:00pm – TCM – Spellbound
Hitchcock indulged the 1940s Freudian craze with this suspenser starring Gregory Peck as a disturbed individual and Ingrid Bergman as his psychiatrist. Throw in a trippy Salvador Dali dream sequence and you’re all set!

8:00pm – IFC – Mad Max
The first entry in the post-apocalyptic punk-action series that made Mel Gibson a star.
(repeats at 3:30am)

8:15pm – Sundance – Bob le flambeur
Jean-Pierre Melville’s noirish crime film about an aging gambler/thief who takes on one last job – knocking over a casino. Melville was the master of French crime films, and an important figure leading up to the New Wave – Godard name-checks this film in Breathless, mentioning Bob le flambeur (Bob the Gambler) as an associate of Michel’s.

10:00pm – Sundance – Le doulos
Jean-Paul Belmondo brings his signature style to Jean-Pierre Meville’s excellent crime film as a possible police informant working with another criminal on a jewel heist. These two men are played off each other in a sort of doubling motif – it’s often even difficult to tell which is which, due to careful cinematography and lighting work by Melville.

2:00am (24th) – TCM – Wuthering Heights
William Wyler’s moody 1939 version of Emily Bronte’s moody gothic novel, with Laurence Olivier as the moody Heathcliff. It’s moody. Get it? Interestingly, I’m more impressed generally with Geraldine Fitzgerald’s Isabella than Merle Oberon’s Catherine/Cathy, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it.
Newly Featured

2:30am (24th) – Sundance – Army of Shadows
This Melville film about the French Resistance during WWII wasn’t actually released in the US until 2006 (it was made in 1969), so getting to see it at all is something of a treat. I haven’t had the opportunity yet (though as of this morning I had it on my DVR not once but TWICE). Hopefully I’ll get around to it soon.
(repeats at 2:45pm on the 31st)

Friday, July 31

5:15am – TCM – Love Affair
This film is not as well known as its remake, 1957’s An Affair to Remember, which has the advantage of having the more famous Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr rather than Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer – who were both huge stars at the time, but are less known now. Both films were directed by Leo McCarey, and tell of a shipboard romance and a fateful rendezvous. I actually like Love Affair a tad better, but that could be just because I like being contrarian.

8:45am – Sundance – Paris, je t’aime
I have a huge soft spot for Paris – basically any movie set there I will like to at least some degree. So an anthology film with eighteen internationally-renowned directors giving their take on Paris with eighteen short films all mashed together? Yeah, instant love. Obviously some sections are far stronger than others – the Coens, Gus van Sant, Alexander Payne, Isabel Coixet, Tom Tykwer, and Wes Craven turn in my favorites.

9:00am – TCM – Midnight
A lesser-known screwball comedy written by Billy Wilder before he started directing (it’s directed by Mitchell Leisen), starring Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore, and Mary Astor. It’s relatively slight as these things go, but it definitely has its delights, and ought to be better remembered than it is, I think.
Newly Featured!

12:35pm – Sundance – Volver
Pedro Almodovar deftly straddles the line between drama and comedy in one of his more accessible films. Two sisters return to their home at the death of their aunt, only to find their mother’s ghost – or is it a ghost? And as always in Almodovar’s films, there are related subplots aplenty. Penelope Cruz is incredible as the younger, fierier sister – she’s never been more moving than in her passionate rendition of the title song, nor funnier than when calmly cleaning up a murder scene. Must See
(repeats at 4:15am on the 1st)

2:00pm – TCM – Dark Passage
Okay, so this is the least memorable of the four films that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made together. It’s still Bogart and Bacall, and it’s a perfectly respectable and enjoyable film noir.
Newly Featured!

5:45pm – IFC – Maria Full of Grace
Once in a while a film comes out of nowhere and floors me – this quiet little film about a group of South American women who agree to smuggle drugs into the United States by swallowing packets of cocaine did just that. Everything in the film is perfectly balanced, no element overwhelms anything else, and it all comes together with great empathy, but without sentimentality.
(repeats at 5:00am on the 1st)

9:15pm – 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, made me take notice of Maria Bello, and gave Alec Baldwin pretty much his best role until 30 Rock.
(repeats at 3:15am on the 1st)

2:30am (1st) – Sundance – That Obscure Object of Desire
Luis Buñuel, ever one to come up with outlandish conceits, here directs two women playing the same role. The result is trippy and mesmerizing.

Saturday, August 1

6:00pm – TCM – The Wrong Man
Alfred Hitchcock made many variations on the “wrong man” scenario, but none so direct as this one, starring Henry Fonda as a man mistakenly arrested. It’s not one of my favorite Hitchcock films, but it has a lot of interesting things going on, especially the way he depicts Fonda’s terror and helplessness in the face of the unrelenting police.
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – TCM – The Grapes of Wrath
This is one of those huge omissions in my film-watching repertoire. I’ve meant to watch John Ford’s homage to the dust bowl farmers of the 1930s for years, but have never quite gotten around to it.
Newly Featured!

Sunday, August 2

2:00pm – TCM – A Star is Born (1954)
Judy Garland’s big comeback film after four years away from the screen dealing with drug problems doesn’t disappoint – she’s a starlet who’s discovered by nearly-washed-up actor James Mason, who marries her and gives her a career break only to see her star rise far above his. Musical numbers like “The Man That Got Away” show Judy at her best and most tragic simultaneously.
Newly Featured!

5:40pm – IFC – Primer
Welcome to sci-fi at its most cerebral. You know how most science-dependent films include a non-science-type character so there’s an excuse to explain all the science to audience? Yeah, this film doesn’t have that character, so no one ever explains quite how the time travel device at the center of the film works. Or even that it is, actually, a time-travel device. This is the sci-fi version of getting thrown into the deep end when you can’t swim. Without floaties. And there’s an undertow. Oh, and by the way, that’s a good thing. ;)
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – TCM – North by Northwest
Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) gets mistaken for George Kaplan and pulled into an elaborate web of espionage in one of Hitchcock’s most enjoyable and funniest thrillers. So many great scenes it’s impossible to list them all. Must See

There wasn’t anything on Monday, so being one day late wasn’t a big issue. However, then my computer started misbehaving and I didn’t get it posted Monday night, either, which means this’ll post too late for the first few on Tuesday. But they’re good enough films that I let them stand. If they play again, or you see them at the library or whatever, check them out.

Tuesday, February 3

5:00am – TCM – Top Hat
Arguably the best of the ten Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals. Song, dance, mistaken identities, romance…yep, we gots it.

6:45am – TCM – Gold Diggers of 1933
Warner Bros was known in the 1930s for their gritty dramas and action films, but also for their backstage musicals, which are somehow both gritty and glitzy. Gold Diggers of 1933 is one of the best, full of witty one-liners and amazing geometric Busby Berkeley choreography. Oh, and Ginger Rogers ad-libs “We’re in the Money” in pig latin. It’s worth it JUST FOR THAT.

8:00pm – TCM – The More the Merrier
A World War II housing shortage has Charles Coburn, Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur sharing an apartment; soon Coburn is matchmaking for McCrea and Arthur, and we get a wonderful, adorable romance out of it.

2:00am (4th) – TCM – Hannah and Her Sisters
Ha! I took TCM to task for playing Annie Hall too much and Hannah and Her Sisters not enough, and look what happens. (Okay, the schedule had been made for over a month, so I can’t really claim any influence. But still.) Annie and Manhattan notwithstanding, Hannah is my favorite Woody Allen film – almost certainly his most balanced.

Wednesday, February 4

3:00am (5th) – TCM – Yankee Doodle Dandy
Hollywood turned out a heap bunch of musical biopics of composers in the 1940s. This biography of WWI-era Broadway composer/performer George M. Cohan is one of the few that is actually good, even earning James Cagney an Oscar (though he’s better known now as a tough guy gangster, Cagney got his start as a hoofer, and he’s as comfortable dancing as beating things up).

Thursday, February 5

8:00am – IFC – Primer
Welcome to sci-fi at its most cerebral. You know how most science-dependent films include a non-science-type character so there’s an excuse to explain all the science to audience? Yeah, this film doesn’t have that character, so no one ever explains quite how the time travel device at the center of the film works. Or even that it is, actually, a time-travel device. This is the sci-fi version of getting thrown into the deep end when you can’t swim. Without floaties. When I first rented it a couple of years ago, I watched it twice, back to back. Good thing it’s on three times today, eh? :)
(repeats 12:15pm and 5:05pm)

9:00am – TCM – 2001: A Space Odyssey
Heh, I bet IFC and TCM didn’t even plan this, but you get a choice between watching 1960s cerebral sci-fi or 2000s cerebral sci-fi (well, you can watch Primer later, because it’s repeating). Kubrick made a lot of brilliant films, but I’ve gotta say, none of them enthrall me on repeat viewings quite as much as 2001.

Friday, February 6

4:00pm – Sundance – Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
In 1943, few Germans were willing to stand against Hitler, even if they knew about the atrocities being committed. Sophie Scholl and her brother and a few friends were among the ones who did, and this fantastic film follows the group just before and during their arrest and trial. It’s not particularly surprising how it ends, but the screen fairly crackles throughout – the Nazi interrogator who questions Sophie is no match for her quiet conviction. 

9:45pm – TCM – Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Or, or, Stanley Kubrick takes on the Cold War in one of the most piercing satires ever made. Plus Peter Sellers in three roles, what’s gonna be wrong with that? 

Saturday, February 7

4:00pm – TCM – Lawrence of Arabia
Most epics are over-determined and so focused on spectacle that they end up being superficial – all big sets and sweeping music with no depth. The brilliance of Lawrence of Arabia is that it looks like an epic with all the big sets and sweeping music and widescreen vistas, but at its center is an enigmatic character study of a man who lives bigger-than-life, but is as personally conflicted as any intimate drama has ever portrayed. 

8:00pm – TCM – Casablanca
Just so you know it’s on, here’s another chance to catch one of the best movies Golden Age Hollywood ever produced. 

11:30pm – TCM – The Great Escape
 One of the most enjoyable POW films you’ll ever see, and yes I get the irony of that statement. It may not be realistic of the POW experience, but it is one heck of a reverse heist film.

2:30pm – TCM – Das Boot
Before Wolfgang Petersen went Hollywood (Air Force One, other action films that aren’t that great), he did this German U-boat film, which has quite a good reputation – it routinely lands on lists of both best foreign films and best war films. And yeah, I haven’t seen it yet. We’ll see if I can make time for it this time. 

Sunday, February 8

7:15am – TCM – Shadow of a Doubt
Said to be Hitchcock’s favorite among his own films, Shadow of a Doubt is quieter than most of his, but in terms of psychological subtlety, it’s definitely one of his best. Small-town girl Teresa Wright idolizes her uncle Charlie, but what will she do if he turns out to be the infamous Black Widow murderer?

1:30pm – TCM – Gigi
Maurice Chevalier’s “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” might come off as more pervy now than it was originally intended, but as a whole Gigi stands as one of the most well-produced and grown-up musicals made during the studio era. Director Vincente Minnelli gives it a wonderful visual richness and sophistication, while music from Lerner & Loewe (usually) stresses the right combination of innocence, exuberance, and ennui for its decadent French story. 

3:30pm – TCM – The Quiet Man
John Ford directs his favorite couple John Wayne and  Maureen O’Hara in this lovely and understated romance of a retired boxer returning to his Irish roots and conflicting with O’Hara’s hard-headed brother Victor McLaglen over her dowry (and O’Hara’s character is plenty stubborn herself). None of the principles have been better, and the supporting cast that surrounds them is great.

5:45pm – TCM – Roman Holiday
Not Audrey Hepburn’s first film, as it’s sometimes mistakenly claimed, but her first lead and the role that propelled her to stardom and won her an Oscar. She’s a princess who wants to experience ordinary life for a change and runs off to Rome – reporter Gregory Peck senses a story and tags along incognito.

6:30pm – IFC – Elephant
I’ll be honest with you. When I first saw Gus Van Sant’s take on high school shootings, I pretty much thought it was pretentious bullcrap.  And I may in fact still think so when I see the film again. But there are elements to the tone and mood that are still with me, a couple of years later, and I’m already on my way to revising my opinion, partially due to my personal shift towards a greater appreciation for slow-moving, thoughtful, well-shot films. All of which things Elephant is. 

11:30pm – IFC – Trainspotting
While you’re getting ready for Danny Boyle to win multiple Oscars this year with Slumdog Millionaire, don’t forget to check out his earlier films, which are all worthwhile, especially this one which thrust Boyle, Ewan McGregor, and Kelly McDonald onto the international scene. A searing look at Scottish heroin addicts, it’s sometimes hard to watch, but it’s never less than riveting. 

4:00am (9th) – TCM – The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer is not a good movie. But it is an important movie, as the first feature film with synchronized sound. At the time (1927), producers thought sound would only be useful for musical numbers, and The Jazz Singer is basically a silent film about a Jewish boy (Al Jolson) defying his family to go into show business with sound musical numbers. Jolson’s ad-libbed “you ain’t heard nothing yet” was, of course, prophetic. Silent pictures would be almost completely obsolete within a year.

Next Week Sneak Peek

Because I’m always late, heh.

Monday the 9th
7:35am, 1:00pm – IFC – Everyone Says I Love You
9:15am – TCM – The Apartment
9:20pm, 2:45pm – IFC – Strictly Ballroom
1:45pm – TCM – Citizen Kane
3:45pm – TCM – Mildred Pierce

Tuesday the 10th
6:00am, 10:35am, 3:15 – IFC – Waiting for Guffman
2:45pm – TCM – Henry V

Wednesday the 11th
3:45am – TCM – Rebecca
1:30pm – TCM – Mon Oncle
3:30pm – TCM – The Birds
9:00pm – Sundance – Spectacle: She & Him, Jenny Lewis (Not a movie, per se. Indulge me.)
10:00pm – TCM – Lassie Come Home
10:00pm, 4:00am – Sundance – Wristcutters: A Love Story
11:45pm – TCM – National Velvet