Beauty and the Beast, playing on Sunday on TCM

I do apologize for being late with this once again; I had it mostly ready to go last night but then completely forgot to finish it. I blame the Mad Men blu-rays and feeling a bit under-the-weather toward the end of the night. In any case, there’s a ton of good stuff yet to come this week, so hold on tight. Biggest recommendations I have of the newly featured stuff: Ernst Lubitsch’s fantastic Nazi comedy To Be or Not to Be on Tuesday night, Joseph H. Lewis’s low-budget noir opus Gun Crazy on Wednesday night, underseen French character study Look at Me early Friday morning, Jean Cocteau’s breathtakingly gorgeous Beauty and the Beast Sunday night, and Ingmar Bergman’s meditative classic The Seventh Seal in the wee hours of Sunday night/Monday morning. That should do you even aside from all the other great stuff playing this week.

Tuesday, July 13

6:30am – 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 1:15pm)

6:30pm – Sundance – Wendy & Lucy
This is a favorite among Row Three writers, and I’m ashamed to say I still haven’t managed to catch up with it, despite it being ever-available to me on Netflix Instant Watch. Hopefully someone will jump into the comments and extoll it for us.
2008 USA. Director: Kelly Reichardt. Starring: Michelle Williams, Will Oldham, Michell Worthey, John Robinson.
(repeats at 5:15am on the 14th)

8:00pm – TCM – To Be or Not to Be
If you never listen to anything else I ever say, listen to this: To Be or Not To Be is one of the greatest films of all time, and you should see it. It’s a comedy about Nazi Germany. I know. Jack Benny plays the leader of a Polish theatre troupe, specializing in playing Hamlet alongside his philandering wife, played by Carole Lombard. I know. When Hitler takes over Poland, the troupe engages in an act of espionage both dangerous and ridiculous. I know! It’s simultaneously hilarious, ominous, and heartbreaking. Director Ernst Lubitsch’s finest hour? For me it is. Carole Lombard’s best role (the final one of her career, before she was killed in a plane crash returning from a war bond tour)? For me it is.
1943 USA. Director: Ernst Lubitsch. Starring: Jack Benny, Carole Lombard, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Sig Ruman.
Must See
Newly Featured!

Wednesday, July 14

6:40am – 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.
1962 France. Director: Jean-Pierre Melville. Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, René Lefèvre.
(repeats at 12:25pm)

8:50am – 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 2:35pm)

9:15pm – TCM – Gun Crazy
A sort of proto-Bonnie & Clyde, with a pair of young lovers knocking over liquor stores and banks as they travel cross-country, indulging their love of guns and violence. This is one of the great unsung B-level noir films, though among noir lovers you’ll find it’s plenty sung, with Joseph H. Lewis bringing out the tragedy within the story’s pulp. Definitely don’t miss it if you’re into 1940s crime films.
1950 USA. Director: Joseph H. Lewis. Starring: Peggy Cummins, John Dall.
Newly Featured!

Thursday, July 15

6:00pm – TCM – The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
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.

6:25pm – 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
(repeats at 8:00am and 1:15pm on the 16th)

8:00pm – IFC – Office Space
Anyone who’s ever worked in an office will identify with Office Space immediately – with the paper-jamming printers, the piles of beaurocratic paperwork, and the difficulty of keeping up with staplers if not the plot to make off with boatloads of money due to an accounting loophole. In fact, if you do or have worked an office job, I’m gonna call this required viewing.
1999 USA. Director: Mike Judge. Starring: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston.
(repeats at 3:00am on the 16th)

8:00pm – TCM – Better Off Dead
TCM is branching out tonight with a set of 1980s teen comedies, which means they’re hitting one of the weakest spots in my cinematic knowledge. People generally tell me that I’d like Better Off Dead, though, and maybe they’re right. Whether this will be the time I’ll catch it or not? I won’t promise.
1985 USA. Director: Savage Steve Holland. Starring: John Cusack, David Ogden Stiers, Kim Darby, Diane Franklin, Amanda Wyss.
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – TCM – Sixteen Candles
I have tried to catch up with John Hughes movies, though – however, this is one I’m still missing from my viewing history. It does have the advantage of Molly Ringwald, as ever trying to navigate the pitfalls of high school.
1984 USA. Director: John Hughes. Starring: Molly Ringwald, Justin Henry, Michael Schoeffling, Anthony Michael Hall.
Newly Featured!

12:00M – TCM – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Yes, before you jump to conclusions based on the two previous entries, I have seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, so I’m not a complete hopeless case. Maybe. A wish-fulfillment fantasy dear to the hearts of most every high-schooler, the film of course has Ferris and his friends playing hooky in some of the most outrageous ways possible.
1986 USA. Director: John Hughes. Starring: Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jeffrey Jones, Jennifer Grey, Ben Stein.
Newly Featured!

Friday, July 16

6:05am – IFC – Look at Me
This unassuming little French film was one of my favorites the year it came out, largely because of its unsentimental but moving look at a young woman’s struggle to overcome the self-doubt and self-loathing she experiences because of her weight and being overshadowed by her father, a famous writer, despite her own very real singing talent. Marilou Berry turns in a fantastic performance, carefully walking the line between wanting to get away from her father’s influence and also desperately needing his approval, not to mention her constant fear that everyone only pretends to like her in order to get close to him. It’s a great film that ought to be better-known than it is.
2004 France. Director: Agnès Jaoui. Starring: Marilou Berry, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Agnès Jaoui, Laurent Grévill, Keine Bouhiza.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 11:15am and 4:30pm)

9:50am – Sundance – Marie Antoinette (2006)
Though Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette is unconventional, it is a solid and riveting re-interpretation of the giddy but not untroubled courts of Louis XVI and Louis XVII. The use of actors like Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman, who are not known as period actors, as well as anachronistic music, sounds like an ill-conceived attempt to make the story feel contemporary, but it actually works. Coppola took some serious risks with this film, but they paid off beyond all expectation.
2006 USA. Director: Sofia Coppola. Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Rip Torn, Rose Byrne.
(repeats at 3:40pm)

6:10pm – Sundance – A Prairie Home Companion
One of Robert Altman’s final films, and one I’ve not yet gotten up to in my attempts to rectify my Altman blind spot. As much as I’ve been enjoying his films during the New Hollywood marathon, though, I’m definitely putting his entire filmography higher on my to-watch list.
2006 USA. Director: Robert Altman. Starring: Woody Harrelson, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Lily Tomlin.

8:00pm – TCM – Freaks
Or, Tod Browing’s circsploitation film, featuring many actual sideshow performers, which has been banned here and there, on and off, since its initial release in 1932. I actually haven’t seen it myself, though it’s been on my list for some time.
1932 USA. Director: Tod Browning. Starring: Olga Baclanova, Harry Earles, Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams.
Newly Featured!

Saturday, July 17

5:30pm – TCM – For a Few Dollars More
Sergio Leone’s follow-up to A Fistful of Dollars, the second in his Clint Eastwood-starring Man With No Name Trilogy, the only one of the trilogy which I have not yet seen myself; but I bought it recently on the cheap, so I really have no excuse. Soon.
1965 Italy. Director: Sergio Leone. Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonté, Mara Krupp, Klaus Kinski.

6:30pm – 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 2:45am and 1:30pm on the 18th)

8:00pm – TCM – Road to Morocco
Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (along with Dorothy Lamour) made seven or so of these “Road” movies, combining the appeal of exotic locales with Bing’s crooning and Bob’s one-of-a-kind comedy; Road to Morocco is arguably the best. Pretty slight, but quite entertaining if you like the people involved. A young Anthony Quinn plays the villain of the piece.
1942 USA. Director: David Butler. Starring: Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, Anthony Quinn.

8:00pm – IFC – 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.
(repeats at 1:15am on the 18th)

9:30pm – TCM – Morocco
My knowledge of the Josef von Sternberg-Marlene Dietrich cycle of films is woefully slight, but the one I have seen (The Blue Angel) was pretty impressive, so it’s an oversight I intend to fix at some point. Dietrich here takes a leap of androgyny with her tuxedo-clad cabaret numbers, while an extremely young Gary Cooper is along for the ride as a Legionnaire.
1930 USA. Director: Josef von Sternberg. Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou.
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – IFC – Get Shorty
John Travolta made a major comeback in the mid-1990s with two films, Pulp Fiction and this Elmore Leonard-based one, which I have so far neglected to watch.
1995 USA. Director: Barry Sonnenfeld. Starring: John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, James Gandolfini.
(repeats at 3:15am on the 18th)

Sunday, July 18

6:00am – TCM – Follow the Fleet
Fred Astaire dons a sailor’s uniform for this outing with Ginger Rogers; it’s a little less well-known, perhaps, than some of their other pairings like Top Hat or Swing Time, but it has a fantastic set of Irving Berlin songs and aside from the rather tedious subplot involving Randolph Scott and Harriet Hilliard, it holds up quite well. It certainly deserves to be remembered as top tier Astaire-Rogers. Look for a young Betty Grable doing a variety number and a young Lucille Ball as a wardrobe helper.
1936 USA. Director: Mark Sandrich. Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Harriet Hilliard, Astrid Allwyn, Betty Grable, Lucille Ball.
Newly Featured!

10:00am – TCM – It Happened One Night
In 1934, It Happened One Night pulled off an Academy Award sweep that wouldn’t be repeated until 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, snagging awards for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, and Actress. Colbert is a rebellious heiress, determined to run away and marry against her father’s wishes. Along the way, she picks up Gable, a journalist who senses a juicy feature. This remains one of the most enjoyable comedies of all time, with great scenes like Colbert using her shapely legs rather than her thumb to catch a ride, Gable destroying undershirt sales by not wearing one, and a busload of people singing “The Man on the Flying Trapeze.”
1934 USA. Director: Frank Capra. Starring: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert.
Must See

2:00pm – TCM – To Catch a Thief
Not one of my personal favorite Hitchcock films, but certainly one of his classiest, most sophisticated entries. Cary Grant is a notorious cat burglar, Grace Kelly the Monte Carlo socialite he woos. It’s one of Kelly’s last films, and she’s already looking like the princess she was about to become.
1955 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring; Cary Grant, Grace Kelly.

6:15pm – TCM – My Favorite Wife
After being shipwrecked and believed dead for seven years, Irene Dunne returns home to her husband Cary Grant on the eve of his marriage to another woman. Oh, and she brought Randolph Scott, her fellow shipwreckee, with her. Hijinks ensue. Not quite as strong a screwball comedy as the earlier Grant-Dunne opus The Awful Truth, but still fun for fans of the genre.
1940 USA. Director: Garson Kanin. Starring: Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Randolph Scott, Gail Patrick.

8:00pm – TCM – Beauty and the Beast (1946)
Jean Cocteau’s mesmerizing version of the fairy tale remains one of the most poetic things ever put on film. The combination and alternation of reality and fantasy is superbly done, and the visuals of the Beast’s castle (Beauty floating instead of walking, candlesticks held by living arms coming out of the walls) won’t be soon forgotten. Plus, Cocteau uses the simple device of casting Jean Marais as both the Beast Prince and as Beauty’s self-absorbed real-world suitor to make some really great thematic parallels. Cocteau made very few films in his career, focusing also on writing poetry, but the ones he did make were incredible, and this is likely his very best.
1946 France. Director: Jean Cocteau. Starring: Jean Marais, Josette Day, Mila Parély, Michel Auclair, Nane Germon.
Must See
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – TCM – King Kong (1933)
The grand-daddy of sound creature features, stop-motion special effects, and perhaps surprisingly, original film scores – despite a couple of creaky moments in the special effects, Kong holds up far better than it has any right to do. There’s a purity and a sincerity about it that makes you instantly forget 80 years of advances in technology and enter fully into the magic of its story.
1933 USA. Director: Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. Starring: Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Fay Wray.
Must See

12:00M – TCM – The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Silent screen star Lon Chaney was known as The Man of the Thousand Faces, the go-to actor for playing classic monsters in the 1920s, among them the tragic Quasimodo of Victor Hugo’s novel. I haven’t seen this version of the story, but its reputation has held up quite well over the decades, and as I get more and more intrigued by silent film, it’s moving quickly up my list.
1923 USA. Director: Wallace Worsley. Starring: Lon Chaney, Patsy Ruth Miller, Norman Kerry, Nigel De Brulier.
Newly Featured!

2:00am (18th) – TCM – The Seventh Seal
One of Ingmar Bergman’s most famous films has a crusading Knight playing chess with Death for his very life, as the turmoil of the Black Death and its aftermath surge around them. A surreal, existential meditation on the very meaning of life and death is heady stuff, but you’d expect no less from Bergman.
1957 Sweden. Director: Ingmar Bergman. Starring: Max von Sydow, Bengt Ekerot, Bibi Andersson, Nils Poppe, Gunnar Björnstrand.
Must See
Newly Featured!