Autumn Sonata, playing on Friday on TCM.

A few new ones this week, with some nice star-based themes going on at TCM. They’re doing Julie Christie on Monday, Steve McQueen on Tuesday, and Ingrid Bergman on Friday – I haven’t listed all of the films for each, so if you’re a fan of any of them, check out TCM’s calendar for any I may have skipped over. I did actually include most of the Bergman films. She made good movies, most of which I happen to have seen, what can I say? Also look for the Sundance debut of stop-motion feature Mary and Max on Thursday.

Monday, August 2

8:00am – IFC – Bananas
Woody Allen in full-on zany mode in one of his earlier films, as the wonderfully named Fielding Mellish. In an attempt to impress a politically-minded girl, Mellish runs off to a Latin American country and takes it over.
1971 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, Carlos Montalbán.
(repeats at 12:40pm and 5:15pm)

1:30pm – TCM – Doctor Zhivago
Idealistic Zhivago experiences the Bolshevik Revolution while also dealing with his conflicting feelings for his wife Tonya and young nurse Lara. There are a few things about the romance side of the story that bother me, mostly the fact that I liked Tonya way more than Lara, but I have to admit Lean knows how to make epic films, and Maurice Jarre’s score is unforgettable.
1965 UK/USA. Director: David Lean. Starring: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness.

9:45pm – TCM – Darling
Julie Christie won an Oscar for this role, in a film I haven’t seen. But I’ve always been impressed with Christie in most everything (only excepting possibly Doctor Zhivago, interestingly), so I may give this one a shot. TCM is actually running a bunch of Christie movies this afternoon and tonight (Monday), so check out the rest of the lineup if you’re a fan.
1965 UK. Director: John Schlesinger. Starring: Julie Christie, Laurence Harvey, Dirk Bogarde.
Newly Featured!

Tuesday, August 3

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 3:15pm)

2:45pm – 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

8:00pm – 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.

10:15pm – TCM – Bullitt
No nonsense cop Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen, holding onto his crown as king of 1960s cool, American class) is tasked with guarding an important witness in a Mafia trial; when his partner and the witness are targeted in a hit, he goes after the killers directly, leading to the justly famous car chase through hills of San Francisco.
1968 USA. Director: Peter Yates. Starring: Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn, Robert Duvall.

10:20pm – Sundance – The Curse of the Golden Flower
One of the weaker entries in Zhang Yimou’s series of historical martial-arts-on-wires films, but it still has its moments – and the production design, as usual, is flawlessly beautiful. Definitely worth a watch if you’re a fan of the style.
2006 China. Director: Zhang Yimou. Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Gong Li, Jay Chou, Ye Liu.
(repeats at 5:20am on the 4th)

12:15am (4th) – TCM – Junior Bonner
Steve McQueen is Junior Bonner, an aging cowboy continuing to compete in rodeos and longing to hold onto the old ways as the world moves on around him. His brother, a lousy cowboy but a savvy businessman, leads the change from the Old West as reality to the Old West as tourist attraction, and the contrast and conflict mingled with family ties carries through the film – Sam Peckinpah’s bittersweet and nostalgic but also rousingly entertaining reverie on the passing of an age.
1972 USA. Director: Sam Peckinpah. Starring: Steve McQueen, Robert Preston, Ida Lupino, Ben Johnson, Joe Don Baker, Barbara Leigh.

Wednesday, August 4

5:45pm – TCM – The Story of Three Loves
Basically an anthology film, with three separate romances connected merely by a framing device. The film as a whole is not particularly memorable, but it does contain one of only a few film performances from ballerina Moira Shearer – so if you enjoyed her in the incredible ballet sequences in The Red Shoes, here’s another opportunity to see her strut her stuff.
1953 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli, Gottfried Reinhardt. Starring: James Mason, Moira Shearer, Agnes Moorehead, Leslie Caron, Farley Granger, Ethel Barrymore, Kirk Douglas, Pier Angeli.
Newly Featured!

Thursday, August 5

11:35am – Sundance – Mary and Max
This adult-aimed stop-motion film from Australia got a number of positive reviews last year on the festival circuit, but didn’t get much of a release in the United States despite having a fairly recognizable voice cast. Anyway, here it is on Sundance (it’s also on Netflix Instant Watch), and I’m greatly looking forward to catching it one of these days.
2009 Australia. Director: Adam Elliott. Starring: Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 4:20pm)

8:00pm – Sundance – Diary of a Chambermaid
You always know you’re in for an interesting time with Luis Buñuel involved; throw in Jeanne Moreau, and I’m on board, though the plot description of a chambermaid being pulled into the sordid details of her employers’ lives doesn’t particularly intrigue me. Still. I trust those two to grab and hold my interest.
1964 France. Director: Luis Buñuel. Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Georges Géret, Daniel Invernel, Françoise Lugagne.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 2:00am)

10:00pm – TCM – Once Upon a Time in the West
A disparate group of characters interact and intertwine on America’s western frontier – a young widow seeking those who killed her family, the outlaw suspected (but innocent) of the murders, the ruthless leader of a gang in the employ of a railroad tycoon, and a harmonica-playing stranger. With that as a starting point, Sergio Leone creates what is possibly the ultimate epic western to end all westerns.
1969 Italy/USA. Director: Sergio Leone. Starring: Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson.
Must See

Friday, August 6

8:15am – 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 3:00pm)

11:45pm – IFC – Mr. Hulot’s Holiday
French writer/actor/director Jacques Tati specialized in nearly-silent physical comedy that reminds one at times of Chaplin or Keaton, but with a slightly more ironic French flair about it. In Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, a trip to the seashore turns out to be anything but relaxing.
1953 France. Director: Jacques Tati. Starring: Jacques Tati, Nathalie Pascaud, Micheline Rolla.

2:00pm – TCM – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
There have been a lot of versions of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and this one isn’t considered one of the better ones. It’s interesting to me, though, because Spencer Tracy expresses the transformation between meek doctor and monstrous alter-ego almost solely through his facial expressions and physical bearing – no change in makeup – and his intensity makes it work.
1941 USA. Director: Victor Fleming. Starring: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Donald Crisp, Ian Hunter.

4:00pm – TCM – Spellbound (1945)
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!
1945 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, Rhonda Fleming.

9:30pm – TCM – Casablanca
Against all odds, one of the best films Hollywood has ever produced, focusing on Bogart’s sad-eyed and world-weary expatriot Rick Blaine, his former lover Ingrid Bergman, and her current husband Paul Henreid, who needs safe passage to America to escape the Nazis and continue his work with the Resistance. It’s the crackling script that carries the day here, and the wealth of memorable characters that fill WWII Casablanca with life and energy.
1943 USA. Director: Michael Curtiz. Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains.
Must See

11:30pm – TCM – Notorious
One of Alfred Hitchcock’s best films, and one of the greatest spy films ever. Spy Cary Grant recruits Ingrid Bergman because of her relationship with suspected enemy spy Claude Rains – but how far is she willing to go? Simply fantastic on every level.
1946 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains.
Must See

1:30am (7th) – TCM – Autumn Sonata
One of the last films for both Ingrid and Ingmar Bergman, and the only collaboration between these two incredibly gifted Swedes. Ingrid plays the neglectful mother to Liv Ullmann’s daughter, bringing to life the intense family dynamic that Ingmar is always so good at putting on film. I’m ashamed that I haven’t seen this yet, but having recently read a few excellent pieces on it, I’m eager to rectify that.
1978 Sweden. Director: Ingmar Bergman. Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, Lena Nyman.
Newly Featured!

3:30pm – TCM – Gaslight (1944)
A Victorian thriller of murder and insanity, with Ingrid Bergman as a young ingenue being slowly driven mad by her husband in the house where ten years previously her aunt had been murdered. Charles Boyer is the chilling husband, and look for Angela Lansbury in her first film role.
1944 USA. Director: George Cukor. Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Dame May Whitty, Angela Lansbury.

Saturday, August 7

6:15pm – 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

Sunday, August 8

1:15pm – TCM – Road to Singapore
2:45pm – TCM – Road to Zanzibar
4:30pm – TCM – Road to Utopia
6:15pm – TCM – Road to Bali
8:00pm – TCM – Road to Morocco
The Road movies are harmless fun, giving Bing Crosby and Bob Hope a chance to goof off and sing a few forgettable songs while traveling to exotic locales on the Paramount backlot. Road to Morocco is the best of the bunch, worth a look if you just want to check out 1940s escapist entertainment. Most of the others are only worth watching if you’re a fan.
1940/1941/1945/1952/1942 USA. Starring: Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour.

7:35pm – Sundance – Army of Shadows
One of Jean-Pierre Melville’s most highly regarded films covers the French Resistance during WWII with a great deal of depth and nuance. From all reports anyway, I actually still have not gotten around to seeing it.
1969 France. Director: Jean-Pierre Melville. Starring: Lion Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret.
(repeats at 1:20am on the 9th)