Badlands, playing on TCM on Saturday

Not a lot of newly featured ones this week, but a lot of good stuff nonetheless. TCM kicks off October with a set of Hammer Dracula films on Friday night, then has a really nice quintuple feature of “young lovers on the run” films on Saturday, hitting everything Bonnie & Clyde and Badlands to Gun Crazy, They Live By Night, and Boxcar Bertha. It’s such a cool set of films I wish I’d thought of it for the Row Three Rep series! Also enjoy a look back at the Coen Brothers’s debut feature Blood Simple on Sunday.

Monday, September 27

6:00am – IFC – I Heart Huckabees
Not too many films take philosophy as their base, but this one basically does, following a man (Jason Schwartzman) plagued by coincidence who hires a couple of existentialists to figure out what’s going on.
2004 USA. Director: David O. Russell. Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Isabelle Huppert, Dustin Hoffman, Naomi Watts, Mark Wahlberg, Lily Tomlin, Jude Law.

8:05am – IFC – Crimes and Misdemeanors
When Martin Landau’s long-time mistress threatens to expose their affair unless he marries her, he’s faced with the decision to let her ruin his life and career or have her murdered. In a tangentially and thematically-related story, Woody Allen is a documentary filmmaker forced into making a profile of a successful TV producer rather than the socially-conscious films he wants to make. One of Allen’s most thoughtful and philosophically astute films – there are few answers here, but the questions will stay in your mind forever.
1989 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Alan Alda, Martin Landau, Anjelica Huston, Claire Bloom, Joanna Gleason.
Must See
(repeats at 1:35pm)

6:45pm – IFC – Thank You for Smoking
Jason Reitman’s breakout film was also one of my favorites of 2005 – sure, it’s a bit slight and isn’t perfect, but its story of a hotshot PR guy working for cigarette companies struck just the right note of cynical and absurd humor. The really high-quality cast doesn’t hurt either, with everybody, no matter how small their role, making a memorable impression.
2005 USA. Director: Jason Reitman. Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Katie Holmes, Rob Lowe, Maria Bello, David Koechner, J.K. Simmons, Adam Brody, Sam Elliott.
(repeats at 1:45am on the 28th)

12:00M – IFC – Requiem for a Dream
Darren Aronofsky’s breakthrough film (Pi remains a cult favorite) follows a quartet of people as their lives spiral out of control due to drug addiction.
2000 USA. Director: Darren Aronofsky. Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans.

Tuesday, September 28

11:30am – TCM – Johnny Guitar
Nicholas Ray’s rather strange feminist western has become something of a cult classic – Joan Crawford is Vienna, a tough-but-vulnerable saloon owner that all the other women in town want gone. She calls on old friend Johnny Guitar to help her out, but he many not be quite as advertised either.
1954 USA. Director: Nicholas Ray. Starring: Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Ward Bond, Ernest Borgnine.

1:30pm – TCM – The Searchers
Deservedly considered one of the greatest westerns ever made, a high point in the careers of both John Wayne and John Ford. Wayne is the almost anti-heroic main character Ethan Edwards, driven by anger and revenge to find the group of Indians who killed his nearly estranged family and kidnapped his young niece. Along with the contemporary films of Anthony Mann, The Searchers marks a point in the Western genre where we can no longer necessarily accept the motives of the good guys to be pure, and in fact, are forced to question if the good guys are actually good – perhaps the beginning of the revisionist western. Ford’s command of cinematic space and the language of the frame here is unparalleled, and the performances and everything else in the film match it.
1956 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Natalie Wood.
Must See

5:45pm – 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.

Wednesday, September 29

6:00am – IFC – American Splendor
Harvey Pekar is one of the more idiosyncratic graphic novelists there is (”comic book” doesn’t quite cover his very adult, neurotic art), and Paul Giamatti brings him to life perfectly.
2003 USA. Directors: Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini. Starring: Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis.
(repeats at 11:35am)

7:45am – 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 1:20pm)

8:00pm – TCM – Days of Heaven
Terrence Malick has managed to build a lofty reputation on the merits of only four films spread across nearly thirty years; this is the second one, made five years after his debut Badlands. I bought this sight unseen a few weeks ago, but haven’t gotten to it yet. Just the screenshots alone, though, are enough to get me excited about it.
1978 USA. Director: Terrence Malick. Starring: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard.

Thursday, September 30

7:50am – IFC – Broadway Danny Rose
It’s lesser Woody Allen, but it’s still Woody Allen. Danny Rose (Woody) is a theatrical agent whose clients always leave him when they start becoming successful. His current client, a has-been tenor trying to make a comeback, gives him further grief by having an affair with a young woman (Mia Farrow) with gangster connections. Not very substantial, but enjoyable.
1984 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Nick Apollo Forte.
(repeats at 2:45pm)

9:35am – IFC – Strictly Ballroom
The first of Baz Lurhmann’s “Red Curtain” trilogy, about a Latin ballroom dancer who shakes up the Australian ballroom competition circuit with his unorthodox choreography. Among other things. A little shrill at times, but mostly funny and endearing, and less borderline schizophrenic than the rest of the trilogy (which I love, don’t get me wrong).
1992 Australia. Director: Baz Luhrmann. Starring: Paul Mercurio, Tara Morice, Bill Hunter, Pat Thomson, Gia Carides.
(repeats at 4:15pm)

2:00pm – TCM – From Here to Eternity
There’s the famous part, yes, where Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr make love on the beach among the crashing waves. But there’s also a solid ensemble war tale, involving young officer Montgomery Clift and his naive wife Donna Reed, and embittered soldiers Frank Sinatra and Lee J. Cobb.
1953 USA. Director: Fred Zinnemann. Starring: Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed, Montgomery Clift, Lee J. Cobb.

8:00pm – 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.

10:00pm – TCM – The Heiress
Olivia de Havilland won her second Oscar for her role as the title character in this adaptation of Henry James’ Washington Square, a woman forbidden from love with a young suitor because her controlling father fears the suitor is only a fortune hunter.
1949 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins.

10:00pm – Sundance – Marie Antoinette
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 3:50am on the 1st, 7:00pm on the 2nd, and 3:15am and 4:30pm on the 3rd)

10:30pm – IFC – Layer Cake
Sounds like an unusual title for a crime film, but it’s also an unusually solid crime film, with Daniel Craig in one of his breakthrough roles as a drug dealer given a couple of tough jobs just before planning to retire. Last jobs never go well, so you can kind of predict all won’t go as planned.
2004 UK. Director: Matthew Vaughn. Starring: Daniel Craig, Tom Hardy, Sally Hawkins, Burn Gorman.

12:00M – TCM – The Lady Eve
Barbara Stanwyck and her father Charles Coburn are cardplayers, cheating cruise ship denizens of their wealth. Millionaire (and snake afficianado) Henry Fonda is a good mark, especially since he’s a bit dense and spacey. Stanwyck’s plot is hugely elaborate, only a little muddled by her falling in love with Fonda as well, and she’s a delight from start to finish. As she usually is.
1941 USA. Director: Preston Sturges. Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, William Demarest, Eugene Pallette.
Must See

1:50am (1st) – Sundance – Pan’s Labyrinth
One of my absolute favorite films of the past decade (or ever, really), an absolutely beautiful and terrifying fantasy that juxtaposes the gruesome horrors of the Spanish Civil War with an equally horrifying fantasy world that provides, if not escape, at least some measure of importance and control to the film’s young heroine. Guillermo Del Toro solidified my view of him as a visionary filmmaker with this film, and it still stands to me as a testament to what fantasy can and should do.
2006 Spain/Mexico. Director: Guillermo Del Toro. Starring: Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Meribel Verdú, Doug Jones.
Must See
(repeats at 12:00M on the 3rd)

2:00am (1st) – TCM – The Sting
A couple of conmen team up to pull an elaborate con on criminal kingpin who killed one of their partners. A great 1920s setting and the solid chemistry between Paul Newman and Robert Redford make their follow-up to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid a highly enjoyable romp, if not quite the quintessential classic that film is.
1973 USA. Director: George Roy Hill. Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning, Eileen Brennan.

Friday, October 1

8:00am – IFC – Howl’s Moving Castle
Hayao Miyazaki has been a leader in the world of kid-friendly anime films for several years now, and while many would point to Spirited Away as his best film, I actually enjoyed Howl’s Moving Castle the most of all his films. Japanese animation takes some getting used to, but Miyazaki’s films are well worth it, and serve as a wonderful antidote to the current stagnation going on in American animation (always excepting Pixar).
2004 Japan. Director: Hayao Miyazaki. Starring (dubbed voices): Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, Lauren Bacall
(repeats at 2:05pm)

9:05am – Sundance – 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 2:35pm)

10:00am – TCM – The Odd Couple
Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau have made a lot of movies together over the years, and this mismatched buddy film (written by Neil Simon) remains one of the best, as neatnik Felix (Lemmon) and slob Oscar (Matthau) become roommates and try not to drive each other nuts.
1968 USA. Director: Gene Saks. Starring: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau.

5:55pm – IFC – Letters from Iwo Jima
The Japan-focused half of Clint Eastwood’s two-part exploration of World War II, which most people consider superior to the American half, Flags of Our Fathers. Of course, I goofed and only saw the American half, but I keep meaning to go back and see Letters from Iwo Jima as well, not least of all because Ken Watanabe is always worth watching.
2006 USA. Director: Clint Eastwood. Starring: Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryo Kase, Hiroshi Watanabe.
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – TCM – Horror of Dracula
Hammer Studios’ first take on the Dracula story mostly follows Bram Stoker’s novel, but with some very noticable departures; faithful or not, it’s a great, colorful, florid take on the vampire legend, with Christopher Lee inhabiting what would become his role as much as it was Lugosi’s in the 1930s and Peter Cushing giving us a definitive Van Helsing. TCM is playing three more Hammer Dracula films immediately following, so keep it tuned here if you’re a fan: Brides of Dracula, Dracula, Prince of Darkness, and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave.
1958 UK. Director: Terence Fisher. Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh.
Newly Featured!

Saturday, October 2

10:35am – 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 2:00pm)

8:00pm – TCM – Bonnie & 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

10:00pm – TCM – Badlands
Terrence Malick’s first film is a meditative outlaw film, as two youths commit a murder and go on the run. The combination of road trip, crime spree, young romance, and nature-filled hideaway has been imitated (notably by the Tarantino-Scott True Romance, though that was less interested in the meditative aspects), but never matched.
1973 USA. Director: Terrence Malick. Starring: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri, Alan Vint, Gary Littlejohn, John Carter.
Must See
Newly Featured!

12:00M – 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.

1:30am (3rd) – TCM – They Live By Night
An early film for Nicholas Ray, following unjustly incarcerated Farley Granger just after he escapes from jail, falling in with a group of crooks setting out to rob a bank, and beginning to love the young daughter of one of his new partners. Classic film noir stylings plus the deft hand of Ray raises this a notch.
1949 USA. Director: Nicholas Ray. Starring: Cathy O’Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen, Helen Craig.
Newly Featured!

3:15am (3rd) – TCM – Boxcar Bertha
A very early film from Martin Scorsese, back when he was working under the tutelage of Roger Corman (who produced this film). It’s a Depression-era story of a young couple who turn to crime after being screwed over by a railroad company. I haven’t seen it myself, but I admit I’m quite curious about it.
1972 USA. Director: Martin Scorsese. Starring: Barbara Hershey, David Carradine, Barry Primus, Bernie Casey, John Carradine.
Newly Featured!

4:30am (3rd) – IFC – Pi
Darren Aronofsky’s first feature is this fever dream of a mathematician searching for the numeric patterns that will unlock the secrets of the stock market – paranoid, fearful of human contact, and beset by terrible headaches, he’s also pursued by Wall Street factions and Hasidic Jews, each seeking the results of his formulas. It’s heady stuff, but Aronofsky’s the right guy for that.
1998 USA. Director: Darren Aronofsky. Starring: Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, Ben Shenkman.

Sunday, October 3

12:00N – TCM – Wait Until Dark
Audrey Hepburn is a blind woman set upon by a trio of home invaders in search of some smuggled heroin they think ended up hidden at her house – an all-around good little thriller, with a fantastic climactic set-piece.
1967 USA. Director: Terence Young. Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

5:20pm – IFC – Blood Simple
The Coen Brothers’ first feature is already a pretty good indication of their style – a noirish thriller with a black comedy edge where everything goes more and more wrong the more people try to fix their mistakes. When the “mistakes” involve murder, leaving evidence at murder scenes, and having the worst time ever trying to get rid of a body, you’re in for a good time at pretty much every character’s expense.
1984 USA. Director: Joel Coen. Starring: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, M. Emmet Walsh.
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – 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

10:15pm – TCM – To Kill a Mockingbird
Widely regarded as one of the best adaptations of a great novel ever, To Kill a Mockingbird captures the themes and mood of the novel perfectly, following the racial and social tensions of a murder trial in the South.
1962 USA. Director: Robert Mulligan. Starring: Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford, Robert Duvall.
Must See