The Wicker Man, playing on Thursday on IFC.

Fantastic week this week for repeats – seriously, tons of amazing films are playing this week, so check those out for any you may have missed. Especially note the Ealing Studios triple feature TCM has on Saturday night, and the early European vampire films they’re playing late Sunday night – hard to find a better double feature than Nosferatu and Vampyr. Among newly featured stuff, we’ve got a trio of them on TCM tonight, including Cameron Crowe’s rock nostalgia trip Almost Famous, which I think hit a couple of our Best of Decade lists last year. IFC has the original The Wicker Man on Thursday, a film I haven’t seen but probably should at some point, and the 2005 Dardenne film L’enfant on Sunday.

Monday, October 18th

4:00pm – 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.

8:00pm – TCM – Oliver!
One of the last of the big 1960s production-number-filled musicals, based on Dickens’ story of Oliver Twist. Like most of the big 1960s musicals, I tend to think it’s a bit overproduced, but it still has a lot of great moments and catchy songs making it a fun time (though a surprisingly brutal one in a couple of scenes).
1968 UK. Director: Carol Reed. Starring: Ron Moody, Mark Lester, Oliver Reed, Shani Wallis, Jack Wild.
Newly Featured!

10:45pm – TCM – The Black Stallion
I wouldn’t dare to guess how many times I saw this movie as a horse-crazy kid, but I would dare argue that its central section with its almost total lack of dialogue as Alec and The Black get to know each other while shipwrecked on a deserted island is still among my favorite sections in any family movie. The bombast of the beginning and ending always exhausted me in comparison.
1979 USA. Director: Kelly Reno, Mickey Rooney, Teri Garr, Hoyt Axton.
Newly Featured!

1:00am (19th) – TCM – Almost Famous
Cameron Crowe turns his semi-autobiographical lens on rock stars, groupies, and rock journalists in one of the greatest combinations of road movie, coming of age movie, and music film ever made. Tender and nostalgic, but not oversentimentalized, with an exhuberance that betrays Crowe’s own background with this music.
2000 USA. Director: Cameron Crowe. Starring: Patrick Fugit, Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand.
Newly Featured!

3:15am (19th) – TCM – The Lady from Shanghai
Most of Welles’ films, no matter the genre, feel a little noirish in mood, but The Lady from Shanghai is the real thing, complete with fatalistic hero who gets dragged into a murder plot by a femme fatale (Rita Hayworth). And noir set-pieces don’t get much better than the chase sequence set in a bewildering hall of mirrors.
1948 USA. Director: Orson Welles. Starring: Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth.

Tuesday, October 19th

6:00am – 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 heís done.
1995 USA. Director: Richard Linklater. Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy.
Must See
(repeats at 11:15am)

9:15m – 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.

11:45pm – Sundance – Ran
Akira Kurosawa’s inspired transposition of King Lear into medieval Japan, mixing Shakespeare and Japanese Noh theatre tradition like nobodyís business.
1985 Japan. Director: Akira Kurosawa. Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu.
Must See

Wednesday, October 20th

6:00am – IFC – Picnic at Hanging Rock
I have a love-hate relationship with Aussie director Peter Weir. His films are almost always slow and methodical, which works for me sometimes and not others. It works in Picnic at Hanging Rock, one of his earlier films, in which a group of schoolgirls goes into the wilderness for a picnic and mysteriously disappear.
1975 Australia. Director: Peter Weir. Starring: Anne-Louise Lambert, Rachel Roberts, Vivean Gray, Tony Llewellyn-Jones, Karen Robson.
(repeats at 12:30pm)

6:30am – TCM – Nothing Sacred
A newspaper offers to give terminally-ill Carole Lombard her dream trip to New York City in exchange for publishing her experiences. Only problem is, she’s lying about being terminally ill. One of the zaniest of all 1930s zany comedies = that said, it can be a little on the shrill side.
1937 USA. Director: William A. Wellman. Starring: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger, Walter Connolly.

9:45am – TCM – Woman of the Year
The first teaming of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, a relationship that would last for eight more films onscreen and the rest of Tracyís life offscreen. Here they play sparring reporters who wind up getting married and struggling to reconcile their relationship and their careers. The battle of the sexes and how marriage works with feminist ideals is a recurring theme in the Tracy-Hepburn catalog, and they start with it right out of the gate here.
1942 USA. Director: George Stevens. Starring: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Fay Bainter, Reginald Owen, William Bendix.

11:45am – TCM – Arsenic and Old Lace
In what is probably Capra’s zaniest, least Capra-corn-esque film, Cary Grant plays Mortimer Brewster – a perfectly normal man until he discovers that his sweet old maid aunts have accumulated several dead bodies in the basement due to poisoning lonely old men. Add in another nephew who is a serial killer, a quack plastic surgeon, and an uncle who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt, and Mortimerís got his hands full trying to keep his family secrets away from the girl he loves. It’s over-the-top, sure, but you gotta love the crazy.
1944 USA. Director: Frank Capra. Starring: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Josephine Hull, Jean Adair, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre.

8:05pm – IFC – The Usual Suspects
One of the earliest in the late 90s wave of “twist” films, and still one of the few that did it best. Spoiler warnings may not have been invented for The Usual Suspects, but it was certainly one of the films that popularized anti-spoiler sentiment (and the converse glee for spoiling, I suppose). Thanks to Christopher McQuarrie’s tight script and great acting turns, though, the film is about more than the twist, which is what makes it continue to be worthwhile over a decade and multiple viewings later.
1995 USA. Director: Bryan Singer. Starring: Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Bryne, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollack, Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, Pete Postlethwaite.
(repeats at 3:15am on the 21st)

Thursday, October 21st

12:00M – IFC – The Wicker Man (1973)
The original version of this moody horror film, as policeman Edward Woodward tries to find a girl missing from an isolated island village – except the locals claim she doesn’t even exist. Weird rites and rituals await him as he delves further into the mystery.
1973 UK. Director: Robin Hardy. Starring: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento, Britt Ekland, Ingrid Pitt.
Newly Featured!

Friday, October 22nd

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 11:35am)

11:45am – TCM – Topper
Cary Grant and Constance Bennett are hard-living young couple who crash their fancy car after a night of drinking and end up as ghosts. They choose to spend their afterlife haunting Grant’s uptight boss Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) and teaching him to enjoy life again. Something of a screwball comedy without the battle of the sexes part; slight but a lot of fun.
1937 USA. Director: Norman Z. McLeod. Starring: Roland Young, Cary Grant, Constance Bennett.

1:30pm – TCM – Topper Takes a Trip
One of a couple sequels to Topper, reuniting Roland Young and Constance Bennett, but without Cary Grant this time. It’s not quite as zany or memorable as the original Topper, but it is still a fun film if you like 1930s-style comedies.
1938 USA. Director: Norman Z. McLeod. Starring: Roland Young, Constance Bennett, Billie Burke.
Newly Featured!

7:35pm – IFC – Pulp Fiction
Tarantino’s enormously influential and entertaining film pretty much needs no introduction from me. Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta give the performances of their careers, Tarantino’s dialogue is spot-on in its pop-culture-infused wit, and the chronology-shifting, story-hopping editing style has inspired a host of imitators, most nowhere near as good.
1994 USA. Director: Quentin Tarantino. Starring: Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Tim Roth, Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames.
Must See

12:00M – Sundance – INLAND EMPIRE
David Lynch’s latest magnum opus, which pretty much canít 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 ìseeî INLAND EMPIRE.
2006 USA. Director: David Lynch. Starring: Laura Dern, Justin Theroux, Jeremy Irons, Jan Hencz, Karolina Gruszka, Grace Zabriski
Must See

Saturday, October 23rd

2:00pm – TCM – To Have and Have Not
Itís said that this film came about because Howard Hawks bet Earnest Hemingway that he (Hawks) could make a good film out of Hemingway’s worst book. Of course, to do that, Hawks ended up basically changing the story entirely, but hey. It’s the thought that counts. Mostly notable for being Lauren Bacall’s first film, the one where she met Humphrey Bogart, and the one that spawned the immortal “you know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve” bit of dialogue. That one scene? Worth the whole film.
1944 USA. Director: Howard Hawks. Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan.

5:55pm – IFC – Monty Python’s Life of Brian
After dismantling the King Arthur legends, Monty Python turn their attention to the Bible itself, satirically suggesting what might happen if a random 1st century baby got mistaken for the Messiah. Irreverent and hilarious, though not as consistently so for me as Holy Grail.
1979 UK. Director: Terry Jones. Starring: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin.

6:00pm – TCM – 3:10 to Yuma
The original version of 2007′s highly successful Christian Bale-Russell Crowe western is well worth watching in its own right – a little less actiony, a little more thoughtful, though its story of a peaceful farmer shuffled into the role of law enforcement to get a criminal to the train for his trial without having him rescued by his gang remains largely identical.
1957 USA. Director: Delmer Daves. Starring: Glenn Ford, Van Heflin, Felicia Farr, Leora Dana.

8:00pm – TCM – Kind Hearts and Coronets
In one of the zaniest of the zany comedies that Alec Guinness was best known for in his early career, he plays eight, count ‘em, eight characters – all relatives in line to receive a duke’s massive fortune upon his death. The last in line plots to murder all the others to make himself the sole heir.
1949 UK. Director: Robert Hamer. Starring: Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson, Dennis Price.

8:00pm – IFC – Reservoir Dogs
Quentin Tarantino’s first directorial feature sets the tone for his career – ultraviolet, talky, self-aware, and flamboyantly confident. It’s far from my personal favorite Tarantino film, but I’m in the minority on that; most Tarantino fans rank it quite favorably against his later films.
1992 USA. Director: Quentin Tarantino. Starring: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi.
(repeats at 1:30am on the 24th)

10:00pm – Sundance – Little Children
Todd Field’s perfectly written (and acted) story of intersecting unhappy suburbanites reminds us why melodrama shouldn’t be a bad word – this is melodrama at its very best, and its very best is stunning. Kate Winslet turns in a should’ve-been-Oscar-winning performance as the frustrated wife and mother grasping for an emotional connection with another neighborhood dad (Patrick Wilson), while Jackie Earle Haley registered a comeback as a sex offender.
2006 USA. Director: Todd Field. Starring: Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Gregg Edelman, Jackie Earle Haley.
(repeats at 2:50am on the 24th)

3:15am (24th) – TCM – The Lavendar 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.

Sunday, October 24th

5:00am – TCM – The Ladykillers
One of the most delightful of the Ealing comedies, with Alec Guinness leading a bunch of crooks (including a young Peter Sellers) whose bankrobbing plans get flustered by an unlikely old lady.
1955 UK. Director: Alexander Mackendrick. Starring: Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers.
Must See

6:45am – IFC – L’enfant
The Dardenne brothers are one of the more well-renowned directorial teams currently working, and their 2005 film L’enfant (The Child) got a good bit of acclaim upon release. I still haven’t managed to catch up with it myself, but I hope to soon – the story about a young desperate couple considering selling their newborn son to get by sounds both intriguing and heartbreaking.
2005 France. Directors: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Starring: Jérémie Renier, Déborah François, Jérémie Segard, Fabrizio Rongione.
Newly Featured!

8:00am – 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.

12:00N – TCM – A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire won Vivien Leigh her second Oscar as fading Southern belle Blanche DuBois, and made a star out of Marlon Brando. It’s also one of the films I’m most embarrassed to say I’ve never seen. I even have it on DVD somewhere! Someday, I will get to it.
1951 USA. Director: Elia Kazan. Starring: Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Kim Stanley, Karl Malden.

4:00pm – IFC – The Good German
Steven Soderbergh’s attempt using 1940s equipment and filming techniques didn’t actually turn into a particularly good movie, but as a filmmaking experiment, it’s still fairly interesting. And has George Clooney and Cate Blanchett in gorgeous B&W as former lovers/current spies, if you’re into that sort of thing.
2006 USA. Director: Steven Soderbergh. Starring: George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire.
(repeats at 4:05am on the 25th)

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.
(repeats at 1:30am on the 25th)

6:55pm – 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 4:15am on the 25th)

8:15pm – IFC – 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

12:00M – TCM – Nosferatu (1922)
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

2:00am (25th) – TCM – Vampyr (1932)
Carl Theodor Dreyer takes on the vampire genre with this moody and imaginative entry based on Sheridan LeFanu’s stories rather than Bram Stoker’s for a change. Dreyer and his cinematographer Rudolph Mate are both visual artists of the highest degree, and I’m looking forward to catching this one this month.
1932 Germany. Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer. Starring: Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz.