The Producers, playing on TCM on Sunday
I threw in some stuff on Sundance this week, including Mammoth and Summer Hours (both on Monday) that I haven’t seen but have heard good things about, so I’m hoping I get to check those out. Also note that IFC is playing the Coen Bros. version of The Ladykillers late Wednesday/early Thursday, while TCM has the original version Thursday night – rather apropos given recent conversations about the Coens and remakes. There are a few other newly featured things scattered throughout, the most notable being Mel Brooks’ hilarious send-up of the business of Broadway in The Producers (the original version) and Martin Scorsese’s biopic of Howard Hughes, The Aviator.
Monday, January 3
6:30am – Sundance – Mammoth
A favorite among a few Row Three writers, though not unanimously, this film from Swedish director Lukas Moodysson gives a three-faceted look at the modern world, contrasting an American businessman, his family, their Filipino maid, and her family.
2009 Sweden. Director: Lukas Moodysson. Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Michelle Williams, Marife Necesito.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 12:30pm)
8:40am – Sundance – Grizzly Man
Werner Herzog’s fascination with the duality of nature’s beauty and destructiveness continues into documentary, as he brings the story of grizzly researcher Timothy Treadwell to the screen.
2005 USA. Director: Werner Herzog.
(repeats at 2:40pm)
10:40am – Sundance – No One Knows About Persian Cats
A pair of Iranian rock musicians, unable to perform their music publicly because the government won’t give them a permit, try to put together a final underground gig to raise money to escape the country – it’s based on the actual story of the two people playing the musicians, so there’s an intriguing intersection of reality and fiction.
2009 Iran. Director: Bahman Ghobadi. Starring: Negar Shaghaghi, Ashkan Koshanejad, Hamed Behdad.
(repeats at 4:@5pm)
6:15pm – Sundance – Summer Hours
In what sounds like a very beautiful and meditative film, Olivier Assayas explores a French family as the matriarch prepares for her own passing and then the actions of her family after she does. It got the Criterion treatment almost immediately upon release, which is enough for me to get excited on its own, but I’ve also heard really good things about it.
2008 France. Director: Olivier Assayas. Starring: Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jérémie Renier.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 5:40am on the 4th, and 9:25am on the 8th)
8:00pm – 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
(repeats at 1:30am on the 4th)
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 itís 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.
Tuesday, January 4
9:35am – 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 2:55pm)
10:15am – TCM – Johnny Belinda
Jane Wyman won an Oscar for playing a deaf/mute woman surrounded by a rape/pregnancy scandal, and may have given the best acceptance speech ever. Paraphrased: “You gave this to me for keeping my mouth shut, and I think I’ll do the same now.”
1948 USA. Director: Jean Negulesco. Starring: Jane Wyman, Lew Ayres, Charles Bickford.
Newly Featured!
12:00N – TCM – Stage Fright
An actress helps a friend try to defend his innocence when he’s accused of murder – but is she doing the right thing? This is one of the earliest examples I know of in film of an unreliable cinematic rendering of events; doesn’t follow through on it quite as well as Rashomon does (which was released the same year), but very interesting nonetheless.
1950 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Jane Wyman, Michael Wilding, Marlene Dietrich.
8:30pm – IFC – Mad Max
Post-apocalyptic vengeance is on the menu as Mel Gibson breaks through into stardom as the titular character, a cop seeking revenge on the gang of bikers that killed his family as what’s left of the world crumbles.
1981 Australia. Director: George Miller. Starring: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne.
10:35pm – IFC – American Psycho
Christian Bale proves his chops again as a successful investment banker who’s got everything going for him but gets his kicks through his double life as a psychopathic murderer.
2000 USA. Director: Mary Harron. Starring: Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas.
Newly Featured!
Wednesday, January 5
5:45pm – 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
10:30pm – TCM – An Affair to Remember
For some reason, this has become one of the best-loved melodramas of classic Hollywood (possibly because its main plot point is memorialized in Sleepless in Seattle); it’s not one of my personal favorites in the genre, but as three-handkerchief romantic weepies go, it’s not bad.
1957 USA. Director: Leo McCarey. Starring: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr.
1:30am (6th) – IFC – The Ladykillers (2004)
This film, usually considered one of the Coen Bros’ few misfires, has been coming up in comments a bit recently, thanks to discussions of their current release True Grit, also a remake of a classic film. It’s also one of the few Coen films I haven’t seen.
2004 USA. Director: Joel & Ethan Coen. Starring: Tom Hanks, Marlon Wayans, Irma P. Hall.
Newly Featured!
Thursday, January 6
11:30am – Sundance – Wendy and 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. One of these days I will rectify that, I promise.
2008 USA. Director: Kelly Reichardt. Starring: Michelle Williams, Will Oldham, Michell Worthey, John Robinson.
(repeats at 4:10pm)
7:00pm – 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
8:00pm – IFC – Carrie
There aren’t that many movies that you can say are equally loved by horror fans and feminist academics, but Carrie is one of them – Carrie’s physical coming-of-age sparks telekinetic abilities, allowing her to take bloody revenge on the schoolkids who mistreated her. And who can’t relate to that, really?
1976 USA. Director: Brian DePalma. Starring: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving.
(repeats at 2:15am on the 7th)
Friday, January 7
9:15am – TCM – Cabin in the Sky
One of the more watchable/interesting films of the black-cast-centric films that Hollywood did in the 1940s, probably because it’s also Vincente Minnelli’s first directorial effort, a musical fantasy about the battle over a man’s soul. You’ll find a lot of stereotypes that were unfortunately common at the time, but the film does have stylish direction and some great musical moments from Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, and others.
1943 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Ethel Waters, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Rex Ingram.
10:40am – 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.
1956 France. Director: Jean-Pierre Melville. Starring: Roger Duchesne, Isabelle Corey, Gérard Buhr, Daniel Gauchy.
(repeats at 4:05pm)
12:45pm – TCM – Mildred Pierce
In quite probably Joan Crawford’s best role (only perhaps excepting her catty “other woman” in The Women), she plays a woman trying to work her way up in the world from lowly waitress to entrepreneur, all the while dealing with her shrew of a daughter. Melodrama isn’t a particularly prized genre these days, but films like Mildred Pierce show how good melodramas can be with the right confluence of studio style, director, and star.
1945 USA. Director: Michael Curtiz. Starring: Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Ann Blyth, Eve Arden.
Must See
12:45pm – IFC – 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.
10:00pm – TCM – State Fair
The only musical Rodgers & Hammerstein wrote directly for the screen, and yeah, it’s fairly inconsequential, but it’s a lot of fun. And really made me want my dad to take me to the Iowa State Fair when I was a kid. He never did, so I never got to find out if it was as much fun as this. Probably not.
1945 USA. Director: Walter Lang. Starring: Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine.
Newly Featured!
3:30am (8th) – TCM – Model Shop
After his string of New Wave musicals and dramas, Jacques Demy accepted the siren call of Hollywood and came out here to make this film – which is far from the sunny musicals I think Hollywood expected. Instead, it’s an angsty look at a guy at the end of his rope – his car about to repo’d, his girlfriend probably leaving him, and the strange solace he finds in a French model at a local, uh, gentlemen’s establishment. It’s not a great film, maybe not even a good one, but it is a kind of fascinating one.
1969 USA. Director: Jacques Demy. Starring: Gary Lockwood, Anouk Aimee, Alexandra Hay.
Newly Featured!
Saturday, January 8
12:00N – TCM – Another Thin Man
This is the third Thin Man movie, and though I enjoy the whole series, they kind of start going downhill after this one, which sees Nick and Nora (and Asta and now Nick, Jr.) heading out to Long Island to do some detecting work for a friend of Nora’s father. Still sparkling dialogue and the great chemistry between Powell and Loy keep this one a worthy entry in the series.
1939 USA. Director: W. S. Van Dyke. Starring: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Virginia Grey.
Newly Featured!
2:00pm – TCM – Them!
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.
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 – Gangs of New York
It’s hard to argue with the concept of a Scorsese/diCaprio/Day-Lewis trifecta in a story about Irish gangs at the dawn of New York’s existence, though I found myself underwhelmed with it.
2003 USA. Director: Martin Scorsese. Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo diCaprio, Cameron Diaz.
Sunday, January 9
6:00am – TCM – The Story of Three Loves
A very loose anthology film, its three stories connected only by the tenuous theme of “love.” In one, a ballerina must choose between her health and her love of dance; in another, a young boy gets his wish to be a man for a day and sees a new side of his pretty tutor; in the third, a trapeze artist loses his partner to a stunt, then ends up falling for his new partner. The third one is the longest and probably the best, but the other two have their moments as well, notably another chance to see ballerina Moira Shearer in addition to The Red Shoes.
1953 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli, Gottfried Reinhardt. Starring: Kirk Douglas, Moira Shearer, Farley Granger, Leslie Caron, Pier Angeli.
Newly Featured!
8:30am – TCM – Kiss Me Kate
It’s hard to improve Shakespeare, but it usually works best to place his stories and words in a new context. Kiss Me Kate does just that by coupling a musical version of Taming of the Shrew with a backstage story that mirrors Shrew’s fighting protagonists. Great supporting work from Ann Miller, James Whitmore, Keenan Wynn, etc. helps out leads Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson considerably, as do Cole Porter’s songs.
1953 USA. Director: George Sidney. Starring: Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, Ann Miller, James Whitmore, Keenan Wynn.
12:15pm – TCM – The Producers
Mel Brooks’ classic farce has failing Broadway producer Max Bialystock realizing the only way he can make money is to produce a sure-fire flop so the investors won’t expect a return – Nazi musical “Springtime for Hitler” should do the trick! This is nonstop laughs right here, thanks to the zany script and delivery by Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder.
1968 USA. Director: Mel Brooks. Starring: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, Kenneth Mars.
Must See
Newly Featured!
2:00pm – TCM – The Caine Mutiny
Humphrey Bogart’s Captain Queeg is a piece of work, and by that I mean some of the best work Bogart has on film. He’s neurotic, paranoid, and generally mentally unstable. Or is he? That’s the question after first officer Van Johnson relieves him of duty as being unfit to serve and faces charges of mutiny.
1954 USA. Director: Edward Dmytryk. Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray, Jose Ferrer.
4:15pm – 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
8:30pm – IFC – The Aviator
A relatively safe film for Martin Scorsese, perhaps, but a really solid one, with DiCaprio solidifying his place in Scorsese’s films as legendary aviator/producer/hypochondriac Howard Hughes and a host of near-perfectly cast supporting players as the stars and starlets of 1930s Hollywood.
2004 USA. Director: Martin Scorsese. Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale.
Newly Featured!
