Carlos, playing on Sundance on Saturday.

Not a lot of really notable new things to mention this week, though I did pick out a few things that I haven’t featured before. Get your 1940s melodrama on with Now, Voyager, playing on Monday, and check out both of Luise Rainer’s back-to-back Oscar winning roles in The Good Earth and The Great Zigefeld on Wednesday; To Die For, featuring a great early role for Nicole Kidman, is on Friday, and you can catch two epic-length revolutionary films in Che and Carlos on Fridy and Saturday.

Monday, January 10

10:30am – TCM – Now, Voyager
A fine example of a 1940s two-hanky melodrama, with Bette Davis a frumpy, repressed woman who finds herself with therapy and then falls for a married man. Davis holds it together and Paul Henreid acquits himself well in the role that brought him to prominence and had women across America swooning at his dual-cigarette-lighting move.
1942 USA. Director: Irving Rapper. Starring: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper.
Newly Featured!

6:00pm – TCM – Rebel Without a Cause
Nicholas Ray’s best-known movie (though not, I’d argue, his best), likely because it’s one of James Dean’s three films. Dean is a rebellious teen, hanging out with the wrong crowd, whose parents don’t understand him. It all seems a little overwrought these days, but there’s an intensity to Dean and the film that manages to make it still relatable.
1955 USA. Director: Nicholas Ray. Starring: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo.

8:25pm – Sundance – The Darjeeling Limited
Not perhaps my favorite Wes Anderson film, but that’s not really that much of a negative statement for one of my favorite directors. Certainly the central image of the train is a fitting one for his flat, widescreen visual style, and the Indian setting allows for great use of color, so if nothing else, it looks freaking gorgeous.
2007 USA. Director: Wes Anderson. Starring: Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Angelica Huston.
(repeat at 2:05am and 10:45am on the 11th, 6:25pm on the 15th, and 7:20am on the 16th)

11:35pm – IFC – The Ladykillers
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.

Tuesday, January 11

6:50am – 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 12:25pm)

8:00pm – IFC – The Crying Game
British soldier Forest Whitaker is captured by an IRA cell, and one of the IRA members (Stephen Rea), against his better judgement, befriends him. Later, Rea leaves the cell and makes his way to London to find Whitaker’s lover and ends up getting involved with her under an assumed identity. There’s an additional twist that you likely know if you play any film trivia at all, but the rest of the film is a solid exploration of terrorist guilt with director Neil Jordan’s characteristic angst.
1992 UK. Director: Neil Jordan. Starring: Stephen Rea, Forest Whitaker, Miranda Richardson, Jaye Davidson.

8:30pm – 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. 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 3:55am on the 12th)

10:30pm – IFC – From Dusk Till Dawn
An early collaboration between Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez (Rodriguez directing, Tarantino writing and acting) mixes crime action with vampire horror.
1996 USA. Director: Robert Rodriguez. Starring: Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Juliette Lewis.

2:05am (12th) – Sundance – Red Riding: 1974
For some reason Sundance is only playing the first part of the Red Riding Trilogy, but I suppose it’s good they’re playing it instead of one of the other parts. I did quite like the first entry in the sprawling crime series, and it’s the one that stars Andrew Garfield, so there’s that. (Also, all three are on Instant Watch, in the US at least…)
2009 UK. Director: Julian Jarrold. Starring: Andrew Garfield, David Morrissey, John Henshaw.

Wednesday, January 12

6:00am – IFC – Harlan County, U.S.A.
Often considered one of the finest documentaries ever put on film, Barbara Kopple’s film documents a 1973 coal miner’s strike in Kentucky which lasted over a year.
1976 USA. Director: Barbara Kopple.
(repeat at 1:45pm)

7:55pm – Sundance – L’auberge espagnole
A French student moves into an apartment with six other people in Barcelona. The interactions of these roommates with diverse cultural backgrounds and personalities forms the basis of the film as a whole, which may be short on plot but is great on the interpersonal relations and conversations that the French are so good at putting on film.
2002 France. Director: Cédric Klapisch. Starring: Romain Duris, Judith Godrèche, Kelly Reilly.
Newly Featured!

8:30pm – TCM – The Good Earth
This adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s novel of China won Luise Rainer her second consecutive Oscar for her portrayal of a Chinese farmer’s wife struggling with famine and hardship.
1937 USA. Director: Sidney Franklin. Starring: Luise Rainer, Paul Muni, Walter Connolly.
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – 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.

11:45pm – 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 12:5pm on the 13th)

11:30pm – TCM – The Great Ziegfeld
This very fictionalized biography of Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld is not really that great a film, but epic enough in scale to win a Best Picture Oscar in 1936, as well as one for Best Actress for Luise Rainer as Ziegfeld’s first wife (Myrna Loy plays his second wife Billie Burke, in one of several on-screen pairings of Loy and Powell). There are also a number of improbably large-scale production numbers that are fun to look at it if you’re into that sort of thing.
1936 USA. Director: Robert Z. Leonard. Starring: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Luise Rainer.
Newly Featured!

1:50am (14th) – IFC – The Wicker Man
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.

Thursday, January 13

10:30am – 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 5:30pm)

2:40pm – 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.
(repeats at 3:35am on the 16th)

8:00pm – 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.

8:15pm – 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.
(repeats at 2:05am and 7:30am on the 14th)

Friday, January 14

8:30am – IFC – Che
Steven Soderbergh’s ambitious two-part epic about South American revolutionary Che Guevara. IFC is playing both parts back to back.
2008 USA. Director: Steven Soderbergh. Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Julia Ormond, Rodrigo Santoro.

7:45pm – IFC – To Die For
Nicole Kidman turns in an early memorable performance as an aspiring TV personality who’s driven to do anything it takes to get ahead in this satire of the media industry. I always forget this was directed by Gus Van Sant. Huh.
1995 USA. Director: Gus Van Sant. Starring: Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, Joaquin Phoenix.
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – Sundance – Tokyo!
I haven’t seen this yet, but Michel Gondry, Bong Joon-ho and Leos Carax doing an omnibus film set in one of the liveliest and most varied cities in the world? Sign me up.
2008 France/Japan/South Korea/Germany. Directors: Michel Gondry, Bong Joon-ho, Leos Carax. Starring: Ayako Fujitani, Sohee Park, Julie Dreyfus.
(repeats at 4:45am on the 15th)

12:00M – IFC – INLAND EMPIRE
David Lynch’s latest magnum opus, which pretty much can’t 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 “see” INLAND EMPIRE.
2006 USA. Director: David Lynch. Starring: Laura Dern, Justin Theroux, Jeremy Irons, Jan Hencz, Karolina Gruszka, Grace Zabriski
Must See

Saturday, January 15

6:55am – 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.

8:00pm – Sundance – Carlos
Sundance has all of Olivier Assayas’ 5 1/2 hour long epic about Venezuelan revolutionary Carlos the Jackal playing. I’ve heard the film is quite a good one and worth the length, so check it out here to see it in its entirety.
2010 France/Germany. Director: Olivier Assayas. Starring: Édgar Ramírez, Alexander Scheer, Alejandro Arroyo.
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – TCM – Black Orpheus
This reimagining of the Orpheus/Eurydice myth set amidst the Rio de Janeiro Carnival won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
1959 Brazil/France. Director: Marcel Camus. Starring: Breno Mello, Marpessa Dawn, Marcel Camus, Léa Garcia, Lourdes de Oliveira.

10:30pm – IFC – Hard Candy
Ellen Page burst onto the scene as a teenage girl getting involved with an older guy she met on the internet – initially looks like a cautionary tale about internet chat relationships, but goes into even more twisted realms than that, with Ellen owning the screen every second.
2005 USA. Director: David Slade. Starring: Ellen Page, Patrick Wilson, Sandra Oh.

Sunday, January 16

8:15am – IFC – 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 3:15pm)

1:30pm – TCM – South Pacific
This is actually one of my least favorite Rodgers & Hammerstein films, yet it has one of my favorite Rodgers & Hammerstein scores. I think I just never liked the use of colored filters in the film. Yet, I do love the score.
1958 USA. Director: Joshua Logan. Starring: Rosanno Brazzi, Mitzi Gaynor, France Nuyen.
Newly Featured!

6:00pm – TCM – To Sir, With Love
Twelve years after being the troubled student in Blackboard Jungle, Sidney Poitier takes on the role of the teacher, trying to take hold of a bunch of bored, acting-out London teenagers.
1967 UK. Director: James Clavell. Starring: Sidney Poitier, Judy Gleeson, Christian Roberts, Suzy Kendall, Lulu.

8:00pm – TCM – In the Heat of the Night
Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger make an unlikely pair of cops working a case in a racist town in the South. Steiger won an Oscar for his portrayal of a southern police chief.
1967 USA. Director: Norman Jewison. Starring: Rod Steiger, Sidney Poitier, Warren Oates.
Newly Featured!