More Oscar-nominated goodness from TCM this week, including some that are more current than TCM’s usual fare, though no less worthy of inclusion, like 1994′s Red, one of my all-time favorites, playing in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. See also political thriller Z on Wednesday on TCM, Danny Boyle’s reinvigoration of the zombie genre in 28 Days Later on IFC on Friday, and holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street on TCM on Sunday. And don’t miss TCM’s all-day tribute to 1939, one of the best years of film in all of cinema history.

Monday, February 7

12:00N – TCM – Libeled Lady
Throw William Powell, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, and Jean Harlow all together in an MGM comedy, and you’re almost guaranteed a winner. And Libeled Lady delivers with a twisty story, fast-talking script, and the best these stars have to offer.
1936 USA. Director: Jack Conway. Starring: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, Jean Harlow, Walter Connolly, Charley Grapewin.

12:30pm – IFC – Spirited Away
Often considered Hayao Miyazaki’s finest film, it’s easily among the best family-friendly animated films in existence, full of magic and wonder, gods and spirits, and shapeshifting spells.
2001 Japan. Director: Hayao Miyazaki. Starring: Rumi Hiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki.

5:15pm – 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.

10:00pm – TCM – Mrs. Miniver
One of the more celebrated World War II home front films has Greer Garson in an Oscar-winning turn as the stalwart title character, holding her home together against the German Blitz. It’s the kind of movie that could only be made in 1942, and it won awards all over the place. It comes off a bit over-earnest today, though.
1942 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright.

Tuesday, February 8

9:45am – TCM – Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
What do you do when you’re seven brothers in the backwoods and need wives? Why, go kidnap them of course! Patriarchal values aside, Seven Brides is one of the most entertaining movie musicals ever made, and I defy anyone to outdo the barn dance/raising scene.
1954 USA. Director: Stanley Donen. Starring: Howard Keel, Jane Powell, Russ Tamblyn.

3:30pm – TCM – On the Beach
After nuclear war, most of humanity is destroyed; a small outpost in Australia survives, but not for long. See David’s longer take here;.
1959 USA. Director: Stanley Kramer. Starring: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire.

5:45pm – 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.

8:00pm – IFC – Monty Python’s The 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.
(repeats at 4:00am on the 9th)

8:00pm – TCM – Gaslight
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.

10:00pm – TCM – Kramer vs. Kramer
Meryl Streep won her first Oscar for this film, as the female Kramer in the title, opposite Dustin Hoffman in a realistic look at a couple going through the pains of divorce – and the affects of that split on their young son.
1979 USA. Director: Robert Benton. Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Justin Henry, Jane Alexaner.

12:00M – TCM – Glory
An Edward Zwick film that doesn’t feel quite so burdened by being an Edward Zwick film as some his later ones would, about an all-black volunteer unit in the Civil War, fighting prejudice both from the opposing Confederate army and their own Union brothers-in-arms. Denzel Washington won a Supporting Oscar in one of his earliest roles.
1989 USA. Director: Edward Zwick. Starring: Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes.
Newly Featured!

4:30am (9th) – TCM – Red
The third and to my mind best of Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy, with Irene Jacob discovering a retired judge who eavesdrops on people constantly; the unusual friendship they develop despite her distaste for his activities plays a central role in the web of relationships that define this film, the “fraternity” section of the trilogy. It doesn’t depend on having seen the other two in the trilogy, though the last shot will be more impactful if you have.
1994 France. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski. Starring: Irene Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant.
Must See
Newly Featured!

Wednesday, February 9

11:15am – TCM – Z
Extremely solid political thriller following the true story of the overthrow of Greece’s democratic government. Equal parts historically accurate political document and detective thriller as the magistrate tries to uncover the conspiracy behind a liberal politician’s assassination, the whole thing is riveting.
1969 France/Algeria. Director: Costa-Gavros. Starring: Yves Montand, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Irene Papas.
Newly Featured!

1:30pm – TCM – Ball of Fire
Howard Hawks tries to recapture a little bit of Bringing Up Baby in this tale of a showgirl (Barbara Stanwyck, who’s trying to recapture a bit of The Lady Eve) who ends up among a bunch of stuffy professors, including Gary Cooper. Ball of Fire isn’t as memorable as either of those other films, but it has its own charm, and it’s certainly a lot of fun.
1942 USA. Director: Howard Hawks. Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Dana Andrews, S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall.

5:45pm – 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 11:35pm)

8:15pm – Sundance – Metropolitan
If Jane Austen made a movie in 1990 and set it among entitled Manhattan socialites, this would be it. The film follows a group of such entitled teens from party to party, focusing especially on the one outsider, a boy from the blue-collar class who has to rent a tux and pretend he likes to walk to avoid letting his new friends know he has to take the bus home. Though they find out soon enough, they keep him around because his intellectual nattering amuses them. In fact, it’s quite amazing that this film is interesting at all, given the amount of pseudo-intellectual nattering that goes on, from all the characters. But from start to finish, it’s both entertaining and an incisive look at the American class structure.
1990 USA. Director: Whit Stillman. Starring: Edward Clements, Chris Eigeman, Carolyn Farina, Taylor Nichols, Dylan Hundley.
(repeats at 4:00am on the 10th)

12:00M – TCM – Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
Perhaps the definition of Hollywood Gothic, with aging stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as aging former actresses. Davis was a child star whose glory was utterly usurped by sister Crawford as they grew up, making her bitterly long for their roles to be switched again. Add in a crippling car accident, psychological abuse, and delusions of continued fame, and you have an engrossing (and deliciously campy) cult film and possibly one of Davis’s best performances ever.
1962 USA. Director: Robert Aldrich. Starring: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono, Wesley Addy, Maidie Norman.

2:30am (10th) – TCM – Some Came Running
Frank Sinatra gets to prove his acting chops again as a cynical soldier returning to his small-town home. Shirley MacLaine is a revelation, and Dean Martin gets probably his best role, as well. Meanders a bit in the middle, but thanks to strong performances and incredibly well-done yet subtle mise-en-scene from Minnelli, ends up staying more memorable than you might expect.
1959 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine.

Thursday, February 10

7:00am – Sundance – A Town Called Panic
One of the most delightful films I saw in 2009, a whacked out stop-motion film from Belgium that follows Horse, Cowboy, and Indian throughout a series of adventures, mostly focused on trying to rebuild their house which keeps getting stolen every night. This is mile-a-minute absurdity with more inventiveness in 75 minutes than I usually see all year.
2009 Belium. Directors: Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar. Starring: Stéphane Aubier, Jeanne Balibar, Bruce Ellison, Vincent Pater.
(repeats at 11:15am and 3:30pm)

9:45am – IFC – Renaissance
In near-future Paris, a brilliant young scientist is kidnapped; her employer Avalon (a highly influential company that sells youth and beauty itself) wants her found, but her importance to them may be more sinister than first meets the eye. The story’s not handled perfectly here, but it’s worth watching for the beautifully stark black and white animation.
2006 France. Director: Christian Volckman. Starring (English version): Daniel Craig, Romola Garai, Ian Holm, Catherine McCormack, Jonathan Pryce.
(repeats at 3:45pm)

2:30pm – TCM – Anchors Aweigh
What’s that you say? Your life won’t be complete until you see Gene Kelly dance with an animated Jerry the Mouse from the Tom & Jerry cartoons? Well, you’re in luck with this film. Oh, right, there’s also a story-type thing with Kelly and Frank Sinatra as sailors and Kathryn Grayson as the love interest, but really, it’s all about Gene and Jerry.
1945 USA. Director: George Sidney. Starring: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, José Iturbi, Dean Stockwell.

8:00pm – TCM – Annie Get Your Gun
Musical and western blend in this retelling of the Annie Oakley-Frank Butler story, really only notable for its solid Irving Berlin score. Betty Hutton is fine as Annie, but one can only wonder how great the movie might’ve been had Judy Garland been healthy enough to play it, as originally intended.
1950 USA. Director: George Sidney. Starring: Betty Hutton, Howard Keel, Louis Calhern.
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – TCM – An American in Paris
Expat artist Gene Kelly in Paris, meets Leslie Caron, woos her away from rival Georges Guetarey, all set to Gershwin music and directed with panache by Vincente Minnelli. All that plus Kelly’s ground-breaking fifteen-plus-minute ballet to the title piece.
1951 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guetarey.
Must See

12:15am (11th) – IFC – Evil Dead 2
The sequel/remake to Sam Raimi’s wonderfully over-the-top demon book film, set in the same creepy wood-bound cabin, with even more copious amounts of blood and a lot more intentional humor. I’m still not sure which I like best, but either one will do when you need some good schlock. (I still haven’t seen Army of Darkness, I’m shamed to admit.
1987 USA. Director: Sam Raimi. Starring: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks.

Friday, February 11

6:15am – TCM – National Velvet
One of my favorite movies growing up, probably not least of all because I was mad about anything to do with horses. Even so, National Velvet stands pretty tall among family friendly films, with a young Elizabeth Taylor fighting to run her beloved horse in England’s most prestigious steeplechase with the help of world-weary youth Mickey Rooney.
1944 USA. Director: Clarence Brown. Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp, Anne Revere, Angela Lansbury.

7:30pm – IFC – 28 Days Later
Danny Boyle brought the zombie film into the new millennium, with a fast-spreading virus infecting the population at record speed (the “zombies” also move at record speed), leaving only a few survivors to try to escape London before it’s too late. I’m not a particular fan of the ending, but up until then, it’s a mile-a-minute thrill ride that’s hard to beat.
2002 UK. Director: Danny Boyle. Starring: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston.
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – TCM – The Graduate
One of the classic coming-of-age stories, with Dustin Hoffman in one of his first roles as the recent college graduate Benjamin Braddock. Unsure of what to do with his life after college, he takes advantage of his family’s upper middle-class wealth and does nothing – oh, except for fall into an affair with Mrs. Robinson, his father’s partner’s wife. When Elaine Robinson returns home from Berkeley, Benjamin’s attentions waver from mother and daughter. There’s no question that the film has become a cultural milestone.
1967 USA. Director: Mike Nichols. Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross.
Must See

11:35pm – 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.

Saturday, February 12

6:45am – IFC – The Protector
Whatever you do, don’t mess with Tony Jaa’s elephants. Consider yourself warned. Here Jaa takes on a city full of gangsters intent on stealing his elephant (and the mystical power they possess); the story here isn’t anything special, but Jaa’s fighting ability and choreography certainly is.
1995 Thailand. Director: Prachya Pinkaew. Starring: Tony Jaa, Nathan Jones, Petchtel Wongkamlao.
(repeats at 2:15pm)

7:25am – Sundance – The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Luis Bu˜uel made a career out of making surrealist anti-bourgeois films, and this is one of the most surreal, most anti-bourgeois, and best films he ever made, about a dinner party that just can’t quite get started due to completely absurd interruptions.
1972 France. Director: Luis Buñuel. Starring: Fernando Rey, Paul Fankeur, Delphine Seyrig, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel.

8:15am – TCM – Dark Victory
A signature role for Davis (among many), and a stylish melodrama to boot, with Davis a socialite diagnosed with a brain tumor and deciding how to live our her last days. It’s a three-hanky weepie for sure, but a classy one. Also some unintentional humor stemming from a young Bogart cast as an Irish (!) stablehand.
1939 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Betty Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart.
Newly Featured!

12:00N – TCM – Ninotchka
“Garbo Laughs!” proclaimed the advertisements, playing up the comedic factor of the usually implacable Greta Garbo’s 1939 film. True enough, though it takes a while for the charms of Paris and Melvyn Douglas to warm the Communist Ninotchka to the point of laughter. Pairing up director Ernst Lubitsch and writers Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder (who had yet to become a director himself) turns out to be a brilliant move, as Ninotchka has just the right combination of wit and sophistication.
1939 USA. Director: Ernst Lubitsch. Starring: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas.

2:00pm – 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.

4:00pm – TCM – Stagecoach
Major breakthrough for John Wayne, here playing outlaw Cisco Kid – he and the various other people on a stagecoach form a cross-section of old West society that has to learn to get on together to make it to the end of the ride alive. Excellent performances and stunt-filled action sequences make this one of the best westerns ever made.
1939 USA. Director: John Wayne. Starring: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, John Carradine, Andy Devine, Thomas Mitchell.
Must See

5:45pm – 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

7:40pm – 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 1:45am on the 13th)

8:00pm – TCM – The Wizard of Oz
Breakout role for Judy Garland, one of the earlier Technicolor films (and one of the first to mix black and white with Technicolor to dramatic effect), and one of the few adaptations where the film is better than the book. Oh, right, it’s also one of the most magical, beautiful, and wonderful films ever made.
1939 USA. Director: Victor Fleming. Starring: Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan, Margaret Hamilton.
Must See

8:00pm – 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 3:00am on the 13th)

10:00pm – TCM – Gone With the Wind
Margaret Mitchell’s sprawling best-seller became David O. Selznick’s sprawling epic, the story of spoiled southern belle Scarlett O’Hara coping with the horrors of unrequited love, threats to her family’s plantation, and oh, yeah, the Civil War. Gone With the Wind needs no introduction, really.
1939 USA. Director: Victor Fleming. Starring: Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland, Hattie McDaniel.
Must See

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.

10:15pm – IFC – thirteen
As disinterested as I am in Twilight and as dubious as Red Riding Hood looks, I keep giving Catherine Hardwicke the benefit of the doubt based on this film, a pretty solid exploration of a young teenager’s troubled relationship with her mother as she acts out with a wild-living friend.
2003 USA. Director: Catherine Hardwicke. Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Holly Hunter, Nikki Reed.
Newly Featured!

4:00am (13th) – TCM – Love Affair
This film is not as well known as its remake, 1957’s An Affair to Remember, which has the advantage of having the more famous Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr rather than Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer – who were both huge stars at the time, but are less known now. Both films were directed by Leo McCarey, and tell of a shipboard romance and a fateful rendezvous. I actually like Love Affair a tad better, but that could be just because I like being contrarian.
1939 USA. Directed by: Leo McCarey. Starring: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya.

Sunday, February 13

6:15am – IFC – The New World
Terrence Malick may not make many films, but the ones he does make, wow. Superficially the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, The New World is really something that transcends mere narrative – this is poetry on film. Every scene, every shot has a rhythm and an ethereal that belies the familiarity of the story we know. I expected to dislike this film when I saw it, quite honestly. It ended up moving me in ways I didn’t know cinema could.
2005 USA. Director: Terrence Malick. Starring: Colin Farrell, Q’orianka Kilcher, Christian Bale, Christopher Plummer.
Must See

8:00pm – TCM – Miracle on 34th Street
The original classic Christmas tale of a Macy’s department store Santa who claims to be the real thing and the family whose cynicism is tested by his presence. One of Natalie Wood’s most memorable pre-growing-up roles, and an Oscar-winner for Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle.
1947 USA. Director: George Seaton. Starring: Maureen O’Hara, Natalie Wood, Edmund Gwenn, John Payne.
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10:00pm – TCM – Going My Way
Best Picture winner, but a bit overly sentimentalized for my tastes, with Bing Crosby a priest who brings a relatable quality to the church’s ministry to a gang of kids, as well as reigniting a love of life in his aging superior.
1944 USA. Director: Leo McCarey. Starring: Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Gene Lockhart, Frank McHugh, Jean Heather.
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2:05am (14th) – IFC – Breakfast on Pluto
Patrick is a young Irish boy who before very long becomes Patricia. His story is about more than just his attempts to get people to accept him as a her; his quest for identity and his lost family is played out against the backdrop of the early years of the Troubles, as his friends get more and more involved in IRA factions while he does his best to keep from getting involved in things that are too “serious.” There’s a tough-to-find sweet spot between hilarity and tragedy, and hilarity that masks tragedy, and director Neil Jordan and actor Cillian Murphy found it with this film.
2005 Ireland. Director: Neil Jordan. Starring: Cillian Murphy, Eva Birthistle, Liam Neeson.

4:00am (14th) – TCM – A Room With a View
One of Merchant-Ivory’s best films out of their many classy adaptations of period literary classics – and less, uh, stuffy than they often tend to be. For me, it vies only with Howards End (another E.M. Forster adaptation) in their repertoire. A young Helena Bonham Carter, a veteran Maggie Smith, and Daniel Day-Lewis in one of his earliest film roles, don’t hurt at all.
1985 UK. Director: James Ivory. Starring: Helen Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Julian Sands, Simon Callow, Judi Dench, Daniel Day-Lewis.