8:00pm – IFC – Wassup Rockers
Small film about a group of teenage Latino skateboarders from South Central LA. They go up to Beverly Hills to skateboard, get caught by cops, escape, meet up with some girls, get in fights with preppy 90210 guys, and try to get home. But the moments that’ll get you are when they’re just talking, to the camera, or to the girls, about their life and what it’s like to live in South Central. It doesn’t go anywhere, really, but it’s a wonderful slice of life.
2005 USA. Director: Larry Clark. Starring: Jonathan Velasquez, Francisco Pedrasa, Milton Velasquez, Usvaldo Panameno, Eddie Velasquez.
(repeats at 2:00am on the 12th)

11:30pm – IFC – The Proposition
Australia’s answer to the western; Guy Pearce must hunt down and capture his brothers for the law in order to save his own skin. Gritty and violent almost to a fault, and it definitely brought new life to the Western genre.
2005 Australia. Director: John Hillcoat. Starring: Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone.

12:00M – TCM – The General
One of the greatest silent comedies of all time; no, scratch that, one of the greatest any kind of comedies of all time. Buster Keaton is at the top of his game as a Civil War era engineer whose train (with his girl on it) gets captured by the Union army, and he’s got to get them both back, with many an amazing stunt along the way. No one did stunt-based comedy better than Keaton, and he’s never been better than this.
1926 USA. Director: Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman. Starring: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack.
Must See

5:00am (12th) – TCM – Stage Door
I cannot describe to you how much I love this film. I’m not sure it’s wholly rational. Katharine Hepburn plays an heiress who wants to make it on her own as an actress, so she moves (incognito) into a New York boarding house for aspiring actresses. Her roommate ends up being Ginger Rogers (who’s never been better or more acerbic), and the boarding house is rounded out with a young Lucille Ball, a young Eve Arden, a very young Ann Miller, and various others. The dialogue is crisp and everyone’s delivery matter-of-fact and perfectly timed, and the way the girls use humor to mask desperation makes most every moment simultaneously funny and tragic – so that when it does turn tragic, it doesn’t feel like a shift in mood, but a culmination of the inevitable.
1937 USA. Director: Gregory La Cava. Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Andrea Leeds, Gail Patrick, Eve Arden, Lucille Ball, Ann Miller, Constance Collier.
Must See

Tuesday, April 12

3:45pm – 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.

4:30pm – IFC – Barton Fink
One of the Coen Brothers’ most brilliant dark comedies, Barton Fink follows its title character, a New York playwright whose hit play brings him to the attention of Hollywood, where he goes to work for the movies. And it all goes downhill from there. Surreal, quirky, and offbeat, even among the Coens work. It’s based loosely on the experiences of Clifford Odets, whose heightened poetic style of writing has clearly been influential on the Coens throughout their career.
1991 USA. Director: Joel Coen. Starring: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner, Tony Shalhoub.
(repeats at 10:45am on the 13th)

8:15pm – Sundance – Big
I found out at trivia night recently that this is one of only three films with three-letter titles among the top 400 grossing films of all time. I did not know that, so we lost. Ah well. Kind of refreshing to know that such a sweet, unassuming film was such a big box office winner – Tom Hanks as the adult version of a boy who gets his wish to be grown up is mighty adorable.
1988 USA. Director: Penny Marshall. Starring: Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins.
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9:00pm – TCM – Dial M for Murder
Glossy Hitchcock film with Ray Milland hiring a hitman to off his wife Grace Kelly after discovered she’d been unfaithful to him, but when she turns the tables on the would-be killer, Milland is forced to ever more devious cover-ups and plots. Really solid suspenser, if not quite top-level Hitchcock for me. Still a must-see if you’re a Hitchcock fan.
1954 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Grace Kelly, Ray Milland, Robert Cummings, John Williams, Anthony Dawson.

Wednesday, April 13

6:00am – IFC – Caché
Very deliberate but intensely thought-provoking film from director Michael Haneke, delving into issues from privacy and surveillance to war guilt and revenge. It’s a difficult film, and one that stretches the limits of the suspense thriller, but if you’re willing to go along with it, it’s well worthwhile.
2005 France. Director: Michael Haneke. Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Bénichou.
(repeats at 1:15pm)

8:45am – TCM – Poor Little Rich Girl
One of Shirley Temple’s better films has her as a spoiled rich child who gets lost in the city and is cared for by a couple of entertainers. It doesn’t hurt that one of the entertainers is Alice Faye, who provides much better support than Temple usually has in her films.
1936 USA. Director: Irving Cummings. Starring: Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, Jack Haley, Gloria Stuart, Michael Whalen.

Thursday, April 14

9:45am – TCM – Doctor Zhivago
Idealistic Zhivago experiences the Bolshevik Revolution while also dealing with his conflicting feelings for his wife Tonya and young nurse Lara. There are a few things about the romance side of the story that bother me, mostly the fact that I liked Tonya way more than Lara, but I have to admit Lean knows how to make epic films, and Maurice Jarre’s score is unforgettable.
1965 UK/USA. Director: David Lean. Starring: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness.

12:30pm – 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 6:55pm)

4:00pm – 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.

7:00pm – TCM – The Glass Key
Based on a Dashiell Hammett novel, this film pairs frequent costars Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, who get mixed up in all kinds of convoluted events when a crooked politician’s attempt to go straight earns the anger of a local gangster.
1942 USA. Director: Stuart Heisler. Starring: Brian Donlevy, Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd.
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12:30am (15th) – TCM – The PirateA flop when first released, The Pirate looks more and more like a potential cult classic all the time. Gene Kelly is an entertainer who impersonates the dread pirate Mack the Black Mococo to get close to Spanish heiress Judy Garland in a period Caribbean seaport. It’s over-the-top, has some of Cole Porter’s most outlandish songs, and is somehow immensely, compulsively watchable.
1948 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Walter Slezak, Gladys Cooper, Reginald Owen, the Nicholas Brothers.

Friday, April 15

6:00pm – 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

11:35pm – 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.

Saturday, April 16

8:00am – 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 3:30pm)

11:45am – IFC – Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Lawrence Sterne’s 1769 proto-postmodern novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy has long been considered unfilmable. So what does director Michael Winterbottom do? He makes a film about the difficulty of filming Tristram Shandy. Winterbottom’s film is something of an experiment, but it’s a delightful one, showing the behind-the-scenes antics of production as well as highlighting the circularity and self-defeating narrative of Sterne’s novel in the film-within-the-film.
2005 UK. Director: Michael Winterbottom. Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Keeley Hawes, Shirley Henderson, Jeremy Northam.

1:00pm – 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.

3:15pm – TCM – Born Yesterday
Judy Holliday nabbed an Oscar as the showgirl wife of an uncouth tycoon crashing around Washington DC with his newfound wealth – he hires William Holden to teach her to be a lady, but things don’t quite turn out as he expected.
1950 USA. Director: George Cukor. Starring: Judy Holliday, Broderick Crawford, William Holden.

7:00pm – 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.

8:10pm – 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 4:50am on the 17th)

5:00am (17th) – TCM – The Great Dictator
Chaplin’s first completely talking film, and one in which he doesn’t play his Little Tramp character. Instead, he’s both Hitler and a Jewish man who looks strikingly like Hitler. This obviously creates confusion. Brilliantly scathing satire – it always amazes me that it was made as early as 1940.
1940 USA. Director: Charles Chaplin. Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard.
Must See

Sunday, April 17

7:15am – TCM – Love Me Tonight
MacDonald and Chevalier were a quite successful pairing in early sound-era operettas, and this is one of their best – a pretty excellent musical comedy of noblemen and peasants and mistaken identity directed by Rouben Mamoulian doing his best Ernst Lubitsch impersonation (Lubitsch actually did do a couple of films teaming MacDonald and Chevalier, but none as good as this one).
1932 USA. Director: Rouben Mamoulian. Starring: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Myrna Loy.

9:00am – 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.

11:00am – 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.

4:30pm – IFC – Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
I need to give another look to this Peter Weir film about a British commander pursuing a French vessel through dangerous waters during the Napoleonic Wars; it didn’t impress me a whole lot when I watched it, but it’s pretty highly regarded in the Third Row. I’m kind of back and forth on Weir in general, but I’d be plenty to happy to add this one back to the “pro” column.
2003 USA. Director: Peter Weir. Starring: Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, Billy Boyd.

7:30pm – 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.

10:00pm – Sundance – Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Sadly this turned out to be Sidney Lumet’s final film before his death just this week. But from what I hear, this is a fine one to have as a swan song, an intense and well-constructed heist thriller – something Lumet was certainly skilled at directing. I have got to get around to checking it out myself soon.
1997 USA. Director: Sidney Lumet. Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Albert Finney.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 4:00am on the 18th)

1:00am (18th) – TCM – Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
A three and a half hour film about a woman going about her daily chores, often almost in real-time. I wrote about it at slightly more length here; there’s a lot more to it than there seems, and it’s definitely worth the time spent, even if it seems boring and even tedious at the time.
1975 France. Director: Chantal Ackerman. Starring: Delphine Seyrig.
Newly Featured!