This is the Night, playing on TCM on Sunday

Not too much in the pipeline this week, even repeats. The only two newly featured films are Kelly-Sinatra vehicle Take Me Out to the Ballgame on Thursday, part of a group of films celebrating star of the month Esther Williams (so if you’re a fan of hers, check out the rest of that evening’s programming – this is the only one I’d recommend to a general audience) and 1932′s This is the Night on Sunday, which was easily the most pleasant surprise of this year’s TCM Festival for me. It’s Cary Grant’s first film, but I was expecting it to be only of historical value, and it turned out to be extremely witty and well-performed by all involved, with a delicious pre-Code naughtiness thrown in. If you’re a fan of early ’30s stuff, I urge you to check it out; it isn’t on DVD.

Monday, May 9

9:45am – 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

11:30am – TCM – The More the Merrier
A World War II housing shortage has Charles Coburn, Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur sharing an apartment; soon Coburn is matchmaking for McCrea and Arthur, and we get a wonderful, adorable romance out of it.
1943 USA. Director: George Stevens. Starring: Jane Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn.

8:00pm – TCM – Lawrence of Arabia
Most epics are over-determined and so focused on spectacle that they end up being superficial – all big sets and sweeping music with no depth. The brilliance of Lawrence of Arabia is that it looks like an epic with all the big sets and sweeping music and widescreen vistas, but at its center is an enigmatic character study of a man who lives bigger-than-life, but is as personally conflicted as any intimate drama has ever portrayed.
1962 UK. Director: David Lean. Starring: Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness, Jose Ferrer.
Must See

8:05pm – 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

3:45am (10th) – IFC – Layer Cake
Sounds like an unusual title for a crime film, but it’s also an unusually solid crime film, with Daniel Craig in one of his breakthrough roles as a drug dealer given a couple of tough jobs just before planning to retire. Last jobs never go well, so you can kind of predict all won’t go as planned.
2004 UK. Director: Matthew Vaughn. Starring: Daniel Craig, Tom Hardy, Sally Hawkins, Burn Gorman.

4:45am (10th) – TCM – A Night at the Opera
One of the best of the Marx Brothers’ zany comedies finds them running awry through the world of opera. This is the one that contains the famous “how much stuff can we stuff into a stateroom” scene. And a subplot with Allan Jones and Kitty Carlisle, but that’s best ignored as much as possible.
1935 USA. Director: Sam Wood. Starring: The Marx Brothers, Allan Jones, Kitty Carlisle, Margaret Dumont.
Must See

Tuesday, May 10

6:45am – IFC _ The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Julian Schnabel’s intensely moving retelling of the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, who was almost completely paralyzed in a car accident, able only to move his left eye. The impressionist storytelling lends an otherworldly beauty to the film, already solid due to the script and acting.
2007 France. Director: Julian Schnabel. Starring: Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze.
Must See
(repeats at 1:45pm)

Wednesday, May 11

8:00pm – IFC – thirteen
As disinterested as I am in Twilight and Red Riding Hood, 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.
(repeats at 2:45am on the 12th)

11:45pm – Sundance – Fish Tank
Andrea Arnold’s electrifying sophomore film isn’t to be missed. Newcomer Katie Jarvis is brilliant as a disaffected working class teen in industrial England (as is Michael Fassbender as the stepfather figure), and Arnold never compromises the harshness here, but also manages to introduce a strangely lyrical quality – both together make the film nearly transcendent, and one of the best films of the year.
2009 UK. Director: Andrea Arnold. Starring Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender.

Thursday, May 12

3:30pm – TCM – Little Women (1933)
This first sound version of Little Women has a young Katharine Hepburn in the lead, along with a roll-call of great 1930s starlets and character actors. It’s a bit wooden compared to the 1994 version, but it’s got a lot of charm nonetheless.
1933 USA. Director: George Cukor. Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Paul Lukas, Edna May Oliver, Jean Parker, Frances Dee.

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 2:30am on the 13th, 8:00pm on the 14th, and 2:00am on the 15th)

8:30pm – 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 1:20am on the 13th)

12:30am (13th) – IFC – Bad Lieutenant
The Abel Ferrara original version of Bad Lieutenant, before Werner Herzog decided to co-opt the name for his own over-the-top opus. Here Harvey Keitel is the eponymous lawman working through his own deep-seated issues with a surprising amount of depth.
1992 USA. Director: Abel Ferrera. Starring: Harvey Keitel, Victor Argo, Robin Burrows, Frankie Thom.

10:00pm – TCM – Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra team up for the second of three times, this time as baseball players rather than sailors, with Esther Williams along for the ride as the new, surprisingly savvy owner of the team. Williams is TCM’s star of the month, and a bunch of her films are playing tonight; this is the only one really worth recommending unless you’re a fan, though.
1949 USA. Director: Busby Berkeley. Starring: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, Betty Hutton, Julies Munshin.
Newly Featured!

Friday, May 13

10:15am – 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.
(repeats at 8:15am on the 14th)

5:00pm – 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.

6:30pm – TCM – The Champ
Wallace Beery earned an Oscar for his role as a has-been prizefighter, living hand to mouth with his adoring son. But then the boy has a chance to go live with his mother, long-divorced from Beery and now married to a well-to-do man. This is a great example of a high-end Warner Bros. programmer from the early 1930s – it’s very lean, nothing extra in it, but it’s got a heart that I didn’t expect.
1931 USA. Director: King Vidor. Starring: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Roscoe Ates.

7:00pm – 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.

8:00pm – TCM – The Paleface
Bob Hope is the titular character, a mild-mannered dentist who wants nothing more than to escape the Wild West – instead, he’s drafted into posing as Calamity Jane’s husband to uncover a gun runner. The jokes fly fast and furious here, in one of the best farces on screen. The recently late Jane Russell is great as Calamity Jane, more than holding her own against Hope. Also seek out the sequel Son of Paleface, which is possibly even better.
1948 USA. Director: Norman Z. McLeod. Starring: Bob Hope, Jane Russell, Robert Armstrong.

3:45am (14th) – 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.

Saturday, May 14

7:30am – TCM – Murder, My Sweet
The definitive depiction of Raymond Chandler’s private eye Philip Marlowe is by Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep, but this well-done film starring Dick Powell as Marlowe shouldn’t be discounted either; it’s pretty solid stuff, based on Chandler’s novel Farewell, My Lovely.
1944 USA. Director: Edward Dmytryk. Starring: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger.

8:00pm – Sundance – 24 Hour Party People
An idiosyncratic look at the creation and heyday of Factory Records, the home of Manchester punk bands Joy Division/New Order, James and the Happy Mondays, and others, under the direction of Tony Wilson. But this is not documentary, nor standard biography, but a stylistically bold and funny film as only Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan can put together.
2002 UK. Director: Michael Winterbottom. Starring: Steve Coogan, Lennie James, Paddy Considine, Shirley Henderson, Andy Serkis, John Simm.
(repeats at 2:00am on the 15th)

10:00pm – IFC – Requiem for a Dream
Darren Aronofsky’s breakthrough film (Pi remains a cult favorite) follows a quartet of people as their lives spiral out of control due to drug addiction.
2000 USA. Director: Darren Aronofsky. Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans.

Sunday, May 15

12:30pm – TCM – This is the Night
In Cary Grant’s first on-screen appearance, he is fifth-billed as a cocky Olympian javelin-thrower whose wife is stepping out with Roland Young. Sounds a bit implausible, but the film is surprisingly spry and witty, with some great comedy bits between Young and Charles Ruggles, and though Grant is green, he lights up the screen when he’s on it.
1932 USA. Director: Frank Tuttle. Starring: Roland Young, Lily Damita, Charles Ruggles, Thelma Todd, Cary Grant.
Newly Featured!

6:15pm – TCM – Bringing Up Baby
Poor Cary Grant just can’t get away from delightfully ditzy Katharine Hepburn, especially after her dog steals his museum’s priceless dinosaur bone. Oh, and after her pet leopard escapes (and a dangerous zoo leopard escapes at the same time). Incredible situation follows incredible situation in this zaniest of all screwball comedies.
1938 USA. Director: Howard Hawks. Starring: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, May Robson, Barry Fitzgerald.
Must See

8:30pm – IFC – Alien
Often considered one of the best sci-fi/horror creature features of all time (or just behind its sequel Aliens). Sigourney Weaver gets an iconic role as ass-kicking astronaut Ripley.
1979 USA. Director: Ridley Scott. Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, John Hurt.

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 5:10am on the 16th)