A good many Newly Featured ones this week, some of them even Must Sees! Be sure to check out Howard Hawks’s western Red River on Wednesday, the best film version of Mutiny on the Bounty ever made. Yes, for real. Then Fox Movie Channel is doing a bunch of noirish films on Thursday, including Samuel Fuller’s Pickup on South Street. Hitting on all cylinders this week, Fox Movie Channel has Bob Fosse’s fantastic All That Jazz on Friday, then mod comedy Bedazzled and Argento’s classic Suspiria on Saturday/early Sunday. Also note that TCM is doing a Memorial Day weekend marathon starting at 8pm on Friday and going all the way through Monday featuring all war films. I noted some of them specifically, but if you’re a fan of classic war films, there are probably a bunch more you’ll want to check out.

Monday, May 23

9:00am – TCM – Words and Music
MGM liked to do largely fictionalized composer biopics in the 1940s and ’50s, mostly because it gave them an opportunity to show off their stable of singing and dancing stars. Words and Music is their retelling of the career of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and it’s pretty routine. What isn’t routine is Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen’s dazzling rendition of “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” a ten-minute dance number that is 100% worth the price of the film.
1948 USA. Director: Norman Taurog. Starring: Tom Drake, Mickey Rooney, Betty Garrett, Janet Leigh, Cyd Charisse, June Allyson, Gene Kelly, Vera-Ellen, James Mitchell, Lena Horne, Kathryn Grayson, Judy Garland.

1:00pm – TCM – On the Town
Sailors on leave Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin hit New York City, spending the day sightseeing and searching for Kelly’s dream girl Vera-Ellen, meanwhile picking up Betty Garrett and Ann Miller for the other boys. Not much plot here, but enough to precipitate some of the best song and dance numbers on film. Also one of the first musicals shot on location.
1949 USA. Directors: Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly. Starring: Gene Kelly, Vera-Ellen, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, Jules Munshin, Alice Pearce.
Must See

2:45pm – TCM – Take Me Out to the Ballgame
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.
1949 USA. Director: Busby Berkeley. Starring: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, Betty Hutton, Julies Munshin.

3:45pm – IFC – The Ladykillers
This film, usually considered one of the Coen Bros’ few misfires, is also one of the few Coen films I haven’t seen. I’m a pretty big fan of the original Ealing film about a group of would-be bank robbers stymied by an old lady, and I’m willing to check out the Coens’ version…just not particularly eager.
2004 USA. Director: Joel & Ethan Coen. Starring: Tom Hanks, Marlon Wayans, Irma P. Hall.

8:00pm – MGM – Radio Days
This essentially plotless Woody Allen film consists of a series of nostalgic vignettes about a 1940s working class New York family. The title comes from their love for the radio, the center of pop culture at the time; the radio also provides the subplot following Mia Farrow as a wanna-be radio singer who gets mixed up with gangsters. It’s not particularly deep, but it’s also pretty enjoyable.
1987 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Julie Kavner, Mia Farrow, Seth Green, Dianne Wiest.

10:35pm – 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.

1:00am (24th) – Sundance – Red Riding: 1983
The third entry in the Red Riding trilogy picks up the story from the first one, finishing it off satisfactorily. I wasn’t particularly invested in it on its own, though, since pretty much the only characters left are ones I disliked in 1974, plus a lot of it seemed redundant, rehashing the first film a bit too much.
2009 UK. Director: Anand Tucker. Starring: David Morrissey, Lisa Howard, Chris Walker.

Tuesday, May 24

6:30am – 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.

9:30am – 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.

11:15am – TCM – Camelot
The film version of Lerner & Loewe’s classic King Arthur musical is a bit overblown, but it still has great music and a solid Richard Burton Harris performance at the center of it.
1967 USA. Director: Joshua Logan. Starring: Richard Burton Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero.
Newly Featured!

1:30pm – Fox Movie – Anna and the King of Siam
The earlier/non-musical version of The King and I stars Irene Dunne in one of her last films and Rex Harrison in one of his earliest. Both do a fine job.
1946 USA. Director: John Cromwell. Starring: Irene Dunne, Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Gale Sondergaard.

6:40pm – IFC – 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.

8:00pm – TCM – The Black Stallion
I wouldn’t dare to guess how many times I saw this movie as a horse-crazy kid, but I would dare argue that its central section with its almost total lack of dialogue as Alec and The Black get to know each other while shipwrecked on a deserted island is still among my favorite sections in any family movie. The bombast of the beginning and ending always exhausted me in comparison. TCM is playing the not-quite-as-good sequel The Black Stallion Returns immediately following.
1979 USA. Director: Kelly Reno, Mickey Rooney, Teri Garr, Hoyt Axton.

10:15pm – 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.

Wednesday, May 25

6:30am – MGM – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Tom Stoppard’s brilliant play about the “in-betweens” of Hamlet, following two minor characters around as they discuss existential philosophy and various other topics while the main action of the play happens elsewhere, becomes an almost-as-brilliant film. I still recommend seeing the play if you can, as it’s slightly different and I think better, but the film is still wonderful.
1990 UK/USA. Director: Tom Stoppard. Starring: Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Richard Dreyfuss.

10:45am – MGM – Marty
Ernest Borgnine won an Oscar for his role as the schlubby, lonely title character, resigned to being unloved, until he meets a plain schoolteacher whose similar resignedness might make her his perfect match. The idea of having unlovely people in lead roles was a new one in Hollywood in the 1950s, and Marty capitalized on Paddy Chayefsky’s story with great results.
1955 USA. Director: Delbert Mann. Starring: Ernest Borgnine, Betsy Blair, Esther Minciotti.

5:05pm – MGM – The Misfits
John Huston directs and Arthur Miller writes this final film for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. Though the film is remembered for that tragic fact, it’s also a pretty solid film on its own, about a divorcee caught between two rough and ready men of the west (Gable and Montgomery Clift), then opposing them when she discovers their plans for the wild horses in the area. And of course, with Miller behind it, there’s far more going on than just that.
1961 USA. Director: John Huston. Starring: Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, Eli Wallach.

6:00pm – 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.

7:30pm – MGM – Red River
Howard Hawks’ brilliant transposition of Mutiny on the Bounty into the Old West has John Wayne as a tyrannical cattle drive leader and Montgomery Clift (in one of his earliest roles) as his adopted son who soon defies him.
1948 USA. Director: Howard Hawks. Starring: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru.
Must See
Newly Featured!

Thursday, May 26

6:00am – IFC – Notes on a Scandal
If you want to see a be-all-end-all actress-on-actress battle of the wills, this is the film to watch. Aging teacher Judi Dench finds out her younger colleague Cate Blanchett is carrying on with one of her students, and Dench sets out to psychologically blackmail Blanchett, with whom she is secretly infatuated. There are a ton of levels to these characters, and both actresses shine in their roles, playing off each other with an intensity rarely seen on-screen.
2006 UK. Director: Richard Eyre. Starring: Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, Andrew Simpson.
(repeats at 3:00pm)

8:00am – 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
(repeats at 5:00pm)

9:30am – Fox Movie – Pickup on South Street
In this early Sam Fuller film, Richard Widmark plays a lowlife pickpocket who inadvertently intercepts some microfilm being smuggled to Communist agents. A more-than-solid film noir, thanks to Fuller’s gritty and unflinching approach. Also note another great supporting performance from Thelma Ritter.
1953 USA. Director: Samuel Fuller. Starring: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter.
Newly Featured!

11:00am – Fox Movie – I Wake Up Screaming
Better known for bright and sunny musicals, Betty Grable took a turn for the noir in this crime film, playing the sister of a recently-murdered model with a rising career. It’s a slight noir, but fun nonetheless, especially for the chance to see Grable in a role unusual for her.
1941 USA. Director: H. Bruce Humberstone. Starring: Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Carole Landis.
Newly Featured!

2:30pm – Fox Movie – Niagara
Marilyn Monroe got a chance to play against type a bit as a calculating newlywed planning to off her husband during their honeymoon. Also unusual for what is basically a noirish crime film, it’s shot in color.
1953 USA. Director: Henry Hathaway. Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters.
Newly Featured!

7:55pm – MGM – Crimes and Misdemeanors
When Martin Landau’s long-time mistress threatens to expose their affair unless he marries her, he’s faced with the decision to let her ruin his life and career or have her murdered. In a tangentially and thematically-related story, Woody Allen is a documentary filmmaker forced into making a profile of a successful TV producer rather than the socially-conscious films he wants to make. One of Allen’s most thoughtful and philosophically astute films – there are few answers here, but the questions will stay in your mind forever.
1989 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Alan Alda, Martin Landau, Anjelica Huston, Claire Bloom, Joanna Gleason.
Must See

8:03pm – 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
(repeats at 11:20pm, and 8:00pm and 11:15pm on the 28th)

2:35am (27th) – 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.

Friday, May 27

9:45am – TCM – Mogambo
A remake of 1932′s Red Dust, also starring Gable, this suffers a bit in comparison by not being pre-Code, but with John Ford at the helm and Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly taking the Mary Astor/Jean Harlow roles, it can’t be all bad, and it isn’t. It’s still a solid little love triangle/adventure film.
1953 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly.
Newly Featured!

1:45pm – Fox Movie – Carmen Jones
Oscar Hammerstein takes on Bizet’s Carmen, transposing it into a contemporary setting at a Korean War army base and writing new lyrics to go with Bizet’s operatic melodies. It’s interesting not only for the adaptation of opera to musical, but also its use of an all-African American cast – giving Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte and many others lead roles in an era when they were still all-too-often relegated to roles as servants or one-off entertainers.
1954 USA. Director: Otto Preminger. Starring: Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey.

8:00pm – Fox Movie – All That Jazz
Bob Fosse’s semi-autobiographial film plays something like his musical take on 8 1/2, as stage director Joe Gideon works through his creative difficulties and womanizing before illness takes him. Extremely powerful, and with some of the greatest choreography in any film ever.
1979 USA. Director: Bob Fosse. Starring: Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, Ann Reinking, Ben Vereen.
Must See
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 10:30pm, and 1:00am on the 28th)

10:00pm – 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.
(repeats at 3:30am on the 28th)

12:05am (28th) – MGM – Manhattan
In one of Woody Allen’s best films, he’s a neurotic intellectual New Yorker (surprise!) caught between his ex-wife Meryl Streep, his teenage mistress Mariel Hemingway, and Diane Keaton, who just might be his match. Black and white cinematography, a great script, and a Gershwin soundtrack combine to create near perfection.
1979 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Mariel Hemingway, Alan Alda.
Must See

3:30am (28th) – Fox Movie – The Panic in Needle Park
A harrowing tale of NYC heroin addicts, exemplifying the dark side of youth culture that New Hollywood does so well. A star-making turn for Al Pacino, just a year prior to The Godfather.
1971 USA. Director: Jerry Schatzberg. Starring: Al Pacino, Kitty Winn, Alan Vint.

Saturday, May 28

8:00am – Fox Movie – My Friend Flicka
The Lassie Come Home of horse movies, with young Roddy McDowall the boy who befriends an injured and semi-wild filly, the first thing the underperforming schoolboy has ever really cared about.
1943 USA. Director: Harold D. Schuster. Starring: Roddy McDowall, Preston Foster, Rita Johnson.
Newly Featured!

11:50am – MGM – Foxy Brown
One of the quintessential 1970s blaxploitation movies, with Pam Grier making her mark as a woman who goes to great lengths to get even with the gangsters who killed her boyfriend. There’s a cheese-factor at work here, but Grier plays it straight and wins us to her side even as we’re delighted by the film’s inherent silliness.
1974 USA. Director: Jack Hill. Starring: Pam Grier, Antonio Fargas, Peter Brown.

2:30pm – TCM – Buck Privates
Abbott and Costello take on WWII with one of their better films, as a pair of street vendors who accidentally enlist in the army. There’s also a romantic subplot with a couple of other soldiers, and frequent musical interludes from The Andrews Sisters to keep things lively. Interestingly, the film was released in January of 1941 – several months before the US entered WWII (see also the Bob Hope comedy Caught in the Draft, released around the same time).
1941 USA. Director: Arthur Lubin. Starring: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, The Andrews Sisters.

4:30pm – Fox Movie – Bedazzled
One of the best films of the British mod era, a comedic take on Faust with Dudley Moore a socially inept guy infatuated with the unattainable (to him) Eleanor Bron – granted seven wishes by Satan (Peter Cook), he tries to wish his way to her, but somehow fails hilariously every time.
1967 USA. Director: Stanley Donen. Starring: Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Eleanor Bron.
Newly Featured!

9:30pm – 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 3:50am on the 29th)

2:30am (29th) – 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.

4:00am (29th) – Fox Movie – Suspiria
Dario Argento’s best-known film is replete with memorable (and horrifically bloody) set-pieces of death, as a ballerina goes further than she should in trying to figure out what’s weird about her new dance school. There’s little plot, but the strong visual sense and imaginative set-pieces are what make it a justifiable giallo classic.
1977 Italy. Director: Dario Argento. Starring: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci.
Must See
Newly Featured!

Sunday, May 29

8:30am – TCM – From Here to Eternity
There’s the famous part, yes, where Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr make love on the beach among the crashing waves. But there’s also a solid ensemble war tale, involving young officer Montgomery Clift and his naive wife Donna Reed, and embittered soldiers Frank Sinatra and Lee J. Cobb.
1953 USA. Director: Fred Zinnemann. Starring: Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed, Montgomery Clift, Lee J. Cobb.

9:00am – 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.

10:45am – TCM – All Quiet on the Western Front
One of the great anti-war films, showing the horrors of WWI from the German point of view, though the message is universal. The film does a great job of contrasting the “war is glory” viewpoint of the older generation with the reality of modern warfare realized in the trenches WWI, and the shift from bright-eyed schoolboy to soldier who can no longer relate to anything but war is perfectly captured by Ayres and Milestone. A devastating film still, 80 years later, but with a great deal of wistful beauty.
1930 USA. Director: Lewis Milestone. Starring: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim.
Must See

1:00pm – TCM – Sergeant York
Gary Cooper won his first Oscar for his portrayal of WWI hero Sgt. Alvin York, a pacifist who somehow decided that the fastest way to stop the killing was to join up and kill as many Germans as he could to end the war.
1941 USA. Director: Howard Hawks. Starring: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, George Tobias, Margaret Wycherly, Ward Bond.

5:30pm – TCM – They Were Expendable
There are films that don’t seem to be all that while you’re watching them – no particularly powerful scenes, not a particularly moving plot, characters that are developed but don’t jump out at you – and yet by the time you reach the end, you’re somehow struck with what a great movie you’ve seen. This film was like that for me – it’s mostly a lot of vignettes from a U-boat squadron led by John Wayne, the only one who thought the U-boat could be useful in combat. But it all adds up to something much more.
1945 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: John Wayne, Robert Montgomery, Donna Reed, Jack Holt, Ward Bond.

8:00pm – Fox Movie – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
One of the most iconic westerns of all time, revisionist or otherwise, with Paul Newman and Robert Redford putting a fresh spin on the well-known outlaws as they try to escape from both an ever-looming posse of lawmen and the encroachment of the modern world.
1969 USA. Director: George Roy Hill. Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross.
Must See

9:00pm – 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.

10:00pm – Sundance – The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde’s brilliant satirical mistaken-identity play gets turned into a rather good movie, with Rupert Everett at his most sarcastic as ennui-filled decadent Algy Moncrieff and the rest of the cast filling in nicely. No one has bettered Wilde at what he does best, and this version does him justice.
2002 UK. Director: Oliver Parker. Starring: Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Frances O’Connor, Reese Witherspoon.
(repeats at 3:00am on the 30th)

10:30pm – Fox Movie – The Verdict
Powerhouse filmmaker Sidney Lumet returns to his 12 Angry Men courtroom milieu for The Verdict, starring Paul Newman as an on-the-rocks lawyer who takes a medical malpractice suit to trial in a somewhat desperate attempt to salvage his career.
1982 USA. Director: Sidney Lumet. Starring: Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden.

2:40am (30th) – MGM – The Bride Wore Black
That Truffaut admired Hitchcock is no secret – he even wrote a book of interviews with him shortly before making this film, his most overt homage to Hitchcockian suspense. After a failed suicide, Jeanne Moreau heads out to track down the five men who are responsible for her husband’s death on their wedding day. I’ve yet to see this one, but I’m looking forward to it as a fan of both Truffaut and Hitchcock.
1968 France. Director: François Truffaut. Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Michel Bouquet, Jean-Claude Brialy.