Almost everything this week is a repeat, but there are some great films in there if you’ve missed them in previous weeks. Among the new things, note the suppressed-for-sexuality The Outlaw, directed by Howard Hughes (yes, that Howard Hughes), on Tuesday; John Ford’s take on Young Mr. Lincoln on Thursday; highly stylized graphic novel film noir Sin City on Friday; and the silent version of The Scarlet Letter starring Lillian Gish late Sunday/early Monday.

Monday, June 20

7:15am – 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 American ones. Both do a fine job.
1946 USA. Director: John Cromwell. Starring: Irene Dunne, Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Gale Sondergaard.

9:30am – Fox Movie – Unfaithfully Yours
Preston Sturges’s last great film is a pitch-black comedy with Rex Harrison as a jealous conductor who fantasizes ways to deal with his wife’s supposed infidelity as he conducts a symphony. The combination of bombastic music and his by turns morbid and farcical fantasies makes for one of the more unusual memorable films of the 1940s.
1948 USA. Director: Preston Sturges. Starring: Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Rudy Vallee.

11:45am – IFC – Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is likely my all-time favorite book or very close to it, and it’s a book that you’d never expect could be made into a good film. It depends an awful lot on stream of consciousness, internal monologue and memory, and a subjective experience of time – all stylistic and narrative elements that don’t translate well to film. However, this 1997 version of the novel with Vanessa Redgrave perfectly cast as the older Clarissa Dalloway and Natascha McElhone (why the heck isn’t she in more stuff?) as flashback-Clarissa comes about as close as I think is cinematically possible. It doesn’t come close to matching the book for me, but it is a solid film and captures a lot of Woolf’s spirit.
1997 USA/UK. Director: Marleen Gorris. Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Natascha McElhone, Michael Kitchen, Alan Cox, Sarah Badel, Lena Headey, John Standing.

12:20pm – MGM – Interiors
In case anyone doubted Woody Allen’s admiration for Ingmar Bergman, he made this film to prove it. Interiors is about the best imitation of a Bergman chamber drama you could ask for, down to the spare set design, strained family relations, and a climax involving an angry sea. Still, it is also very much Allen’s film–his first straight drama–focusing on deeply neurotic, introspective characters unable to get outside their own heads for long enough to form really true relationships.
1978 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Diane Keaton, Kristin Griffith, Geraldine Page.

1:30pm – TCM – They Died with Their Boots On
Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland’s last of ten films together is this highly fictionalized account of General Custer, from his days at West Point through his legendary last stand against the Sioux Indians. History’s out the window here, but rousing Hollywood western action takes its place, and Flynn & de Havilland are always worth watching, especially together.
1941 USA. Director: Raoul Walsh. Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Arthur Kennedy, Charley Grapewin, Gene Lockhart, Anthony Quinn.

10:15pm – TCM – Grand Hotel
This 1932 Best Picture Oscar-winner is honestly pretty creaky around the joints these days, but if you wanna see how they used to do ensemble pictures in the studio days, this is it. MGM’s top talent, from Garbo and Crawford to Beery and two Barrymores are all on hand.
1932 USA. Director: Edmund Goulding. Starring: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, Jean Hersholt.

1:00am (21st) – Sundance – Mary and Max
This adult-aimed stop-motion film from Australia got a number of positive reviews last year on the festival circuit, but didn’t get much of a release in the United States despite having a fairly recognizable voice cast. Anyway, here it is on Sundance, and I’m greatly looking forward to catching it one of these days.
2009 Australia. Director: Adam Elliott. Starring: Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana.

3:55am (21st) – 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.
(repeats at 6:00am on the 24th)

Tuesday, June 21

8:00am – IFC – 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.
(repeats at 3:30pm)

11:30am – IFC – The Station Agent
One of the most pleasant surprises (for me, anyway) of 2003. Peter Dinklage moves into a train depot to indulge his love for trains and stay away from people, only to find himself befriended by a loquacious Cuban hot-dog stand keeper and an emotionally delicate Patricia Clarkson. A quiet but richly rewarding film.
2003 USA. Director: Thomas McCarthy. Starring: Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannavale.

2:30pm – 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.

5:00pm – MGM – The Apartment
Billy Wilder had a knack for combining comedy and drama into bittersweet goodness, and that’s exactly what he does here, garnering Oscars for Picture, Director, and Screenplay in the process. Jack Lemmon lends his apartment to his boss Fred MacMurray for romantic trysts – a situation that gets even more complicated when MacMurray trysts with Shirley MacLaine, who Lemmon happens to love from afar. Everything comes together perfectly in this film, one of Wilder’s best.
1960 USA. Director: Billy Wilder. Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MaLaine, Fred MacMurray.
Must See

6:00pm – TCM – The Outlaw
After being a successful aviator and before becoming a hopeless hypochondriac, Howard Hughes tried his hand at moviemaking, most notably with 1930′s Hell’s Angels and this 1943 film, notable for being Jane Russell’s first major role as well as for being suppressed/banned for a few years thanks to Russell’s frank and earthy sexuality. I actually haven’t seen it myself yet, so I can’t comment on its quality, but the story surrounding it is interesting enough for me to want to take a look.
1943 USA. Director: Howard Hughes. Starring: Jane Russell, Jack Buetel, Thomas Mitchell.
Newly Featured!

8:00pm – 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 11:15pm)

1:30am (22nd) – TCM – Guys and Dolls
Marlon Brando seems like an unusual casting choice for a musical, and indeed, he’s a bit uncomfortable for a good part of this. But the rest of the cast (especially second leads Frank Sinatra and Vivian Blaine) make up for it, bringing Damon Runyon’s colorful underground New York gambling scene come to life.
1955 USA. Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Starring: Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, Vivian Blaine.

2:30am (22nd) – IFC – Carrie
There aren’t that many movies that you can say are equally loved by horror fans and feminist academics, but Carrie is one of them – Carrie’s physical coming-of-age sparks telekinetic abilities, allowing her to take bloody revenge on the schoolkids who mistreated her. And who can’t relate to that, really?
1976 USA. Director: Brian DePalma. Starring: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving.

Wednesday, June 22

6:30am – IFC – Paranoid Park
I go back and forth on whether I think Gus Van Sant is brilliant or a pretentious bore – maybe some of both. But I really quite liked the slow, oblique approach in this film about a wanna-be skateboarder kid who relishes hanging out with the bigger skateboarders at the titular skate park – but there’s a death not far from there, and it takes the rest of the movie to slowly reveal what exactly happened that one night near Paranoid Park. Gets by on mood and cinematography.
2007 USA Director: Gus Van Sant. Starring: Gabe Nevins, Daniel Lu, Jake Miller, Taylor Momsen, Lauren McKinney.
(repeats at 1:45pm)

8:15am – IFC – Maria Full of Grace
Once in a while a film comes out of nowhere and floors me – this quiet little film about a group of South American women who agree to smuggle drugs into the United States by swallowing packets of cocaine did just that. Everything in the film is perfectly balanced, no element overwhelms anything else, and it all comes together with great empathy, but without sentimentality.
2004 USA. Director: Joshua Marston. Starring: Catalina Sandino Moreno, Virginia Ariza, Yenny Paola Vega.
(repeats at 3:30pm)

10:05am – 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 – IFC – Dancer in the Dark
Bjork plays a factory worker whose increasing blindness threatens to keep her from being able to do her job, which will keep her from earning the money she needs for an operation that will prevent her son from suffering the same blindness. Add in the relationship with her not-as-happy-as-they-seem neighbors and a trenchant critique of the justice system and death penalty, not to mention several musical numbers juxtaposed throughout, and you have a film that’s unlike any other.
2000 Denmark. Director: Lars von Trier. Starring: Bjork, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare.

12:15pm – 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.

12:25pm – MGM – Cyrano de Bergerac (1990)
Probably the best version of the play, with Gerard Depardieu a moving and sympathetic Cyrano, helping Christian woo Roxanne as she remains oblivious as to who is really behind Christian’s pretty words.
1990 France. Director: Jean-Paul Rappeneau. Starring: Gerard Depardieu, Anne Brochet, Vincent Perez.

2:15pm – TCM – The Major and the Minor
A rather slight and sometimes shrill comedy that still has its moments, notable for being Billy Wilder’s first Hollywood film as a director (he also wrote it, of course, with Charles Brackett). Ginger Rogers plays a young woman who pretends to be a twelve-year-old child to get half-fare on a train; in so doing, she catches the attention of a soldier who takes her under his wing, thinking she’s actually twelve. Events snowball from there. I have a soft spot for this film, personally, and especially for Diana Lynn as the sarcastic and much-wiser-than-her-years kid who becomes Rogers’ confidant.
1942 USA. Director: Billy Wilder. Starring: Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Rita Johnson, Robert Benchley, Diana Lynn.

4:00pm – TCM – The Spirit of St. Louis
A lesser Billy Wilder film perhaps, but a fairly solid biopic of Charles Lindbergh and his first solo flight across the Atlantic. A lot of it depends on Jimmy Stewart alone in a cockpit, but he’s up to the task, and it’s kind of a fascinating part of aviation history (okay, more fascinating if you’re from St. Louis, as Lindbergh and I both are).
1957 USA. Director: Billy Wilder. Starring: Jmaes Stewart, Murray Hamilton, Patricia Smith.

5:45pm – 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.

8:00pm – 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.
(repeats at 1:00am on the 23rd)

11:00pm – TCM – The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 and 1952)
See two film versions of Anthony Hope’s adventure story back to back; one’s black and white, one’s color, but they both fall into the serviceable-but-fun adventure category, following an Englishman called on to impersonate his cousin, the prince of fictional Ruritania when the prince is kidnapped just prior to his coronation. I prefer the older one a little bit, but the newer one does have Deborah Kerr. So there’s that.
1937 USA. Director: John Cromwell. Starring: Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, C. Aubrey Smith.
1952 USA. Director: Richard Thorpe. Starring: Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, Louis Calhern.
Newly Featured!

Thursday, June 23

8:30am – IFC – Away from Her
A very strong directing debut film from actress Sarah Polley, about an older woman (Julie Christie) suffering from Alzheimer’s and her husband’s difficulty in dealing with essentially the loss of his wife as she has more and more difficulty remembering their life together. It’s a lovely, heartbreaking film, bolstered by great understated performances.
2006 Canada. Director: Sarah Polley. Starring: Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent, Olympia Dukakis, Stacey LaBerge.
(repeats at 3:30pm)

10:30am – TCM – Gandhi
Ben Kingsley plays the titular figure with uncanny verisimilitude, tracing Mohandas Gandhi’s life and career throughout his quest for unbiased treatment of native peoples in British-held lands, especially India, where his leadership of a non-violent rebellion helped to gain India its independence from the British Empire.
1982 UK. Director: Richard Attenborough. Starring: Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Martin Sheen.

1:15pm – MGM – The Long Goodbye
Robert Altman’s brilliant take on Raymond Chandler’s quintessential gumshoe Philip Marlowe complicates the hard-boiled detective genre with an apathetic and often ineffectual lead, while still bearing nostalgia for a time when the genre could be taken seriously. Works as homage, satire, elegy, and straight genre piece, which is something very hard to pull off.
1973 USA. Director: Robert Altman. Starring: Elliott Gould, Sterling Hayden, Nina Van Pallandt.
Must See

1:45pm – TCM – Young Mr. Lincoln
John Ford takes on the life of Abraham Lincoln, focusing on his early career as a lawyer and his courtship of Mary Todd rather than his political career. Henry Fonda is a solidly earnest choice to play Lincoln.
1939 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver.
Newly Featured!

3:30pm – 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.

5:30pm – MGM – Capote
Phillip Seymour Hoffman inhabits the role of author Truman Capote, capturing the period of time while Capote researches the senseless murder of a Kansas family for the book that would become In Cold Blood, in the meantime getting rather too involved with one of the killers as he interviews him extensively.
2005 USA. Director: Bennett Miller. Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Clifton Collins Jr., Catherine Keener.

8:00pm – 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.
(repeats at 10:30pm, and 8:00 and 10:30pm on the 25th)

Friday, June 24

8:00am – TCM – It Happened One Night
In 1934, It Happened One Night pulled off an Academy Award sweep that wouldn’t be repeated until 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, snagging awards for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, and Actress. Colbert is a rebellious heiress, determined to run away and marry against her father’s wishes. Along the way, she picks up Gable, a journalist who senses a juicy feature. This remains one of the most enjoyable comedies of all time, with great scenes like Colbert using her shapely legs rather than her thumb to catch a ride, Gable destroying undershirt sales by not wearing one, and a busload of people singing “The Man on the Flying Trapeze.”
1934 USA. Director: Frank Capra. Starring: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert.
Must See

4:00pm – 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.

7:30pm – IFC – Sin City
Frank Miller joined Robert Rodriguez in creating this adaptation of Miller’s graphic novel series, a highly stylized evocation of film noir tropes that’s rather overdone in many ways, but still so visually striking that I really enjoyed watching it. Most of it.
2005 USA. Directors: Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller. Starring: Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson.
Newly Featured!

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
(repeats at 10:30pm, and 1:00am on the 24th)

8:00pm – MGM – Blood Simple
The Coen Brothers’ first feature is already a pretty good indication of their style – a noirish thriller with a black comedy edge where everything goes more and more wrong the more people try to fix their mistakes. When the “mistakes” involve murder, leaving evidence at murder scenes, and having the worst time ever trying to get rid of a body, you’re in for a good time at pretty much every character’s expense.
1984 USA. Director: Joel Coen. Starring: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, M. Emmet Walsh.

10:00pm – MGM – Fargo
Still one of the Coen Brothers’ best films, despite over a decade of mostly good films in the intervening years. Dark comedy is not an easy genre, and Fargo is the gold standard, blending shocking violence and a noir-ish crime story with comical inept criminals and a perfectly rendered performance from Frances McDormand.
1996 USA. Director: Joel Coen. Starring: Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi.
Must See

Saturday, June 25

9:30am – TCM – The Wolf Man
A late entry into the Universal horror cycle, but generally considered right up there with Dracula and Frankenstein in terms of quality. I’ve been meaning to see it for ages and keep not getting to it during my normal October horror marathons.
1941 USA. Director: George Waggner. Starring: Lon Chaney Jr., Claude Rains, Warren William.

2:55pm – MGM – New York, New York
Not generally considered one of Martin Scorsese’s better films, but still an intriguing attempt on his part to revive the classic Hollywood musical with a story of on-the-rise musicians and their rocky relationship. I personally enjoy seeing Scorsese bring his love of Golden Era Hollywood to the screen, successful or not.
1977 USA. Director: Martin Scorsese. Starring: Robert De Niro, Liza Minnelli, Lionel Stander.

5:45pm – TCM – Mister Roberts
Henry Fonda is the title character, an XO on a cargo ship who often butts heads with the captain (James Cagney), who runs the ship with an iron fist. The tone is a satisfying combination of comedy and drama, and with a cast that also includes William Powell in his last role and Jack Lemmon in one of his first, you can hardly go wrong. Though John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy share credit for the film, it’s mostly Ford – LeRoy was brought in to finish it when Ford had to undergo emergency surgery, but he tried to emulate Ford’s style as much as possible.
1955 USA. Director: John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy. Starring: Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, Jack Lemmon, Betsy Palmer, Ward Bond.

8:00pm – TCM – Out of the Past
Out of the Past comes up in most conversations about film noir. It’s got all the elements: low-key lighting (due in this case to budgetary concerns), an existential anti-hero (Robert Mitchum), a femme fatale (Jane Greer), etc. It’s honestly not my favorite noir, but it’s a good one to see once.
1947 USA. Director: Jacques Tourneur. Starring: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer.

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 26th)

10:30pm – 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
(repeats at 2:45am on the 26th)

1:00am (26th) – 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.

2:05am (26th) – MGM – Interiors
In case anyone doubted Woody Allen’s admiration for Ingmar Bergman, he made this film to prove it. Interiors is about the best imitation of a Bergman chamber drama you could ask for, down to the spare set design, strained family relations, and a climax involving an angry sea. Still, it is also very much Allen’s film–his first straight drama–focusing on deeply neurotic, introspective characters unable to get outside their own heads for long enough to form really true relationships.
1978 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Diane Keaton, Kristin Griffith, Geraldine Page.

Sunday, June 26

6:00am – TCM – The Pirate
A 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.

8:00am – 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.

2:00pm – 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.

8:00pm – TCM – Singin’ in the Rain
Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly team up for what is now usually considered one of the greatest musicals of all time. Inspired by songs written by MGM producer Arthur Freed at the beginning the sound era, Singin’ in the Rain takes that seismic shift in film history for its setting, focusing on heartthrob screen couple Don Lockwood (Kelly) and Lina Lamont (the hilarious Jean Hagen) as the transition into sound – problem being that Lamont’s voice, like many actual silent screen stars, doesn’t fit her onscreen persona. Hollywood’s often best when it turns on its own foibles, and this is no exception.
1952 USA. Directors: Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly. Starring: Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor, Jean Hagen.
Must See

10:00pm – TCM – The Band Wagon
There are many reasons to consider The Band Wagon among the best movie musicals ever made. The satirical plot involving a Shakespearean director who tries to turn a lighthearted musical into a doom-and-gloom version of Faust, the bright yet sardonic script and score by Betty Comden and Adolph Green (who basically appear in the film as the characters played by Nanette Fabrey and Oscar Levant), the last really great role for Fred Astaire (maybe Funny Face is a contender, but barely), and of course, the never-surpassed beauty of dance numbers like “Dancing in the Dark” with Fred and Cyd Charisse. But even if it didn’t have all that, I’d still rank it among my favorites for the epic “Girl Hunt Ballet” number spoofing hard-boiled detective fiction.
1953 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Jack Buchanan, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabrey.
Must See

12:00M – TCM – The Scarlet Letter (1926)
Lillian Gish takes on one of American literature’s most enduring heroines, the scarlet A-wearing Hester Prynne, punished for adultry, but that’s hardly the end of the scandal. Gish is always more than watchable, and with Victor Sjöström at the helm, I’m really looking forward to seeing this one.
1926 USA. Director: Victor Sjöström. Starring: Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, Henry B. Walthall.
Newly Featured!

2:00am (27th) – TCM – Wild Strawberries
On his way to accept an honorary degree, elderly medical doctor Victor Sjöström thinks back and re-evaluates his life while being plagued by nightmares. Sounds kinda depressing, but then again, it is Ingmar Bergman. And he has a way of making depressing seem AWESOME.
1957 Sweden. Director: Ingmar Bergman. Starring: Victor Sjöstroöm, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand.

2:00am (27th) – IFC – The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Not Wes Anderson’s best perhaps – it skirts the line of self-consciously quirky and ends up a bit too awkwardly artificial even for him. But there’s still a lot about it to like, and the attention to detail is top-notch. It’s worth a watch for sure, especially for Anderson fans.
2004 USA. Director: Wes Anderson. Starring: Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe.