Mostly repeats this week. Look for a bunch of Hitchcock films on Monday night on TCM as they celebrate Hitch in the ’50s, then a slew of noir films during the day on Tuesday. Sundance has the Oscar-nominated animated docu-auto-biography Waltz with Bashir on Wednesday, and look for a late early Godard (1966) in Made in USA on Sunday night. TCM is also finishing up their drive-in movie nights on Friday with a bunch of classic B movies, including The Blob, The Thing from Another World, and X the Unknown. I haven’t mentioned much about this series because I frankly didn’t know the movies they were playing until now, but looks like they’re finishing up with some bigger name films this week that I can definitely recommend if you like ’50s B-movie sci-fi.

Monday, June 27

7:30pm – 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

8:00pm – TCM – Stage Fright
An actress helps a friend try to defend his innocence when he’s accused of murder – but is she doing the right thing? This is one of the earliest examples I know of in film of an unreliable cinematic rendering of events; doesn’t follow through on it quite as well as Rashomon does (which was released the same year), but very interesting nonetheless.
1950 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Jane Wyman, Michael Wilding, Marlene Dietrich.

10:00pm – TCM – I Confess
The most obvious example of Hitchcock’s usually subdued theme of Catholic guilt has priest Montgomery Clift refusing to reveal a murderer’s confession due to the sanctity of the the confessional.
1953 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden, Brian Aherne.

12:00M – 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.

2:00am (28th) – TCM – The Wrong Man
Alfred Hitchcock made many films based on the idea of the wrong man being accused for some crime, but this is the most on-the-nose one. Innocent Henry Fonda is mistaken for a suspect in a crime, and undergoes a vast extended ordeal at the hands of the police and witnesses who constantly identify him as the criminal even though he is not. The effects on him and his family are devastating. Not one of Hitchcock’s very best, but worth watching for Fonda’s performance and the distillation of one of Hitchcock’s most prominent themes.
1956 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone.

4:00am (28th) – TCM – Strangers on a Train
Guy Haines is a tennis star all set to marry into a posh, loving family, if it weren’t for that pesky and annoying wife he’s already got – a problem that fellow train-passenger Bruno has a solution for: all Guy has to do is kill Bruno’s troublesome father and Bruno will take care of Guy’s wife. This criss-cross setup begins one of Hitchcock’s best films, full of memorable shots and set-pieces, not to mention one of the most mesmerizingly psychotic performances in all of cinema in Robert Walker’s portrayal of Bruno.
1951 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Patricia Hitchcock, Leo G. Carroll, Laura Elliott.
Must See
(repeats at 3:00pm on the 1st)

Tuesday, June 28

6:00am – TCM – Grand Illusion
One of the greatest POW films ever made, with two French soldiers in WWI captured and put in a seemingly impenetrable German prison camp. The escape planning parts are really well put-together, but I was extremely intrigued by the depiction of class solidarity and difference, as the German commander (played impeccably by Erich von Stroheim), a nobleman, identified strongly with the captured French aristocrats – a factor of WWI, the last war of “gentlemen”, that’s often overlooked.
1937 France. Director: Jean Renoir. Starring: Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim, Dita Parlo.
Must See

10:00am – TCM – The Big Sleep
One of the greatest detective/mysteries/films noir ever made. Humphrey Bogart is the definite hard-boiled detective, Lauren Bacall is the potential love interest/femme fatale. Don’t try to follow the story; whodunit is far less important than crackling dialogue and dry humor. Watch out for future Oscar-winner Dorothy Malone (Written on the Wind) in the small but extremely memorable part of the bookshop girl.
1946 USA. Director: Howard Hawks. Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Martha Vickers, Elisha Cook Jr., Dorothy Malone.
Must See
(repeats at 3:45am on the 4th)

11:30am – IFC – My Life as a Dog
Lasse Hallstrom gives us this simple but effective coming-of-age story, focusing on the every day life of a young boy as he’s sent to live in a provincial village after acting out at home.
1985 Sweden. Director: Lasse Hallstrom. Starring: Anton Glanzelius, Tomas von Brömssen, Anki Lidén, Melinda Kinnaman.
(repeats at 8:15am on the 29th)

12:00N – TCM – The Killers
Burt Lancaster made his film debut in this excellent noir, an expansion of an Ernest Hemingway short story. Lancaster is a quiet gas station attendant killed in the opening of the film by two hitmen – the events that lead up to his death (involving, among other things, a classic femme fatale played by Ava Gardner) are told in flashback throughout the rest of the film.
1946 USA. Director: Robert Siodmak. Starring: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien, Albert Dekker, Sam Levene.

12:40pm – 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.

2:00pm – TCM – The Postman Always Rings Twice
Sizzling adaptation of James M. Cain’s classic pulp novel has Lana Turner as the unhappy wife of a middle-of-nowhere gas station owner and John Garfield as the drifter who drops in and plots her husband’s demise with her. Skip the 1982 remake, from what I’ve heard, but if you’re feeling adventurous, check out Luchino Visconti’s Ossession, a 1943 Italian adaptation of the novel widely considered to be a forerunner of the Italian Neo-Realist movement.
1946 USA. Director: Tay Garnett. Starring: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn.

4:00pm – TCM – The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Barbara Stanwyck is a domineering woman with a dark past, whose secret is only known by her alcoholic husband (Kirk Douglas in his first film), who’s also the city’s D.A., but completely controlled by Stanwyck. How I’ve managed to never see this film, with as much as I love Stanwyck and film noir, I can’t explain, but hopefully this dire situation will be fixed soon.
1946 USA. Director: Lewis Milestone. Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas.
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6:00pm – TCM – Kiss Me Deadly
Iconic noir film, with hard-boiled action, nuclear paranoia, and one of the more memorable non-Hitchcock McGuffins in movie history. Plus some great LA locations. One of the pulpier noir films, and one of the most enjoyable.
1955 USA. Director: Robert Aldrich. Starring: Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Cloris Leachman, Marian Carr.

7:55pm – Sundance – Wild at Heart
One of David Lynch’s most over the top films, and that’s saying something, but I love it anyway (or perhaps because it is). It’s a romance interrupted by crime, with Nic Cage and Laura Dern (not to the outrageous supporting cast) going for it every second.
1990 USA. Director: David Lynch. Starring: Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Willem Dafoe.

Wednesday, June 29

6:00am – IFC – A Prairie Home Companion
One of Robert Altman’s final films, and one I’ve not yet gotten up to in my attempts to rectify my Altman blind spot. As much as I’ve been enjoying his films during the New Hollywood marathon, though, I’m definitely putting his entire filmography higher on my to-watch list.
2006 USA. Director: Robert Altman. Starring: Woody Harrelson, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Lily Tomlin.
(repeats at 12:45pm)

5:30pm – IFC – The Claim
A typically complex film from Michael Winterbottom, with Peter Mullan anchoring the ensemble cast as the rich leader of an old West mining town faced with pressure from the railroad and echoes from his past. The rest of the cast, including Sarah Polley and Milla Jovovich (in one of her rare actually good movies), are superb as well and make this well worth seeking out.
2000 UK/Canada. Director: Michael Winterbottom. Starring: Peter Mullan, Milla Jovovich, Wes Bentley, Sarah Polley, Nastassja Kinski, Shirley Henderson.

5:30pm – 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.
(repeats at 4:15am on the 30th)

8:00pm – IFC- Gone Baby Gone
Ben Affleck proved his directing chops beyond all doubt with his debut behind the camera, a meditative detective film ostensibly about a kidnapping, but with weighty ethical matters taking the foreground. In a year of great films, Gone Baby Gone more than held its own.
1997 USA. Director: Ben Affleck. Starring: Casey Affleck, Morgan Freeman, Michelle Monaghan, Amy Ryan, Ed Harris.
Must See

8:00pm – Sundance – Waltz with Bashir
An animated film dealing with the very adult subject of the 1982 Lebanon invasion, focusing on filmmaker Ari Folman’s own memories and those of fellow survivors of the war. I haven’t seen it yet, but have been dying to check it out – the combination of unusual animation with a story that hovers somewhere between memoir and documentary intrigues me greatly.
2008 USA. Director: Ari Folman. Starring: Ari Folman, Ron Ben-Yishai, Ronny Dayag.
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8:00pm – TCM – I Know Where I’m Going!
This is one of those little films that doesn’t get much press and is very quiet and unassuming, but once you watch it you won’t easily forget it. Wendy Hiller is a confident young woman who knows exactly what she wants and where she’s going – that is, to meet her wealthy fiance and marry him on one of the Scottish Hebrides. But when a storm strands her on the way, she finds herself thrown off-course in more ways than one.
1945 UK. Director: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger. Starring: Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey, Pamela Brown, Finlay Currie.

10:00pm – TCM – Brigadoon
Usually cited as a waste of Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, I still find this film about a Scottish town which only appears for one day every hundred years (leaving just enough time for vacationing American Kelly to meet and fall in love with Brigadoon lass Charisse) to be quaint and charming. But then, I grew up with it, so nostalgia is likely a factor. Still, even lesser films with Kelly and/or Charisse are worth watching once.
1954 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, Cyd Charisse.
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Thursday, June 30

6:00pm – 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.

8:00pm – 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

8:00pm – TCM – The Blob
An early role for Steve McQueen (so early he’s credited as Steven McQueen), and a classic B movie of an ever-growing alien blob threatening to consume all in its path.
1958 USA. Director: Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr., Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe.
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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

8:03pm – 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.
(repeats at 10:32pm, and 8:00pm and 10:30pm on the 2nd)

10:00pm – Sundance – The Royal Tenenbaums
My favorite of all of Wes Anderson’s films (and indeed, one of my favorites of the whole decade), a web of fine characterizations surrounding Royal Tenenbaum, an eccentric old man whose imminent mortality forces a reunion with his family. But its morbidity is tempered by absurd humor and quirk.
2001 USA. Director: Wes Anderson. Starring: Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Bill Murray.
Must See
(repeats at 3:15am on the 1st)

12:30am (1st) – TCM – X the Unknown
One of the earliest films from Hammer studios, about a creature of unknown origins which seems to feed off of radioactive energy, growing ever bigger and more destructive as it does.
1956 UK. Director: Leslie Norman. Starring: Dean Jagger, Leo McKern, Anthony Newley, Edward Chapman.
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2:00am (1st) – TCM – The Thing from Another World
An team of scientists in the arctic discover an ice-bound spacecraft, but when they bring the dead pilot back to their station, they discover he’s carrying a bloodthirsty alien parasite. Through credited to Christian Nyby, the film is at least partially directed by Howard Hawks (who produced). Also, this is one of the very few situations where I think the remake (John Carpenter’s The Thing) is actually better than the original. But this one is still worth watching, especially if you’re into 1950s sci-fi/horror.
1951 USA. Director: Christian Nyby. Starring: Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite, James Arness.

2:00am (1st) – Fox Movie – Naked Lunch
This is a wacked out movie, more of an exploration of beat author William S. Burrough’s life and writing process than an adaptation of his novel of the same name, with addictive bug powder, murders, hallucinogenic trips, typewriters that turn into cockroaches, and espionage plots. I saw it ages ago when I probably wasn’t ready for it; ought to try it again sometime.
1991 Canada. Director: David Cronenberg. Starring: Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm.
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(repeats at 4:00am on the 3rd)

3:15am (1st) – 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.

Friday, July 1

7:30am – 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.

9:30am – TCM – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Charles Laughton plays the put-upon hunchback Quasimodo, a young Maureen O’Hara the lovely Esmerelda in one of the best film versions of Victor Hugo’s classic of gothic romanticism.
1939 USA. Director: William Dieterle. Starring: Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Hara, Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell, Edmond O’Brien.

12:30pm – MGM – The Purple Rose of Cairo
A love letter to cinema, The Purple Rose of Cairo has Woody Allen at his most romantic. Unhappy housewife Cecilia (Mia Farrow) escapes to the cinema to see The Purple Rose of Cairo again and again, where she fantasizes over hunky character Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels). Much to her surprise (and the other characters’ consternation), Baxter steps off the screen to join her. It makes it even more complicated when Gil, the actor who played Baxter, turns up as well.
1985 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, Danny Aiello.

5:20pm – 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.

6:15pm – TCM – They Live By Night
An early film for Nicholas Ray, following unjustly incarcerated Farley Granger just after he escapes from jail, falling in with a group of crooks setting out to rob a bank, and beginning to love the young daughter of one of his new partners. Classic film noir stylings plus the deft hand of Ray raises this a notch.
1949 USA. Director: Nicholas Ray. Starring: Cathy O’Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen, Helen Craig.

Saturday, July 2

8:45am – TCM – Tom Jones
The book Tom Jones, written in the late 1700s by Henry Fielding, is usually considered one of the earliest novels, and part of its charm is the way it pastiches earlier literary forms as it tells its story of a rakish young English nobleman and his adventures with women. Though the film version can’t really claim the same place in cinematic history that the novel does in literary history, it’s still quite enjoyable, and manages to convey a similar playfulness by pastiching earlier filmmaking styles – which never fails to earn it a spot in texts on adaptation.
1963 UK. Director: Tony Richardson. Starring: Albert Finney, Susanna York, Hugh Griffiths.

3:30pm – TCM – Rebel Without a Cause
Nicholas Ray’s best-known movie (though not, I’d argue, his best), likely because it’s one of James Dean’s three films. Dean is a rebellious teen, hanging out with the wrong crowd, whose parents don’t understand him. It all seems a little overwrought these days, but there’s an intensity to Dean and the film that manages to make it still relatable.
1955 USA. Director: Nicholas Ray. Starring: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo.

6:00pm – Fox Movie – Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Not the TV show, but the much more comedic film version that inspired it (Joss Whedon is said to have wanted to make the TV show after being disappointed with what the movie based on his script turned into) – it’s certainly nowhere near as good as the series, but it’s decent fun and plays into the Buffy mythology more than you might expect, especially leading into Season One of the show.
1992 USA. Director: Fran Rubel Kuzui. Starring: Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens.
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8:00pm – TCM – City Lights
One of Charlie Chaplin’s best-loved films has the Little Tramp helping a young blind flower girl get the operation she needs to restore her sight, though she has no idea who her benefactor is. An extra dollop of pathos marks Chaplin’s next-to-last silent film.
1931 USA. Director: Charlie Chaplin. Starring: Charlie Chapliin, Virginia Cherrill.
Must See

8:00pm – Sundance – Man on Wire
One of the most highly-acclaimed documentaries of recent years tells the story of high-wire walker Philippe Petit as he embarks on perhaps his most dangerous stunt yet.
2008 UK/USA. Director: James Marsh. Starring: Philippe Petit, Jean François Heckel, Jean-Louis Blondeau.

9:45pm – TCM – Pygmalion
A non-musical version of the George Bernard Shaw play that would later become My Fair Lady, with Leslie Howard as the prickly Professor Higgins who takes in street vendor Eliza Doolittle (Wendy Hiller) to turn her into a lady. A bit more acidic than the musical version.
1938 USA. Director: Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard. Starring: Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson, Marie Lohr.

1:00am (3rd) – 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.

4:45am (3rd) – TCM – To Be or Not to Be
If you never listen to anything else I ever say, listen to this: To Be or Not To Be is one of the greatest films of all time, and you should see it. It’s a comedy about Nazi Germany. I know. Jack Benny plays the leader of a Polish theatre troupe, specializing in playing Hamlet alongside his philandering wife, played by Carole Lombard. I know. When Hitler takes over Poland, the troupe engages in an act of espionage both dangerous and ridiculous. I know! It’s simultaneously hilarious, ominous, and heartbreaking. Director Ernst Lubitsch’s finest hour? For me it is. Carole Lombard’s best role (the final one of her career, before she was killed in a plane crash returning from a war bond tour)? For me it is.
1943 USA. Director: Ernst Lubitsch. Starring: Jack Benny, Carole Lombard, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Sig Ruman.
Must See

Sunday, July 3

6:30am – TCM – Thousands Cheer
A flimsy plot of an entertainer called up for the army and trying to get intimate with the colonel’s daughter is little more than excuse for the revue of song and dance numbers at the end, but as a bright war-effort era musical revue, it’s enjoyable enough. Especially with Virginia O’Brien getting a comic song and Judy Garland teaming up with Jose Iturbi for a classical music/jazz pastiche.
1943 USA. Director: George Sidney. Starring: Kathryn Grayson, Gene Kelly, Mary Astor, John Boles.
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8:45am – TCM – This Is the Army
One of several revue-style films made in the early 1940s cramming a bunch of stars and musical numbers into a film usually centered around the war effort in some way. Most of them, including this one, aren’t that great unless you’re just a big fan of 1940s musicals), but this one is interesting historically because all of the proceeds (from the film and the Irving Berlin stage revue upon which it is based) were in fact donated to the war effort.
1943 USA. Director: Michael Curtiz. Starring: George Murphy, Joan Leslie, Ronald Reagan.

11:00am – 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.

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

4:15pm – TCM – Funny Girl
Barbra Streisand tied Katharine Hepburn, no less, to win an Oscar for her role as Ziegfeld comedienne Fanny Brice, and well-deserved, too – she captures Brice’s mannerisms and her combination of winsome self-deprecation mixed with raucous comedic talent perfectly. The film is crafted strongly around her, too, with Wyler (with one of his last films) filling the widescreen beautifully and not letting the film, despite its long running time, stray too far into indulgence.
1968 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif, Kay Medford, Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon.

4:40pm – Sundance – Mammoth
A favorite among a few Row Three writers, though not unanimously, this film from Swedish director Lukas Moodysson gives a three-faceted look at the modern world, contrasting an American businessman, his family, their Filipino maid, and her family.
2009 Sweden. Director: Lukas Moodysson. Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Michelle Williams, Marife Necesito.

8:00pm – TCM – King Kong
The grand-daddy of sound creature features, stop-motion special effects, and perhaps surprisingly, original film scores – despite a couple of creaky moments in the special effects, Kong holds up far better than it has any right to do. There’s a purity and a sincerity about it that makes you instantly forget 80 years of advances in technology and enter fully into the magic of its story.
1933 USA. Director: Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. Starring: Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Fay Wray.
Must See

2:00am (4th) – TCM – Made in USA
One of Jean-Luc Godard’s last pre-1968 films is kind of a bridge between the pop-pastiche style of Pierrot le fou and the political themes that would occupy him post-1968, as Anna Karina traverses a “film by Walt disney, but played by Humphrey Bogart – and therefore a political film” (a quote from Karina’s character in the film) looking for her lover, who has disappeared in relation to some spy plot. The narrative is almost incomprehensible, and the pop stylings very in your face – it’s almost a parody of a Godard film, but with a lot of pleasures if you’re a fan of Godard.
1966 France. Director: Jean-Luc Godard. Starring: Anna Karina, Jean-Pierre Leaud.
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