Archive for the ‘Film on TV’ Category

  • 26 Oct

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    Film on TV: October 26-November 1

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    Village of the Damned, playing on TCM at 2:00am on Wednesday, October 28th (late Tuesday night)

     

    This week we get to Halloween, and while TCM’s been doing a slow build for the past three weeks, this week they start really piling on the classic horror, starting with a double feature of The Haunting (the good one) and Village of the Damned at midnight on Tuesday. Then they’ve got some Val Lewton on the Friday and Saturday, hitting both highlights (Cat People at 5pm on Saturday) and lesser-known but still quite good films (Isle of the Dead on Friday, The Body Snatcher on Saturday). And you can compare two versions of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on Saturday night. Finally, DO NOT MISS the oft-overlooked Dead of Night on TCM Saturday morning. If you like 1940s understated British horror, this is a winner.

    In non-horror offerings, IFC is showing Les enfants du paradis on Wednesday, a film that absolutely bowled me over when I first saw it, and Kurosawa’s classic of ambiguity Rashomon on Saturday. Not to be outdone, TCM’s got the New Hollywood classic Easy Rider on Wednesday. Also plenty of repeats that are masterful films, so check for any of those you haven’t caught up with yet.

    Monday, October 26th

    5:05am – Sundance – The Squid and the Whale
    Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney are married writers/academics who finally drive each other too crazy to keep living together, bringing their two adolescent sons into their turmoil when they separate. Everything about the film works together to create one of the best films of the past few years. Writer/director Noah Baumbach has crafted a highly intelligent script which is achingly witty and bitterly funny; the acting is superb all around; the music fits beautifully, and even the setting (1980s Brooklyn) is something of a character.
    2005 USA. Director: Noah Baumbach. Starring: Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline.
    Must See

    8:30am – IFC – Au revoir, les enfants
    A new boy arrives at a French school and becomes close friends with one of the French boys. But it’s the early 1940s and the new boy turns out to be Jewish, and hiding from the Nazis. Louis Malle directs this achingly lovely portrait of schoolboy friendship in an uncertain time.
    1987 France. Director: Louis Malle. Starring: Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejtö, Francine Racette.
    (repeats at 2:25pm)

    5:55pm – IFC – Trainspotting
    Days in the lives of Scottish heroin addicts. Sounds like a downer, and I won’t say it’s not, but it’s also brilliant and searing. It’s actually one of the scariest movies I’ve seen, despite not being in any way a horror film.
    1996 UK. Director: Danny Boyle. Starring: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kelly McDonald.
    Must See

    10:30pm – Sundance – INLAND EMPIRE
    David Lynch’s latest magnum opus, which pretty much can’t be understood by any use of normal narrative logic. However, it works thematically and emotionally as well as any movie I’ve seen ever. Stories weave in and out of each other, characters merge and separate, the plot you thought you had a hold of becomes elusive and it’s essentially impossible to tell what’s real. But if you let yourself go to it, you’re in for a special treat. You know those 3D images that you can only see by throwing your eyes out of focus? Do that with your mind in order to “see” INLAND EMPIRE.
    2006 USA. Director: David Lynch. Starring: Laura Dern, Justin Theroux, Jeremy Irons, Jan Hencz, Karolina Gruszka, Grace Zabriski
    Must See

    12:00M – 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.
    (repeats at Midnight on the 30th)

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 19 Oct

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    Film on TV: October 19-25th

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    Monty Python and the Holy Grail, playing on IFC at 10:00pm on Monday, October 19th (with several repeats).

     

    Mostly repeats this week again. Of the new stuff, check out IFC’s ongoing tribute to Monty Python, which has Holy Grail and Life of Brian playing a couple of nights each, as well as a bunch of Flying Circus episodes and other archival docs and footage of the zany comedy group. That’s going on every weeknight starting at 6pm EST, I do believe. Also watch out for Shadow of the Vampire on IFC on Saturday night and its inspiration, the original Nosferatu on TCM late Sunday night.

    Monday, October 19th

    5:15am – Sundance – Nights of Cabiria
    Nights of Cabiria, one of the films Federico Fellini made during his sorta-neo-realist phase, casts Masina as a woman of the night, following her around almost non-committally, yet with a lot of care and heart. And Masina is simply amazing in everything she does – not classically beautiful, but somehow incredibly engaging for every second she’s onscreen.
    1957 Italy. Director: Federico Fellini. Starring: Giulietta Masina, François Périer, Franca Marzi.
    Must See

    7:35am – IFC – Jules et Jim
    Jules and Jim are best friends. Then Catherine falls into their lives like a hurricane – she’s almost a force of chaotic primal nature. She marries Jules, but when Jim reconnects with the couple after WWII (in which the two friends fought on opposite sides), their relationship gets…um…complicated. This is one of the classics of the New Wave, and exemplifies the movement’s realistic style, dispassionate camera and narration, and intellectual pursuits.
    1963 France. Director: François Truffaut. Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre.
    (repeats at 12:35pm)

    10:00pm – IFC – Monty Python and the Holy Grail
    Easily one of the most absurd, random, hilarious, and quotable comedies of all time. A more hapless bunch of Round Table knights couldn’t be found, and Monty Python has never been better than they are here.
    1975 UK. Directors: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones. Starring: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones.
    Must See
    Newly Featured!
    (repeats at 1:00am on the 20th, 10:00pm on the 22nd, and 1:00am on the 23rd)

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 12 Oct

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    Film on TV: October 12-18th

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    O Brother Where Art Thou, playing on October 15th at 10pm on TCM

     

    Mostly a lot of repeats this week, but a lot of those are extremely good – be sure to check through for anything you might’ve missed in previous weeks. Among the newly featured films, don’t miss Fellini’s masterpiece 8 1/2 on Monday, Metropolitan (a film which ought to be better-known than it is) on Tuesday, and The Misfits (the last film for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe) on Sunday. Also, TCM’s doing a tribute to the Depression era on Thursday night, showing two great ’30s throwback films, Paper Moon and O Brother Where Art Thou, as well as They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, which I have yet to see. And TCM’s most notable horror entry of the month is Dreyer’s Vampyr, playing late on Sunday.

    Monday, October 12th

    7:00am – IFC – Broadway Danny Rose
    It’s lesser Woody Allen, but it’s still Woody Allen. Danny Rose (Woody) is a theatrical agent whose clients always leave him when they start becoming successful. His current client, a has-been tenor trying to make a comeback, gives him further grief by having an affair with a young woman (Mia Farrow) with gangster connections. Not very substantial, but enjoyable.
    1984 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Nick Apollo Forte.
    (repeats at 12:00N and 5:00pm)

    8:25am – IFC – Millions
    In this Danny Boyle film, a young British boy finds a bag with millions of pounds in it; the catch is that Britain is days away from switching to the euro, so the money will soon be worthless. The shifting ethical questions combined with a sometimes almost Pulp Fiction-esque style and a fascinating religious backdrop (I’m still not sure where he was going with that) at the very least means an intriguing couple of hours.
    2004 UK. Director: Danny Boyle. Starring: Alex Etel, Lewis McGibbon, James Nesbitt, Daisy Donovan, Christopher Fulford.
    (repeats at 1:25pm)

    1:45pm – TCM – 8 1/2
    Federico Fellini translates his creative block in making his next film into a film about a director with a creative block – and in so doing, makes one of the most brilliant and creative films of all time.
    1963 Italy. Director: Federico Fellini. Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée.
    Must See
    Newly Featured!

    8:00pm – IFC – 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
    (repeats at 1:45am and 1:45pm on the 13th)

    9:45pm – IFC – Annie Hall
    Often considered Woody Allen’s transition film from “funny Woody” to “serious Woody,” Annie Hall is both funny, thoughtful, and fantastic. One of the best scripts ever written, a lot of warmth as well as paranoid cynicism, and a career-making role for Diane Keaton (not to mention fashion-making).
    1977 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane.
    Must See
    (repeats at 3:35am and 10:15am on the 13th)

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 05 Oct

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    Film on TV: October 5th-11th

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    Once Upon a Time in the West, playing Sunday, October 11th, at 5pm on TCM

     

    This is quite possibly the best week for movies since I started writing these things. So many of my favorite films this week! A trio of Woody Allen’s best films: Crimes and Misdemeanors and Hannah and Her Sisters on Monday, and Annie Hall on Thursday. David Lynch’s brilliantly surreal INLAND EMPIRE late Monday/early Tuesday. The seriously amazing The Squid and the Whale on Wednesday. Truffaut’s Jules and Jim, Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, and Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels on Thursday. And a wealth of stuff on Sunday, including Once Upon a Time in the West, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and Barton Fink. Not to mention, it’s October, so horror movies are starting to turn up on the schedules – check out TCM’s weekend morning line-up with double features of Roger Corman and Val Lewton.

    Monday, October 5th

    8:00pm – IFC – 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
    Newly Featured!
    (repeats at 1:45am on the 6th)

    9:00pm – TCM – An American in Paris
    Expat artist Gene Kelly in Paris, meets Leslie Caron, woos her away from rival Georges Guetarey, all set to Gershwin music and directed with panache by Vincente Minnelli. All that plus Kelly’s ground-breaking fifteen-plus-minute ballet to the title piece.
    1951 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guetarey.
    Must See

    9:45pm – IFC – Hannah and Her Sisters
    Say what you want about Annie Hall, I throw my vote for best Woody Allen movie ever to Hannah and Her Sisters. It has all the elements Allen is known for – neurotic characters, infidelity, a tendency to philosophize randomly, New York City, dysfunctional family dynamics, acerbic wit – and blends them together much more cogently and evenly than most of his films do.
    1986 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Barbara Hershey, Mia Farrow, Carrie Fisher, Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest, Woody Allen.
    Must See
    (repeats at 3:35am on the 6th)

    11:00pm – TCM – Gigi
    Maurice Chevalier’s “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” might come off as more pervy now than it was originally intended, but as a whole Gigi stands as one of the most well-produced and grown-up musicals made during the studio era. Vincente Minnelli gives it a wonderful visual richness and sophistication, while music from Lerner & Loewe (usually) stresses the right combination of innocence, exuberance, and ennui for its decadent French story.
    1958 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Louis Jourdan, Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Hermione Gingold.

    3:15am (6th) – Sundance – INLAND EMPIRE
    David Lynch’s latest magnum opus, which pretty much can’t be understood by any use of normal narrative logic. However, it works thematically and emotionally as well as any movie I’ve seen ever. Stories weave in and out of each other, characters merge and separate, the plot you thought you had a hold of becomes elusive and it’s essentially impossible to tell what’s real. But if you let yourself go to it, you’re in for a special treat. You know those 3D images that you can only see by throwing your eyes out of focus? Do that with your mind in order to “see” INLAND EMPIRE.
    2006 USA. Director: David Lynch. Starring: Laura Dern, Justin Theroux, Jeremy Irons, Jan Hencz, Karolina Gruszka, Grace Zabriski
    Must See
    Newly Featured!

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 27 Sep

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    Film on TV: September 28-October 4

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    Taxi Driver, playing at 2:00am on September 30th on TCM.

     

    A few to highlight this week: Martin Scorsese’s electrifying Taxi Driver is playing late Tuesday/early Wednesday on TCM, the small but highly worthwhile The Station Agent is on Wednesday on IFC, and TCM is showing a Marx Brothers double-feature Friday morning.

    Monday, September 28

    5:10am – Sundance – That Obscure Object of Desire
    Luis Buñuel, ever one to come up with outlandish conceits, here directs two women playing the same role. The result is trippy and mesmerizing.
    1977 France/Spain. Director: Luis Buñuel. Starring: Fernandy Rey, Carole Bouquet, Ángela Molina.

    6:55am – IFC – 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.

    9:00am – Fox Movie Channel – The Mark of Zorro
    Not perhaps one of the greatest adventure films ever made, but a perfectly servicable one, and quite enjoyable for fans of Zorro. Tyrone Power was Fox’s version of Errol Flynn, and though he doesn’t have quite the panache that Flynn does, he’s still fun.
    1940 USA. Director: Rouben Mamoulian. Starring: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard, Eugene Pallette.
    Newly Featured!

    12:00M – 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 12:45pm on the 29th)

    12:00M – Sundance – Man on Wire
    I haven’t taken the opportunity to see last year’s highly-acclaimed documentary about high-wire walker Philippe Petit yet, but here it is already on Sundance.
    2008 UK/USA. Director: James Marsh. Starring: Philippe Petit, Jean François Heckel, Jean-Louis Blondeau.
    (repeats at 12:00M on the 30th/1st)

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 21 Sep

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    Film on TV: September 21-27

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    2001: A Space Odyssey, playing on TCM at 2:00am on the 22nd

    There are several newly featured films worthy of highlight this week. TCM is playing a double-feature of Buster Keaton silents on Monday night, starting with Sherlock Jr.. They’re also throwing out some noirs that are new to our listing – the Raymond Chandler-based Murder, My Sweet on Wednesday and the Bogart-Bacall Key Largo Sunday. And don’t miss a couple of really great romances – Two for the Road Friday on the Fox Movie Channel, and Brief Encounter Saturday on TCM. Something for everyone this week, as well as the usual crop of repeats in case you missed something in earlier weeks.

    Monday, September 21

    6:30am – IFC – Howl’s Moving Castle
    Hayao Miyazaki has been a leader in the world of kid-friendly anime films for several years now, and while many would point to Spirited Away as his best film, I actually enjoyed Howl’s Moving Castle the most of all his films. Japanese animation takes some getting used to, but Miyazaki’s films are well worth it, and serve as a wonderful antidote to the current stagnation going on in American animation (always excepting Pixar).
    2004 Japan. Director: Hayao Miyazaki. Starring (dubbed voices): Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, Lauren Bacall
    (repeats at 12:20pm)

    3:45pm – TCM – The Window
    Young boy Bobby Driscoll is a chronic liar, which makes it very difficult to make his family and other adults believe him when he claims he saw a murder being committed. But when the murderer finds out what he knows… A solid little thriller told from a child’s point of view.
    1949 USA. Director: Ted Tetzlaff. Starring: Bobby Driscoll, Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart, Ruth Roman.

    8:00pm – TCM – Sherlock, Jr.
    Buster Keaton is a film projectionist who longs to be a detective so much that he dreams himself into a film he’s projecting so he can become the detective hero of the story. The scene of him entering the film is justly famous, though it’s a smaller portion of the film than its fame leads you to believe.
    1924 USA. Director: Buster Keaton. Starring: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, Ward Crane.
    Must See
    Newly Featured!

    9:00pm – TCM – Steamboat Bill, Jr.
    One of Buster Keaton’s best-known films has him as the city-boy son of a steamboat captain who goes to learn his father’s trade. Many mishaps later, he’s left to rescue his father from a tremendous hurricane – that scene is one of Keaton’s absolute best set-pieces, as he remains implacable while buildings literally fall around him.
    1928 USA. Director: Charles Reisner. Starring: Buster Keaton, Ernest Torrence.
    Newly Featured!

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 14 Sep

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    Film on TV: September 14-20

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    The Cranes are Flying, playing on TCM Monday the 21st at 2:00am (or really late Sunday night, depending on your point of view)

     

    Mostly repeats this week, but a few really cool new additions, all courtesy of TCM. First, one of Hitchcock’s most lighthearted thrillers, The Trouble With Harry, is showing on Tuesday. Then Friday night/Saturday morning, don’t miss one of the all-time great so-bad-it’s-good movies, Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. And then The Cranes are Flying, a Soviet classic I’ve never seen TCM run before, is playing late Sunday night/early Monday morning.

    Monday, September 14

    8:00pm – IFC – 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
    (repeats at 2:00am)

    Tuesday, September 15

    7:15am – IFC – Waking Life
    Richard Linklater’s first foray into overlaid animation is a philosophical dreamscape that’ll either leave you cold or inhabit your thoughts for weeks. It’s the latter for me. Like most of Linklater’s films, it’s largely made up of people talking, but with the added interest of the unique ever-shifting, never-solid animation style (which he’d reuse with a slightly more standard sci-fi story in A Scanner Darkly).
    2001 USA. Director: Richard Linklater. Starring: Wiley Wiggins, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy.
    (repeats at 11:45am and 5:35pm)

    8:00pm – TCM – The Trouble With Harry
    A group of small-town New Englanders find a dead body (that of Harry) in the woods and, fearing they’ll be murder suspects if it’s found, conspire to hide it. One of Hitchcock’s funniest films, mixing the macabre and the absurd adeptly.
    1955 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Shirley MacLaine, Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Mildred Natwick.
    Newly Featured!
    (repeats at 10:00am on the 20th)

    8:05pm – IFC – I Heart Huckabees
    Not too many films take philosophy as their base, but this one basically does, following a man (Jason Schwartzman) plagued by coincidence who hires a couple of existentialists to figure out what’s going on.
    2004 USA. Director: David O. Russell. Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Isabelle Huppert, Dustin Hoffman, Naomi Watts, Mark Wahlberg, Lily Tomlin, Jude Law.

    10:00pm – TCM – The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
    Hitchcock’s second version of this story (the first was 1934) has Doris Day and James Stewart as a couple who discover an assassination plot and have their son kidnapped to try to keep them quiet. It’s a well-done film and worth watching, though not quite up to many of Hitchcock’s other classics.
    1956 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: James Stewart, Doris Day, Bernard Miles, Brenda De Banzie.
    Newly Featured!

    12:15am (16th) – TCM – Vertigo
    James Stewart is a detective recovering from a vertigo-inducing fall who’s asked by an old friend to help his wife, who has developed strange behavior. Hitchcock plays with doubling, fate, and obsession, all the while creating one of his moodiest and most mesmerizing films. And watch for a great supporting turn by Barbara Bel Geddes as Stewart’s long-suffering best friend.
    1958 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes.
    Must See

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 07 Sep

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    Film on TV: September 7-13

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    The New World, playing Thursday, September 10th, at 10:05pm on IFC.

     

    A lot of good stuff this week, including a bunch we haven’t featured yet in these posts. I added in a few playing on Fox Movie Channel this week; on my channel guide, FMC is right next to IFC, and I keep seeing great stuff on there as I’m setting my DVR, so I figured it’d be a good idea to go ahead and start monitoring it as well.

    Monday, September 7th

    9:00am – TCM – King Kong
    The granddaddy of special effects monster films still holds up pretty well, considering it’s almost 80 years old. The real beauty is that even though the effects are obvious today, you’ll care enough about Kong that it won’t matter. For more, check out guest author Chris Edwards’ great post.
    1933 USA. Director: Merian C.Copper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. Starring: Robert Armstrong, Fay Wray, Bruce Cabot.
    Must See
    Newly Featured!

    5:30pm – TCM – The Dot and the Line
    A Chuck Jones-directed animated short is almost always worth highlighting. This is a later one, post-Looney Tunes, and shows very well his later experimentation into minimalist art. A straight line falls in love with a dot, but she’s enamored of an unruly squiggle. There’s an undercurrent of distrust toward the “anything goes” hippie culture of the 1960s, which is kind of interesting, too.
    1965 USA. Director: Chuck Jones. Starring: Robert Morley.
    Newly Featured!

    8:00pm – IFC – Office Space
    Anyone who’s ever worked in an office will identify with Office Space immediately – with the paper-jamming printers, the piles of beaurocratic paperwork, and the difficulty of keeping up with staplers if not the plot to make off with boatloads of money due to an accounting loophole. In fact, if you do or have worked an office job, I’m gonna call this required viewing.
    1999 USA. Director: Mike Judge. Starring: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston.
    (repeats at 1:30am on the 8th)

    9:30pm – IFC – Secretary
    Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader – making sado-masochism fun since 2002! But seriously, this was Maggie’s breakout role, and it’s still probably her best, as a damaged young woman whose only outlet is pain. And despite the subject, Secretary is somehow one of the sweetest and most tender romances of recent years.
    2002 USA. Director: Steven Shainberg. Starring:James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal.
    (repeats at 3:00am on the 8th)

    10:00pm – TCM – I’m Not Scared
    While playing one day, a young Italian boy discovers another boy chained up in a dark hole and befriends him. But why is he there, and is it safe to tell anyone about it? A well-done little thriller, with a good many twists and turns and a great performance from twelve-year-old Giuseppe Cristiano.
    2003 Italy. Director: Gabriele Salvatores. Starring: Giuseppe Cristiano, Mattia Di Pierro.
    Newly Featured!

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 31 Aug

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    Film on TV: August 31 – September 6

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    A Hard Day’s Night, playing at 7:25am on Friday, September 4th, on IFC

     

    Monday, August 31

    6:15pm – IFC – Before Sunrise
    Though some people think Richard Linklater’s 2004 follow-up Before Sunset is better than this 1995 original, I’m going to disagree, at least until I get the chance to see both together again. Before Sunrise may be little more than an extended conversation between two people (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) who meet on a train in Europe and decide to spend all night talking and walking the streets of Vienna, I fell in love with it at first sight. Linklater has a way of making movies where nothing happens seem vibrant and fascinating, and call me a romantic if you wish, but this is my favorite of everything he’s done.
    1995 USA. Director: Richard Linklater. Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy.
    Must See
    (repeats at 5:05am on the 1st)

    8:00pm – TCM – The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
    Based on John LeCarre’s bleak novel, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold is the anti-James Bond spy story, full of world-weary cynicism and spies who just want to get out, but can’t. It’s hard, and cold, and its edge of sadness and grief won’t let you go.
    1965 UK. Director: Martin Ritt. Starring: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner.
    Newly Featured!

    10:00pm – TCM – The Haunting (1963)
    No worries, this is the good, 1963 version of The Haunting, not the overblown 1999 remake. The story’s the same, but Robert Wise’s original is creepy, disturbing, and, like, good.
    1963 USA. Director: Robert Wise. Starring: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn.

    12:00M – IFC – The Proposition
    Australia’s answer to the western; Guy Pearce must hunt down and capture his brothers for the law in order to save his own skin. Gritty and violent almost to a fault, and it definitely brought new life to the Western genre.
    2005 Australia. Director: John Hillcoat. Starring: Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 23 Aug

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    Film on TV: August 24-30

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    Some Came Running, playing Friday, August 28th, at 8pm EST on TCM.

     

    Monday, August 24

    7:30am – TCM – A Star is Born
    This is not the better-known Judy Garland version, but the non-musical version featuring Janet Gaynor in one of her last roles. Gaynor’s not well remembered now, but she won the very first Academy Award for Best Actress back in 1928, and she holds this story of a hopeful ingenue married to a has-been actor together. I still love Judy’s version better (because I can’t get enough of her singing “The Man That Got Away”), but this one is well worth watching as well.
    1937 USA. Director: William A. Wellman. Starring: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou

    8:30am – IFC – Mr. Hulot’s Holiday
    French writer/actor/director Jacques Tati specialized in nearly-silent physical comedy that reminds one at times of Chaplin or Keaton, but with a slightly more ironic French flair about it. In Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, a trip to the seashore turns out to be anything but relaxing.
    1953 France. Director: Jacques Tati. Starring: Jacques Tati
    (repeats at 1:30pm and 5:00am on the 25th)

    6:45pm – TCM – Nothing Sacred
    A newspaper offers to give terminally-ill Carole Lombard her dream trip to New York City in exchange for publishing her experiences. Only problem is, she’s lying about being terminally ill. One of the zaniest of all 1930s zany comedies – that said, it can be a little on the shrill side.
    1937 USA. Director: William A. Wellman. Starring: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger, Walter Connolly.
    Newly Featured!

    10:00pm – TCM – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
    Fredric March won his first Oscar for his role as the meek doctor and his violent alter ego, but honestly, the make-up department deserves most of those accolades. Well-done, posh version of the story.
    1931 USA. Director: Rouben Mamoulian. Starring: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins.
    Newly Featured!

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 17 Aug

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    Film on TV: August 17-23

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    The Conversation, playing at 10pm on the 21st on TCM

     

    Sorry about completely missing last week! I ended up tweeting most of the best film-on-tv opportunities instead of posting late. I’m going to try to post reminders on Twitter for recommended films on TV, so if you’re on Twitter, make sure you’re following the Row Three account.

    Monday, August 17

    8:30am – Sundance – The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
    Luis Buñuel made a career out of making surrealist anti-bourgeois films, and this is one of the most surreal, most anti-bourgeois, and best films he ever made, about a dinner party that just can’t quite get started due to completely absurd interruptions.

    6:25pm – IFC – Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
    Laurence 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.
    Newly Featured!

    Tuesday, August 18

    10:15pm – TCM – True Grit
    John Wayne won an Oscar for this film, one of his last. I haven’t seen it, so I can’t say whether it was deserved or not, but hey. There it is.
    Newly Featured!

    4:30am (19th) – TCM – Baby Face
    This film often comes up as a prime example of a pre-Code film, as Barbara Stanwyck very explicitly (and fairly literally) sleeps her way to the top of a corporation, using her body and manipulative skills to get what she wants every step of the way. Also look for a young John Wayne as an office assistant – he looks extremely uncomfortable in his suit!
    Newly Featured!

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  • 03 Aug

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    Film on TV: August 3-9th

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    Gilda, playing on TCM at 8pm on Friday, August 7th

     

    There aren’t a whole lot of must-see films this week, but there are a number of Newly Featured films – I’ve tried to highlight some hidden gems this week.

    Monday, August 3

    8:10am – IFC – Primer
    Welcome to sci-fi at its most cerebral. You know how most science-dependent films include a non-science-type character so there’s an excuse to explain all the science to audience? Yeah, this film doesn’t have that character, so no one ever explains quite how the time travel device at the center of the film works. Or even that it is, actually, a time-travel device. This is the sci-fi version of getting thrown into the deep end when you can’t swim. Without floaties.
    (repeats at 1:30pm)

    9:35am – IFC – I Heart Huckabees
    Not too many films take philosophy as their base, but this one basically does, following a man (Jason Schwartzman) plagued by coincidence who hires a couple of existentialists to figure out what’s going on. I remember being a bit underwhelmed when I initially saw the film, but I know it has some staunch supporters here, so I might have to give it another go.
    Newly Featured!
    (repeats at 2:55pm)

    Tuesday, August 4

    CATCH-UP DAY! :)

    Wednesday, August 5

    10:30am – TCM – Safety Last
    Everyone knows Charlie Chaplin, and most know Buster Keaton – Harold Lloyd is generally considered the third in the triumverate of great silent comedians, and this is his best film. He plays a schmoe working in a department store trying to convince his country girlfriend that he’s really more important than he is, culminating in a brash attempt to scale the outside of a skyscraper. The stunts are magnificent, making the film still a joy to watch. TCM’s playing Lloyd films all day today, and I’m sure many of them are worth checking out; I just haven’t seen many of them myself to know which ones to pick out. Must See
    Newly Featured!

    8:00pm – Sundance – Talk to Her
    Talk to Her is one of Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar’s finest and most moving works, drawing heavily on the passion of bullfighting and dancing. Marco and Benigno develop a friendship as they care two women in comas – Marco’s girlfriend Lydia, a bullfighter gored in the ring, and nurse Benigno’s patient Alicia, whom he has fallen in love with. There’s a touch of the bizarre, as there always is in Almodóvar, but the film is richly rewarding in mood and vision.
    (repeats at 3:00am on the 6th)

    8:00pm – IFC – With a Friend Like Harry
    Harry seems like a nice guy when our main character meets him, but there’s something a little off about him – and that little something off keeps growing and growing until, well, who needs enemies? Quirky little suspense film that earns all of its payoff.
    Newly Featured!
    (repeats 1:30am on the 6th)

    » Read the rest of the entry..

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