Posts Tagged ‘The Third Man’

  • 03 Jan

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    Film on TV: January 3-9

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    The Producers, playing on TCM on Sunday

    I threw in some stuff on Sundance this week, including Mammoth and Summer Hours (both on Monday) that I haven’t seen but have heard good things about, so I’m hoping I get to check those out. Also note that IFC is playing the Coen Bros. version of The Ladykillers late Wednesday/early Thursday, while TCM has the original version Thursday night – rather apropos given recent conversations about the Coens and remakes. There are a few other newly featured things scattered throughout, the most notable being Mel Brooks’ hilarious send-up of the business of Broadway in The Producers (the original version) and Martin Scorsese’s biopic of Howard Hughes, The Aviator.

    Monday, January 3

    6:30am – 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.
    Newly Featured!
    (repeats at 12:30pm)

    8:40am – Sundance – Grizzly Man
    Werner Herzog’s fascination with the duality of nature’s beauty and destructiveness continues into documentary, as he brings the story of grizzly researcher Timothy Treadwell to the screen.
    2005 USA. Director: Werner Herzog.
    (repeats at 2:40pm)

    10:40am – Sundance – No One Knows About Persian Cats
    A pair of Iranian rock musicians, unable to perform their music publicly because the government won’t give them a permit, try to put together a final underground gig to raise money to escape the country – it’s based on the actual story of the two people playing the musicians, so there’s an intriguing intersection of reality and fiction.
    2009 Iran. Director: Bahman Ghobadi. Starring: Negar Shaghaghi, Ashkan Koshanejad, Hamed Behdad.
    (repeats at 4:@5pm)

    6:15pm – Sundance – Summer Hours
    In what sounds like a very beautiful and meditative film, Olivier Assayas explores a French family as the matriarch prepares for her own passing and then the actions of her family after she does. It got the Criterion treatment almost immediately upon release, which is enough for me to get excited on its own, but I’ve also heard really good things about it.
    2008 France. Director: Olivier Assayas. Starring: Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jérémie Renier.
    Newly Featured!
    (repeats at 5:40am on the 4th, and 9:25am on the 8th)

    8:00pm – 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
    (repeats at 1:30am on the 4th)

    9:30pm -TCM – Morocco
    My knowledge of the Josef von Sternberg-Marlene Dietrich cycle of films is woefully slight, but the one I have seen (The Blue Angel) was pretty impressive, so itís an oversight I intend to fix at some point. Dietrich here takes a leap of androgyny with her tuxedo-clad cabaret numbers, while an extremely young Gary Cooper is along for the ride as a Legionnaire.
    1930 USA. Director: Josef von Sternberg. Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 03 Oct

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    Film on TV: October 4-10

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    Sweet Smell of Success, playing on TCM on Sunday

    Of special note this week is the tribute to Tony Curtis that TCM is running on Sunday; besides everything else that TCM does well, I’m always impressed by how quickly they clear off room on their schedule to memorialize classic Hollywood stars and directors upon their deaths. They’re running Operation Petticoat, Sweet Smell of Success, and The Defiant Ones, among other Curtis films. Also newly featured this week are a pair of early Tarantino-related films on IFC on Wednesday: his directorial debut Reservoir Dogs and From Dusk Till Dawn, which he penned. Also on Wednesday, TCM has a pair of films from Max Ophüls, including the delectable The Earrings of Madame de… And there are an extraordinary number of great films this week that we’ve featured before – I rarely bring attention to those up here, but do always keep a look out in case you’ve missed something earlier that you wanted to catch.

    Monday, October 4

    7:45am – TCM – Scaramouche
    Stewart Granger was sort of a poor man’s Errol Flynn in his 1950s swashbucklers – never quite had Flynn’s panache, but hey, he tried. Scaramouche (from the novel by Rafael Sabatini, who also wrote Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk, which became Flynn vehicles) is one of his better films, and does boast the longest sword fight in cinema history. So there’s that.
    1952 USA. Director: George Sidney. Starring: Stewart Granger, Janet Leigh, Eleanor Parker, Mel Ferrer.

    9:45am – TCM – Kiss Me Kate
    It’s hard to improve Shakespeare, but it usually works best to place his stories and words in a new context. Kiss Me Kate does just that by coupling a musical version of Taming of the Shrew with a backstage story that mirrors Shrew’s fighting protagonists. Great supporting work from Ann Miller, James Whitmore, Keenan Wynn, etc. helps out leads Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson considerably, as do Cole Porter’s songs.
    1953 USA. Director: George Sidney. Starring: Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, Ann Miller, James Whitmore, Keenan Wynn.

    10:00am – 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 3:15pm)

    11:00am – Sundance – Encounters at the End of the World
    Werner Herzog has made the savage beauty of nature one of his themes throughout most of his fiction films, so perhaps it’s only natural that he has moved onto explicitly non-fiction explorations of some of nature’s most remote locales, in this case, Antarctica.2007 USA. Director: Werner Herzog.
    (repeats at 4:40pm)

    6:20pm – IFC – The Uusal Suspects
    One of the earliest in the late 90s wave of “twist” films, and still one of the few that did it best. Spoiler warnings may not have been invented for The Usual Suspects, but it was certainly one of the films that popularized anti-spoiler sentiment (and the converse glee for spoiling, I suppose). Thanks to Christopher McQuarrie’s tight script and great acting turns, though, the film is about more than the twist, which is what makes it continue to be worthwhile over a decade and multiple viewings later.
    1995 USA. Director: Bryan Singer. Starring: Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Bryne, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollack, Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, Pete Postlethwaite.
    (repeats at 9:05am and 2:05pm on the 5th)

    11:30pm – TCM – Touch of Evil
    Likely the last great noir film, with Orson Welles directing and starring as the corpulent corrupt sheriff of a corrupt border town, and Charlton Heston as a cop trying to solve a case with little, no, or negative help from Welles. Throw in Marlene Dietrich in one of her last roles and a virtuoso opening tracking shot, and you’ve got one of the most memorable noirs ever.
    1958 USA. Director: Orson Welles. Starring: Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Marlene Dietrich, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff.
    Must See

    1:30am (5th) – TCM – I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
    Paul Muni plays an initially optimistic and energetic young man who struggles to find a job during the Depression. Eventually he ends up unwillingly involved in a robbery and sentenced to the chain gang. One of Warner Bros’ best “ripped from the headlines” socially conscious films – they did a lot of them in the 1930s.
    1931 USA. Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Starring: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson.

    3:15am (5th) – TCM – Cool Hand Luke
    One of Paul Newman’s most memorable films, with Newman playing a renegade prisoner on a Southern chain gang who refuses to do what he’s told, escaping time and time again only to be recaptured as the guards attempt to break him.
    1967 USA. Director: Stuart Rosenberg. Starring: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, J.D. Cannon, Lou Antonio.

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  • 05 Jul

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    Film on TV: July 5-11

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    Little Children, playing on Sunday on Sundance

    As I started doing last week, I’ve included a number of films this week that I haven’t personally seen, but that I thought were worth highlighting. If anyone wants to speak up for them in the comments or send me a blurb about them to include in future columns, please feel free. Among those are This is England, Get Shorty, Wendy & Lucy, Fort Apache, American Psycho, and Cool Hand Luke. Other newly featured stuff to look out for: Marie Antoinette, which solidified Sofia Coppola among my favorite directors, hidden gem of a B-movie film noir The Narrow Margin, incredible modern melodrama Little Children, and D.W. Griffith silent epic Orphans of the Storm.

    Monday, July 5

    9:00pm – IFC – Barton Fink
    One of the Coen Brothers’ most brilliant dark comedies (heh, I think I say that about all of their dark comedies, though), Barton Fink follows its title character, a New York playwright whose hit play brings him to the attention of Hollywood, where he goes to work for the movies. And it all goes downhill from there. Surreal, quirky, and offbeat, even among the Coens work. It’s based loosely on the experiences of Clifford Odets, whose heightened poetic style of writing has clearly been influential on the Coens throughout their career.
    1991 USA. Director: Joel Coen. Starring: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner, Tony Shalhoub.

    10:00pm – TCM – To Kill a Mockingbird
    Widely regarded as one of the best adaptations of a great novel ever, To Kill a Mockingbird captures the themes and mood of the novel perfectly, following the racial and social tensions of a murder trial in the South.
    1962 USA. Director: Robert Mulligan. Starring: Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford, Robert Duvall.
    Must See

    Tuesday, July 6

    7:00am – Sundance – This is England
    One I’ve been meaning to see but haven’t gotten to yet, about a young English boy being drawn into a group of skinheads in the early 1980s. Has anyone here seen it? Recommend it?
    2006 UK. Director: Shane Meadows. Starring: Thomas Turgoose, Jo Hartley, Stephen Graham, Andrew Shim.
    Newly Featured!
    (repeats at 12:45pm, and at 6:20am and 1:15pm on the 10th)

    11:30am – IFC – Before Sunrise
    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

    6:45am – IFC – Sleeper
    One of Woody Allen’s early films, and a rare attempt at science fiction on his part, has meek Miles Monroe cryogenically frozen only to wake in a totalitarian future as part of a radical movement to overthrow the government. A rather different film for Woody, but still with his signature anxious wit and awkwardness.
    1973 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, John Beck, Mary Gregory.
    (repeats at 8:20am and 1:35pm on the 7th)

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 02 May

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    Film on TV: May 3-9

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    The Searchers, playing on TCM on Tuesday

    There are three films playing this week that I honestly can’t believe I haven’t featured before. TCM is playing John Ford’s classic The Searchers on Tuesday and King Kong on Saturday, both of which are definitely must-sees if you haven’t seen them before. Then one of my all-time favorite films (I’ve probably seen it fifteen times) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is on Sunday on Fox Movie Channel; I don’t always include Fox Movie in this column, so that could explain why that one hasn’t come up before. Other notable newly featured films include the better-than-you’d-expect noirish Nightmare Alley, a more than adequate adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s difficult-to-film novel Mrs. Dalloway, Tommy Lee Jones’s strong directorial debut The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and the unjustly forgotten William Powell-led mystery The Kennel Murder Case. Lots of variety and good stuff to choose from this week.

    Monday, May 3

    4:15pm – TCM – Midnight
    Solid Billy Wilder/Charles Brackett-penned screwball comedy that ought to be better known than it is. Claudette Colbert ends up in the middle of a millionare-wife-gigolo triangle, paid by the millionaire husband to break up the wife and gigolo by impersonating a baroness; meanwhile, a poor taxi driver she’d met previously is smitten with her and seeks her out, only to find her in her new guise. Sparkling dialogue and a strong cast give this a sophisticated twist that doesn’t quite match Lubitsch at his best, but is on the same track.
    1939 USA. Director: Mitchell Leisen. Starring: Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore, Mary Astor, Francis Lederer.

    9:00am – Fox Movie – Nightmare Alley
    Fox didn’t make too many noir films, and this one just barely sneaks in by virtue of…some high contrast lighting here and there? Okay, we’ll give it to them. Anyway, Tyrone Power gives one of his better performances here as an opportunistic carney who takes a chance to turn a sideshow fortune telling act into a high-profile nightclub show, no matter who he takes down on his way to the top. What it does to his personal life and his own psyche is pretty dark and kind of fascinating, and Helen Walker is great as a psychiatrist who may have her own angle to work. Also, look out for one of the more off-putting definitions of the word “geek.”
    1947 USA. Director: Edmund Goulding. Starring: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker.
    Newly Featured!

    10:00pm – Fox Movie – Miller’s Crossing
    The Coen brothers take on 1930s gangland with this film, and do so admirably well. As they do most things. I have to admit I wasn’t quite as enamored of it as I usually am of Coen films, but it definitely has its moments.
    1990 USA. Director: Joel Coen. Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, John Turturro, Jon Polito, Albert Finney.

    3:30am (4th) – TCM – Oklahoma!
    I can’t begin to guess how many times I watched Oklahoma! growing up, but it’s well into double-digits. It’s a routine but darker-than-usual story for a musical, about minor conflicts between farmers and cowboys, a couple of young lovers, and the obsessive farmhand who wants the girl for himself. But the way the music and dancing is integrated is wonderful (and groundbreaking in the 1943 play the film is based on).
    1955 USA. Director: Fred Zinnemann. Starring: Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones, Rod Steiger, Gloria Grahame, Gene Nelson, Eddie Albert, Charlotte Greenwood, James Whitmore.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 22 Feb

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    Film on TV: February 22-28

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    Stage Door, playing at 3:30am on Sunday, Febuary 28th (late Saturday)

     

    As TCM’s Oscar-celebratory month winds down, they’ve still got a few new ones to throw at us – the first musical to win a Best Picture Oscar, The Broadway Melody, shows on Monday; an actual good Merchant-Ivory film in A Room With a View turns up on Thursday; and fantastic underrated film noir The Killers plays on Thursday; finally, one of my personal all-time favorite films, Stage Door, hits the screen late Saturday/early Sunday (trust me, picture quality is higher than the still above; couldn’t find a decent cap). Sundance also springs Zhang Yimou historical actioner Curse of the Golden Flower to us on Sunday. As expected, the rest of the week is filled out with great repeats on all channels – many classics, both new and old.

    Monday, February 22

    2:00pm – TCM – The Broadway Melody
    After Warner Bros. thrust the film industry into the sound era with Jolson’s musical numbers in The Jazz Singer, it wasn’t long before other studios latched onto the musical possibilities provided by the debut of synchronized sound. MGM led the way with this backstage entry (the first of a series of unrelated “Broadway Melody” films) and earned themselves a Best Picture Academy Award. That’d never hold up today – this is extremely creaky and old-fashioned now – but hey. It has historical interest.
    1929 USA. Director: Harry Beaumont. Starring: Charles King, Anita Page, Bessie Love.
    Newly Featured!

    6:00pm – TCM – Sunset Boulevard
    Billy Wilder’s classic noir explores the dark side of the rich and formerly famous, as a struggling screenwriter (William Holden) gets involved with a silent screen star seeking to make a comeback in the sound era. In one of the most brilliant cast films ever, actual silent screen star Gloria Swanson returned to the movies to play the delusional Norma Desmond and actual silent star/director Erich von Stroheim (who worked with Swanson on the never-finished Queen Kelly, portions of which appear in Sunset Boulevard) plays her former director/current butler. The film is a bit on the campy side now, but that doesn’t diminish its enjoyability one bit.
    1950 USA. Director: Billy Wilder. Starring: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Nancy Olsen, Erich Von Stroheim, Buster Keaton.
    Must See

    11:45pm – 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

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 07 Dec

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    Film on TV: December 7-13

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    The More the Merrier, playing on TCM on Thursday, December 10th, at 6pm

     

    After last week’s sparse pair of newly featured films, we’ve got a few more to highlight this week. Jean Arthur costars in a Capra classic in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town on Monday, then moves on to the war-time romance The More the Merrier on Thursday. Quintessential film noir D.O.A. stumbles in on Friday, and of my favorites of this decade, Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 1 hits the Friday midnight slot. On Saturday, TCM has a pair of 1960s greats, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Lion in Winter, then check out the 1925 version of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ on Silent Sunday Nights. Plenty of great stuff we haven’t seen for a while, too, like The Big Heat and The Third Man on Tuesday, and Bergman’s Persona late Friday/early Saturday.

    Monday, December 7

    6:50am – IFC – Love’s Labour’s Lost
    Kenneth Branagh has taken on a lot of Shakespeare plays and usually does them with incredible fidelity (like his uncut, four-plus hour-long Hamlet). This time around, he takes a lesser-known comedy and adds music by Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, and Jerome Kern to turn it into a 1930s style musical. It doesn’t work all the time, but for fans of Shakespeare and old musicals (like me), it’s still a fun watch.
    2000 USA. Director: Kenneth Branagh. Starring: Alessandro Nivolo, Alicia Silverstone, Natascha McElhone, Kenneth Branagh, Matthew Lillard.
    (repeats at 12:45pm)

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

    8:30am – IFC – Bride & Prejudice
    Laugh at me if you must for recommending Chadha’s Bollywood-infused version of Pride and Prejudice, but I love it. It’s silly, it’s beautiful, it’s a fun exercise in adaptation of literary classics, and it’s only slightly weighed down by Martin Henderson’s woodenness.
    2005 UK. Director: Gurinder Chadha. Starring: Aishwarya Rai, Martin Henderson, Naveen Andrews, Alexis Bledel.
    (repeats at 2:30pm)

    8:00pm – 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

    9:35pm – TCM – 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 4:05am on the 8th)

    10:00pm – TCM – Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
    One of Frank Capra’s most whimsical films stars Gary Cooper as an unassuming country boy who suddenly inherits a great amount of money. When he decides to give it all away to whoever comes and asks for some, he garners a media frenzy, everyone thinking he’s crazy. Idealistic, warmly funny, and, yes, Capracorny. But as corn goes, it’s among the best. Also, any chance to see Jean Arthur is worth taking.
    1936 USA. Director: Frank Capra. Starring: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Lionel Stander, Douglass Dumbrille.
    Newly Featured!

    12:00M – TCM – You Can’t Take It With You
    Capra won his third directing Oscar for this film (the others were for It Happened One Night and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town), but to me it’s not one of his more interesting pieces. Young couple James Stewart and Jean Arthur invite chaos when his staid, wealthy family meets her wacky, irreverent one.
    1938 USA. Director: Frank Capra. Starring: Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Spring Byington.

    2:15am (8th) – TCM – Arsenic and Old Lace
    In what is probably Frank Capra’s zaniest, least Capra-corn-esque film, Cary Grant plays Mortimer Brewster – a perfectly normal man until he discovers that his sweet old maid aunts have accumulated several dead bodies in the basement due to poisoning lonely old men. Add in another nephew who is a serial killer, a quack plastic surgeon, and an uncle who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt, and Mortimer’s got his hands full trying to keep his family secrets away from the girl he loves. It’s over-the-top, sure, but you gotta love the crazy.
    1944 USA. Director: Frank Capra. Starring: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Josephine Hull, Jean Adair, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre.

    » 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)

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  • 01 Jun

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    Film on TV: June 1-7

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    Persona
    Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, playing at 12:30am on the 5th on TCM

    I‘ve been posting these TV schedule recommendation run-downs on my blog for a few months, and it was suggested I crosspost them over here as well. This turned out to be a good time to start, at least for classic movie fans, because Turner Classic Movies is apparently highlighting a different Great Director every night in June, showing some of their best movies. That means they are showing a BOATLOAD of great films. I’ve included a tiny intro to each director – note that after the director blurb, all the rest of the films that day on TCM are by that director. There may be films on other channels interspersed, because I’ve kept the times chronological.

    These tend to lean heavily on TCM, because studio-era films are where my film knowledge is the strongest. I throw in films from IFC and Sundance as well, but not as many, frankly because I don’t know as many of them; if you have other channels you’d like me to include, let me know. And if any other R3 writers want to fill out the IFC and Sundance portions a bit more in the future let me know. Oh, and this month it’s going to lean especially heavily on TCM, because of the Great Director theme. I normally don’t pick almost EVERY SINGLE FILM on TCM for these posts, I swear.

    All times are Eastern Standard.

    Monday, June 1

    9:30am – TCM – Love Affair (1939)
    This film is not as well known as its remake, 1957′s An Affair to Remember, which has the advantage of having the more famous Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr rather than Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer – who were both huge stars at the time, but are less known now. Both films were directed by Leo McCarey, and tell of a shipboard romance and a fateful rendezvous. I actually like Love Affair a tad better, but that could be just because I like being contrarian.

    2:30pm – TCM – Duck Soup
    Leo McCarey directs the Marx Brothers in what many think is their best and zaniest film. This is the one with Groucho becoming the dictator of Freedonia and declaring war on nearby Sylvania. Frequent Marx Brothers foil Margaret Dumont is on board as the wealthy woman who causes the rivalry that leads to the war. Personally, I prefer A Night at the Opera to Duck Soup, but this may be your best bet if the idea of musical interludes from Allan Jones (of which Opera has several) turns you off. Must See

    6:15pm – TCM – The Awful Truth
    This is one of the definitive screwball comedies (along with Bringing Up Baby), starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne as a married couple who constantly fight and decide to divorce, only to wind up meddling in each other’s lives (and screw up other relationship attempts) because they just can’t quit each other. Dunne’s impersonation of a Southern belle showgirl is a highlight. Must See

    8:00pm – IFC – Clerks
    Kevin Smith’s first feature, done for cheap, has become a cult classic, and though I think he’s done better films since Clerks, it’s definitely a worthwhile watch.
    (repeats at 2:05am on the 2nd)

    TCM – Great Director: John Ford
    TCM starts off their celebration of great directors with John Ford, usually considered one of the greatest auteurs of the American studio era. He’s best known for westerns (like Stagecoach and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, playing tonight) and war films, but turned out plenty of quality dramas as well (like The Quiet Man). Disappointingly, TCM is not playing The Searchers, arguably his best film. Pick it up on Blu-ray, though – it’s not very expensive and it looks incredible.

    10:00pm – TCM – Stagecoach
    Major breakthrough for John Wayne, here playing outlaw Cisco Kid – he and the various other people on a stagecoach form a cross-section of old West society that has to learn to get on together to make it to the end of the ride alive. The most memorable, though, is Claire Trevor’s prostitute – a woman who does what she must to survive, and is shunned by everyone except Wayne. Her reaction to him treating her as a lady is perfect. Must See

    2:00am (2nd) – TCM – The Quiet Man
    John Wayne plays a retired boxer returning to his ancestral home in Ireland, where he meets spitfire Maureen O’Hara and decides to marry her. She’s game, except her somewhat boorish brother Victor McLaglen disapproves and refuses to give up her dowry, and tradition is tradition! A great supporting cast of character actors and an epic (and comic) boxing match round out The Quiet Man into one of the most entertaining and endearing films John Ford ever made. Though I will say the last time I watched it, I was a little more concerned by its gender politics than I had been in the past.

    4:15am (2nd) – TCM – She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
    The first of John Ford’s informal “Cavalry trilogy,” which continued with Fort Apache and Rio Grande – all three films star John Wayne, though they’re unrelated in plot and character. Technically, I guess that makes them both westerns and war films, doesn’t it? Heh.

    Tuesday through Sunday after the jump, highlighting Frank Capra, King Vidor, Ingmar Bergman, Steven Spielberg, William Wyler, and Michael Curtiz. And other random films, of course.

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