Classic Movie Picks: October

Each month, I scour the Turner Classic Movies Now Playing guide for upcoming films that I can't miss. The highlights are posted here for your reading and viewing pleasure! (All listed times are Eastern Standard, check your local listings or TCM.com for actual air times in your area. Each day's schedule begins at 6:00 a.m.; if a film airs between midnight and 6 a.m. it is listed on the previous day's programming schedule.)

Hammer Horror
10/1: Horror of Dracula (1958), Brides for Dracula (1960), Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1969)
10/8: The Plague of the Zombies (1966), The Devil's Bride (1968), The Reptile (1966), The Gorgon (1964)
10/15: The Mummy (1959), The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964), The Mummy's Shroud (1967), Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971)
10/22: X: The Unknown (1956), Five Million Years to Earth (1968), These Are the Damned (1963), The Stranglers of Bombay (1960)
10/29: The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), Frankenstein Created Woman (1966), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)
Every Friday this month TCM is showing films from the British studio Hammer Films Production, famous for their low-budget horror movies from the late 50s through the early 70s. The earlier films tend to take a slightly more "traditional" approach to well-known monster tales (Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein), while the later films are more campy with increased levels of sex and gore. You can decide for yourself which sounds like more fun. I'll be looking for anything that stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.
Read more about Hammer and all the featured films on the TCM website.


10/3, 2:30 AM: Ballad of a Soldier (1959)
A Soviet soldier on leave during WWII makes the long journey home to visit his mother one more time before immediately returning to the front lines. Simple, lovely, and touching, this is a story of a very particular place and time, whose emotional impact is universal.


10/6: Two Films by Max Ophuls
2 AM - The Earrings of Madame de... (1954)
4 AM - Lola Montes (1955)
German-born Max Ophuls was a director of unfortunately limited output; however, the four films he made in France during the 1950s are considered masterpieces and tonight, TCM is showing two of these films. They share exciting camerawork, lavish sets and costumes, and stories of the dramatic consequences of love. The Earrings of Madame de... takes an interesting look at infidelity when a socialite commits an indiscretion which leads to a series of betrayals. In Lola Montes, a notorious courtesan has become the center of a circus attraction in which she recounts her colorful life. Anton Walbrook and Peter Ustinov are both exceptional as important men in the life of Lola.


10/17, 2 AM: Infernal Affairs (2002)
This intense drama from Hong Kong, about an undercover cop who must find a mole within the police department, stars the great Tony Leung and was the source material for 2008 Best Picture winner The Departed.


10/18: Starring Miriam Hopkins
6 AM - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932)
7:45 AM - The Richest Girl in the World (1934)
9:15 AM - Wise Girl (1937)
10:30 AM - The Old Maid (1939)
12:15 PM - Lady with Red Hair (1940)
1:45 PM - Virginia City (1940)
4 PM - The Heiress (1949)
6 PM - The Children's Hour (1961)
10/19, 8 PM: Design for Living (1933)
Three-time co-star of official "Star of the Month" Frederic March, Miriam Hopkins was a popular leading lady during the 1930s, but she hasn't sustained the name-recognition or fanbase of her contemporaries like Bette Davis (Hopkins on- and off-screen foil). I've heard Hopkins described as a blonde terrier and, as the owner of a (canine) blonde terrier, I would consider that description a compliment. Her starring vehicles are not shown that often, so today's line-up is a real treat.
If you can't catch the mini-marathon, don't miss Design for Living the following evening. This film puts Miriam at the vertex of a love triangle with Frederic March and Gary Cooper. It's an unexpectedly "modern" take on an old set-up, directed with a characteristically deft hand by Ernst Lubitsch.
BONUS PICKS: More Miriam!
10/5, 11:45 PM - Old Acquaintance (1943)
8 PM - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932)


10/22, 4:15 AM: Night of the Lepus (1972)
I am not a big fan of "scary movies" because, well, I don't like being scared. But, despite my fears, every Halloween I find myself in the mood for monster movies. The ones I like to watch are usually a little cheesy and not too terrifying. A perfect example is tonight's film in which the Lepus of the title is a gang of giant man-eating rabbits. If you enjoy watching bad films that are entertaining for all the wrong reasons, you'll like Night of the Lepus.


10/23, 10 PM: Captain's Paradise (1953)
Alec Guinness plays a ferryboat captain on the Strait of Gibraltar who has a wife on either side of the water. He thinks he has devised the perfect life with each wife fulfilling different sides of his personality; however, his wives each yearn to live outside the roles he has assigned to them. Guinness is very funny as the initially smug captain who grows increasingly frustrated with his "paradise."
BONUS PICKS: 5 More Rounds of Guinness!
8 PM - Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
11:45 PM - Last Holiday (1950)
1:30 AM - The Horse's Mouth (1958)
3:15 AM - The Lavender Hill Gang (1951)
5 AM - The Ladykillers (1955)

From the Vault: Total Recall

There are certain movies that, good or bad, make their foothold in our cinematic consciousness. On the other hand certain movies, good or bad, can slip to the back of our consciousness. Each month I'll be taking a look back at a movie that since it was released has fallen through the cracks, been completely forgotten about, or just hasn't been watched in a while. This month:

Total Recall

Science fiction is a genre that cannot avoid becoming dated sometimes after a decade or two or sometimes after just a couple years. Total Recall was made 20 years ago and it holds up very well. The special effects do not look dated and the overall depiction of the future doesn't feel dated or cheesy. It's fun to go back and watch movies that are set in the future and see what predictions about the future have and haven't come true and which are laughable. Twenty years later several science fiction elements from Total Recall have actually come true, or sort of come true, including: GPS, video phones, and video monitors on heavy machinery.

Early on in the movie Quaid (Schwarzenegger) and his wife Lori (Sharon Stone) sit down to have breakfast and turn on the flat screen TV in their wall to watch the morning news. We have flat screen HD TV's that can be mounted on walls and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to imagine them being built into walls.

Quaid keeps having dreams about being on Mars, dreams he thinks might be memories, so he goes to a company called Rekall that can implant in your mind the manufactured memory of a vacation so you don't have to go through the trouble of an actual vacation. He hopes that having a memory of a vacation to Mars will quell his dreams. Now, of course this doesn't exist, yet. But there is a company called Zero G that will fly you in a jet that flys in parabolic arcs so you can experience true weightlessness. Tickets have already been sold for the first commercial flight into space, though the shuttle for that hasn't even been yet. So vacations in space have sort of come true.

When Quaid walks into a train station he passes through an X-Ray security check point and gets onto a train with TV's playing ads. Later on in the movie when he's being chased he passes through the system and the gun he's carrying sets off alarm. Now I know there's not X-Ray security checkpoints at train stations or even at airports but a type of X-Ray security scanner does exist though it's not in use because instead of showing a skeleton, it only peels back a couple layers of clothing and the image seen is more along the lines of a nude person, and not everyone is okay with that.

There's a scene where Sharon Stone is practicing her tennis stroke by mimicking an instructional hologram. When she gets it's right the hologram lights up. There's no holograms involved with Nintendo Wii, yet, but the similarities are striking.

I haven't even talked about about the movie itself. It's a good, solid, and entertaining movie and it holds up very well. The sci-fi elements that have actually come true now only make this movie more impressive. It's a good action movie but it also deals with perceptions of reality and dreams and memories. If you haven't seen this movie in a while I highly recommend watching it again and if you're in the mood to be overwhelmed with accents then check out the DVD commentary with Paul Verhoeven and Arnold Schwarzenegger. As for the Total Recall remake, let's not and say we did.

Not-So-Fresh New Releases #3

As we head towards the fall movie season, historically the time of the year when the most interesting and high-quality films are released, I'm looking forward to going out to the movies again. The films currently in theaters just haven't captured my interest, and according to the Rotten Tomatoes ratings, they haven't impressed the critics either. So I've picked out a few of these not-so-fresh new releases and devised some alternate viewing choices. All the recommended films are available on video, so you can save yourself the price of a movie ticket and support your local video store instead.

The American - 62% freshness rating

• Many aspects of this film starring George Clooney as a solitary assassin, from the poster art to the deliberate pacing, have inspired comparisons to politically-themed thrillers from the 1970s. I know I immediately thought of The Day of the Jackal (1973). Not to be confused with its inferior 1997 remake The Jackal, this methodical thriller follows the man hired to assassinate French president Charles DeGaulle, as well as the policeman on the killer's trail.
• Another obvious point of comparison for The American is the French film Le Samourai (1967), directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. An even-more-handsome-than-Clooney Alain Delon stars in this character portrait of a hit man who may have made a fatal mistake. This film is slowly-paced and unafraid of silence, but it is not boring. It elegantly captures the isolation of a lone gunman.

The Virginity Hit - 50% freshness rating

• Finally, the faux-documentary version of American Pie that we've all been asking for! What, you didn't ask for that? Yeah, me neither. The Virginity Hit follows a teenage boy in his increasingly adventurous attempts to lose his virginity; this topic seems especially stale since some guy desperately trying to have sex has been a plot point in nearly every teen comedy since the '80s. So, let's look back to that decade and watch Rob Reiner's film The Sure Thing (1985), a teen comedy that is ostensibly about sex, but is actually a love story in the tradition of It Happened One Night.
• For a more cautionary take on the subject, go back even further to 1961's Splendor in the Grass. Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty star as teens whose lives are ruined by his desire for pre-marital sex - and some seriously questionable fatherly advice.

Going The Distance - 51% freshness rating

• In Going the Distance, Drew Barrymore and Justin Long employ various means of communication to conduct a long-distance relationship. If you want to see a relationship with serious distance issues, just watch the romantic musical

Brigadoon (1954). Gene Kelly lives in New York, Cyd Charisse lives in Scotland...in a village which appears for one day every 100 years. It's going to take more than a plane ticket to keep these two together.

Commercials for Going the Distance have featured scenes of Barrymore and Long attempting some awkward phone-sex. 1959's Pillow Talk makes witty use of double entendre and a split-screen to create sexual tension during Doris Day and Rock Hudson's phone conversations.

Takers - 30% freshness rating

• I love a good heist movie, but, sheesh, even the title of this film is idiotic. It seems like this film wants to be Ocean's Eleven for a slightly younger generation. Steven Soderbergh's 2001 film, starring George Clooney as suave thief Danny Ocean, is stylish, sophisticated, and clever. Takers has Hayden Christensen in a porkpie hat. Which would you rather watch?
• I'd also like to recommend another Melville film starring Alain Delon, Le Cercle Rouge (1970). Look no further for a truly cool, suspenseful heist picture.
  

For more rental recommendations, check out my previous posts: Not-So-Fresh New Releases and Not-So-Fresh New Releases #2.