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Film on TV: June 7-13
June 7, 2010 Jandy	Leave a comment
Caché, playing on IFC on Friday
This week, look out for TCM's memorial tribute to Dennis Hopper, with four of his films on Tuesday night, culminating in the iconic Easy Rider. Also, Thursday would be Judy Garland's birthday, so TCM has a marathon for that, with a few good, off-beat choices, and a few pretty mediocre films, but your mileage may vary. IFC's also bringing out a few new ones, including Thank You For Smoking on Wednesday and Caché on Friday. Also newly featured this week, classic cop-and-car-chase movie Bullitt, on TCM on Saturday. And something I'm not sure has ever happened before – both IFC and TCM are playing Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic thriller Les Diaboliques, so look out for it on either channel.
8:30m – IFC – Mon Oncle
Jacques Tati's Chaplin-esque character, Mr. Hulot, this time takes on modern life in the form of his sister's house that has been mechanized with all the most modern electronic aids – think Disney's 1950s House of Tomorrow. Of course, everything goes wrong, hilariously.
1958 France. Director: Jacques Tati. Starring: Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie, Jean-François Martial.
(repeats at 2:05pm)
11:30am – TCM – Some Came Running
Frank Sinatra gets to prove his acting chops again as a cynical soldier returning to his small-town home. Shirley MacLaine is a revelation, and Dean Martin gets probably his best role, as well. Meanders a bit in the middle, but thanks to strong performances and incredibly well-done yet subtle mise-en-scene from Minnelli, ends up staying more memorable than you might expect.
1959 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine.
12:15pm – 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.
8:00pm – IFC – A Fish Called Wanda
It's not a Monty Python picture, but with John Cleese and Michael Palin on board as participants in a zany crime story, along with ambiguous-relationshiped Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline, it has some of the same absurd charm.
1988 USA/UK. Director: Charles Crichton. Starring: John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, Maria Aitken, Tom Georgeson.
(repeats at 3:00am and 1:05pm on the 8th)
9:15am – IFC – Les Diaboliques
In Henri-Georges Clouzot's thriller, a man's wife and mistress plot together to murder him (gee, I wonder why?), but find it more difficult than they expected to get rid of him for good. Twisty turny gem of a thriller with a few terrifying moments.
1955 France. Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot. Starring: Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse.
(repeats at 4:45pm, and 8pm on TCM)
4:30pm – TCM – Doctor Zhivago
Idealistic Zhivago experiences the Bolshevik Revolution while also dealing with his conflicting feelings for his wife Tonya and young nurse Lara. There are a few things about the romance side of the story that bother me, mostly the fact that I liked Tonya way more than Lara, but I have to admit Lean knows how to make epic films, and Maurice Jarre's score is unforgettable.
1965 UK/USA. Director: David Lean. Starring: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness.
8:10pm – IFC – Go
In the first section of this tripartite film, bored grocery store clerk Sarah Polley seizes an opportunity to broker a drug deal when her dealing coworker takes a trip to Vegas. It goes very wrong. Meanwhile, her coworker in Vegas gets mixed up in a murder there. Also meanwhile, two actors work with a narcotics officer to break up the drug ring. All three stories tie up together in the end, but not before a lot of quite well-constructed Pulp Fiction-esque jumping around. A lot of fun, and better than you might expect.
1999 USA. Director: Doug Liman. Starring: Sarah Polley, Katie Holmes, Jay Mohr, Scott Wolf.
10:15pm – TCM – True Grit
John Wayne had a career full of iconic western roles before he won an Oscar for this one, as tough old U.S. Marshall "Rooster" Cogburn, recruited by a young woman to help her avenge her father's death, a quest that takes them deep into Indian territory.
1969 USA. Director: Henry Hathaway. Starring: John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Kim Darby, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper.
12:30pm – 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.
2:30am (9th) – TCM – Easy Rider
The story of Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda trying to make this film is almost as interesting as the film itself; it's fitting, though, that a film about bikers on the fringe of society, completely outcast in some places, would be made at great personal difficulty outside the studio system. As a whole, the tension works for the film, which is brilliant, iconoclastic, and marks, along with Bonnie and Clyde, the beginning of the New Hollywood that would blossom in the 1970s.
1969 USA. Director: Dennis Hopper. Starring: Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson.
Wednesday, June 9
7:15am – Sundance – Paris je t'aime
I have a huge soft spot for Paris – basically any movie set there I will like to at least some degree. So an anthology film with eighteen internationally-renowned directors giving their take on Paris with eighteen short films all mashed together? Yeah, instant love. Obviously some sections are far stronger than others – the Coens, Gus van Sant, Alexander Payne, Isabel Coixet, Tom Tykwer, and Wes Craven turn in my favorites.
2006 France. Director: various. Starring: many.
10:00pm – TCM – Gilda
Gilda was the last person Johnny ever expected to meet again, much less as the wife of his boss, a sleazy casino operator in South America. Glenn Ford plays a quintessential defeated noir narrator in Johnny, while Rita Hayworth imbues Gilda with all her available mystique to make Gilda one of the more memorable films of the 1940s.
1946 USA. Director: Charles Vidor. Starring: Glenn Ford, Rita Hayworth, George Macready
10:00pm – IFC – Thank You For Smoking
Jason Reitman's breakout film was also one of my favorites of 2005 – sure, it's a bit slight and isn't perfect, but its story of a hotshot PR guy working for cigarette companies struck just the right note of cynical and absurd humor. The really high-quality cast doesn't hurt either, with everybody, no matter how small their role, making a memorable impression.
2005 USA. Director: Jason Reitman. Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Katie Holmes, Rob Lowe, Maria Bello, David Koechner, J.K. Simmons, Adam Brody, Sam Elliott.
Newly Featured!
7:15am – 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.
9:15am – TCM – Girl Crazy
The best of many films costarring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, partially due to the fantastic score, including stuff like "Embraceable You," "I've Got Rhythm," "But Not For Me," and a bunch of other top-notch Gershwin songs. The story's pretty routine, but aren't they all? That's not why you watch Garland-Rooney movies.
1943 USA. Directors: Norman Taurog and Busby Berkeley. Starring: Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Gil Stratton, Rags Ragland, June Allyson.
12:45pm – TCM – The Clock
This was Judy Garland's first real purely dramatic role, directed by her then-husband Vincente Minnelli in 1945. It's a wartime story of a soldier on leave (Robert Walker) who meets a girl (Garland) and their attempts to get married before he has to return to his unit. It's a sweet, unassuming little film that showcases Garland's charm quite well, and has a nice supporting role for comedian Keenan Wynn.
1945 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Judy Garland, Robert Walker, Keenan Wynn.
2:30pm – TCM – The Pirate
A flop when first released, The Pirate looks more and more like a potential cult classic all the time. Gene Kelly is an entertainer who impersonates the dread pirate Mack the Black Mococo to get close to Spanish heiress Judy Garland in a period Caribbean seaport. It's over-the-top, has some of Cole Porter's most outlandish songs, and is somehow immensely, compulsively watchable.
1948 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Walter Slezak, Gladys Cooper, Reginald Owen, the Nicholas Brothers.
8:00pm – TCM – Les Diaboliques
4:15am (11th) – TCM – La Ronde
A dazzling cyclical story following an interconnected series of lovers from encounter to encounter in turn of the century Vienna. Sounds lascivious, but in the hands of Ophüls, it's charmingly sophisticated and beautifully realized. See also Ophüls' The Earrings of Madade de…, which has a similar structure, but centered on the travels of the titular earrings.
1950 France. Director: Max Ophüls. Starring: Anton Walbrook, Simone Signoret, Simone Simon, Danielle Darrieux.
6:40am – IFC – Caché
Very deliberate but intensely thought-provoking film from director Michael Haneke, delving into issues from privacy and surveillance to war guilt and revenge. It's a difficult film, and one that stretches the limits of the suspense thriller, but if you're willing to go along with it, it's well worthwhile.
2005 France. Director: Michael Haneke. Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Bénichou.
8:40am – 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.
9:30am – 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.
10:05am – IFC – Picnic at Hanging Rock
I have a love-hate relationship with Aussie director Peter Weir. His films are almost always slow and methodical, which works for me sometimes and not others. It works in Picnic at Hanging Rock, one of his earlier films, in which a group of schoolgirls goes into the wilderness for a picnic and mysteriously disappear.
1975 Australia. Director: Peter Weir. Starring: Anne-Louise Lambert, Rachel Roberts, Vivean Gray, Tony Llewellyn-Jones, Karen Robson.
12:30am (13th) – TCM – Bullitt
No nonsense cop Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen, holding onto his crown as king of 1960s cool, American class) is tasked with guarding an important witness in a Mafia trial; when his partner and the witness are targeted in a hit, he goes after the killers directly, leading to the justly famous car chase through hills of San Francisco.
1968 USA. Director: Peter Yates. Starring: Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn, Robert Duvall.
2:00pm – IFC – La Jetée
Very few short films become classics (outside of silent films and arguably Looney Tunes), but Chris Marker's La Jetee, told entirely in sequences of still photographs, is one of them. In a postapocalyptic future, a man is sent back in time to try and stop WWIII from happening. But he both falls in love and is haunted by a childhood memory – two things that are fatefully interconnected.
1962 France. Director: Chris Marker. Starring: Jean Négroni, Hélène Chatelain, Davos Hanich.
5:45pm – IFC – Blow Out
Sound man John Travolta is recording sound samples one night, and may have accidentally recorded a murder occurring. As he tries to investigate, he's drawn into a dangerous conspiracy. Inspired to some degree by Antonioni's photography-based Blow-Up, but this is definitely DePalma's film all the way.
1981 USA. Director: Brian DePalma. Starring: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz.
8:00pm – 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.
1933 USA. Director: Leo McCarey. Starring: The Marx Brothers, Margaret Dumont, Louis Calhern.
2:00am (14th) – TCM – The 400 Blows
Francois Truffaut's first feature, a semi-autobiographical look at a boy's childhood in Paris, dealing with strict teachers, fighting parents, etc. This film along with Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless usually mark the beginning of the New Wave. Truffaut's sentimental tendencies come out already, as well as his incredible ability to direct children to great performances. Jean-Pierre Leaud would go on to star in many more Truffaut films, but for me, his adult roles never match this one.
1959 France. Director: François Truffaut. Starring: Jean-Piere Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy, Guy Decomble.
3:45am (14th) – TCM – Fahrenheit 451
François Truffaut's first foray in English-language film was this adaptation of Ray Bradbury's classic dystopian novel, following fireman (that is, book-burner) Montag as he comes into contact with a group of fugitives intent on preserving the knowledge in books even as the government tries to destroy them, and he begins to wonder if perhaps they are right. It's a great book, and a pretty good film, with Julie Christie in an interestingly-cast double role.
1966 UK. Director: François Truffaut. Starring: Oskar Werner, Julie Christie, Cyril Cusack.
A Fish Called WandaBlow OutBroadway Danny RoseBullittCacheCrimes and MisdemeanorsDoctor ZhivagoDuck SoupEasy RiderFahrenheit 451GildaGirl CrazyGoLa JeteeLa RondeLes DiaboliquesMetropolitanMon OncleParanoid ParkParis je t'aimePicnic at Hanging RockRebel Without a CauseSome Came RunningThank You for SmokingThe 400 BlowsThe ClockThe PirateTrue Grit
Film on TV: May 31-June 6
May 31, 2010 Jandy	1 Comment
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, playing on TCM on Monday.
On Monday, TCM pays tribute to Clint Eastwood, showing all three of his Man With No Name Leone films, plus a couple of the Dirty Harry films, and others in between. If you're an Eastwood fan, be sure to check out the whole schedule at TCM.com. Then on Wednesday, IFC has Lars von Trier's latest Antichrist – it's at the very least another solidly-made and thought-provoking if somewhat offputting entry in that provocateur's filmography. Most everything else are repeats, but some very good ones.
8:00am – TCM – A Fistful of Dollars
The first of the Leone-Eastwood "Man With No Name" trilogy has Eastwood loping into a small Texas town out nowhere and finding himself caught in the middle of an ongoing feud between the two powerful families that run the town. In true revisionist Western style, he wavers back and forth between amoral mercenary desires and noble actions – he's not classical Hollywood's Western hero, but he draws on that mythology, breathing new life into the genre.
1964 Italy. Director: Sergio Leone. Starring: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Gian Maria Volonté, Wolfgang Lukschy.
9:45am – TCM – For a Few Dollars More
The follow-up to A Fistful of Dollars, which I have not yet seen myself; but I bought it recently on the cheap, so I really have no excuse. Soon.
1965 Italy. Director: Sergio Leone. Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonté, Mara Krupp, Klaus Kinski.
10:00am – IFC – The Good German
Steven Soderbergh's attempt using 1940s equipment and filming techniques didn't actually turn into a particularly good movie, but as a filmmaking experiment, it's still fairly interesting. And has George Clooney and Cate Blanchett in gorgeous B&W as former lovers/current spies, if you're into that sort of thing.
2006 USA. Director: Steven Soderbergh. Starring: George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire.
(repeats at 12:15am on the 1st)
12:00N – TCM – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The final film of the Leone-Eastwood Man With No Name series, and possibly the height of the spaghetti western genre. Here Eastwood and Eli Wallach as feuding partners-in-bounty-rigging stumble upon a promise of hidden treasure along with Lee Van Cleef and try to get to it while skirting the edges of the Civil War. Breathtaking on nearly every level.
1966 Italy. Director: Sergio Leone. Starring: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef.
9:45pm – IFC – Black Book
Paul Verhoeven invests Black Book with just enough of his signature over-the-top brashness to give the WWII story of a Dutch Jewish woman infiltrating the Gestapo for the Resistance a healthy dose of panache. Every time you think it won't go the next step, it does, and it's ravishingly entertaining the whole time.
2006 Netherlands. Director: Paul Verhoeven. Starring: Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman.
12:15am (1st) – TCM – Dirty Harry
Eastwood hung up his spaghetti western spurs and picked up a cop's sidearm to play Harry Callahan, a cop who doesn't always play by the rules but definitely gets what he's after; in this case, a serial killer who begins to play a cat-and-mouse game with Callahan.
1977 USA. Director: Don Siegel. Starring: Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, Reni Santoni, John Vernon, Andrew Robinson.
(repeats at 11:15am and 5:05pm)
8:45am – TCM – The Asphalt Jungle
The Asphalt Jungle was really MGM's first foray into noirish crime films. Being MGM, it's more polished and, to me, less interesting than the crime dramas that Warner Bros. and the smaller studios were putting out, but hey. It's still pretty good. And has a really young Marilyn Monroe.
1950 USA. Director: John Huston. Starring: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe.
1:00pm – TCM – Some Like It Hot
After musicians Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon unwittingly witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, they have to escape the mob by impersonating women and joining an all-girls band. The fact that Marilyn Monroe is the band's lead singer doesn't help them stay undercover. Easily one of the greatest comedies ever put on film.
1959 USA. Director: Billy Wilder. Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Joe E. Brown, George Raft.
1:30am (2nd) – IFC – La Jetée
9:30pm – TCM – The African Queen
One of several films John Huston and Humphrey Bogart made together pits Bogart against the Amazon river – and straight-laced missionary Katharine Hepburn, who is forced to travel with him to escape Germany enemies. Well, boats are small, and one things leads to another, you know.
1951 USA. Director: John Huston. Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley.
12:00M – IFC – Antichrist
Lars von Trier's latest film isn't exactly what I'd call fun to watch, but it definitely has its compelling moments in its story of a couple grieving over the death of their son and the lengths the husband will go to in order to help his wife recover her sanity – and the lengths to which her sanity is gone. Extremely strong performances from the two principals and von Trier's way of mixing arthouse mood with extremely disturbing content make Antichrist hard to forget.
2009 Denmark. Director: Lars von Trier. Starring: Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg.
4:35am (3rd) – IFC – Pi
Darren Aronofsky's first feature is this fever dream of a mathematician searching for the numeric patterns that will unlock the secrets of the stock market – paranoid, fearful of human contact, and beset by terrible headaches, he's also pursued by Wall Street factions and Hasidic Jews, each seeking the results of his formulas. It's heady stuff, but Aronofsky's the right guy for that.
1998 USA. Director: Darren Aronofsky. Starring: Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, Ben Shenkman.
6:15am – Sundance – Paris, je t'aime
(repeats at 11:45am, and 12:00N and 5:25pm on the 5th)
6:30pm – IFC – The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Any half-decent film about three drag queens driving a bus through the Australian outback in outlandish costumes (and sometimes lipsynching to opera while sitting in an enormous shoe strapped on top of the bus) pretty much has to be fabulous, and this one is. Hugo Weaving is the one with the secret former marriage and son, Terence Stamp the aging one who tends to be somewhat bitter but can also be the consummate lady, and Guy Pearce is the flamboyant youth. As they move through the Outback toward their next proposed gig as lipsynching dancers, they run into mechanical difficulties, bigotry, and interpersonal conflicts that get into more thoughtful territory than you might expect.
1994 Australia. Director: Stephan Elliott. Starring: Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, Terence Stamp, Rebel Penfold-Russell.
(repeats at 3:00am on the 4th)
4:00pm – TCM – The Women
The cattiest, most man-less film ever made. Several of Hollywood's greatest female stars, from established divas like Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford to up-and-comers like Rosalind Russell and Joan Fontaine to character actresses like Mary Boland and Marjorie Main (and even non-actresses like gossip columnist Hedda Hopper), give their all to one of the wittiest scripts ever written.
1939 USA. Director: George Cukor. Starring: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Joan Fontaine, Paulette Goddard, Virginia Weidler, Mary Boland, Marjorie Main, Hedda Hopper.
8:00pm – IFC – Kill Bill Vol. 1
A lot of people would point to Pulp Fiction as Tarantino's best film, and I think Inglourious Basterds is right up there, too, but I vote Kill Bill Vol. 1 for sheer amount of fun. He homages spaghetti westerns, Hong Kong fighting flicks, and revenge-sploitation, and ties it all together with incredible style.
2003 USA. Director: Quentin Tarantino. Starring: Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Daryl Hannah, David Carradine.
12:00M – IFC – Evil Dead 2
The sequel/remake to Sam Raimi's wonderfully over-the-top demon book film, set in the same creepy wood-bound cabin, with even more copious amounts of blood and a lot more intentional humor. I'm still not sure which I like best, but either one will do when you need some good schlock. (I still haven't seen Army of Darkness, I'm shamed to admit.
1987 USA. Director: Sam Raimi. Starring: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks.
10:15am – 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.
5:15pm – 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.
8:00pm – TCM – Old Yeller
One of the great tear-jerker family films, about a family in the old west who adopt a stray dog, growing to love and depend on the animal in the absence of their father (away on a cattle drive). Ah, yes, the good old days, when kids movies weren't all happy-peppy all the time.
1957 USA. Director: Robert Stevenson. Starring: Dorothy Maguire, Fess Parker, Tommy Kirk, Kevin Corcoran.
A Fistful of DollarsAntichristBlack Bookdirty harryEvil Dead IIFor a Few Dollars MoreFunny GirlKill Bill Vol 1La JeteeMetropolitanOld YellerParanoid ParkParis je t'aimepiSome Like It HotStrangers on a TrainThe Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the DesertThe African QueenThe Asphalt JungleThe Good GermanThe Good the Bad and the UglyThe Women
Film, Film on TV
Film on TV: March 22-28
March 22, 2010 Jandy	Leave a comment
Rashomon, playing at 8pm on TCM on the 23rd
After several weeks of lead-up, we're almost up to the actual centennial of Akira Kurosawa's birth, and TCM is blowing out with a nearly 24-hour marathon of his work on the 23rd. Several of the films being shown are ones that Row Three is also covering in a Kurosawa tribute, including Sanjuro and Dodes 'Ka-Den, for which there are already reviews up, and there will be more soon, so keep an eye on Row Three for all the write-ups. Also, check out the Ray Harryhausen triple feature coming up on Friday, more Ginger Rogers films overnight on Wednesday, and a pair each of Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati films late Sunday/early Monday. As well as, of course, our usual crop of repeats on IFC, Sundance, and TCM.
4:00am – TCM – Some Like It Hot
6:30am – 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.
8:00pm – 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.
10:00pm – TCM – The Maltese Falcon
Humphrey Bogart inhabits the role of Dashiell Hammett's private eye Sam Spade, creating one of the definitive on-screen hard-boiled detective (vying only with Bogart's Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep, really). Not mention setting the early benchmark for noir films.
1941 USA. Director: John Huston. Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Elisha Cook Jr, Walter Huston.
2:00am (23rd) – 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. Excellent performances and stunt-filled action sequences make this one of the best westerns ever made.
1939 USA. Director: John Wayne. Starring: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, John Carradine, Andy Devine, Thomas Mitchell.
6:00am – TCM – Akira Kurosawa Marathon
Today would be Akira Kurosawa's 100th birthday were he still alive, and after a month of weekly primetime Kurosawa mini-marathons, TCM is giving this day and night over entirely to his films, starting with a series of ones that I've frankly never heard of, and then bringing out the big guns starting with Rashomon at 8pm. I'm just going to list them below. Remember to check out Row Three for reviews of several of the films TCM is playing today or played earlier in the month.
Sanshiro Sugata, The Most Beautiful, The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, Sanshiro Sugata Part 2, No Regrets for Our Youth, One Wonderful Sunday, Drunken Angel, Stray Dog, Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Dodes 'Ka-Den.
10:00am – 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.
8:00pm – Sundance – The Lives of Others
If any film had to beat out Pan's Labyrinth for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, I'm glad it was one as good as The Lives of Others. A surveillance operator is assigned to eavesdrop on a famous writer who may be working against the government regime – he's torn in both directions when he starts sympathizing with his subject. It's really well done in tone and narrative, with a great performance by the late Ulrich Mühe.
2006 Germany. Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Tukur, Thomas Theime.
(repeats at 3:25am on the 25th)
9:45pm – TCM – Bachelor Mother
A very slight but rather charming Ginger Rogers vehicle that for some reason I like far more than I probably should. Ginger is a struggling department store clerk who happens by an orphanage just after someone leaves a baby there; she's mistaken for the mother and through a series of miscommunications with the orphanage and her boss at the store (David Niven), ends up having to take the baby. It's fairly silly at times, but also kind of heartwarming, and Ginger's honestly at her best here.
1939 USA. Director: Garson Kanin. Starring: Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn, Frank Albertson.
10:30pm – Sundance – Eraserhead
David Lynch's first feature is a weird post-apocalyptic dreamscape of a film – what, you were expecting something normal? When you can have industrial decay and mutant babies?
1977 USA. Director: David Lynch. Starring: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart.
11:15pm – TCM – Stage Door
I cannot describe to you how much I love this film. I'm not sure it's wholly rational. Katharine Hepburn plays an heiress who wants to make it on her own as an actress, so she moves (incognito) into a New York boarding house for aspiring actresses. Her roommate ends up being Ginger Rogers (who's never been better or more acerbic), and the boarding house is rounded out with a young Lucille Ball, a young Eve Arden, a very young Ann Miller, and various others. The dialogue is crisp and everyone's delivery matter-of-fact and perfectly timed, and the way the girls use humor to mask desperation makes most every moment simultaneously funny and tragic – so that when it does turn tragic, it doesn't feel like a shift in mood, but a culmination of the inevitable.
1937 USA. Director: Gregory La Cava. Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Andrea Leeds, Gail Patrick, Eve Arden, Lucille Ball, Ann Miller, Constance Collier.
6:00pm – 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.
(repeats at 5:15am and 12:30pm on the 26th)
8:00pm – TCM – Interiors
In case anyone doubted Woody Allen's admiration for Ingmar Bergman, he made this film to prove it (I suppose his use of Smiles of a Summer Night as basis for A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy also counts). Interiors is about the best imitation of a Bergman chamber drama you could ask for, down to the spare set design, strained family relations, and a climax involving an angry sea. Still, it is also very much Allen's film, focusing on deeply neurotic, introspective characters unable to get outside their own heads for long enough to form really true relationships.
1978 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Diane Keaton, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, Richard Jordan, Sam Waterston.
2:15am (26th) – 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.
2:30pm – TCM – The Asphalt Jungle
4:30pm – TCM – Johnny Guitar
Nicholas Ray's rather strange feminist western has become something of a cult classic – Joan Crawford is Vienna, a tough-but-vulnerable saloon owner that all the other women in town want gone. She calls on old friend Johnny Guitar to help her out, but he many not be quite as advertised either.
1954 USA. Director: Nicholas Ray. Starring: Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Ward Bond, Ernest Borgnine.
8:00pm – TCM – Ray Harryhausen Triple Feature
With the new 3D extravaganza Clash of the Titans hitting a multiplex near you very soon, what better time to revisit the original, along with two other Ray Harryhausen films? I've got to admit that I've seen none of these, but I'm kind of excited to check them out. It appears my taste for cheese is only growing stronger. Jason and the Argonauts plays at 8pm, then Clash of the Titans at 10pm, followed by The Golden Voyage of Sinbad at 12:15am.
8:30am – TCM – The Killers (1946)
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.
8:00pm – 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.
2:00pm – 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.
4:00pm – TCM – The Snake Pit
One of the earlier films to deal with the realities of mental illness seriously, with Olivia de Havilland as a woman in an insane asylum, brilliantly moving back and forth between lucidity and falling back in the fog of illness. She got an Oscar nom for her role, based on a true story.
1948 USA. Director: Anatole Litvak. Starring: Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm.
12:00M – TCM – Sherlock Jr.
One of Buster Keaton's best shorts, as he plays a projectionist who dreams himself right into the frame in a very famous sequence. There's actually more to the movie than that, but it's worth it just for that part.
1924 USA. Director: Buster Keaton. Starring: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, Erwin Connelly, Ward Crane.
2:15am (29th) – TCM – 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, Nathalie Pascaud, Micheline Rolla.
4:00am (29th) – TCM – Mon Oncle
Akira KurosawaBachelor MotherBroadway Danny RoseEraserheadGigiInteriorsJohnny GuitarMetropolitanMillionsMon OncleMr. Hulot's HolidayMy Life as a DogNights of CabiriaRay HarryhausenSherlock Jr.Some Like It HotStage DoorStagecoachSunset BoulevardThe Asphalt JungleThe Big SleepThe KillersThe Lives of OthersThe Maltese FalconThe Snake PitThe Squid and the Whale
March 16, 2010 Jandy	1 Comment
Kiss Me Deadly, playing on TCM on Saturday
Two birthday marathons on TCM this week – Akira Kurosawa on Tuesday (one of a multiple mini-marathons leading up to his centennial birthday on the 23rd) with heavy hitters The Bad Sleep Well, High and Low and Red Beard and some lesser-known ones; then Ginger Rogers on Wednesday, mostly concentrating on her pre-code stuff, including 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933, as well as a bunch of other obscure ones that probably aren't quite "good" in the strictest sense of the word. Other newly featured stuff includes Ealing's The Lavender Hill Mob on Tuesday, Kiss Me Deadly and 12 Angry Men on Saturday, and the Billy Wilder-penned Midnight on Sunday.
11:30am – TCM – The Lavender Hill Mob
Alec Guinness leads the Ealing Studios regulars in this delightful heist comedy, one of the greats among a bunch of great late '40s, early '50s Ealing films. Also look for a really young Audrey Hepburn in a walk-on (this is her first film, I believe).
1951 UK. Director: Charles Crichton. Starring: Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sid James, Marjorie Fielding.
1:00pm – TCM – The Great Escape
I expected to mildly enjoy or at least get through this POW escape film. What happened was I was completely enthralled with every second of it, from failed escape attempts to planning the ultimate escape to the dangers of carrying it out. It's like a heist film in reverse, and extremely enjoyable in pretty much every way.
1963 USA. Director: John Sturges. Starring: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasance, James Coburn, James Donald.
4:00pm – TCM – Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Musical tones and volcano images haunt Richard Dreyfuss, eventually leading to an encounter with some of the most strangely beuatiful and mysterious, yet apparently friendly, aliens ever put on film.
1977 USA. Director: Steven Spielberg. Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Francois Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Bob Balaban.
8:00pm – TCM – Akira Kurosawa centennial marathon
So, TCM's playing Kurosawa films because it would be his 100th birthday on the 23rd of March. Predictably, I haven't seen any of the offerings tonight, though, also predictably, I'm hoping to change that. Tonight, they've got The Bad Sleep Well followed by High and Low, and Red Beard, and then on into the morning with I Live in Fear and Scandal.
8:00pm – TCM – 42nd Street
By 1933 when 42nd Street came out, the Hollywood musical had already died. So excited by the musical possibilities that sound brought in 1927, Hollywood pumped out terrible musical after terrible musical until everyone was sick of them. 42nd Street almost single-handedly turned the tide and remains one of the all-time classic backstage musicals. It may look a little creaky by later standards, but there's a vitality and freshness to it that can't be beat.
1932 USA. Director: Lloyd Bacon. Starring: Warner Baxter, Ruby Keeler, George Brent, Bebe Daniels, Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers, Una Merkel.
9:45pm – TCM – Gold Diggers of 1933
The story's nothing to get excited about (and in fact, the subplot that takes over the main plot wears out its welcome fairly quickly), but the strong Depression-era songs, kaleidoscopic choreography from Busby Berkeley, and spunky supporting work from Ginger Rogers pretty much make up for it.
1933 USA. Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Starring: Joan Blondell, Warren William, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Aline MacMahon, Ginger Rogers, Guy Kibbee.
Ginger Rogers marathon on TCM – The above two films are part of TCM's birthday tribute to Ginger Rogers; if you're a fan, keep watching the rest of Wednesday night and most of Thursday. They're playing a lot of her little-known films, a lot of them pre-code, which can be a lot of fun. I haven't heard of most of them myself, but I'm probably gonna keep my TV tuned to TCM and check some out.
8:00pm – TCM – My Darling Clementine
John Ford's version of the famous confrontation at the OK Corral actually focuses more on Wyatt Earp's fictional romance with the fictional Clementine than on the real-life Earp/Clanton feud, but history aside, this is one of the greatest and most poetic westerns on film, proving yet again Ford's mastery of the genre and of cinema. (TCM is also playing a few other versions of the Wyatt Earp/OK Corral story following this one, so if you're interested, stay tuned.)
1946 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Linda Darnell, Cathy Downs, Walter Brennan, Tim Holt.
8:00pm – 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.
12:00M – IFC – The Cooler
William H. Macy plays a loser whose bad luck gets him a job as a "cooler" at a casino – his luck spreads and cools off any hot winning streaks that might be going on. But when he starts a relationship with Maria Bello, his new-found love and acceptance turns his luck. This film reinforced my knowledge of Bill Macy's talent, made me take notice of Maria Bello, and gave Alec Baldwin pretty much his best role until 30 Rock.
2003 USA. Director: Wayne Cramer. Starring: William H. Macy, Mario Bello, Alec Baldwin.
6:35am – Sundance – Nights of Cabiria
8:05am – IFC – The Station Agent
One of the most pleasant surprises (for me, anyway) of 2003. Peter Dinklage moves into a train depot to indulge his love for trains and stay away from people, only to find himself befriended by a loquacious Cuban hot-dog stand keeper and an emotionally delicate Patricia Clarkson. A quiet but richly rewarding film.
2003 USA. Director: Thomas McCarthy. Starring: Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannavale.
8:30am – TCM – Kiss Me Deadly
Fairly 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. I didn't quite love it as much as I wanted to the first time I saw it, but I'm due for a rewatch, and it definitely needs to be seen at least once, especially if you're a noir fan.
1955 USA. Director: Robert Aldrich. Starring: Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Cloris Leachman, Marian Carr.
8:30am – Sundance – Eraserhead
2:00pm – TCM – Stalag 17
William Holden won an Academy Award as a POW in this Billy Wilder film. Wilder had a knack for making top-of-the-line films in just about every genre, so even though I haven't gotten around to seeing this one myself yet, I'm willing to give it a shot just based on Wilder's involvement.
1953 USA. Director: Billy Wilder. Starring: William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Robert Strauss, Harvey Lembeck, Peter Graves.
4:15pm – TCM – 12 Angry Men
A brilliant exercise in minimalist filmmaking; after a brief courtroom scene, twelve jurors discuss the fate of a young man accused of murder. What's assumed to be a cut-and-dried conviction is contested by Henry Fonda, who isn't convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt, and slowly works through the evidence to pull the other jurors one by one to his side. The stifling heat, claustrophobic room, prejudices and preconceptions of the jurors, logic and emotions, everything plays into this film, which is much more engaging than it has any right to be.
1957 USA. Director: Sidney Lumet. Starring: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Klugman, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Ed Begley.
8:00pm – TCM – Lawrence of Arabia
Most epics are over-determined and so focused on spectacle that they end up being superficial – all big sets and sweeping music with no depth. The brilliance of Lawrence of Arabia is that it looks like an epic with all the big sets and sweeping music and widescreen vistas, but at its center is an enigmatic character study of a man who lives bigger-than-life, but is as personally conflicted as any intimate drama has ever portrayed.
1962 UK. Director: David Lean. Starring: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness, Jose Ferrer.
10:00am – 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.
8:00pm – IFC – Kill Bill: Vol. 1
10:00pm – TCM – The Magnificent Seven
Homage comes full circle as American John Sturges remakes Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai as a western – Kurosawa's film itself was a western transposed into a Japanese setting. Sturges ain't no Kurosawa, but the story of a group of outcast cowboys banding together to protect an oppressed village is still a good one, plus there's a young Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson in the cast.
1960 USA. Director: John Sturges. Starring: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson.
10:30pm – IFC – Kill Bill: Vol. 2
On the one hand, Kill Bill Vol 1 isn't quite complete without Kill Bill Vol 2. And there are a lot of good parts in here – the film noirish opening as the Bride catches us up on what's going on, the fight with Daryl Hannah in the trailer, training with the kung fu master, her getting out of the coffin, etc. But the ending lags a little too much for me to truly say I enjoy watching it as much as Vol. 1.
2004 USA. Director: Quentin Tarantino. Starring: Uma Thurman, Daryl Hannah, David Carradine, Michael Madsen.
12 Angry Men42nd StreetAkira KurosawaBefore SunriseClose Encounters of the Third KindEraserheadGinger RogersGold Diggers of 1933Kill Bill Vol 1Kill Bill Vol 2Kiss Me DeadlyLawrence of ArabiaMetropolitanMidnightMy Darling ClementineNights of CabiriaParanoid ParkStalag 17The CoolerThe Great EscapeThe Lavender Hill MobThe Magnificent SevenThe Station Agent
Film on TV: March 8-14
March 8, 2010 Jandy	Leave a comment
Them!, playing on TCM late Friday, early Saturday
The Oscars are over for another year, but Film on TV continues apace, and it's another quite good week with a bunch of quality films across the board. Among newly featured films, TCM has a Kurosawa mini-marathon on Tuesday night through Wednesday morning – I've only seen a few Kurosawa films myself, so I'm hoping to catch up on a few myself. We've also got the first film with synchronized sound, The Jazz Singer and Ellen Page's breakout film, Hard Candy – how's that for a near-double feature? Friday's got some real B-level treats, including The Collector, Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2, and one of my absolute favorite 1950s atomic creature-features, Them!.
4:00am – TCM – The Bad and the Beautiful
Vincente Minnelli directs Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Dick Powell, and Gloria Grahame in one of the best dark-side-of-Hollywood noirish films this side of Sunset Boulevard.
1952 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Dick Powell, Gloria Grahame.
(repeats at 12:05pm and 5:30pm)
8:15am – TCM – The Band Wagon
There are many reasons to consider The Band Wagon among the best movie musicals ever made. The satirical plot involving a Shakespearean director who tries to turn a lighthearted musical into a doom-and-gloom version of Faust, the bright yet sardonic script and score by Betty Comden and Adolph Green (who basically appear in the film as the characters played by Nanette Fabrey and Oscar Levant), the last really great role for Fred Astaire (maybe Funny Face is a contender, but barely), and of course, the never-surpassed beauty of dance numbers like "Dancing in the Dark" with Fred and Cyd Charisse. But even if it didn't have all that, I'd still rank it among my favorites for the epic "Girl Hunt Ballet" number spoofing hard-boiled detective fiction.
1953 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Jack Buchanan, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabrey.
9:35am – IFC – Bride and 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.
4:00pm – TCM – Silk Stockings
The musical version of Ninotchka, about a staid, repressed Communist woman who goes to Paris on a mission, only to get loosened up by a Western guy. You're better off with Ninotchka, honestly (and this week, you're in luck, it's on next). Silk Stocking substitutes Cyd Charisse (who's really only ever convincing when she's dancing), Fred Astaire (who's fine, though a bit on the old side by 1957), and adds Cole Porter music, which is really the major reason to check this version out.
1957 USA. Director: Rouben Mamoulian. Starring: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Janis Paige, Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin, George Tobias.
(repeats 12:30am on the 9th, 10:30pm on the 11th, and 2:15am on the 12th)
9:45pm – TCM – The Jazz Singer
This one is pretty darn creaky these days, but in terms of historical significance, ought to be watched once. Al Jolson sings "Mammy" and then tells us "You ain't heard nothing yet" in the first instance of synchronized sound in movie history. The whole film isn't sound, but the musical sequences that are sounded the death knell for silent film.
1927 USA. Director: Alan Crosland. Starring: Al Jolson, May McAvoy, Warner Oland, Eugenie Besserer.
10:30pm – IFC – Hard Candy
Ellen Page burst onto the scene as a teenage girl getting involved with an older guy she met on the internet – initially looks like a cautionary tale about internet chat relationships, but goes into even more twisted realms than that, with Ellen owning the screen every second.
2005 USA. Director: David Slade. Starring: Ellen Page, Patrick Wilson, Sandra Oh.
(repeats at 2:45am on the 9th, 8:00pm on the 12th, and 1:30am on the 13th)
11:30pm – 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.
5:00am – TCM – Casablanca
Against all odds, one of the best films Hollywood has ever produced, focusing on Bogart's sad-eyed and world-weary expatriot Rick Blaine, his former lover Ingrid Bergman, and her current husband Paul Henreid, who needs safe passage to America to escape the Nazis and continue his work with the Resistance. It's the crackling script that carries the day here, and the wealth of memorable characters that fill WWII Casablanca with life and energy.
1943 USA. Director: Michael Curtiz. Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains.
8:15am – IFC – Dancer in the Dark
Bjork plays a factory worker whose increasing blindness threatens to keep her from being able to do her job, which will keep her from earning the money she needs for an operation that will prevent her son from suffering the same blindness. Add in the relationship with her not-as-happy-as-they-seem neighbors and a trenchant critique of the justice system and death penalty, not to mention several musical numbers juxtaposed throughout, and you have a film that's unlike any other.
2000 Denmark. Director: Lars von Trier. Starring: Bjork, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare.
9:45am – TCM – Meet Me in St. Louis
The ultimate nostalgia film, harking back to the turn of the century and the year leading up to the 1903 St. Louis World's Fair. Judy Garland holds the film and the family in it together as the girl who only wants to love the boy next door, but it's Margaret O'Brien as the little willful sister who adds the extra bit of oomph, especially in the manic Halloween scene and the violent Christmas scene that carries the film from an exercise in sentimentality into a deeper territory of loss and distress.
1944 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Judy Garland, Tom Drake, Lucille Bremer, Margaret O'Brien, Leon Ames, Mary Astor.
8:00pm – TCM – Ikiru
TCM is doing a mini-Kurosawa marathon tonight, which maybe will give me a chance to catch up on some more of his work – I've only seen one of the ones they're showing. This one is a drama about a government employee who, upon learning he has terminal cancer, decides to stop wasting his life and do some good with it instead. I've not been as impressed with Kurosawa's samurai films as I feel like I should be, so I'm wondering if maybe a drama like this will help me appreciate him more.
1953 Japan. Director: Akira Kurosawa. Starring: Takashi Shimura, Shinichi Himori, Haruo Tanaka, Minoru Chiaki.
10:30pm – TCM – Throne of Blood
This is Kurosawa's version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, which is in and of itself enough to get me interested. I do like Ran, and I can't explain why I've never gotten around to Throne of Blood.
1957 Japan. Director: Akira Kurosawa. Starring: Toshirô Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura, Akira Kubo.
12:30am (10th) – TCM – The Hidden Fortress
Perhaps best known as a major inspiration for Star Wars, but also a fine film in its own right – though I tended to find its two meandering servants (who C-3PO and R2D2 are modeled on) more annoying than endearing.
1958 Japan. Director: Akira Kurosawa. Starring: Toshir⊚ Mifune, Misa Uehara, Minoru Chiaki, Katamari Fujiwara.
The Kurosawa mini-fest continues with a couple more films into the morning, so if you're a fan or a wanna-be fan, check those out too.
8:00pm – IFC – Kill Bill, Vol. 1
8:00pm – TCM – The Gay Divorcee
Most film buffs will put Top Hat and/or Swing Time at the top of the list of Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, but I somehow have a huge love for The Gay Divorcee. Ginger hires a gigolo to try to force her husband to divorce her, but then thinks Fred (who wants to court her) is the gigolo. Mistaken identities for the win, and the stellar supporting cast doesn't hurt at all, either. Plus, a young Betty Grable in a musical number with Edward Everett Horton. How can you go wrong?
1934 USA. Director: Mark Sandrich. Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Alice Brady, Eric Rhodes, Eric Blore.
10:00pm – TCM – Top Hat
For me, Top Hat and Swing Time battle it out for the top spot constantly, with the one I've seen more recently usually taking the crown. Mistaken identity follows mistaken identity here, as Ginger thinks Fred is her best friend's husband, causing her a lot of consternation when Fred starts romancing her. That's far from the end of it all, though. Also has the most definitive collection of Astaire-Rogers supporting actors.
1935 USA. Director: Mark Sandrich. Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Helen Broderick, Erik Rhodes, Eric Blore.
10:30pm – IFC – Kill Bill, Vol. 2
12:00M – TCM – Swing Time
Many people call Swing Time the best of the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, and it's certainly up there. Frothy story? Check. Jerome Kern music? Check. Fantastic dances? Check. Of course.
1936 USA. Director: George Stevens. Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Helen Broderick, Victor Moore, Erik Rhodes, Eric Blore.
2:00am (11th) – TCM – Roberta
Apparently the studio still didn't trust Fred and Ginger to carry a film after their debut pairing as second leads in Flying Down to Rio; this time they're second leads behind Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott, but at least Dunne and Scott are decent actors and Roberta has a fair bit of charm outside of Astaire and Rogers, due in no small part to a solid score by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach.
1935 USA. Director: William A. Seiter. Starring: Irene Dunne, Randolph Scott, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers.
4:00am (11th) – TCM – Follow the Fleet
Follow the Fleet's title isn't thrown around as much as some of Fred and Ginger's other films, but it's actually one of their best, with a great set of Irving Berlin songs, a mixture of sailor and show business settings, and a decent second-lead pairing of Randolph Scott and Harriet Hilliard (better known as Harriet Nelson of Ozzie and Harriet).
1936 USA. Director: Mark Sandrich. Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Harriet Hilliard.
Pretty much the whole rest of the Fred and Ginger catalog play on through Thursday morning, but the ones above are the best. The rest, including Shall We Dance, Carefree, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, and The Barkleys of Broadway are recommended only for serious F&G fans.
11:15am – IFC – Three Times
Hsiao-hsien Hou directs this tripartite film – three stories set in three different time periods (1911, 1966, and 2005), each with the same actors, and each depicting a relationship that's both very specific and individual and also sheds light on the mores of its respective time period. I liked the 1966 story the best, but they were all intriguing, and the contrast between them even more so.
2005 Hong Kong. Director: Hsiao-hsien Hou. Starring: Qi Shu, Chen Chang.
8:00pm – TCM – The Lady Eve
Barbara Stanwyck and her father Charles Coburn are cardplayers, cheating cruise ship denizens of their wealth. Millionaire (and snake afficianado) Henry Fonda is a good mark, especially since he's a bit dense and spacey. Stanwyck's plot is hugely elaborate, only a little muddled by her falling in love with Fonda as well, and she's a delight from start to finish. As she usually is.
1941 USA. Director: Preston Sturges. Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, William Demarest, Eugene Pallette.
10:00pm – TCM – The More the Merrier
A World War II housing shortage has Charles Coburn, Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur sharing an apartment; soon Coburn is matchmaking for McCrea and Arthur, and we get a wonderful, adorable romance out of it.
1943 USA. Director: George Stevens. Starring: Jane Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn.
12:00N – TCM – The Collector
This is the 1965 Terence Stamp film that was discussed on the Row Three Cinecast a couple of weeks ago. I immediately put it in my Netflix queue when I heard that segment, because it sounds awesome. And then it popped up on TCM to save me the trouble!
1965 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Terence Stamp, Samantha Eggar.
10:00pm – Sundance – Metropolitan
(repeats at 3:30am and 8:15am on the 13th)
12:05am (13th) – IFC – Evil Dead 2
12:30am (13th) – TCM – Them!
I love a good classic sci-fi film and this one hits all the high points. Radioactive material? Check. Mutant insects? Check. Scientists? Check. Nuclear paranoia? Check. Giant mutant ants (created by radioactivity left by atomic bomb tests in Arizona) start attacking people, first in Arizona, then to Texas and Mexico, and finally in the middle of Los Angeles. A team of scientists works with the police to take the monsters down. One of the better examples of the "atomic mutant" sci-fi films, of which there were many; it builds intensity perfectly (in fact, it's at least half an hour in before you come close to finding out what's happening, adding in a very welcome mystery element) and doesn't spend to long on its obligatory romantic subplot.
1954 USA. Director: Gordon Douglas. Starring: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, James Arness.
6:25am – IFC – Crimes and Misdemeanors
(repeats at 12:00N and 5:15pm)
4:00pm – TCM – True Grit
6:15pm – TCM – Ride the High Country
In the 1960s, Sam Peckinpah contributed to the beginnings of the revisionist western, taking complicated heroes and violence to new levels – in Ride the High Country, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott (who had both starred in many westerns throughout the 1930s and 1940s) play jaded cowboys hired to transport gold who get caught up in a family feud that forces them to confront their own differences and troubled pasts. It's a fairly simple plot on the surface, but goes much deeper than you'd expect.
1962 USA. Director: Sam Peckinpah. Starring: Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Mariette Hartley, Ron Starr.
8:00pm – TCM – White Heat
James Cagney in one of his most powerful roles as the slightly (okay, make that more-than-slightly) unbalanced criminal Cody Jarrett. Probably counts as one of the last truly great Warner crime films, too.
1949 USA. Director: Raoul Walsh. Starring: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly.
10:30pm – IFC – Before Sunrise
12:00M – TCM – The Big Heat
Director Fritz Lang came out of the German Expressionist movement of the 1920s, so it's not surprising that he ended up making some of the better noir films, given film noir's borrowing of Expressionist style. Glenn Ford is a cop working against his corrupt department, but the parts you'll remember from the film all belong to Gloria Grahame in a supporting role as a beaten-up gangster's moll. Her performance and Lang's attention to detail raise the otherwise average story to a new level.
1953 USA. Director: Fritz Lang. Starring: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame.
5:15am (14th) – 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 oblique, moody 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.
(repeats at 10:30am and 4:30pm on the 14th)
11:30pm – Sundance – The Lives of Others
Before SunriseBride and PrejudiceBroadway Danny RoseCasablancaCrimes and MisdemeanorsDancer in the DarkEvil Dead IIFollow the FleetGoHard CandyI am a Fugitive From a Chain GangIkiruKill Bill Vol 1Kill Bill Vol 2Meet Me in St. LouisMetropolitanNights of CabiriaParanoid ParkRide the High CountryRobertaSilk StockingsSwing TimeThe Bad and the BeautifulThe Band WagonThe Big HeatThe CollectorThe Gay DivorceeThe Hidden FortressThe Jazz SingerThe Lady EveThe Lives of OthersThe More the MerrierThem!Three TimesThrone of BloodTop HatTrue GritWhite Heat


text:
newswire article 01.Dec.2001 12:48
N30 in Seattle
author: Xochitl--repost
A group of about 400 marched from Capitol Hill to Westlake, commemorating the second anniversary of the 1999 WTO. Police aggressively contained the march, beginning arrests almost immediately after the march began.
March to Westlake, with Arrests
by Xochitl <Esc> 4:46pm Fri Nov 30 '01 (Modified on 6:10pm Fri Nov 30 '01)
Demonstrators gathered at Seattle Central Community College on Broadway before marching down Pine St. to Westlake Park. Protest signs criticized the WTO and illegitimate corporate power, but also restrictions of constitutional freedoms in the post-WTO era.
Because the Westlake rally gained a permit only the day before as a result of federal court action, march organizers had little time to develop new plans for their march, or to determine what was officially allowed by the permit.
Seattle Police, outfitted with helmets and heavy batons, massed on Broadway and Pine as the demonstrators discussed options for how to march downtown while both asserting the right of assembly and avoiding arrest.
After prolonged negotiations, SPD told protest marshals that they would allow marchers to walk on the sidewalks only--that demonstrators in the street would be arrested. Nevertheless, in a group vote, a broad majority of demonstrators expressed their intention to march both in the street and on the sidewalk.
Police, however, were successful in containing the march. As the crowd began to walk down the Pine St. sidewalk, police massed along the street, closing it to traffic but corraling demonstrators on the sidewalk.
As the tight crowd of chanting marchers was crossing the first intersection at Pine and Harvard Ave., several cops rapidly pulled two marchers out from the group and dropped them to the street. Two marshals in orange vests, who were trying to help keep the crowd contained on the sidewalk, were also arrested immediately.
This group of aggressive, unprovoked arrests of nonviolent protesters who were not apparently violating police instructions, seemed intended to intimidate both demonstrators and marshals.
Additional arrests took place along the march route; a confirmed number is not yet available. At least one more arrest took place at an intersection, as a demonstrator on a bicycle crossed Bellevue Ave with the rest of the march and was shoved to the ground by a group of police. As in earlier cases, this arrest did not appear to have been provoked by any aggressive or even disorderly action.
At the Belmont crossing, a group of marchers attempted to leave the intended route, walking north up the street, but their route was quickly cut off by a phalanx of bike police.
Reaching Westlake, the group swelled in number and held its scheduled rally. Because the rally had started late, the closing time was extended until 4, and the permit expanded to allow marchers to walk in city streets to Town Hall at 8th and Seneca.
As 4pm approached, many more police began to mass along 4th Ave. and Pike St. As marchers left Westlake, more arrests followed. On Pine St. in front of Niketown, a squad of bike cops forced a group of demonstrators off of the sidewalk into the street. There, police arrested a musician carrying a didgeridoo.
Throughout the afternoon, police wore ponchos which covered any identification they may have been wearing, in violation of established policies.
add your own comments
We were the ones thrown into the street
by Nora 6:10pm Fri Nov 30 '01
My co-worker and I were right behind the mob of police who converged on the bicyclist, throwing him to the ground and grabbing his head back by his long wavy black hair, pulling him in several directions at once. (Later we heard on the news that he had "looked like he was going to graffiti a jewelry store".) Everyone was saying, "Calm down! Calm down!" Organizers tried to keep us moving in spite of this atrocity, so we tried to continue on the sidewalk to the side, though there were about 15 cops clogging the sidewalk right there.
/p
One tall sandy haired helmeted cop (with name and badge conveniently hidden) came out of nowhere, grabbed me and threw me into the street, as if he were dancing with me. Then he said, "Get out of the street!" and started to pepper spray me. He was really jonesing to spray somebody. How Freudian. He wouldn't let me get back on the sidewalk.
Just go clue you in on this picture, I was dressed for work, wearing a long blue raincoat. I looked like a respectable worker, not an anarchist.
I continued to say, "Calm down, calm down," which didn't seem to help. At one point I had to cover my face with my sign for protection.
Too many people were watching and protesting his bullying of peaceful women, so he decided against spraying me.
I was a little occupied at the time, as you can imagine, or I would have noticed that my friend had the same thing happen to her.
Once we had been shoved into the street, other officers were going to arrest us for being in the street.
Hours later it occurred to me that ONLY my coworker and I were targeted. Could it be because were carrying union placards?
A woman named Daria assured me that she had photographed the entire incident (as had many others). I will contact her. I asked a cop nearby to get me the guy's name and badge number, but he refused to speak with me. Lt. Wm. E. Edwards of South Precinct told me that if we could identify the cop, we could file a complaint. He conveniently faded down the street.
We intend to file a civil complaint.
did we learn from N30 '99? 02.Dec.2001 12:11
anon link
If there's anything we should have learned from N30 the first time around, it's that success can be found beneath a hail of rocks and bottles. Pigs don't give a shit and will try to shut you down unless you physically prevent them from doing so. Failure to stick up for yourself and create space to be in (through direct action) leaves you looking like sheep - just getting herded.
glad to hear 400 people showed up. even if they did just get pushed around.
oh well, maybe the world will still change signifigantly before our ecosystems collapse. I sure hope some body else does what it takes, don't you?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
L'hôtel de Panisse-Passis, aussi appelé hôtel de Thomas, est un hôtel particulier situé à Aix-en-Provence.

Histoire

L'hôtel particulier est construit pour Henri de Thomas, marquis de La Garde (conseiller au parlement de Provence) en 1739. Sans héritier, l'hôtel passe à la famille de Mark-Tripoli de Panisse-Passis (par ailleurs propriétaires du château Borély à Marseille). Pierre Léandre de Mark-Tripoli de Panisse-Passis y naît.

Le monument fait l'objet d'une inscription partielle au titre des monuments historiques depuis 1929.

Descriptif du bâtiment

Architecture
La façade est resserrée sur trois travée (comparativement à d'autres hôtels particuliers aixois). Des éléments du classicisme se mêlent à d'autres d'inspiration Régence. Les pierres sculptées sont, quant à elles, des témoins du style Louis XV. La pierre utilisée est celle des carrières de Bibémus, comme pour la plupart des bâtiments aixois des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, lui donnant cette teinte d'ocre clair caractéristique.

Les boiseries (notamment du portail) présentent un imposte avec un monogramme de la famille Thomas et des vantaux à réserves aux moulurations chargées d'attributs guerriers.

Les balconnets du premier étage (étage noble) sont cintrés sur deux consoles à têtes de grotesques ésotériques et aux bouches ouvertes assez énigmatiques.

À l'intérieur, on observe une rampe d'escalier en fer forgé d'origine; elle porte au premier étage les armoiries de ses deux principales familles (Thomas et Panisse-Passis).

Références bibliographiques
Évocation du vieil Aix, André Bouyala-d'Arnaud, 1964.
Le Guide d'Aix-en-Provence et du pays d'Aix, dir. Noël Coulet, 1988.
Architecture et décoration du  au  siècle, t. 2, Jean-Luc Massot, éd. Édisud, Aix-en-Provence, 1992. .

Références

Articles connexes
 Liste des monuments historiques d'Aix-en-Provence

Monument historique à Aix-en-Provence
Monument historique inscrit en 1929
Hôtel particulier monument historique dans les Bouches-du-Rhône
Panisse-Passis

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


I have this distinct memory of my first brussels sprout experience.
I could wax poetic about texture (there was a lot) and flavor (it was bad), color (definitely bland and kind of . . . wilted), but I'll be brief and just say that my brussels sprout sensibilities have matured as I've aged. I've also learned how to cook them a bit differently than whoever cooked them for me that first time. So, in addition to culinary maturity, the actual vegetable dish itself has improved.
It's all good. In fact, it's quite good. Brussels sprouts are actually one of my all time favorite vegetables.
Hear that younger self? If time travel is a thing I hope you Google yourself, find this post, and read these words: YOU WILL LIKE BRUSSLES SPROUTS.
Awesome. Now if the time-space continuum breaks you'll know it's my fault.
That's the power of a properly cooked vegetable. And it's even more powerful when topped with a soft egg.
Begin by washing the brussels sprouts in a colander under cold water. Then slice the edge of the bottom stem off, removing the first layer of leaves. Pull these away and then slice the sprout in half. Do this with each sprout. It's a little tedious, but totally worth it.
Once all of your sprouts are cleaned, heat the butter in a large flat-bottom pan over med-high heat. If you are so inclined, feel free to add more butter. Because butter.
Toss the cleaned sprouts in the pan and turn with a spatula to coat evenly. Salt and pepper generously, cover, and let the heat do its magic. Leave them sit for 3 minutes or so, and then turn again. Leave for another three minutes and turn. The goal here is to allow the heat to soften the sprouts while gently crisping the outer edges. You are going for a browned-almost-brunt edge on the majority of the sprouts without overcooking or over-softening them. Mushy sprouts are gross. No amount of butter can fix them.
When the edges are browned, remove the sprouts from the pan, turn down the heat a bit and cook the eggs. Crack the shells gently so as not to break the yokes and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover the pan and allow the eggs to cook just a couple of minutes—until the yellow yoke is covered with a very think film of white.
Plate the brussels sprouts evenly between four plates, and using a soft spatula, gently top each pile of sprouts with a soft egg.
So tonight I had one of those end-of-week nights when I scanned the kitchen for something reasonable ("No, we can't have cereal for dinner. Again.") to make all of my people for dinner, only to discover I probably should have purchased groceries a few days ago. So as I scanned, I made a wish. This helps sometimes. (I wished for lobster, if we're being honest. Steamed, served piping hot with drawn butter, and already on my table). But that didn't happen. Instead, I found some veggies. and they reminded me of a couple tiny but tasty grass-fed steaks I had in the freezer (Yes, grass-fed = veggies in my mind, stick with me), and so I got out my serious dicing knife, chopped for a few minutes, and into a pan everything went!
This is a nice meal if you're in a rush. 20 minutes and you're good—the most time consuming part is dicing ALL THE THINGS. But once that's done, it's basically a case of toss-it-in-the pan and la-la-la, dinner.
In a large sauté or stir-fry pan, heat peanut oil on med-high heat. Add steak, sliced very thin, along with garlic and onions. Toss until coated evenly with oil and cook through, 5-6 minutes. Add peppers, cook for a minute, followed by summer squash, and mushrooms. Add the spinach last and cook until just wilted. Serve hot.


Drive to Super St Bernard, couple of runs on Suisse side then hike up, over the ridge, spring turns down, dress down to t shirts and crusie to Etroubles, Italy. BIG lunch, coffee and return to Switzerland. Perfecto!
Back with Stephen Hadik and an early start. Really don't where to start with this but will simply say 'Best day on Skiis Ever'. Its all about the mountains (and Italian food and coffee).


Bedroom Lighting Ideas uploaded by Jessy Anderson on Friday, April 12th, 2019. We have 10 great pictures of Bedroom Lighting Ideas. Find New Interior Exterior Design WorldLPG.com on category Modern.
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This overview shows the change of the Bitcoin Cash over a period of 3 months. From January 24th, 2019 to April 23rd, 2019, the Bitcoin Cash changed 123.29% in value. On 01/24/2019, the Bitcoin Cash opened on $ 129.45. The last closing price of the Bitcoin Cash was $ 289.05 on 04/23/2019.
The current price of Bitcoin Cash is $ 276.57. Taken into account this current price of Bitcoin Cash means that, if you would have bought Bitcoin Cash for $1.00 on January 24th, 2019, it would be worth now $ 2.14.
The price changes of the Bitcoin Cash over the last 3 months are shown in the candlechart below.
The course of the price of Bitcoin Cash over the period January 24th, 2019 to April 23rd, 2019.


Zenon Group / Uncategorized / What is the best way to generate wealth?
As Australian families are becoming more in tune with their financial circumstances more people are beginning to ask the burning question we know we need to address however often we leave it too late.
There are a myriad of pathways that will lead to a self-funded and future-proof retirement, all of which focus on the end goal of having accessible funds that allow us the retirement we deserve, rather than the one that requires more personal sacrifice.
Throw a stone in any retirement-centric suburb and you will be met with the common "war-stories" of hard working folks that have lost significant superannuation, been burned by a poorly structured investment or suffered the human condition of tomorrows-another-day-it is.
The most unfortunate part of these stories are retiree's that have had to make the tough decision of downsizing the family home to gain a further 5-10 years of retirement income. What must be considered when facing this decision is weighing the future gain of selling a "house" versus the emotional severance of parting with a "home".
A defining moment in speaking with already retired Australians is not that they did not want to understand more about self-funding their retirement. The common denominator is that they we're unsure or concerned about how complicated retirement would be and what cost's they would incur to seek the advice of a professional….


Recently, I had an opportunity to tune latch contention for cache buffers chain (CBC) latches. Problem statement is that high CPU usage combined with poor application performance. Quick review of statspack report of 15 minutes showed a latch free wait as top event and consuming 3600 seconds approximately, in a 8 CPU server. Further CPU usage was quite high, which is a typical symptom of latch contention, due to spinning involved. v$session_wait showed that hundreds of sessions were waiting for latch free event.
We will use two pronged approach to find root cause scientifically. First, we will find SQL suffering from latch contention and objects associated with access plan for that SQL. Next, we will find buffers involved in latch contention, map that back to objects. Finally, we will match these two techniques to pinpoint root cause.
Before we go any further, let's do a quick summary of internals of latch operations.
Latches are internal memory structures to coordinate access to shared resources. Locks aka enqueues are different from latches. Key difference is that enqueues, as name suggests, provides a FIFO queueing mechanisms and latches do not provide a queueing mechanism. On the other hand, latches are held very briefly and locks are usually held longer.
In Oracle SGA, buffer cache is the memory area data blocks are read in to, aka buffer cache. [If ASMM – Automatic Shared Memory Management is in use, then part of Shared pool can be tagged as KGH:NO ALLOC and remapped to buffer cache area too].
Each buffer in the buffer cache has an associated element the buffer header array, externalized as x$bh. Buffer headers keeps track of various attributes and state of buffers in the buffer cache. This Buffer header array is allocated in shared pool. These buffer headers are chained together in a doubly linked list and linked to a hash bucket. There are many hash buckets (# of buckets are derived and governed by _db_block_hash_buckets parameter). Access (both inspect and change) to these hash chains are protected by cache buffers chains latches.
Further, buffer headers can be linked and delinked from hash buckets dynamically.
Hash data block address (DBA: Combination of tablespace, file_id and block_id) to find hash bucket.
Get latch protecting hash bucket.
If (success) then Walk the hash chain reading buffer headers to see if a specific version of the block is already in the chain.
If found, access the buffer in buffer cache, with protection of buffer pin/unpin actions.
If not found, then find a free buffer in buffer cache, unlink the buffer header for that buffer from its current chain, link that buffer header with this hash chain, release the latch and read block in to that free buffer in buffer cache with buffer header pinned.
If (not success) spin for spin_count times and go to step 2.
If this latch was not got with spinning, then sleep, with increasing exponential back-off sleep time and go to step 2.
Obviously, latches are playing crucial role controlling access to critical resources such as hash chain. My point is that repeated access to few buffers can increase latch activity.
There are many CBC latch children (derived by size of buffer cache). Parameter _db_block_hash_latches control # of latches and derived based upon buffer cache size. Further, In Oracle 10g, sharable latches are used and inspecting an hash chain needs to acquire latches in share mode, which is compatible with other shared mode operations. Note that these undocumented parameters are usually sufficient and changes to these parameters must get approval from Oracle support.
Let's revisit our problem at hand. Wait graph printed above shows that this latch contention is caused by two types of latches. Latch # 127 is simulator lru latch and #122 is cache buffers chains latch.
In this blog entry, we will discuss strategies and techniques to resolve 'log file sync' waits. This entry is intended to show an approach based upon scientific principes, not necessarily a step by step guide. Let's understand how LGWR is inherent in implementing commit mechanism first.
At commit time, process creates a redo record [ containing commit opcodes] and copies that redo record in to log buffer. Then that process signlas LGWR to write contents of log buffer. LGWR writes from log buffer to log file and signals user process back completing a commit. Commit is considered successful after LGWR write is successful.
Of course, there are minor deviation from this general concept such as latching, commits from plsql block or IMU based commit generation etc. But general philosophy still remains the same.
differences between few unix flavors or platform like NT/XP such as use of post wait drivers instead of semaphores etc. This section is to introduce internals, not necessarily dive deep in to internals. Truss is used to trace LGWR and user process to explain here.
1. Intiailly, LGWR is sleeping on semaphore using semtimedop or semop call.
9 is semaphore set id visible through ipcs command and semnum=15 is the semaphore for LGWR process in that set.
using a semctl call, if LGWR is not active already. Then, process goes to sleep with semtimedop call, in its own semaphore.
Semaphore set id is 9, but semnum is 118 which is for the user process I was tracing.
First semctl calls is posting LGWR. Then process is sleeping on semtimedop call.
3. Waiting log writer gets a 0 return code from semtimedop and writes redo records to current redo log file. kaio calls are kernalized asynchronous I/O calls in Solaris platform.
4. After successful completion of write(s), LGWR Posts semaphore of waiting process using semctl command.
5. User process/Session continues after recieving a return code from semtimedop call, reprinted below.
So, what exactly is 'log file sync' wait ?
Commit is not complete until LGWR writes log buffers including commit redo recods to log files. In a nutshell, after posting LGWR to write, user or background processes waits for LGWR to signal back with 1 sec timeout. User process charges this wait time as 'log file sync' event.
In the prior section, 'log file sync' waits starts at step 2 after semctl call and completes after step 5 above.
Root causes of 'log file sync', essentially boils down to few scenarios and following is not an exhaustive list, by any means!


Margie Gilfillan fondly recalls her electric hybrid car.
But she gave up the Toyota Prius when the lease lapsed because the vehicle only had front-wheel drive — a challenge when presented with Pittsburgh's winters and terrain.
Vehicles that run on fuels like electricity, natural gas, ethanol, biodiesel and propane have been growing in popularity, but their market share is still small compared to the standbys of gasoline and diesel. And there are still kinks to work out before alternative fuel vehicles can be adopted more widely — access to fuel, needed infrastructure and greater awareness of the options.
Governments and private-sector fleets are the primary market for alternative fuels, according to the DOE. They consume the largest amount of fuel and generally can travel a set distance and return to home base to refuel — a hub-and-spoke model.
Chuck Wichrowski, owner of Baum Blvd Automotive in Oakland, saw an opportunity in that growth.
His shop specializes in repairs and maintenance on alternative fuel vehicles, as well as conventional vehicles. It also has a free public charging station for electric vehicles and sells biomass fuel — in this case, a blend of chicken fat and soybean oil for about $5.38 per gallon.
Mr. Wichrowski also is a board member for Pittsburgh Clean Cities, an initiative launched by the Department of Energy, whose goal is to decrease dependence on petroleum.
"You can say we should limit our dependence on foreign oil and reduce our carbon footprint, but when you tell someone they can save $1 per gallon, then they're interested," Mr. Wichrowski said.
Tiffany Groode, director, IHS Automotive Scenarios for Colorado-based consulting and research firm IHS Cera, sees a greater diversity of fuel options in the future.
"There are a bunch of solutions that can work together,' she said.
Pittsburgh energy company EQT Corp. operates a public compressed natural gas (CNG) station in the Strip District. The drilling company has been slowly converting its fleet of both drilling rigs and road vehicles to run on natural gas, said David Ross, vice president, demand development. The company has 150 vehicles that can run on natural gas.
"In addition to us using the station, it's really been a great test case to help people who are interested in trying CNG," said Mr. Ross. Basically, it gives fleet owners the option of testing one or two CNG vehicles without the added expense of installing their own station.
When it comes to fuel usage, drilling rigs consume far more fuel than a personal vehicle. A personal vehicle will use about 2,000 gallons a year, while a rig can use that same amount in a single day, Mr. Ross noted.
"In terms of the medium and heavy duty market, a lot of companies have looked to natural gas for savings, which can compete with diesel prices," Ms. Groode said. "The main thing we have found is that it's very user specific whether natural gas is a good choice. It depends on what their profile looks like: the number of trucks, the average number of miles.
On the light duty front, natural gas vehicles cost more than their conventional counterparts and the payback period is longer. It could be 10 years for a private owner, compared to one to three years for a fleet owner, Ms. Groode noted.
Electric vehicles could do well in urban centers where there are shorter distances to travel, Ms. Groode said. The market saw a growth spurt after the Chevy Volt was released in 2010.
Pittsburgh's charging infrastructure has been growing. For instance, CMU added a Tesla charging station to its electric garage in Oakland.
Still, one big question is whether drivers can reliably charge a car at home, Mr. Michalek said. Many drivers have at-home chargers, but someone living on the South Side, for example, might find the only free space to park is two blocks away from the front door.
"Also, since we don't know which alternative fuel will be the most competitive in the future, it allows us to keep option open," Mr. Michalek said.
However, biofuels currently don't have the cost savings that electricity and natural gas offer, Mr. Michalek said. "If something really changed the economics, it could replace petroleum quickly," he said.


text:
Rudy Giuliani, once 'America's mayor,' now mired in controversy, facing legal scrutiny
Almost two decades ago, Giuliani emerged from 9/11 with widespread popularity.
ByOlivia Rubin andAlexander Mallin
Russian nationals charged with attempted election interference
The U.S. government leveled new accusations of election interference and among those named is a Russian agent who met with President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
Nearly two decades have passed since Rudy Giuliani emerged following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with widespread national popularity and serious presidential ambitions. But today, "America's mayor" stands instead at the brink of legal and reputational peril, embroiled in multiple political scandals and caught up in at least one federal criminal investigation.
This week, Giuliani offered feeble defenses to why he spent hours with a man now outed by the U.S. Treasury Department as a Russian intelligence agent in Ukraine. And he must now contend with extensive television footage of those meetings, where he pumped the agent, identified as Andrii Derkach, for damaging dirt about the Democratic rival of his main client, President Donald Trump.
MORE: Treasury Department says Ukrainian linked to Rudy Giuliani is 'Russian agent'
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who led the impeachment effort against Trump, took aim at Giuliani without naming him in a statement following the Treasury Department's announcement, warning him that he was spreading disinformation from Russia.
"This announcement should serve as a reminder to those in the United States that have elevated Derkach's disinformation and engaged with him and other foreign actors spreading similar false narratives, that their work only advances Vladimir Putin's interests and efforts," Schiff said.
Mark Lennihan/AP
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, right, accompanied by Bernard Kerik, former commissioner of the New York Police Department, is interviewed at the Tunnel to Towers ceremony, Sept. 11, 2020, in New York.
In a statement reacting to the announcement, Giuliani said, "I have no reason to believe he is a Russian agent. There is nothing I saw that said he was a Russian agent."
"There is nothing he gave me that seemed to come from Russia at all," Giuliani added. "How the hell would I know?"
MORE: Giuliani in Ukraine with conservative news outlet in effort to discredit impeachment probe
The meetings between the two occurred last winter, just as the House was preparing to bring impeachment articles against Trump. With a camera crew in tow, Giuliani met with and collected documents from Derkach, a former member of the political party of Ukraine's former pro-Russian president, and expressed his intent on circulating the information he had collected from Derkach and other to the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Trump had expressed interest in the effort as well.
"He's going to make a report, I think, to the attorney general and to Congress," the president said during a gaggle with reporters at the time. "He says he has a lot of good information. I have not spoken to him about that information."
MORE: Rudy Giuliani hoping to submit his Ukraine report to Congress, AG Barr this week
The former mayor's work in Ukraine this winter is the latest example of questionable activity he has engaged in since he began publicly identifying himself as Trump's personal attorney. Experts have questioned whether this or other meetings Giuliani held during overseas travels should have triggered filings under the Foreign Agents Registration Act -- a Cold War-era law that forces those lobbying on behalf of foreign interests to detail their efforts to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Joshua Rosenstein, a government ethics lawyer at Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein and Birkenstock, told ABC News that FARA requirements "may well have been triggered" if Giuliani was acting in a certain capacity in his work with Derkach.
"If Giuliani was acting in any way at the specific request of, or under the direction/control/supervision of, the politicians with regard to any political activity in the U.S., then he would likely have to register," Rosenstein said.
President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani smiles to Trump after he delivers remarks to the City of New York Police Benevolent Association at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., on Aug. 14, 2020.
At the same time as those questions have surfaced, Giuliani is reportedly the target of an investigation by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York -- a job Giuliani once held.
The office is believed to be investigating Giuliani and his connection to two Soviet-born businessmen Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, both of whom were indicted last year in an alleged campaign finance fraud scheme. Parnas and Fruman have both pleaded not guilty; their trial date is set for February. Giuliani has denied any wrongdoing in his dealings with the two men.
MORE: 2 men with ties to Giuliani arrested on campaign finance charges, bond set at $1M
Parnas and Fruman became key figures during the congressional impeachment inquiry in connection with their reported role in assisting Giuliani in his effort to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his family, as well as calling for the dismissal of then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. The duo had allegedly helped arrange meetings between Giuliani and former and current Ukrainian officials.
Giuliani has since acknowledged receiving $500,000 in payments for work he did for a company owned by Parnas and Fruman, telling ABC News at the time that he was retained by Parnas' business, named Fraud Guarantee, to do consulting work and insisted that any money he took came from domestic, not foreign sources.
ABC News' Katherine Faulders, Soorin Kim and Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.


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Palaestes is a genus of beetles in the family Cucujidae. It contains eight currently recognized species. Like all members of the Cucujidae, adults are greatly dorso-ventrally compressed. All known species of Palaestes are brightly colored red or yellow and black, and the males have curiously modified mandibles that look like ice tongs; female mandibles are not modified. Palaestes shares with the Australian-New Zealand genus Platisus the character of the male genitalia, which lacks a flagellum, lying on its side in the abdomen, versus inverted in Cucujus and Pediacus.

The biology of Palaestes species is almost entirely unknown, as are the immature stages. They are presumed to be predacious like other cucujids for which the biology is better known. Specimens are uncommon in collections. The genus is confined to Central and South America. Described species are:

 Palaestes abruptus Sharp, 1899
 Palaestes freyreissi (Heyden in Maples, 1827)
 Palaestes nicaraguae Sharp, 1899
 Palaestes nigriceps Waterhouse
 Palaestes nigridens Sharp, 1899
 Palaestes scutellaris Sharp, 1899
 Palaestes tenuicornis Waterhouse
 Palaestes variipes Sharp, 1899

References

Cucujidae