TCM Look-Ahead (March 13)
The 31 days of Oscar is in its final days, so despite the world continuing to be a shit show, something good is happening.
Saturday, 03/14
The World Baseball Classic continues, and the season is right around the corner, so TCM is doing a baseball day on Friday and Saturday! See, some good things are happening.
Midnight PST Bang the Drum Slowly. A beautiful movie about baseball and dying. The underrated Michael Moriarty and a very early and very moving Robert DeNiro are teammates who bond over a terminal illness. Oscar nominated for the great Vincent Gardenia as Best Supporting Actor as the team's gruff but lovable manager.
Sunday, 03/15
Fittingly, on Oscar night, TCM offers several classic films about film (Singin' in the Rain, Sunset Boulevard, many others that don't really need my recommendation. Plus...Tati!)
02:00 a.m. PST Monsieur Hulot's Holiday. The movie that put Jacques Tati on the international superstar director map, won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. The titular character bumbles his way through a seaside vacation. Best seen and not easily described, Tati has plenty of antecedents (particularly Keaton), but no peers. This is a good place to start if you are uninitiated.
Monday, 03/16
Our first day of release from the tyranny of 31 Days of Oscar!
08:00 p.m. PST The King of Comedy. It is hard to believe this was considered a terrible disappointment from Martin Scorsese upon its release in 1982 instead of the prescient masterpiece about celebrity that it is. Robert DeNiro is Rupert Pupkin, a schlubby incel living in his mom's basement, who has to go to the lengths of kidnapping talk show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis, as a Johnny Carson manque) to get him to book him on his show. Cringey classic. Sandra Bernhardt offers hilarious relief. Jerry Lewis should have won the Oscar for this (have I mentioned how happy I am 31 days of Oscar is over?). The direct inspiration for Todd Phillips' Joker, but that isn't Scorsese's fault.
10:00 p.m. PST The Nutty Professor. Speaking of Jerry Lewis masterpieces. If you are only familiar with the tepid Eddie Murphy remake, set your DVRs. Lewis in a Jekyll and Hyde spoof where chemistry professor Kelp becomes smooth misogynist crooner Buddy Hyde (a thinly veiled version of former Lewis partner Dean Martin) after drinking an elixir. Moving, hilarious, formally bold. Stella Stevens is incredibly fetching as a 30-year old college student and object of Kelp's ardor.
Tuesday, 03/17
Begin the day with more Jerry Lewis, then shift into Irish films, some of which directed by John Ford (though I will admit not his strongest ones. No The Quiet Man, I am afraid) on this, St. Patrick's Day.
01:30 a.m. PST Artists and Models. Frank Tashlin's comic-book-infused pairing of Martin and Lewis (their 14th teaming). Dino as a painter, Jerry as a comic artist from whom Dino takes inspiration. Shirly MacLaine pops up and steals every scene.
Wednesday, 03/18
A bunch of pre-code potboilers today, some of which don't have sterling reputations, but one of which (below) is the apex...
06:30 p.m. PST Baby Face.
Barbara Stanwyck as a social climber using everything the good lord gave her. A must see. John Wayne plays a schnook, believe it or not.
Friday, 03/20
Midnight PST. Before Sunrise.
The first of the Sunrise trilogy by Richard Linklater. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy play photogenic travelers who spend 24 hours together in a photogenic Vienna. Lovely and singular, a walk and talk masterpiece by the master himself.
