TCM alert:

The Killers - 2/25, Burt Lancaster & Ava Gardner. One of the most beautiful and an inner-circle defining Film Noir movie. Great cast, great cinematographer. Great bloodlines (from a Hemingway short story).

The Awful Truth/My Favorite Wife - 2/23. A double feature of two class acts. Irene Dunne & Cary Grant. Both movies are fantastic screwball comedies. But hell, just watch it for Irene Dunne and Cary Grant.

Sticking with Cary...

North by Northwest 2/21 followed by To Catch a Thief. Cary Grant, plus Hitchcock plus pure style.

Love Me Or Leave Me, 2/19. Doris Day & James Cagney in the Ruth Etting biopic. Absolutely Day's greatest performance, tough and sexy with a fantastic soundtrack.

The Bad and the Beautiful, 2/18. Lana Turner and Kirk Douglas. One of my favorite Hollywood noirs, with a side of gothic. Essential for any Donnie Darko fan as you'll see where the rabbit came from. (Which is also a nod to Val Lewton.) Pure glamour but a smart, cynical script.

Sunset Boulevard, 2/22. If you haven't seen it...What can I say?! It's one of my all-time favorite movies. Hollywood Gothic Supremo. Very darkly funny but also tragic, and deep deep in Hollywood lore.

Plus a shit ton of other obvious five star movies (The Dirty Dozen, The Third Man, Duel in the Sun, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, The Manchurian Candidate, From Here to Eternity, Philadelphia Story...)

TCM is the main reason I can't live without cable.

That is a great line-up. I'd second the recommendation for any of them. Love The Killers. The Awful Truth has one of my favorite lines ever, namely, "I wouldn't go on living with you if you were dipped in platinum!" I just rewatched To Catch a Thief recently to make sure it was okay to give my step-nieces (they are Fancy Nancy fans and I wanted to give them one Grace Kelly and one Audrey Hepburn film). Wow, do the innuendos fly fast and furious in that one. In a word, awesome.

I haven't seen The Bad and the Beautiful but I'll definitely try to check out.

We're watching Anatomy of a Murder tonight in my law class. I've never seen it.

I LOVE the moment when George C. Scott makes the wrong conclusion about the witness he's examining.

Also, the "that's how these things go" from Jimmy Stewart at the end of the movie.

Oops, I replied under JZ's login

I haven't seen The Bad and the Beautiful but I'll definitely try to check out.

It's ripe melodrama but sharp and knowing too. Gorgeously shot (I have a thing for those little Hollywood bungalows and mid-century furnishings) and Lana's in her physical prime (Kirk too), but they both have limits as actors. Which isn't such an issue here since they don't have to stretch a ton. The movie has an interestingly ambivalent attitude about Kirk's bastard producer character.

Sunset Boulevard, 2/22. If you haven't seen it...What can I say?! It's one of my all-time favorite movies. Hollywood Gothic Supremo. Very darkly funny but also tragic, and deep deep in Hollywood lore.

Amen. So meta. So amazing.

It was cool, but I'm not as willing as that movie is to call Nora Desmond disgusting for being sexual at, what? forty? Much as I hate that "cougar" thing(and I absolutely do, no question) I prefer it to Holden's naked repulsion when she comes on to him. Both attitudes, though, make me wish I lived in France or somewhere.

Our local indie movie theater is in the middle of a film noir festival, and the lineup is pretty amazing. We went to see The Third Man and Footsteps in the Fog over the weekend, and Mark went out to see Quai des Orfevres last night. We're planning to catch Diabolique, Rififi, Pepe le Moko, Get Carter, and Odd Man Out, at the least.

I had never seen The Third Man before and was awed by the look of it: all those gorgeous, baroque old buildings, the Old World cobblestoned streets, the huge and lavishly furnished apartments and broad echoing stairways... all surrounded by piles of rubble, the litter and half-destroyed buildings left behind by bombing campaigns.

Storywise, I enjoyed the movie but didn't feel fully engaged with it. I'd completely forgotten Orson Welles was even in it until he showed up halfway through, and then I wished he'd been there from the start -- he was easily the most compelling character in the movie.

Footsteps in the Fog

This was part of the noir festival here this year, but I missed it.

Diabolique and Rififi are great. As is Pépé le moko, although I wouldn't call it noir.

I agree with Megan, natch. And yeah, Orson Welles gives The Third Man quite a kick in the butt, but maybe the brevity of his role is why it works so well.

Esquire has an utterly heartbreaking and beautiful article about Roger Ebert: [link]