TCM
TiVo ALERT
For
November
23–November 30
DAVID’S
BEST BETS:
THE
FRESHMAN (November 24, 11:45 pm): It's a shame that
Harold Lloyd is either largely forgotten or most film fans never
heard of him because he was a brilliant comedian during cinema's
silent days. (Of course his peak was about 90 years ago so it's
understandable, but disappointing nonetheless.) In this 1925 film,
Lloyd plays Harold Lamb, a naive guy who goes to college thinking
life on campus is like it is in the movies. He learns out the hard
way that the two are not the same and comes across to his classmates
as a fool. He tries out for the football team and goes from being the
water boy to playing the key role in the big game with hilarious
results. Lloyd was the master of the sight gag, typically better at
it than Buster Keaton and that's saying a lot, and there are plenty
of them in this film. The plot is predictable, but Lloyd makes this a
fun and funny film to watch and enjoy.
TOM
THUMB (November 26, 9:15 am): A delightful 1958 film
based on the classic fairy tale with Russ Tamblyn bringing great
energy and an outstanding ability to entertain in the title role. The
best part of this film, with a mostly British cast, is the
performances of Terry-Thomas and Peter Sellers as two criminals who
try to exploit Tom by tricking him to be a part of their various
swindles. It's geared toward a younger audience though there is
plenty of humor, particularly from the two bumbling, very funny bad
guys, to keep the interest of adults. The handful of songs are
entertaining. While the special effects are dated, they are charming
as well as impressive for its day.
ED’S
BEST BETS:
LA
POINTE COURTE (November 23, 4:00 am): Director Agnes
Varda gained international renown with this study of a husband and
wife trying to rescue their marriage interwoven with the life and
times of Ste, a fishing village on the Mediterranean. Known only
as Him and Her, the couple comes to the village because it’s the
place where He grew up and still loves, while She is from Paris and
has the requisite cosmopolitan tastes. Will they be able to work
things out? Meanwhile, we are drawn into the drama that plagues the
town: Will the father let his daughter marry the man she loves, even
if he's kind of a wimp? Will the cops arrest the guy who harvested
his shellfish from an off-limits stretch of water? Will the big-city
couple stay together or split up? The movie’s climax takes place at
the annual water-jousting tournament (which actually takes place in
Ste each year), a sort of slow-motion skirmish where men knock each
other off boats with medieval-style lances while onlookers cheer
their favorites. This is the sort of film that will pull one in
slowly and once in, it never lets up for a minute. The village life
and drama is fascinating and the individual dramas compelling.
IL
SORPASSO (November 28, 1:30 am): Road pictures are
always fun to watch, and this is among the best. One Sunday morning,
blowhard Vittorio Gassman demands to use the phone of shy law student
Jean-Louis Trintignant’s phone. From this innocuous beginning, the
two get acquainted, which leads to a invitation from Gassman for
Trintignant to accept a ride that turns out to be a multi-day journey
up the Tyrrhenian coast. During their voyage, the contrasting
natures of the blustery, hot dogging, middle-aged Gassman and the
quiet, conservative, scholarly young Trintignant clash and
eventually rub off on one another as they both discover their
perceived family lives aren’t what they supposed them to be, and
which can only end tragically. Both Gassman and Trintignant are
superb, and, along with director Dino Risi’s eye for analogy, make
this a film to be caught and savored.
WE
DISAGREE ON . . . WINGS OF DESIRE (November 25, 5:00 am):
ED:
B-. Wings of Desire, a film about two angels
Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander), who amble through
Berlin offering solace to those in pain, even though they are
invisible. Things go wrong when Damiel is inspired to seek mortality
after watching an American actor (Peter Falk) shooting a movie, and a
beautiful trapeze artist (Solveig Dommartin) at a circus. This is a
two-hour movie that only seems like five hours. If you want to see
this, by all means record it, even of you’re staying up to sit
through it. You will fall asleep. Wim Wenders is notorious for his
arty-farty films, and this is no different. The idea of two angels
wandering the streets of Berlin listening to people’s thoughts is
amusing for about 10 minutes max, but Wenders stretches it out for
about 90 minutes. The kicker is that none of the thoughts our angels
are listening to has any sort of point whatsoever. I’m sure a lot
of pseudo-intellectuals will wring their hands over this, looking for
Deep Meaning, but take it from me, this is nothing more than
pretentious hogwash. Oh well, the cinematography is excellent and it
does boast a good performance from Bruno Ganz. For those who can’t
quite place Ganz, he probably better known for being a phenomenon on
You Tube for his portrayal of Hitler in Downfall, which
many clever people have taken and made into parodies of Old Screwball
by titling them “Hitler Discovers Hostess Is No Longer Making
Twinkies,” or “Hitler Meets the Tralololo Man.” Stick with
those - they’re far more entertaining than Wings of Desire.
DAVID:
A. If you love film, you will love Wings of
Desire, an ingenious and moving picture from 1987. The
visually-stunning film focuses on Damiel (Bruno Ganz), an angel in
Berlin around the end of the Cold War. He stands on top of tall
buildings, in a crowd or nearly anywhere, watching people and
listening to their thoughts, many of them quite depressing. Damiel
and Cassiel (Otto Sander), an another angel featured in the film,
can't really do anything to directly comfort people except touch
someone's shoulder to give a little hope to those with troubled
existences. It's beauty is in its subtlety. The acting is brilliant,
particularly Ganz and of all people, Peter Falk, who plays himself.
Falk is in Berlin to film a movie, and it turns out, he was angel who
chose to give up his immortality to become a person. Falk's ability
to play himself with an unexpected twist is one of the most
compelling aspects of this most compelling film. Damiel is growing
tired of being an angel and yearns to be a human. He tells Cassiel:
"It would be rather nice,
coming home after a long day to feed the cat, like Philip Marlowe; to
have a fever, and blackened fingers from the newspaper; at last to
guess, instead of always knowing.” Damiel falls in love
with Marion (Solveig Dommartin), a beautiful trapeze artist who fears
she will fall. For Damiel, it's love at first sight. He longs for the
simple things humans experience, but often don't notice, such as
touching someone or having a conversation. Damiel risks his
immortality to have an opportunity at love. Is the film's tempo slow?
Perhaps, but that allows the viewer to better understand Damiel's
existence as an angel and the quandary he faces in choosing mortality
and love. I agree with Ed about the excellent cinematography. It was
done by Henri Alekan, who also had the same job in the 1946 French
version of Beauty and the Beast, another magnificent film. Rather
than a Deep Meaning, the film provides a simple lesson: It is the
small things in life that make it worth living.
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