Even getting two picks, Sunday's also-rans include a contender for best film of the week and best Coen Bros movie (*Fargo, 4.45 pm MaxW), a highly entertaining argument against blind belief (Paul, 3 pm MCH), one of the great old plays made into a great old film (The Odd Couple, 9.50 am MCC) a couple of kiddie flicks grownups would love, too (Puss in Boots 5.45 pm and 8.45 pm MCF, *Hugo 10.50 am and 1.50 pm MCP) and the excellent Woody Allen: A Documentary (9 am HBO). Only its relatively late screening on a weeknight prevented BC on TV's favourite horror from being named best film of the week (The Shining, 10 pm Tuesday, TCM). Two excellent older movies and two excellent new ones might also have got the nod in a week with less choice (Moby Dick 9 pm Wed and 2.55 pm Sat MCC, The Magnificent Seven 8 pm Wed Enc3, Winter's Bone, 6.10 pm Wed HBO, *The Disappearance of Alice Creed 7.15 and 10.15 pm Wed MCA).
Today's best film:
*The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone/1966/Italy/ Western/155 mins/Rated R) 1 pm Turner Classic Movies. BEST FILM OF THE WEEK. Watch this if you liked The Wild Bunch, The Proposition or No Country for Old Men. Spaghetti Westerns are to many a serious film buff what one-day cricket is to the Test aficionado: a lot of fun, perhaps, but too flawed to take seriously. Still. Leone's magnificent storytelling via camera and grunts will keep you enthralled. It ought not to work at all; it does, terrifically. The spellbinding three-way shoot-out finale (stolen by Quentin Tarantino in Reservoir Dogs) goes on for five full minutes–and you're holding your breath for most of it. It includes some of the most memorable Western lines–"When you come to shoot, shoot, don't talk"–and the greatest Western theme of all time. If this is one-day cricket, it's West Indies vs England in the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy final.
Today and rest of the week:
Anonymous (Roland Emmerich/ 2011/ UK-Germany-USA/ Drama-History-Thriller/130 mins/Rated PG-13 for some violence and sexual content), 8 pm today HBOC and again Monday 5.15 pm HBO and Thursday 10.05 pm HBO. Watch this if you liked Coriolanus, Elizabeth or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Named the sixth-best DVD release of 2012 by BC on TV, Anonymous magnificently cuts across almost every genre classification–adventure, action, biography, drama, history, mystery and more–with the exception of only "Phoney Intellectual." The literature departments of universities around the world might be up in arms over the reduction of the debate over who, exactly, wrote the plays of Shakespeare to such a thrilling movie, but audiences would beg to differ. Masterful pacing makes up for whatever the film might be imagined to lack as the basis of literary doctoral theses. And you can tell yourself the kids will learn enough history to warrant staying up late on a school night.
Jaws (Steven Spielberg/1975/USA/Horror-Thriller/124 mins/PG-13), 6.55 pm Friday and again 4.55 pm Saturday Movie City Classics. Watch this if you liked Open Water, Psycho or Halloween. Number 48 on the American Film Institute's 100 Best Films, Jaws has not lost much of its bite to time. The film school textbook tension-building fills almost every scene around the shark–even though, as observed by Marty McFly when he went back to the future, the shark itself still looks fake; there may be directorial genius in it not being onscreen for more than a minute out of two hours. A very good stroll down memory lane–in the dark, with lots of shadows and plenty of nervous whistling.
Best of the rest: Mon: The Thing, 10 pm TCM; Tues: *Throw Momma from the Train, 5 pm TCM; Wed: Analyze This, 11 pm MaxW; Thurs: Mackenna's Gold, 4.50 pm TCM; Fri: True Grit (John Wayne) 9 pm MCC; Sat: *Hannah and Her Sisters, 9 pm MCC.
*Starred films have been chosen before. Scheduled Internet times often vary on the day.
