Set Your DVRs

After FX, Turner Classic Movies is probably my favorite cable channel.  Their 31 Days of Oscar schedule every February is always a favorite of mine.  It's not quite February, but they have a bunch of my all-time favorite movies playing this weekend, so the DVR will be working overtime.  It's too late to tip anyone off, but Being There and Dr. Strangelove are playing tonight, both in my top 30 movies of all time.  Here are some others I highly recommend:

-The Shop Around the Corner - 9:30AM CST Friday, 1/28 - The 1940 Ernst Lubitsch classic comedy/romance stars Jimmy Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, and the great and powerful Frank Morgan.  You've Got Mail was a very loose adaptation, but please don't hold that against it.  The action takes place in a Budapest shop, with an interesting group of workers.  I could watch this one repeatedly.

-Ninotchka - 1:30PM CST Friday, 1/28 - Before checking the link at IMDB, I never knew this was also directed by Ernst Lubitsch.  Ninotchka was Greta Garbo's second-to-last movie.  While I've only seen a couple of them, apparently this was one of her few comedies.  It's hard to tell, as she and Melvyn Douglas are wonderful.  I love Melvyn Douglas.  I think I may have to break out my Being There DVD now.

-The Dirty Dozen and The Wild Bunch - 8:30PM CST Saturday, 1/29 and 2:00AM CST Sunday, 1/30 - While TCM is airing some other good movies on Saturday (Little Big Man, Bad Day at Black Rock), these two will leave you feeling manly after the two romances I previously suggested.  The Dirty Dozen is one of those movies that makes me stop what I'm doing every time I see it on TV.  I own it on DVD, but I've seen at least chunks of it on TV so many times I can't count.  Action movie directors have been trying to emulate what Cassavetes, Bronson, Jim Brown, Donald Sutherland and all the rest did in 1967, but nothing really comes close.  Where TDD goes playful, The Wild Bunch is balls to the wall stylish action from Sam Peckinpah.  I would record it again, but this is one of the few Blu-Rays I own, so that may have to come out this weekend too.

-Doctor Zhivago - 1:00PM CST Sunday, 1/30 - David Lean is known for his epics, and Doctor Zhivago is certainly one of his most famous.  I prefer Bridge on the River Kwai and the much smaller Brief Encounter, but those movies lack something Zhivago has in spades: Julie Christie.  After Grace Kelly, I'm not sure a more beautiful woman has ever graced the screen than Ms. Christie.