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12:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Man With the Golden Arm (1955 USA): This was the film that really convinced the world that Frank Sinatra was more than just a pretty crooner, but for me, it's not so much Frank's film as it is Arnold Stang's. Now I know Stang is hardly a household name, but there's something about his performance in this film that is both utterly disarming and completely riveting. He plays Sparrow, the hatchet-faced drinking buddy of Frankie Machine (Sinatra, with perhaps the coolest and most appropriate character name ever), a card sharp who also happens to have a serious heroin addiction. Based on a Nelson Algren novel (and, of course, set on the mean streets of Chicago), the film details Frankie's rise and fall, as he returns to the gutter after failing to make it in the music biz�ah, sweet irony! Directed with gleeful (and in this case, quite appropriate) misanthropy by Otto Preminger, this is perhaps the grimmest film to usher forth from an American studio in the 1950s, and is still pretty rough going today. Incidently, Stang is still with us and has kept busy over the decades, most recently providing voice work for Cartoon Network's Courage the Cowardly Dog series.

7:00 PM Sundance
Kings and Queen (2004 FRA): I haven't seen this lengthy French melodrama, but hey, it's got Catherine Deneuve in it, so I'll give it a plug. Written and directed by Arnaud Desplechin, it's the story�of a lovely lady�who was bringing up three very lovely girls�oh, sorry, no, it's the story of a lovely lady (Deneuve) who serves as the psychiatrist responsible for the care of a mentally disturbed violinist (Mathieu Amalric). Do they make beautiful music together? I don't know, but join me in tuning in to find out.

10:00 PM Sundance
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004 USA): Based on stories by the now disgraced and (literally) defrocked J. T. LeRoy, this is yet another exploration of the dark and depressing life of a drug addict. Directed by and starring the enigmatic Asia Argento�who you either like or hate (me like)�the film details the crystal meth fuelled descent into Hell of a young mother (Argento), and the picture is neither a pretty nor redemptive one. In fact, it really adds nothing to our understanding of either the overarching social problem of addiction or even the specific characters in the film, but I find Argento a mesmerizing actress and recommend it on her screen presence alone. The supporting cast is an intriguing proposition, too: not only do we have Peter Fonda (The Trip), Michael Pitt (Last Days), Marilyn Manson, Ornella Muti, and Winona Ryder on hand, there's even room for No Wave pioneer and Richard Kern veteran Lydia Lunch as�get this�a social worker! The mind reels!

Friday 12/15/06

2:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
One Sunday Afternoon (1933 USA): Gary Cooper plays a dentist in this frothy rom-com from Paramount. A DENTIST? Good lord, he doesn't even get to ride a horse to work! At any rate, this adaptation of a bafflingly popular stage play features Coop in the uncomfortable climes of comedy, where, oddly enough, he acquits himself reasonably well. He plays stolid tooth mechanic Biff, whose happily married to Amy (Frances Fuller) but still holds a long-term grudge against Hugo (Commissioner Gordon himself, Neil Hamilton) for stealing his childhood sweetheart (Fay Wray) from him. When Hugo shows up in the office for some routine dental work, Biff decides to give him a little too much gas in the chair, but he soon finds out that revenge can often be less than sweet. Filmed several more times over the years, this remains the best screen version of the story, and also features Jane Darwell as our hero's larger than life mother-in-law.

1:15 AM Showtime
La Haine (1995 FRA): A decade before sanding off the last of his rough edges and helming the predictable and dull Halle Berry ghost story, Gothika, director Mathieu Kassowitz wrote and directed this unvarnished look at proletarian youth in 1990s France. The story of a day in the life of three working-class friends - one Jewish, one Arabic, and one African - set against the depressing tower blocks of suburban Paris, and with racism and poverty simmering in the background, La Haine is a black-and-white near-masterpiece. American audiences may recognize Said Taghmaoui, here playing the son of North African immigrants, from his memorable appearance as an Iraqi Army captain in David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999 USA). Also airs at 4:15 AM.

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