Tonight!

At 7:00 & 9:15

Top 5 Top 5 Lists Related To, But Not Including, Charade

With a tip of the hat to the Filmspotting podcast, which features a Top 5 list with every episode, and which is itself inspired by Nick Hornby's book High Fidelity, which anyone with an unhealthy attachment to pop culture and/or lists should read, here are five Top 5 lists inspired by this week's Metro Classic.


Top 5 Audrey Hepburn Films:

1. Funny Face (Stanley Donen)
2. Breakfast At Tiffany's (Blake Edwards)
3. Sabrina (Billy Wilder)
4. My Fair Lady (George Cukor)
5. Two For The Road (Stanley Donen)


Top 5 Cary Grant Films:

1. North By Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock)
2. Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks)
3. The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor)
4. His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks)
5. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)


Top 5 Stanley Donen Films:

1. Singin' In The Rain
2. Funny Face
3. It's Always Fair Weather
4. Two For The Road
5. On The Town


Top 5 Films of 1963:

1. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini)
2. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
3. Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)
4. High And Low (Akira Kurosawa)
5. The Great Escape (John Sturges)


Top 5 Non-Hitchcock Hitchcockian Films:

1. Peeping Tom (Michael Powell)
2. La jetée (Chris Marker)
3. Marathon Man (John Schlesinger)
4. Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon)
5. Dead Again (Kenneth Branagh)

Links: Charade

Turner Classic Movies has a fantastic history on the making of Charade.

Over at the Criterion website you can read a nice essay by Bruce Eder detailing Charade's uniqueness amongst 1960's thrillers.

Lastly, on Salon.com there is a lengthy summary that puts Charade in context with its most often used adjective, "Hitchcockian".

Enjoy.

For Our Far-Flung Followers

Not the Metro.

No doubt there are legions of fanatics that follow the minutest goings-on at Metro Classics who unfortunately live in locales far from the temperate climes of the Pacific Northwest. These poor souls undoubtedly sit alone at their laptops pining for the opportunity to experience great repertory film, the Metro Classics way. We feel your collective pain.

Well, until that day when we can stream our entire cavalcade of cinematic confection directly into your cerebral cortex, those in our displaced dominion will have to make do with the repertory programs currently cranking out in your neck of the woods. Luckily many parts of the world host programs of classic films that gallantly approach Metro Classics in popularity and gravitas. Coincidentally two of these esteemed movie palaces have inadvertently scheduled titles that sync up perfectly with this week's screening of Charade.

How's this for serendipity:

First up, the majestic Stanford Theatre located in the heart of downtown Palo Alto, CA is playing Roman Holiday starring Charade co-star Audrey Hepburn. It will be playing through this weekend as a double feature with the 1939 Claudette Colbert vehicle Midnight.

Speaking of holidays, 2,935 miles due east of the Stanford Theatre the BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn, NY are screening the classic Holiday starring Ms. Hepburn's Charade co-star Cary Grant, on the very same day that we unleash our new series. The film is part of an entire month dedicated to Grant's work in film. A more worthwhile month I cannot think of. Unless of course you live in or around Seattle.

If you happen to be in either of the non-Seattle cities, please stop by and check out these great films. Hell, if you happen to be within a hundred miles of any building hosting repertory film, please give them a glance. The thing that unites all of these humble enterprises is that they are less business ventures than labors of love.

Coming Attractions: Charade

Wednesday, August 5th at 7:00 & 9:15

Giveaways: Singin' in the Rain DVD and a gift certificate for Rain City Video, respectively.

See you there!

Ryland Walker Knight on Charade: Sparking Your Brain Cells to the Utmost

Earlier this week I noticed that our good pal Ryland Walker Knight had queued up Charade, the Ricky Henderson* of our imminent Liars, Thieves & Cheats series. Finding out that this home viewing would be his inaugural experience of the film, I tasked Ryland (as he has done so many times with me) with writing down his thoughts on the picture. He most graciously took on the assignment and turned the whole thing around in about 24 hours (very much unlike me).

Read his impressions over at his homestead Vinyl Is Heavy.

*Two things: First, I had to drop the A's reference for us Bay Area heads (Ryland and me) and secondly how is it that I make the first baseball reference on the blog? Baseball for me is frozen in 1989 when I last cared a whit, whilst Sean sleeps in Mariners bedsheets.