By James David Patrick
In looking back at last year’s at-home festival, I made the comment that “the Turner Classic Movie Film Festival gets serious in a hurry” on Friday morning. I’m looking at the 2023 schedule and you know what? The Turner Classic Movie Film Festival gets serious in a hurry.
The pre-movie prep at home or in Los Angeles remains the same, however. Get up. Get showered. Get some food. Caffeinate. Hydrate. Study the schedule and make a commitment knowing you can’t lose, even when FOMO settles in next to you at the Multiplex and points out all the great stuff you’re not watching.
More than any other slot at the 2023 festival, this is the one that requires multiple yous.
Friday, Day Two
9:00am – Harvey (Henry Koster, 1950)
I love watching people watch Harvey for the first time and I’ve never experienced the film with a crowd before. It’s funnier than people expect—the humor driven entirely by character—and unapologetically wears its heart on its sleeve.
In the wake of World War II, Jimmy Stewart’s Elwood P. Dowd represented pure benevolence standing up, without rancor, against cynicism, fear, and judgment. When you consider that Stewart himself was overcoming PTSD after his wartime service, this role gains extratextual significance.
Elwood P. Dowd’s family wants to have him committed to an institution because he claims to see a six-foot-tall white rabbit named Harvey. They’re embarrassed by him, weary of his make-believe best friend. Every step along the way, however, Elwood wins people over through his kindness and extreme generosity. Some of those people even come to believe in the white rabbit themselves.
It's one of the best comedies ever made, and under normal circumstances, I’d unreservedly endorse Harvey in this 9:00am slot with Gremlins-director Joe Dante in the house for the pre-show conversation.
I only hesitate for a brief moment because you could take a stroll down the road and witness Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969) on a 70mm print. The hang up here is that it’ll overlap your noon movie slot, which is fine if you opt for a leisurely lunch instead of East of Eden (1955), Footlight Parade (1933), Larceny, Inc. (1942) or…
12:00pm – Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1992)
Normally, I wouldn’t recommend something as readily available as this 1992 Bill Murray comedy (and the TCMFF die-hards will tell you that you’re wasting your time), but there’s something about the double feature potential of Harvey and Groundhog Day that just feels right. Maybe we’ll learn something about human decency and waking up each day anxious to live our best lives.
Prolific character actor Stephen Tobolowsky (NED! NED RYERSON!) will talk beforehand – and who doesn’t want to hear some on-set stories from a guy that appeared in both Freaky Friday (2003) and Basic Instinct (1992)?
No time to dilly dally. Afterward you’ll grab a to-go lunch (feeling like some Baja Fresh today?) and stuff it in your backpack because you’re off to line up for your next movie and the endlessly branching decision-making continues when you decide between Risky Business (1983) with an appearance from Rebecca De Mornay or one of the unadulterated stone-cold classics of the 1960s.
Since we “classic movie slummed it” in the 1990s for Groundhog Day, I’m probably heading off to revisit one of my favorite Paul Newman performances on the TCL Chinese Theatre’s big screen.
3:00pm – Cool Hand Luke (Stuart Rosenberg, 1967)
It’s wild to think about certain iconic, star-making roles in any other hands, but the role of Luke Jackson was originally slated for Jack Lemmon as his production company owned the rights. After reading the screen adaptation of Donn Pearce’s novel, Lemmon realized he wasn’t right for the role of a laborer at a Florida prison camp. Lemmon wanted an unavailable Telly Savalas, but eventually fell victim to the charming blue eyes of Paul Newman. (And who wouldn’t?) Newman went on to receive his fourth Oscar nomination and the rest is history and adulation.
World War II veteran Lucas “Luke” Jackson became an anti-establishment hero, and Cool Hand Luke infiltrated our popular culture. 50 eggs. “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” A night in the box. If you haven’t seen it recently, you may have forgotten how much Rosenberg’s film digs into the gray injustice of the justice system. It’s a poignant and purposeful movie that never fails to entertain.
Once Cool Hand Luke lets you out of the box and into the repellent late afternoon sun, you’re going to hoof it… right back inside the TCL Chinese Theatre to see your favorite stars of the 1970s transplanted into the 1950s. I hope you had that backpack burrito earlier because popcorn’s not going to satisfy your munchies until 8:30pm.
6:15pm – American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973)
George Lucas was challenged by friend Francis Ford Coppola to craft a more mainstream film while he finished production on his debut THX 1138 (1971). Lucas tapped into that sweet early 1960s nostalgia of his youth in Modesto, CA. While I wouldn’t quite go as far as to say that American Graffiti is a hangout movie, per say, it is a movie that indulges the aimless purposefulness of misspent teenage nights – and paved the way for movies like Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused (1993) and the sublime, underseen Everybody Wants Some! (2016).
Filled to the brim with a timeless slate of the era’s best songs, American Graffiti paints a picture of a culture on the brink of wholesale ideological change, the youth of the 1950s looking toward a future that would become the radical ‘60s. An assemblage of future stars like Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams, Kathleen Quinlan, and Suzanne Somers brought a cast of quirky characters to life as they questioned the status quo, social mores, courted the opposite sex, and revved their engines on their last summer night before college, before the future began.
The wild success of American Graffiti gave Lucas the financial bankability to make Star Wars at 20th Century Fox, but it’s also a stirring portrait of a time and place that continues to feel relevant in 2023, the year of its 50th Anniversary. Did I mention that Richard Dreyfuss will be there? Ask him about Let It Ride (1989) for me.
Choose Your Own TCMFF Adventure continues. You’re either headed back into the TCL Chinese Theatre (yes—again) or putting on your sneaks for a run down to the Hollywood Legion Theater for Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men (1957). While the latter is a masterpiece and comes with some Ed Begley, Jr. on the side, I love Ocean’s Eleven and I’m going to be there to listen to Soderbergh talk about his masterpiece of the heist genre.
9:30pm – Ocean’s Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, 2001)
Few remakes break the curse. They’re either too indebted to the original or misunderstand what made the original work. Soderbergh took the central premise of Ocean’s Eleven (1960) and whipped up a spiritual successor with more developed characters, pace, and singular sense of humor.
A lot of the film’s obvious success boils down to the charisma of its deep and talented cast. George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Brad Pitt headline, but each of the actors make the most of their screen time. There isn’t a weak role or throwaway performance among them.
But I’ll throw this thought into the slot machine – the star of the film isn’t on screen. Editor Stephen Mirrione worked on Doug Liman’s Swingers (1996) and Go (1999) before first hooking up with Soderbergh on 2000’s Traffic (for which he won the Academy Award). His collaboration with Soderbergh makes this popcorn flick tick. It’s a deceptively complex narrative web and they make it look effortless.
I just mentioned this film in The Cine-Spirituality of Elliott Gould, so if you want to read a few more paragraphs devoted to Ocean’s, there you go.
But back to the real hypothetical world of the 2023 Turner Classic Movie Film Festival. You’re leaving the famous Chinese Theatre for the final time (today). The sky’s turned a funky shade of light-polluted green black and you’ve no idea where the day went, but your schedule’s not finished. Oh no. It’s time for the midnight feature with a horde of like-minded heckling hooligans and this is one you won’t want to miss.
Unfortunately, DVD Netflix doesn’t have the Mexican Luchadore picture The Batwoman (1968) in its catalog. Though just released on a decent Blu-ray, it clearly doesn’t exactly have a huge rental demand. Instead, faithful reader and imaginary TCMFF attender, we’re going to substitute a different Luchadore for your viewing pleasure, one I was pleasantly surprised to find deep in a dusty corner of DVD Netflix.
12:00am – The Champions of Justice (Federico Curiel, 1971)
If you’re not sure what to expect from a Luchadore movie, you should expect wrestling-style fighting featuring hulking heroes in masks, weird scientists, and a wild nonsensical high-concept. And in that respect, The Champions of Justice hits all the necessary genre beats. It might not star Maura Monti in a skimpy bat costume, but you’ll get a solid Luchadore outing to enjoy as Saturday dawns. When you tire of all the Mexican wrestling, you’re already on your couch. Just roll your head back and wait for the sleeper hold.
The good news is that the choices are a little easier on Saturday, but don’t get crazy. I said “a little.” Get a few hours of sleep. Or maybe get a lot – since you might have work or school and this is all theoretical anyway. Real or imagined, Day 3 starts tomorrow in Hollywood and I’ll be here, supplying more movie watching ideas and Hollywood dreams.
James David Patrick is a Pittsburgh-based writer with a movie-watching problem. He has a degree in Film Studies from Emory University that, much to everyone’s dismay, gives him license to discuss Russian Shakespeare adaptations at cocktail parties. He hosts the Cinema Shame podcast. You’ll find him crate diving at local record shops. James blogs about movies, music and ‘80s nostalgia at www.thirtyhertzrumble.com. Follow him on Twitter.