This week is a musical week on TCM, and usually I don't care for many musicals, I like musicals, but there sometimes I just can't cope with it. I will however take a good Bollywood movie any day of the week. But I digress, I do think that there are a few that are going to be on this week that are worth mentioning and checking out.
The Black Stallion- Young Alec is on a ship with his father off of the coast of North Africa when a beautiful horse is brought on board. When the ship starts on fire later that night, Alec and his father are separated and Alec becomes stranded on an island with his only companion being the horse. Alec and The Black, as Alec comes to call him, become bonded by their shared experience and when rescued from the island Alec takes him back home with him to Flushing, NY. Once there Alec finds it hard to adjust to his everyday life and Black is finding it hard to be cooped up, and runs off when a garbage man, not expecting to find a horse in the yard leaves the gate open. Alec finds Black at the home of an old racehorse trainer that sees the racing potential in Black and begins training Alec as a jockey and Black as a racehorse. This movie showed me how you could tell a story just by showing instead of always having to use words as most of it is shot with no dialogue between Alec and Black. I loved this movie and book as a child, my favorite part being the story of Bucephalus that Alec's father tells him before they discover that the ship is on fire. This movie is so worth the watch, Sunday, June 10th ,12:00 A.M.
Time Bandits - My dad loved Terry Gilliam and the Monty Python, so when Time Bandits came out my birthday weekend of course he took me to a Sunday matinee, thus starting a tradition of taking me to the movies for my birthday almost every year, in fact before he died he had taken me to my first rated R movie, a reshowing of The Lonely Guy with Steve Martin for my birthday that year before his death. This is a fantastic fantasy through time and space and it even includes exploding parents! Kevin has a wild imagination and spends hours alone making up stories and scenarios while his parents ignore him for one upping the neighbors. One night his armour bursts open and out tumbles a knight on horseback that quickly runs into the forest on the other side of his room. Dazed by the events, Kevin decides that he'll be ready for whatever comes through the following night and is stunned when six dwarves spill out with a map that they are using to time hop across history. They take him on a wild adventure while they rob from the wealthy historical figures that they visit, while trying to avoid their boss, The Supreme Being and eluding EVIL. Sunday morning, June 10th, 2:00 A.M. 
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane - Bette Davis at her greatest steals the show from Joan Crawford in this horror classic of sisterly love gone very wrong. This is probably my mom's favorite movie as it's been the only movie that I've ever seen her watch more than once and was a mainstay around our house for as long as I can remember. It's just so sad that everything went so very wrong for two women who had Hollywood by the horns at one time in their lives. Sunday, June 10th, 3:30 P.M.
Easter Parade - Vaudeville star Don Hewes has just lost his dancing partner and decides to take on the task of training, Hannah, a chorus girl that he found at the bar he was drinking at. Well, they become a hit and Don's old partner becomes jealous and tries to break them up, but to no real avail and Don and Hannah walk off in the end together. The costumes alone are reason enough to watch, but to see Fred Astaire dancing some of his best solo work and Judy Garland's singing, how can you not watch this sweet romance? Tuesday, June 12th, 2:15 P.M.
Dollars Trilogy - Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Western masterpieces start off Wednesday, June 13th at 6:00 P.M. with A Fistful of Dollars, followed by For A Few Dollars More at 8:00 P.M. and ending with The Good, The Bad and the Ugly at 10:30 P.M. If you want to see where Quentin Tarantino got the idea for the look of D'Jango Unchained and Inglourious Basterds and the character of Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill 1 & 2 (which is his Spaghetti Western), these are a must see to understanding Tarantino, as he was heavily influenced by Leone and Jean-Luc Godard.
You Were Never Lovelier- Another great Fred Astaire musical with Rita Hayworth cast as his love interest and Adolphe Menjou as the meddling matchmaker father. It's quirky and fun, with Astaire and Hayworth complimenting each other wonderfully in this movie. Thursday, June 14th, 12:00 P.M.
The Lonliness of the Long Distance Runner - Colin Smith has always used running to get away from the law but is now using it to reflect on his life while he is training for a long distance race that he is being forced to participate in at the reform school that he is in for robbery. Written by Alan Sillitoe, it was written during the "angry young man" literary movement in England after World War II, a movement that Sillitoe fully rejected as a label from the establishment. Friday, June 15th, 6:00 P.M.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind - While working on a power outage, electric lineman, Roy, is buzzed by a UFO and chases it to find out where it is going. Much to his wife's dismay, Roy becomes obsessed with UFO sightings and creating a mountain out of everything, his wife leaves him and Roy follows a news report to Devils Tower. One of Spielberg's most notable films this is also one of his most successful. Richard Dreyfuss is masterful as the common guy, Roy who goes on a wild goose chase to see if what he saw was real. Saturday, June 16th, 3:30 P.M. 
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