TCM Schedule for Sunday, March 31, 2013 - Tonight on TCM: Easter Epics

[Bolo Boffin]

7:30 AM
BEN-HUR (1959)

While seeking revenge, a rebellious Israelite prince crosses paths with Jesus Christ.
Dir: William Wyler
Cast: Charlton Heston, Haya Harareet, Stephen Boyd
C-222 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

11:14 AM
BEN-HUR: BEHIND THE SCENES WITH GLENN H. RANDALL & YAKIMA CANUTT (1959)

Behind the scenes promotional short for Ben-Hur, with Glen Randall, horse trainer, and Yakima Canutt, second unit director, who worked together to film the legendary chariot race from the movie.
BW-7 mins


11:30 AM
KING OF KINGS (1961)

Epic retelling of Christ's life and the effects of his teachings on those around him.
Dir: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Jeffrey Hunter, Siobhan McKenna, Robert Ryan.
C-160 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

2:17 PM -- KING OF THE DUPLICATORS (1968): C-12 mins


2:30 PM
THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1965)

All-star epic retelling of Christ's life.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Max von Sydow, Dorothy McGuire, Robert Loggia.
C-199 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format


6:00 PM
EASTER PARADE (1948)

When his partner leaves him, a vaudeville star trains an untried performer to take her place, finding love in the process.
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Peter Lawford.
C-103 mins, TV-G, CC


TONIGHT ON TCM
EASTER EPICS

8:00 PM
THE ROBE (1953)

Biblical epic in which a Roman military tribune, who commands the unit that crucified Jesus Christ, tries to learn about the man he killed.
Dir: Henry Koster
Cast: Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature.
C-134 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

10:19 PM
VISITING ITALY (1951)

A moving postcard of Italy showing Rome, Assisi, Pisa and Florence, which highlights several of the most famous pieces of the country's impressive architecture.
C-7 mins


10:30 PM
DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS (1954)

A Greek slave who keeps Christ's robe after the crucifixion is sentenced to be one Caligula's gladiators.
Dir: Delmer Daves
Cast: Victor Mature, Susan Hayward, Michael Rennie.
C-101 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format


12:15 AM
THE KING OF KINGS (1927)

In this silent film, Cecil B. DeMille directs an epic retelling of the life of Christ.
Dir: Cecil B. De Mille
Cast: H. B. Warner, Dorothy Cumming, Ernest Torrence.
C-157 mins, TV-G


3:00 AM
IN VANDA'S ROOM (2001)

An unflinching view into the daily life of Vanda Duarte, a heroin addict, in the shanty outskirts of Lisbon.
Dir: Pedro Costa
Cast: Vanda Duarte, Zita Duarte, Lena Duarte.
C-171 mins, TV-MA, Letterbox Format

[Bolo Boffin]

1. An interesting couple of days

Yesterday the topic for The Essentials was Con Artists, and today after all the Easter epics, TCM is running "In Vanda's Room" from 2000.

http://www.criterion.com/films/20820-in-vanda-s-room

For the extraordinarily beautiful second film in his Fontainhas trilogy, Pedro Costa jettisoned his earlier films’ larger crews to burrow even deeper into the Lisbon ghetto and the lives of its desperate inhabitants. With the intimate feel of a documentary and the texture of a Vermeer painting, In Vanda’s Room takes an unflinching, fragmentary look at a handful of self-destructive, marginalized people, but is centered around the heroin-addicted Vanda Duarte. Costa presents the daily routines of Vanda and her neighbors with disarming matter-of-factness, and through his camera, individuals whom many would deem disposable become vivid and vital. This was Costa’s first use of digital video, and the evocative images he created remain some of the medium’s most astonishing.

That's one heck of a palate cleanser...