Murder by Death

dvr this Turner Classic Movies, 8:15 p.m., May 18 I don’t think Murder by Death is as good as the similarly themed Clue – both of them are parodies of the 1970s Agatha Christie murder mysteries – but it is still great fun. Written by Neil Simon, the film’s conceit is that a rich madman…

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Hair

dvr this Turner Classic Movies, Sunday, April 21, 1 a.m. While the musical Hair is a beloved classic, there is an unspoken problem with the staged version. It doesn’t really have much of a plot. The movie, on the other hand, which was directed by the great Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,…

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Tarzan the Ape Man

dvr this Turner Classic Movies, Saturday, April 13, 12:45 p.m. Imagine it’s 1932, and you’re gay, or you are sexually attracted to men but don’t use the word “gay” to describe it. But you know. You hear there’s a movie starring an Olympic swimmer, in which he’s wearing only a loin cloth. So, you go…

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Game of Thrones

dvr this: HBO, Sunday, April 7, 9 p.m. It’s back! HBO’s stupendous orgy of sex, violence and beards returned for its third season March 31, and for three months, we’ll have Sunday nights full of swords, sorcery, intrigue and dragons. While the show occasionally feels exploitative (tits, again?), it is also so well acted, so…

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Easter Sunday on Turner Classic Movies

dvr this Starting at 4:30 a.m., TCM is playing one great, not-so-great and fabulous Easter movie after another. It starts with Ben-Hur, the epic gladiator-meets-Jesus movie that star Charlton Heston didn’t realize was secretly a gay love story. At 3 p.m., they’re showing Easter Parade, the wonderful Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Ann Miller musical; forgive…

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La Femme Nikita

dvr this Turner Classic Movies, 10:45 p.m., Saturday, March 23 Luc Besson became world famous with the great thriller La Femme Nikita, in which a teenage junkie (Anne Parillaud) agrees to become an assassin in order to avoid going to jail for murder. She’s not happy at first and it’s not easy. She is put…

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The Apartment

dvr this Turner Classic Movies, 2:45 p.m., Saturday, March 2 TCM is finishing off their annual 31 Days of Oscar, and March 2, they’re playing one of the great underwatched gems of the ‘60s, The Apartment. It stars Jack Lemmon as a milquetoast corporate drone who is forced to loan out his pad to his…

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Tootsie

dvr this Turner Classic Movies, 5 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 24 For some insane reason, Dustin Hoffman didn’t win an Oscar for playing Michael Dorsey, a struggling actor who impersonates a woman in order to get a role on a soap opera. The woman he impersonates, Dorothy Michaels, is an uptight, middle-aged redhead who becomes a…

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Fame

dvr this Turner Classic Movies, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2:30 a.m. Alan Parker’s searing, gritty, and brilliant musical about New York’s School of the Arts is everything Glee is not: believable, moving and full of original songs. Starring Irene Cara as the ambitious singing and dancing Coco; Debbie Allen as the school’s charismatic dance teacher and…

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