Monday, Jan. 28 at 9 pm/ETThe Monastery | SUND An old man who dreams of converting his crumbling Danish chateau into a Russian Orthodox monastery butts heads with a strong-willed nun. Could anything sound duller? But this wonderful documentary is actually a surprisingly complex and deeply poignant portrait of a stubborn and irascible loner who meets his match in the last person he ever expected.Tuesday, Jan. 29, at 10 pmFrances | FLX Jessica Lange took everyone by surprise with her shockingly raw portrayal of the troubled movie star Frances Farmer, a promising but difficult actress who went from Paramount costumes to a straightjacket in record time. On the short list of revelatory moments that suddenly redefine an actor’s career, this one’s close to the top.Wednesday, Jan. 30, at 9:30 pmOne, Two, Three | TCM When it came to comedies, Billy Wilder made some of the funniest (Some Like It Hot) and sharpest (The Apartment) ever. This underseen 1961 effort, in which a surpris...
read more
Question: Is Marlon Brando the only person who ever refused to accept his Academy Award?
Answer: No. Back in 1936, screenwriter Dudley Nichols refused to accept his best screenplay Oscar for The Informer (1935). The early 1930s were a time of bitter conflicts between the studios and their employees; studio executives were vehemently anti-union and accustomed to forcing actors, writers, composers and crew to work on studio terms or not work at all. Nichols, who later became president of the Screenwriters Guild, refused to accept his award as a protest against what was widely perceived as the Academy's decision to sell out its less powerful members to union-busting studio heads.
By the time George C. Scott
read more
