Perhaps because we watched way too much geeky TV as kids, Mike and I have been inspired by the great James Burke to have our next Metro Classics series be based on Connections, with each film connected to the next film in the series in some nefarious way. The shows will once again run every Wednesday night, from October 07 through December 02. Here’s the lineup, along with how the movies are connected:

Oct 07: Singin’ In The Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952) (elaborate choreography)
Oct 14: Enter The Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973) (action stars wreaking havoc on islands)
Oct 21: Commando (Mark L. Lester, 1985) (actors who became politicians)
Oct 28: The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976) (westerns)
Nov 04: Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959) (musicians who act)
Nov 11: Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994) (urban romances)
Nov 18: City Lights with The Immigrant (Charlie Chaplin, 1931/1917) (silent comedy double features)
Nov 25: Sherlock Jr with The General (Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, 1924/1926) (civil war films)
Dec 02: Gone With The Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)

That’s eleven films in nine weeks, six of them in high-definition. It will also be our eleventh musical, our seventh and eighth Westerns, our fifth, sixth seventh, and eighth silent films, our sixth Howard Hawks film, our fourth and fifth double features, our fifth Best Picture winner, our third Asian film, our second Gene Kelly film, and our first film that is so long we can only show it once.

Handsome fliers will be available within the week.

Here’s a quick rundown of what I’ve seen lately. If you want to read some of my actual writing, check out the Metro Classics website. I’m afraid that’s where I’ve had to spend most of my energy the last few weeks. Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of good stuff: a whole bunch of Bette Davis movies, some good 70s films in Killer Of Sheep and Mirror, Gene Tierney in The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, Vivian Leigh in Waterloo Bridge and Janet Gaynor in Seventh Heaven. I reached my goal of seeing every Jean-Luc Godard film from Breathless to Week End by finally watching Made In USA and managed to be both amazed and very very disappointed by Wim Wenders’s Paris, Texas. But the best of all the films I’ve seen has got to be Bob Fosse’s lunatic ode to art, life and self-obsession All That Jazz. Had I seen it a week earlier, it most certainly would have made my Top 250 list; it’s sure to find a home high up on next year’s list.

Made In USA: 13, 1966
The Old Maid: 22, 1939
NY, NY: 26, 1957
King Solomon’s Mines: 19, 1937
Seventh Heaven: 3, 1927
Now, Voyager: 4, 1942
The Little Foxes: 14, 1941
Watchmen: 2009
Killer Of Sheep: 5, 1977
The Most Dangerous Game: 11, 1932
The Hunchback Of Notre-Dame: 14, 1939
Waterloo Bridge: 7, 1940
The Ghost & Mrs. Muir: 5, 1947
My Favorite Wife: 20, 1940
Paris, Texas: 7, 1984
Mirror: 6, 1975
Deception: 9, 1946
The Private Lives Of Elizabeth And Essex: 24, 1939
All That Jazz: 3, 1979
Watch On The Rhine: 15, 1943