Yes, it's been a while since I've done one of these.  Life is busy and these take a lot of research, y'know?  But this week is full of great movies on cable, so I couldn't resist making a few recommendations.  After all, if I can't share this stuff with Screengrab readers, who can I share it with? 

Let's start with tonight!  On Monday, April 13 at 10 pm eastern/9 pm central, TCM has The Grand Illusion, Jean Renoir's great movie about war and class and prejudice and sorrow and about a million other things. This is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I suspect it's the same for many of you.

I have nothing else this week until Friday, April 17. At 3 pm eastern/2 pm central and again at 6 pm eastern/5 pm central, Ovation is showing Living In Oblivion, a fun movie about the frustrations involved in making a bad movie.  It stars Steve Buscemi and Catherine Keener, and features a showstopping tirade by Peter Dinklage.  Ovation has a few problems when it shows movies - bleeped words and lots of commercials are the worst - but it also keeps the original screen aspect and goes out of its way to find quality programming, so there's that.  Later, at 8 pm eastern/7 pm central, TCM is showing The Maltese Falcon, and there's rarely a good reason not to watch that.  If, however, you'd rather take your murder with teenage ennui instead of hardboiled cynicism, IFC is showing Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park at 8:15 eastern/7:15 central.  If you can't stand to miss either, IFC is showing it again at 1:30 am eastern/12:30 am central.

The next morning on Saturday, April 18 at 8 am eastern/7 am central, IFC has The Hidden Fortress, Akira Kurosawa's strangely familiar movie about a couple of bumbling peasants who get involved with a movement to shepherd a princess across enemy territory before the Evil Empire can discover the location of the hidden rebel base on the fourth moon of Yavin and... Wait, I got off track there somewhere.  Anyway, it all takes place a long time ago in a country far, far away.  See you next week!