Greetings, Screengrab readers!  I've had to scale this column back to something a little more manageable, so I'm going to only be recommending a few movies a week.  I hope y'all still find this useful.  As always, let me know in comments if there's something that should be added to this post.

This week, I have three recommendations between Monday and Friday: a semi-obscure Altman movie, a documentary about the hardships of the labor movement, and the greatest (disregarding the simple fact that it's an anomaly) noir-horror-fairytale ever set on celluloid.

First off, IFC is showing Robert Altman's 1990 movie Vincent and Theo on Monday night.  This is Altman's return to cinematic narrative after a string of films based on plays during the 80s (excepting O.C. and Stiggs and Tanner '88, of course).  The movie stars Tim Roth and Paul Rhys and Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theo, an art dealer.  Not the greatest Altman film, but certainly a good one.  Playing on IFC 1/26 at 7 pm central/8 pm eastern and later that night at 12:45 am central/1:45 am eastern.



On Wednesday, IFC has Harlan County, USA, the scalding 1976 documentary about striking coal miners in the 70s.  Guaranteed to turn the mildest viewer into a card-carrying member of the IWW.  Playing on IFC 1/28 at 6:15 am central/7:15 am eastern and again at 11:35 am central/12:35 pm eastern.



On Friday, TCM is showing The Night Of The Hunter from 1955.  I'm guessing most Screengrab readers are familiar with this movie, but it's so good that there's rarely an adequate reason to miss it.  As you may know, it is the only film directed by noted actor Charles "Quasimodo" Laughton.  The screenplay was written by James Agee, whose very name should be cause for most readers and writers of movie criticism to genuflect.  And it's near impossible to classify.  Some call it film noir, but it's also equal measures horror movie and fairytale.  I've had it on my mind recently since my iPod served up an excellent version of the music in the movie by the band Young People (who may or may not be defunct now, but the song is on their album War Prayers, which also has a song called "Stagecoach," that seems to be similarly inspired by the movie).  The clip above is a long chunk of the movie, but I hope it will whet your appetite. It has whetted mine.  Playing on TCM 1/30 at 11:45 pm central/12:45 am eastern.