Two more critics

I'm not particularly enamored with tonight's TCM selections, but then, they can't always program just for me. (I suppose they could, but nobody would want to watch TCM then.) The Critics' Choice thing that's been going on this month isn't a bad idea, although not every critic has the same tast I do. Still, you can learn something: tonight's first critic is Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal, a publication that I did not know even did movie reviews. Morgenstern's first selection, at 8:00 PM ET. is Oliver!, the Best Picture winner of 1968 which is a musical retelling of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. That's followed at 10:45 PM by The Black Stallion, which has a resonance with National Velvet in that both movies have Mickey Rooney training a youngster to ride a race horse to victory; in this case, however, Rooney is pushing 60.

Morgenstern is followed by Peter Travers of the faux-trendy Rolling Stone magazine. He's selected Almost Famous at 1:00 AM, which, surprise surprise, deals with a writer for Rolling Stone. Travers' second selection is The Lady From Shanghai at 3:15 AM, a Rita Hayworth movie bogged down by direction from then-husband Orson Welles.

On the bright side, TCM is re-airing the documentary Rita, about Hayworth's life, at 5:00 AM tomorrow morning.