TiVoPlex
TiVoPlex for Tuesday, March 18, 2008 through Monday, March 24, 2008
By John Seal
March 18, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 03/18/08
9:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
20 Million Miles to Earth (1957 USA): The third of twelve films in which producer Charles H. Schneer collaborated with stop motion animation wizard Ray Harryhausen, 20 Million Miles to Earth is not as well regarded today as the duo's dynamic output of the 1960s and '70s. Serving as a warm-up for their next effort, the far more ambitious 7th Voyage of Sinbad, the film nevertheless features one of Harryhausen's greatest creations - the Ymir, a Venusian native inadvertently brought back to Earth by space explorer Robert Calder (William Hopper, fresh off The Deadly Mantis), whose spacecraft crashes into the Mediterranean upon re-entry. Washing up on the shores of Italy in pupal form and put in the care of scientist Dr. Leonardo (Frank Puglia) and his beautiful daughter Marisa (Joan Taylor), the Ymir starts out small and cute but predictably ends up super-sized and misunderstood, and a rampage through Rome inevitably leads to a showdown with American military might at the world famous Colisseum. Whilst the denouement and the boring romantic subplot are right out of the '50s sci-fi playbook, it's clear that Harryhausen intended audiences to empathise with his creation, setting the film apart from more run-of-the-mill fare, and producer Schneer's decision to shoot on location in Italy underscores the project's heightened ambitions.
1:00 PM Fox Movie Channel
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995 USA): Which power ranger is YOUR favorite? I know, it's hard to choose just one - but here's a great opportunity to narrow the field, as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers makes its widescreen television debut this afternoon. As for the villains, the movie features highly regarded British stage thespian Paul Freeman (Hot Fuzz) as Ivan Ooze, an over the top baddy who looks a bit like an enraged California Raisin. When your significant other asks you why the heck you're watching Power Rangers, tell 'em it's all about the acting.
10:30 AM Sundance
The World (2004 CHI): Set in a Beijing theme park where the planet's most significant tourist attractions (including the World Trade Center) are recreated in small scale, The World is a uniquely Chinese take on the negative effects of globalization. Directed by maverick filmmaker Jia Zhangke, the film focuses on the park's employees, who live in grotty company houses behind the scenes and can only dream of visiting the places depicted in miniature at their place of employment. Zhangke's film depicts a world that grows smaller by the day but remains inaccessible to the average prole, who's paid a pittance to smile and look happy for the rubes. Though very long and a bit ponderous at times, The World's visual inventiveness and carefully plotted narrative will draw you in if you give it a chance. Also airs 3/21 at 3:40 AM.
Wednesday 3/19/08
3:30 PM Sundance
Nice Bombs (2006 USA): Not to be confused with Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams, Nice Bombs is the sophomore effort of Iraqi-American filmmaker Usama Alshaibi. Alshaibi, who left his native Iraq as a child in 1979, returned in 2004 to see what changes had been wrought by the American "liberation", and this film documents that visit. Shot as a video diary, the film follows the director, his wife, and his father as they travel to Baghdad and reunite with their extended family, still celebrating the overthrow of Saddam and relatively happy in the immediate wake of the invasion. The "nice bombs" of the title are, of course, those dropped by the Americans on insurgents and dead-enders, but by film's end, those same bombs have begun to wear down the Alshaibi family, and Usama finds himself all too eager to get out of town and return to the safer environs of Chicago. It's a fascinating time capsule shot when a better future seemed possible for educated, cosmopolitan Iraqis, rendered all the more bittersweet by the cruel lessons we've since learned.
5:00 PM Showtime 2
The Descent (2005 GB): The program guide says this will be a letterboxed airing of The Descent, one of the better horror films of recent vintage. The film tells the tale of a group of spelunking women trapped underground amidst blind, ravenous meat-eating creatures (not to be confused with men, of course), and whilst it works fine in pan and scan, you might want to set the timer this afternoon just in case Direct TV isn't lying.
Thursday 03/20/08
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
A Modern Musketeer (1917 USA): This extremely rare Douglas Fairbanks vehicle makes its TCM premiere this afternoon. Fairbanks plays Kansas boy Ned Thacker, whose obsession with Alexandre Dumas' story The Three Musketeers - and specifically the character of D'Artagnan - inspires him to feats of heroism. With the help of sidekick James Brown (Tully Marshall), Ned rides to the rescue of socialite in distress Dorothy Dodge (Marjorie Daw), who has fallen into the hands of treacherous Native American Chin-de-dah (Frank Campeau). Shot to good effect in and around the Grand Canyon, A Modern Musketeer has only recently been restored to full length by the Danish Film Institute and is one of Fairbanks' earliest surviving productions.
8:30 PM Flix
Chained Heat (1983 USA): The Women in Prison genre reached its apogee (or nadir, depending on your perspective) with this relatively big budget exploitation effort. Linda Blair stars as Carol Henderson, a young woman serving an 18 month term for manslaughter somewhere in the depths of a California correctional facility. Both the wardens (John Vernon and Stella Stevens!) are voyeuristic sadists, and the drug-dealing, gun-wielding inmates aren't much better. What's a nice girl to do? Why, bare her breasts, of course, and partake in some down and dirty lesbian sex! Co-starring Tamara Dobson (Cleopatra Jones) and Sybil Danning as inmate big wigs, Henry Silva as a (surprise!) sadistic prison guard, and Edy Williams and Michael Callan in smaller roles, this is perhaps the ne plus ultra of the WIP genre - and with any luck (and this being Flix), will be airing in letterboxed format. No promises, though.
Friday 03/21/08
12:15 AM Encore Dramatic Stories
Straw Dogs (1971 GB): I’ve never been a huge fan of this discomforting exercise in paranoia, but it doesn't show up very often on premium channels, so I'll give it a mention anyway. Directed by Sam Peckinpah, Straw Dogs stars Dustin Hoffman as David Sumner, a milquetoast intellectual who, in an effort to escape the violence of the American big city, has relocated to the remote British countryside with his attractive wife Amy (Susan George). Alas, the locals seem only a step or two removed from the caveman, and take an instant disliking to the outsider - as well as a fancy for the attractive young woman suddenly thrust into their midst. Featuring one of the most controversial rape scenes of all time (debate still rages as to whether or not George's character seems to be enjoying herself), Straw Dogs is difficult going for the hardiest souls, but looks great thanks to cinematographer John Coquillon's slate gray renderings of the damp Cornish countryside.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Emma Mae (1976 USA): An amazing TCM underground double bill kicks off with an ultra-rare widescreen print (there is a DVD, but it's full-frame) of this long forgotten black action flick, also known as Black Sister's Revenge. Directed by Jamaa Fanaka, whose career began in 1975 with the legendary-for-all-the-wrong-reasons Welcome Home Brother Charles, Emma Mae features Jerri Hayes as the title character, a backwoods country girl who relocates to hardscrabble South Central L.A. with her aunt. Teased relentlessly by the locals for her unsophisticated ways, the fish out of water Emma soon proves she can hold her own by beating a local bully to a pulp and falling in love with two-bit pill-popper Jesse (Ernest Williams II). Determined to stand by her man after he ends up in jail, Emma goes on a crime spree to raise bail money, but ultimately learns Jesse doesn't really appreciate her efforts. Though rough hewn, Emma Mae is a fairly earnest effort to capture the rhythms of African American urban life, and though it's never going to be mistaken for Killer of Sheep, is as valuable a document in some respects. And to make things even better it's followed by...
Saturday 03/22/08
12:45 AM Turner Classic Movies
Penitentiary (1980 USA): ...Jamaa Fanaka's NEXT production, another film never before seen on television in its original aspect ratio. Penitentiary stars Leon Isaac Kennedy as Too Sweet, an unlucky, candy-suckin' average Joe who gets jumped by thugs at a diner but ends up serving time after one of his assailants is killed. Determined to avoid anal intercourse with his cellmates, Too Sweet gets involved with the prison's boxing program and hooks up with trainer Seldom Seen (Floyd Chatman), who helps him prepare for a big throw-down with mean mutha Jesse (Donovan Womack). Shot by Fanaka whilst he was still at UCLA Film School, Penitentiary has considerably less redeeming social value than Emma Mae, but was the most successful independently financed film of 1980 and ultimately spawned two much inferior sequels.
1:30 PM Sundance
Edvard Munch (1975 NOR): Okay, first off, this is a LONG movie. And it's Scandinavian. And it's about a depressed artist. Still with me? Okay, good! Directed by Peter Watkins (The War Game, Culloden), this three and a half hour epic relates ten years in the life of Munch (Geir Westby), a Norwegian artist best known today for his nightmarish painting The Scream. Richly detailed and audaciously edited, this is an exhausting yet fascinating film that transcends the usual "this happened, then that happened" style of most biopics. It's followed at 5:30 PM by Watkins' brilliant 1971 dystopian essay Punishment Park, in which a group of pacifist hippies are baited to violence by their National Guard captors. The two films couldn't be more dissimilar, but are both highly recommended.
6:00 PM The Movie Channel
Ju-On 2 (2000 JAP): Takashi Shimizu's Japanese-language sequel to the incredibly successful Ju-On (The Grudge) gets its first American television airing this evening, but not as part of Sundance's Asia Extreme package! Yuuko Daike returns as actress Kyoko Suzuki, who loses her unborn child in a car accident but finds herself mysteriously pregnant again after recovering and returning to work. Could her immaculate conception be related to her latest horror project, a film that seems to be taking an inordinate toll on those associated with it? Also airs at 9:00 PM.
Sunday 03/23/08
2:45 AM Encore Dramatic Stories
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005 CHI): Director Zhang Yimou is best known for big budget fantasy epics such as House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower, but his roots are in social realism, and he returns to them every now and then. Such is the case with Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, a drama about a strained father/son relationship. Set in Japan and China, the film stars Ken Takakura as dad Takata, who's received word that son Kenichi (Kiichi Nakai) is critically ill in a Tokyo hospital. After Kenichi refuses to see him, Takata embarks on an odyssey to China's Yunnan Province that, he hopes, will change his son's mind and allow them to meet one last time. Fans of Jet Li's Hero will be befuddled, but if you're an admirer of less well known Yimou efforts such as Not One Less or Happy Times, you'll definitely want to take a look at Riding Alone.
6:35 AM IFC
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975 AUS): A beautifully shot and languidly paced feature from Aussie Peter Weir, Picnic at Hanging Rock is also one of the most enigmatic films ever to earn a wide release. Based on Joan Lindsay's novel of the same name, the film depicts the mysterious disappearance of three Australian schoolgirls and their chaperone during a turn of the 20th century outing. Though one of the girls reappears, she cannot recall what has happened to her, and the others are never found. Resolutely unwilling to bring closure to its story, Weir's film features superb outback photography from Russell Boyd, who went on to earn an Academy Award for 2003's Master and Commander. Also airs at 2:30 PM.
10:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
Spring Fever (1927 USA): William Haines and Joan Crawford star as Roaring '20s youth engaged in mating rituals in this charming Edward Sedgwick-helmed romantic comedy. Haines plays working class lad Jack Kelly, who is granted a two-week pass to the ritzy Oakmont Country Club by his kindly employer (George Fawcett). Though lacking in social graces, Jack soon wins the bluebloods over with his first-rate golf game - and finds himself in love with socialite Allie Monte (Crawford). Will love conquer all, or will America's invisible class divide keep Jack and Allie apart? It's as predictable as they come, but if you enjoyed 1928's Haines-Crawford vehicle West Point (which aired earlier this year on TCM), you'll derive similar satisfaction from Spring Fever.