TiVoPlex
December 16 2008 through December 22 2008
By John Seal
December 15, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 12/16/08
1:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Adam and Evelyne (1949 GB): Rumored to be in line for a Gus van Sant remake retitled Adam and Stevelyne, this Harold French-helmed rom-com features hunky Stewart Granger as Adam Black, a ne'e'r do well who lives comfortably off his gambling proceeds. As a favor to a deceased and moneyless friend, Adam masquerades as the biological father of his friend's orphan daughter — but when young Evelyne (Jean Simmons) turns out to be one hot mama, sparks fly and their new father-daughter relationship threatens to become something a little less paternal and a little more conjugal. Co-starring Wilfred Hyde-White and with blink and you'll miss them appearances by Irene Handl, Derek Llewellyn, and Mona Washbourne, Adam and Evelyne is predictable but pleasant fun, well shot by DoP Guy Green.
11:00 PM Fox Movie Channel
August Fires (1994 USA): This cop flick makes its widescreen television debut this evening on Fox. Yep, widescreen. Letterboxed. Original aspect ratio. Oh, you wanted some more info? Well, it's got Lou Gossett in it as the stereotypical shouty police captain, and Billy Zane as the police detective trying to solve the mystery of his partner's murder. What? You've heard this one before? Well maybe, but have you heard it in WIDESCREEN? With a cameo by Carrie-Anne Moss, even?
Wednesday 12/17/08
7:00 PM Sundance
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007 ROM): Arriving hot on the heels of the impressive if depressing Death of Mr. Lazarescu, some folks who should probably know better offered this film as additional proof of a purported "new wave" of Romanian cinema. Since then, the Eastern European cinematic tsunami seems to have receded (if in fact it was ever anything more than a Sight and Sound fever dream), but what it left behind is certainly worthwhile. Written and directed by Cristian Mungiu and set during the reign of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days relates the sorry tale of clueless Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), a pregnant young woman who hasn't the vaguest idea how she's going to cope with her condition. Enter wiser roommate Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), who offers suggestions about how to get an illegal abortion and takes on the unenviable task of making the arrangements. Like poor old Mr. Lazarescu on his endless ambulance journey, Gabita and Otilia embark on a treacherous trip to meet abortionist Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), and once they meet him, things only get worse. It's all incredibly grim and makes your average Ken Loach feature look like a gauzy Ron Howard blockbuster in comparison.
Thursday 12/18/08
9:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Phaedra (1962 FRA-GRE-USA): There have been a fair few Jules Dassin flicks showing up on premium channels recently, and surprisingly enough, they haven't all been on TCM. Dassin, who only died earlier this year at the age of 96, was an underrated stylist whose body of work includes straight dramas, hardboiled noirs, and "art" films, but they're all good. Shot in Dassin's adopted homeland of Greece, Phaedra is an update of Euripides' Hippolytus and stars Mrs. Dassin, Melina Mercouri, as the title character, a beautiful woman married May-December style to aging shipping magnate Thanos (Raf Vallone). As a bonus, she also inherits stepson Alexi (Anthony Perkins) — and the two soon begin to cast smoldering looks at each other. Seems like incestuous adoptive relationships are the theme of the week in the TiVoPlex, but if you're choosing between this and the aforementioned Adam and Evelyne, there's really not much contest. Perkins is intense and moody, Mercouri a bundle of curves, and the jazzy score from Mikis Theodorakis the final icing on the cake.
8:45 PM Turner Classic Movies
Model Shop (1969 FRA): I'm not much of a Jacques Demy fan, but this time out he wisely decided to forego having his cast sing all their dialogue. As a result, Model Shop is a candy-colored tribute to late '60s Los Angeles, which is never a bad thing, even when viewed without the lens of lysergic acid diethylamide. Anouk Aimee stars as Lola, a French émigré who rents cameras - and herself - at an "artists and models" shop, where she meets George Matthews (Gary Lockwood), an architect about to be shipped off to 'Nam. Together, they discover the truth behind the lies behind the billboards on Sunset Boulevard. The dialogue, written by Demy and translated into English by Adrien Joyce, is stodgy and very, very French, but the film itself is gorgeous. Interesting footnotes: the script supervisor was Edgar Ulmer's wife Shirley, and Fred Willard plays a gas station attendant.
Friday 12/19/08
9:00 PM IFC
Face of Another (1966 JAP): A Japanese take on the Eyes Without A Face trope, The Face of Another stars legendary Tatsuya Nakadai (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo) as Okuyama, a laboratory worker horribly disfigured by a chemical explosion. After undergoing therapy, he's fitted with a mask to disguise his hideous features — but his new face also disguises his personality in strange and unpleasant ways. It's based on a Kobo Abe novel, was director Hiroshi Teshigahara's follow-up project to Woman In the Dunes, and features a Toru Takemitsu score, so you know it's good. Also airs 12/20 at midnight.
11:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Road to Ruin (1934 USA): Most film fans are familiar with some of the hysterical anti-drug films of the 1930s (Reefer Madness, Assassin of Youth, etc.), but here's one that's not quite so well known. Produced by Willis Kent, The Road to Ruin is decidedly exploitative in nature, but comes by its attitude honestly: co-director Dorothy Davenport had lost husband Wallace Reid to heroin in 1923, and spent much of the rest of her life railing against substance abuse. In this roadshow epic, Helen Foster stars as sweet young innocent Ann Dixon, who falls in with the wrong crowd and ends up smoking gage, drinking booze, and making mad passionate love with all around louse Tommy (Glen Boles). It all leads to disaster: skinny-dipping, strip craps, a dose of the clap, and (of course) pregnancy and a backstreet abortion. She shoulda moved to Bucharest. It's followed at 1:00 AM on Saturday morning by the not nearly so sleazy Escort Girl (1941), in which a crusading DA tries to put the kibosh on the Hollywood Escort Bureau.
Sunday 12/21/08
4:15 AM Sundance
Blind Flight (2003 GB): Ian Hart (Days and the Hours, Backbeat) stars in this sadly overlooked drama set in civil war-era Lebanon. He plays Brian Keenan, an Irish teacher kidnapped and held for ransom by a Beirut militia for almost five years in the company of English journalist John McCarthy (Linus Roache). As similar as cheese and chalk, the protagonists slowly come to terms with both their captors and each other, and the film plays like a less hysterical Midnight Express. Based on the real life experiences of Keenan and McCarthy, Blind Flight never received an American theatrical release but comes strongly recommended for Hart's performance in particular, which won him the Best Actor honors at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival.
9:00 PM Sundance
Cinderella (2006 ROK): Most definitely NOT to be confused with the Disney animated classic of the same name, this Cinderella is a Korean thriller about plastic surgery gone bad. (Facial modifications are this week's back-up theme, apparently.) Do Ji-won stars as "body sculptor" Yoon-Hee, who makes a living remaking and remodeling the physiogs of her daughter's friends. Alas, her good work begins to come undone when a lank-haired ghost shows up demanding the return of her original face, and Yoon-Hee's customers begin to experience buyer's remorse in the most gruesome way imaginable. It's a pretty average Asian thriller with some good photography, but it probably makes more sense to Korean viewers more in tune with the cultural phenomenon it addresses.
Monday 12/22/08
2:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Young and Innocent (1937 GB): Alfred Hitchcock's penultimate British film — well, if you don't count Frenzy—stars Derrick De Marney as author Robert Tisdale, the boy toy of film actress Christine Clay (Pamela Carme). Christine's estranged husband has returned to her after an eight-year absence, and he's none too pleased to learn he's been cuckolded. She ends up dead, her body washes ashore on the beach, and the police naturally suspect her lover of the crime. It's up to spunky bobby's daughter Erica Burgoyne (Nova Pilbeam) to save the day: she doesn't believe for a minute that Robert is the killer, and attempts to help him prove his innocence after first assisting him to escape his jail cell. Though not quite as good as The Lady Vanishes or Sabotage, Young and Innocent is still in the first rank of early Hitchcock.
4:00 PM Sundance
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2006 USA): I'm not that familiar with the work of underground filmmaker Jack Smith — I've never even seen Flaming Creatures — but I'm sure I'll appreciate his efforts once I scope this documentary. Smith is said to have been an influence on Andy Warhol and John Waters, as well as being a pioneer in the field of performance art, so this is bound to be interesting and outrageous stuff.
8:00 PM Sundance
Cocalero (2007 BOL): The excitement generated by Bolivian presidential candidate (and now President) Evo Morales is palpable in this excellent documentary about his 2005 campaign and the plight of the farmers who formed his base. United in opposition to the anti-drug efforts of the United States and their own pre-Morales government, the farmers rely on coca for a living, and didn't think they should lose their livelihood at the behest of gringos with too much money and too little self-control. Morales tapped in to their anger and became the first indigenous chief executive of this land-locked country, where the descendents of white settlers have long controlled wealth at the expense of the Indian majority. His reward? A secession effort by the moneyed Anglos, and a sub-plot in Quantum of Solace. Congrats, Evo!