TiVoPlex
TiVoPlex for Tuesday, January 6, 2009 through Monday, January 12, 2009
By John Seal
January 5, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 01/06/09
3:30 AM Sundance
For the Bible Tells Me So (2007 USA): Proposition 8 aside, Homophobia is on a slow descent towards extinction — but there are still plenty of biblical literalists out there touting the Good Book's hatred for The Third Sex. This documentary takes a look at the issue, but thankfully doesn't just rage against these culture war dead-enders. Featuring interviews with Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson (whose ordination led to a schism amongst Anglicans), respected author and scholar Peter Gomes, and evangelical gay Christian Mel White, this is an informative, intelligent, and even-handed treatment of this contentious issue.
11:15 AM Cinemax
Diary of the Dead (2007 USA): The most recent entry in George Romero's Dead series takes a page from the Blair Witch's somewhat musty book, but manages to adapt that film's pseudo-verite trappings to good effect. Diary focusses on a group of young filmmakers whose latest production is interrupted by a limbo eruption, sending them speeding desperately to sanctuary: a remote, well-protected mansion owned by the family of one of their actors. Naturally, things don't go according to plan and the supposedly impregnable fortress turns out to be anything but to the crafty and nefarious living dead. Closing on the bleakest note since Duane Jones' demise in 1968's Night of the Living Dead, Diary of the Dead is proof positive that there's still a little juice left in Romero yet. Also airs at 2:15 PM.
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Brighton Rock (1947 GB): Based on a superb short novel by Graham Greene, Brighton Rock makes a very rare American television appearance this evening. Living legend Richard Attenborough stars as spiv Pinkie Brown, a low-level gangster in charge of the eponymous seaside resort's protection racket. After Pinkie oversees the murder of a competitor (Alan Wheatley), the police record the death as a suicide — but moll Ida (Hermione Baddeley) knows better, and the noose begins to tighten around Pinkie's neck. One of the very few pure noirs produced in Britain, Brighton Rock is much admired in its homeland but virtually unknown elsewhere. Watch tonight and learn why the British Film Institute voted it the 15th best British film of all time! It's followed at 6:45 PM by another first-rate UK thriller, 1948's The Fallen Idol, in which Ralph Richardson plays a butler who gets a bit too involved in his employer's personal affairs.
Wednesday 01/07/09
3:50 AM IFC
Goth Cruise (2008 USA): Hey, if the guys and gals from National Review can hop an ocean liner to Alaska in order to scope out Sarah Palin, why shouldn't a bunch of chicken-dancing, panda-eyed goths sail off to the Caribbean for a week of glum fun in the sun? I haven't seen Goth Cruise yet, but that's the unlikely subject matter examined in this brand new documentary. No doubt the onboard entertainment included a Southern Death Cult reunion and a Fields of the Nephilim floor show — or flour shower.
4:45 AM Turner Classic Movies
Craig's Wife (1936 USA): Married, no doubt, to a husband located via a personal ad on Craigslist. Hollywood newcomer Rosalind Russell stars as Harriet Craig, an upwardly mobile housewife who has parlayed husband Walter's (John Boles) career into a cash cow for her own benefit. When Walter gets into trouble with the police, Harriet does everything within her power to protect herself from any blowback — including lying to the rozzers. Directed by Dorothy Arzner and co-starring Billie Burke, Jane Darwell, and Thomas Mitchell, Craig's Wife was remade to superior effect in 1950 as a vehicle for Joan Crawford, which airs immediately following at 6:15 AM.
8:30 PM Showtime Extreme
Hard Eight (1996 USA): I have a feeling Paul Thomas Anderson's debut feature has previously aired in widescreen, but I don't think I've ever written about it, so I'll give it a plug today. The film features the well-lined visage of Philip Baker Hall as Sydney, a seen-it-all gambler living out the end of his string in seedy rundown Reno. Sydney meets John (John C. Reilly) in a local greasy spoon, takes a shine to him, and teaches him everything he knows, living vicariously through his protégé's success at the tables and affair with Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow), a waitress who earns a little extra dough on the side by turning tricks. Things go swimmingly until one of Clementine's clients stiffs her for $300 — and John turns once again to his mentor for assistance in recovering the debt. Co-starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Samuel L. Jackson, Hard Eight served notice that Anderson was a director to watch and marked the beginning of Paltrow's rise to stardom.
Thursday 01/08/09
6:40 AM More Max
I'm Not There (2007 USA): I'm not a Bob Dylan fan. Oh sure, I recognize that he wrote some great songs. Like a Rolling Stone. Knocking on Heaven's Door. All Along the Watchtower. Gotta Serve Somebody. Well, maybe not that one. But by and large: good songwriter. Right up there with Carole King and Gerry Goffin. Maybe a notch ahead of Burt Bacharach, a notch below Leiber and Stoller. But geez, Zimmy...don't open your mouth. It's just ugly. And the movies? Renaldo and Clara, 'nuff said. And I'm Not There? Apparently there are seven different iterations of His Bobness in it. It's making its small screen debut this morning. Most likely you'll go your way (and I'll go mine).
Friday 01/09/09
6:10 AM MGM HD
Sword of the Conqueror (1962 ITA-FRA): Jack Palance stars as Alboino, King of Lombardy, in this colorful sword and sandal epic from director Carlo Campogalliani. Alboini has the hots for Rosmunda (Eleanora Rossi Drago), daughter of fellow blueblood Cunimond (Manhattan Baby's Andrea Bosic), but she's already betrothed to straight arrow Amalric (Guy Madison). That doesn't stop Alboini from poaching on his rival's territory, and soon much blood — in full color, and in widescreen — will flow so that one man's lust for a medieval babe can be temporarily sated. This entertaining if quite average costume adventure is notable for the presence of Palance's brother Ivan in a supporting role: Ivan's only other film appearance was also beside his brother, in the wretched 1972 spaghetti western Tedeum (Sting of the West).
Saturday 01/10/09
3:00 AM MGM HD
Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971 USA): Because if there's one thing you DON'T want to miss in HD, it's an Al Adamson film. Like all Adamson productions, Dracula vs. Frankenstein is a mind-boggling, logic-defying example of shoestring filmmaking, and stars the immortal Zandor Vorkov as Count Dracula, here working in cahoots with Doctor Durray (J. Carrol Naish) to resurrect the Frankenstein Monster (seven-foot tall Adamson regular John Bloom). The plan involves knocking off and recycling the annoying young people who hang around the local carnival, and employing goon Groton (Lon Chaney Jr. in his final appearance) in order to do so. Co-starring Anthony Eisley, Angelo Rossitto, Russ Tamblyn, and Mrs. Al Adamson (Regina Carrol), this is one of the all time greats of psychotronic cinema — which, of course, means that it's terrible, in HD or otherwise.
9:05 PM Encore Action
Green Street Hooligans (2005 GB): The best football (or, if you prefer, soccer) picture since Fever Pitch (the Colin Firth one), Green Street Hooligans features former Frodo Elijah Woods as Matt Buckner, an American student who moves to London and falls in with a group of thuggish Milwall supporters. Introduced to the louts thanks to his sister's husband, Buckner's refined Ivy League exterior is soon shucked off as he discovers a taste for aggro and ends up parading the terraces in search of a ruck with those damned West Ham supporters. (True story: I once had to spell "West Ham United" for a West Ham fan who was trying to find the team's Web site at an internet café near Victoria Station.) Little wonder that Milwall's terrace chant is "No One Likes Us, No One Likes Us, No One Likes Us, We Don't Care," as a predilection for starting fights is not likely to ingratiate yourself with the visitor's supporters. Or hobbits.
10:00 PM MGM HD
Between the Lines (1977 USA): If Network had been about the world of print journalism in the 1970s, it would have been this underrated and depressingly prescient Joan Micklin Silver film about the demise of a feisty Boston newspaper. TiVoPlex favorite John Heard stars as Harry Lucas, chief muckraker for the Back Bay Mainline, a paper founded in the late '60s as an alternative to the mainstream press. The Mainline's success has now become the cause of its own demise, as tycoon Roy Walsh (Lane Smith) is angling to purchase it and many of the staff, including rock crit Max Arloft (Jeff Goldblum), are all too eager to cash in and sell out. Written by journo Fred Barron, this serio-comic slice of life also features Michael J. Pollard and remains bafflingly unavailable on American home video.
Sunday 01/11/09
6:15 AM Sundance
Blame It on Fidel (2006 ITA-FRA): Poor old Fidel, always taking the blame and never getting any respect. Fifty years into the revolution, however, he's outlived the Berlin Wall and is about to embark on driving his 12th consecutive American President nuts, which is always a good thing in my book. He gets another figurative finger in his eye from this well-made drama helmed by Julie Gavras, which tells the story of a middle-class Parisian family caught up in the political ferment of the early 1970s. Radicalised by their experiences in Franco's Spain, father Fernando (Steffano Accorsi) and mother Marie (Julie Depardieu, daughter of Gerard) have moved to a working class banlieue and are feverishly working in support of left-wing Chilean exiles. All this comes as an unpleasant culture shock for nine-year old daughter Anna (Nina Kervel-Bey), a Red Diaper Baby who would just as soon trade in her nappy in favor of a pretty designer frock. She finds the changes in her lifestyle not at all to her liking — and blames You Know Who for her ill fortune. Just possibly a reflection of its director's own childhood (she's the offspring of radical filmmaker/genius Costa-Gavras), Blame It on Fidel will ring true for anyone of a certain age who grew up in Berkeley, Cambridge, Notting Hill, or, indeed, the Left Bank.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Wife For a Night (1952 ITA): A young Gina Lollabrigida, still a year away from international stardom, takes the lead in this periodically amusing sex farce from director Mario Camerini. She portrays Ottavia, the plain jane (!) wife of poor 17th century composer Enrico (Armando Francioli), who's hoping to ingratiate himself with the local nobility. When Enrico's music finally gets its day in court, he decides to hire a sultry courtesan (Nadia Gray) to masquerade as his wife, and win him a few brownie points with Count D'Origo (Gino Cervi) in the process. Based on a play by Anna Bonacci, Wife For a Night was remade by Billy Wilder in 1964 as Kiss Me Stupid, but as is usually the case, the original version is superior, if deeply obscure.
Monday 01/12/09
11:00 AM Fox Movie Channel
The Chairman (1969 USA): Gregory Peck stars in this somewhat stodgy Cold War thriller, which makes a rare widescreen television appearance this morning on Fox. He plays John Hathaway, an industrial spy sent to Red China to steal a newly developed enzyme that promises to revolutionize food science. What he hasn't been told is that his masters in Foggy Bottom have implanted a tiny explosive device in his brain, which will be detonated should his mission fail! Naturally, things don't go well, and Hathaway flees to the Sino-Soviet border in hopes of escaping...but the clock is inexorably ticking down. Peck was too old at this point to convincingly pull off such derring-do, but the film is saved by an excellent Jerry Goldsmith score and a surprisingly effective turn by unknown Conrad Yama as Chairman Mao.
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
No Greater Glory(1934 USA): Frank Borzage has come in for some critical re-appraisal of late, and here's one of his rarer efforts for our delectation. Based on a novel by Ferenc Molnar, No Greater Glory relates the tale of two competing street gangs in pre-Great War Germany. The Paul Street Boys are led by Boka (Jimmy Butler), and are looking to upstage the older and wiser Red Shirts, commanded by Ats (Frankie Darro). The film's moral compass is Nemescek (George Breakston), a weedy youngster who adores Boka and finds himself caught up in the dangerous street battles that periodically break out between the two outfits. Beautifully filmed by Joseph August, this isn't first rank Borzage, but should certainly be considered essential viewing by anyone enamored of Man's Castle or Seventh Heaven.
7:00 PM Sundance
Secrecy (2008 USA): This essential documentary had a blink and you missed it theatrical run last autumn and now makes its television debut, where it will hopefully earn a much wider audience. Examining our government's love affair with secrecy, subterfuge, and classified information, the film is an attempt to wake up Americans to the dangers inherent in keeping citizenry in the dark about the most critical issues of the day. Put simply, our leaders — of either major party — will lie, and lie, and lie again, all in the name of "national security", whilst burying the truth beneath layers of patriotic drivel and jingoistic diversions. Every concerned citizen needs to see this film.