TiVoPlex
TiVoPlex for March 24, 2009 through March 30, 2009
By John Seal
March 23, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 03/24/09
8:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Phantom Tollbooth (1969 USA): TCM offers a tribute to animation master Chuck Jones this evening, including a number of his legendary Looney Tunes productions and the channel's original documentary, Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood. However, the evening's highlight — at least for me — is this adaptation of Norton Juster's children's book, which I read countless times as a wee one. The Phantom Tollbooth tells the tale of Milo, a precocious young lad who drives his toy car through a mysterious tollbooth that appears in his room one day. Much like C. S. Lewis' wardrobe, the tollbooth transports him to a wondrous alternate universe where anything can happen — especially when it involves the eternal battle between logic (numbers) and ideas (words). Though burdened with some wretched songs, The Phantom Tollbooth's story is strong enough to bear the burden, and there's excellent voice talent — including Hans Conried, Daws Butler, and Mel Blanc — along for the ride. Also airs 3/25 at midnight.
Wednesday 03/25/09
2:10 AM More Max
The Desert Fox (1951 USA): James Mason portrays Third Reich tank commander Erwin Rommel in this solid if somewhat staid war drama from director Henry Hathaway. Rommel was renowned for his innovations in armored warfare and for his leadership in the North African campaigns, which saw Germany's Afrika Korps and Britain's 8th Army engage in a see-saw series of engagements from Egypt to Tunisia and back again. Rommel was also considered to be a soldier's soldier; never a member of the Nazi Party, he treated prisoners of war humanely and refused to kill or deport Jews who stumbled across his path. As a result, The Desert Fox fell out of favor with Hitler and committed suicide shortly after the failed July 20, 1944 plot — a plot he was, perhaps surprisingly, not party to. As for the film, the title is something of a misnomer, as most of the action takes place after Rommel had returned to Europe. Mason was the perfect man for the role (though Erich von Stroheim is more than adequate in 1943's Five Graves to Cairo), and he would pop up again as the Generalfeldmarschall in 1953's The Desert Rats. The excellent supporting cast includes Cedric Hardwicke, George Macready, Leo G. Carroll, Eduard Franz, and Jessica Tandy as Frau Rommel.
5:00 PM HBO
They Killed Sister Dorothy (2008 USA): Sister Dorothy Stang was a Catholic nun deeply concerned with issues of social injustice and economic inequality. She lived amongst the native peoples of the Brazilian rainforest for decades, where she supported them in their struggles against the oligarchs of the logging industry. Sister Dorothy was murdered in early 2005, and this brand new HBO doc takes a look at the crime and the resultant court case, which ended in December 2005 with the conviction of two assassins who killed her at the behest of a local rancher eager to get his clear-cut on. Narrated by Martin Sheen, They Killed Sister Dorothy won both the audience and jury prizes at the South by Southwest Film Festival. Also airs at 8:00 PM.
Thursday 03/26/09
11:00 AM Fox Movie Channel
Enemy Mine (1985 USA): Can't we all just get along? That's the theme of this thinly disguised plea for racial harmony from director Wolfgang Petersen. Louis Gossett Jr. and Dennis Quaid star as galactic warriors from opposing sides who end up needing each other after they crash land (separately) on a remote alien planet. At first, the two do all they can to maintain the status quo and carry out their respective missions - but as the gravity of their situation sinks in, they realize they need each other in order to survive. Sound predictable? It is, but Enemy Mine's combination of excellent set design and good lead performances overcome the dated Defiant Ones-style plot devices of Ed Khmara's screenplay. It's making its widescreen television debut this morning on Fox.
7:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Things to Come (1936 GB): One of the greatest science fiction films of the pre-war era, Things to Come makes a rare small screen appearance this evening. Based on H.G. Wells' prophetic novel The Shape of Things to Come, the film features Raymond Massey in a double role: as pilot John Cabal, who's turned from pacifism to the Dark Side during a decades long air war that has left Britain devastated; and as Cabal's grandson Oswald (Mosley?), who lives in the year 2036, enjoys wearing a toga, and pontificates from on high whenever a sufficiently tall soap-box hoves into view. Filled with amazing visuals courtesy director William Cameron Menzies, Things to Come has suffered badly over the years: originally almost two hours in length, the film crashed and burned at the box office and was subsequently shorn of almost half an hour's worth of material. It remains to be seen which version TCM will be airing tonight, and though I strongly urge all readers to pick up a copy of Granada's PAL-format DVD, this is likely to be as good as the film gets Stateside. It's followed at 9:00 PM by another Alexander Korda production, the less auspicious Russian Revolution romancer Knight Without Armour, featuring Robert Donat and Marlene Dietrch as star-crossed lovers stranded in Siberia.
Friday 03/27/09
6:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
Anna Lucasta (1958 USA): This quite daring for its time drama features Eartha Kitt as the titular Anna, a woman trying to overcome - or bury - her seamy past as a streetwalker. Adapted for the screen by Philip Yordan, and based on his own successful stage play, Anna Lucasta features an all-African American cast, including Sammy Davis Jr. as Danny, the sailor who tries to make an honest woman of Anna, Rex Ingram as her unforgiving father Joe, and charming Isabel Cooley as sister Katie. It all looks a little tame now, but bear in mind the story had been shot with an all-white cast only ten years earlier.
Saturday 03/28/09
11:00 PM Sundance
Cavite (2005 PHI): Filipino film-making was once exemplified by the ubiquitous presence of Vic Diaz, who snarled his way through countless Roger Corman-produced action flicks shot in the archipelago, usually clad in a really ugly floral shirt and wielding a machete. The now-very ill Diaz is nowhere to be seen in Cavite, but fans of those low-budget Corman flicks might still enjoy this film. Produced, written, and directed by Ian Gamazon, Cavite stars - who else? - Ian Gamazon as Adam, the American-born son of Filipino parents on his way back to the islands to attend his father's funeral. Once there, he learns that his mother and sister have been kidnapped (presumably by Abu Sayyaf guerrillas), and that in order to save them he must follow a very precise series of demands. The perp seems just as interested in educating Adam in the ways, means and motives of Islamic revolution as in reclaiming the money his father apparently stole (or hid) from the insurgency. Though this originally aired on Sundance as part of its Asia Extreme series, this isn't a horror or exploitation film; it's a serious and exemplary political thriller about a man being forced to come to terms with his cultural and religious heritage. Shot verite style in and around some of the worst slums on Earth, Cavite offers rich rewards on many levels.
Monday 03/30/09
3:15 AM HBO Signature
Cordero de Dios (2008 ARG): This Argentine film, known as Lamb of God in English, premiered at last year's Rotterdam Film Festival, but this is, I believe, it's first exposure to American audiences. I haven't screened it, but it apparently relates the story of a kidnapping, filtered through the prisms of two great crises of Argentine history: the military dictatorship of the late 1970s and the economic meltdown of 2002.
6:00 PM Sundance
The Siege (2008 PER): Contemporary Peruvian history gets a look-in via this riveting documentary about the conflict between the insurgent Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and the government of hard-line President Alberto Fujimori. For five months during the (South American) summer and autumn of 1996-97, fourteen MRTA guerrillas exercised control over the Japanese embassy in Lima, which they seized during a celebration of Emperor Akihito's birthday. The siege ended when Fujimori ordered the building stormed; the resultant assault left all the guerrillas dead, many of them the victims of summary execution. The film features astonishing up close and personal footage of rebel leader Nestor Cerpa and much self-congratulatory footage of Fujimori, shot whilst the man was under house arrest in Chile awaiting extradition back to Peru on charges of corruption and human rights abuses. The Siege is a truly remarkable documentary; it seems both sides filmed or taped just about every action they took, and Fujimori is anything but camera shy.