TiVoPlex
By John Seal
October 12, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 10/13/09
12:30 PM IFC
Desperately Seeking Susan (1984 USA): It's hard to imagine a time when Madonna was actually hip and not the subject of well-earned ridicule, but this still fresh "punk" comedy caught her at just that moment. Her film career soon went into precipitous and irreversible decline, but Desperately Seeking Susan is proof positive that Madonna Louise Ciccone once showed some onscreen promise. She plays a New York free spirit who finds her fate inadvertently entwined with that of boring middle-class housewife Roberta (Rosanna Arquette, another actress who soon fell from grace). Director Susan Seidelman had the good sense to film on location with a boatload of Bowery denizens — including Richards Hell and Edson, Ann Magnuson, Rockets Redglare, Adele Bertei, Arto Lindsay, and John Lurie — as well as professional actors such as Victor Argo, John Turturro, and Shirley Stoler. The result is a lively musical comedy of errors cut from the same cloth as Martin Scorsese's After Hours.
Wednesday 10/14/09
8:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Scarlet Letter (1926 USA): Lillian Gish stars as Hester Prynne in this excellent silent adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel of the same name. You read it in school, so you know the story — sweet young thing gets knocked up by preacher man and must wear titular adornment as partial penance for her sins. Directed by Victor Sjostrom, this version of The Scarlet Letter co-stars Swedish thesp Lars Hanson as lover-boy clergyman Arthur Dimmesdale and Henry B. Walthall as cuckolded hubby Roger Chillingworth, whilst wonderful Karl Dane provides comic relief as Master Giles. It's one of the unsung masterpieces of the Silent Era: a beautifully made film that still has the power to move an audience.
4:40 PM Sundance
The Lives of Others (2007 GER): 2008's Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winner makes its widescreen American television debut this evening, making amends for those pan and scan airings on Starz last year. Starring the late Ulrich Mühe as a Stasi agent assigned to listen in on the conversations of a playwright considered a security threat, The Lives of Others is a modern classic that should send a shiver of recognition through American viewers disturbed by our own government's efforts to constantly expand its ability to peek into the most private corners of our lives.
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Cuckoos (1930 USA): Fans of Wheeler and Woolsey, rejoice! TCM has a quartet of the lads' funniest features on tap for you this evening. For those not in the know, Wheeler and Woolsey were the first vaudeville team to successfully make the transition to the big screen — and because they did so in the early ‘30s, their brand of comedy tended to be a touch naughtier than, for example, Abbott and Costello or The Ritz Brothers. The laughs commence with The Cuckoos, in which our heroes play phony fortune tellers hanging around a Mexican resort in search of easy marks. Wheeler falls in love with Anita (Dorothy Lee), an American-born gal raised by gypsies, but hasn't reckoned on the jealousy of gypsy king Julius (Mitchell Lewis). Commence politically incorrect fun! The Cuckoos also features a couple of early Technicolor sequences, but I don't know whether or not they're included in TCM's print. It's followed at 7:00 PM by Hook Line and Sinker (1931), in which the boys play insurance salesmen turned hoteliers, at 8:30 PM by Caught Plastered (1932), in which they turn an old lady's corner shop into a speakeasy, and at 9:45 PM by Peach-O-Reno (1932), a salute to the Biggest Little City in the World — and the divorce capitol of America.
Thursday 10/15/09
2:45 AM Encore Dramatic Stories
Liberation (1994 USA): Encore Dramatic Stories aired the excellent Holocaust documentary Genocide a couple of weeks ago, and they continue the theme this morning with Liberation. Directed by Genocide helmer Arnold Schwartzman, the film covers a tremendous amount of ground, from the earliest days of Nazi attempts to institute the Final Solution to the liberation of the concentration camps. If there are any grounds for complaint, the movie star narration (Whoopi Goldberg and Ben Kingsley this time) occasionally grates, but it's still a first-rate documentary that serves as an excellent introduction to the topic. Also airs 10/19 at 11:05 AM.
3:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
Parole Girl (1933 USA): Mae Clarke gets played for a sucker in this obscure Columbia second feature. Mae plays Sylvia, a babe in the woods who gets pulled into the orbit of dirtbag petty criminal Tony (Hale Hamilton) after he helps her out with some medical expenses. Tony convinces her to assist him in extorting money from store owner Joe (Ralph Bellamy), but the plan goes haywire and Sylvia ends up serving a two-year term for extortion. Now on parole and in cahoots with Joe's estranged jailbird wife Jeanie (future doggie's dinner Marie Prevost), Sylvia begins to plot vengeance against the shopkeeper whose testimony sent her up the river — but soon learns that revenge is not always sweet. Directed by Edward Cline, Parole Girl clocks in at a rapid-fire 68 minutes and co-stars Ferdinand Gottschalk.
5:45 AM Turner Classic Movies
Life Begins at 17 (1958 USA): A spoiled little rich boy gets his gentle comeuppance in this rarely seen teen drama from director Arthur Dreifuss. Mark Damon plays industrial heir frat rat Russ Lippincott, who throws his wallet around in order to win the hand of beauty queen Elaine (Dorothy Johnson). Russ is used to getting his way about everything and vows to take her to the prom—but Elaine has different ideas, preferring the company of boring but reliable Jim (Edd ‘Kookie' Byrnes). Life Begins at 17 plays more like an educational film about correct deportment than a narrative drama, but it offers a pretty revealing look at ‘50s social mores — and watch for scream queen Luana Anders in the critical role of Elaine's younger sister Carol. It's followed at 7:00 AM by Senior Prom (1958), primarily of interest today thanks to the presence of musicians Louis Prima, Keely Smith, and Sam Butera.
9:15 PM IFC
Mountains of the Moon (1990 USA): The source of the River Nile was the cause of much adventuring during the Victorian era, and that's the unlikely subject of this film from Monkees-creator Bob Rafelson. Patrick Bergin and Iain Glen star as Richard Burton (no, not that one) and John Speke, two well-bred sons of the British Empire determined to pin down the river's presumably puddlesome roots. Though beautifully shot and well-acted, the film is occasionally a bit too Chariots of Fire-y for me, but biopic fans could do far worse. Mountains of the Moon makes its widescreen television debut this evening and co-stars Bernard Hill, Delroy Lindo, Roshan Seth, and the always marvelous Richard E. Grant.
Friday 10/16/09
Midnight Starz Comedy
I Served the King of England (2006 CZH): Just in case you missed it the first time, here's what I wrote about this film in August: Prague Springer Jiri Menzel stuck his head above the 21st century parapet with this most welcome comedy-drama about the life and times of a Czech everyman. Ivan Barnev and Oldrich Kaiser split the role of Jan Dite, a waiter who lucks into ownership of a hotel during the Nazi occupation and then ends up imprisoned for 15 years by Czechoslovakia's post-war Communist regime. His episodic adventures are related herein, including his dalliance with an enthusiastic Nazi (the wonderful Julia Jentsch) and his dabbling in the world of philately. Menzel has actually remained active ever since his heyday 40 years ago, but most of his post-Closely Watched Trains films never got released in the US. Thankfully that changed with I Served the King of England. That's fairly fulsome praise, but after a second viewing, I feel like I undersold it — and if you're still awaiting your first viewing, you're in for a real treat.
Saturday 10/17/09
12:45 AM Turner Classic Movies
Terrorvision (1986 USA): Any film starring Gerrit Graham is going to get a thumbs up from me, and here's one of the beady-eyed funny man's most amusing efforts. Graham and co-star Mary Woronov play the Puttermans, a suburban couple not entirely dissimilar to the one featured in Woronov's classic Eating Raoul (1982). They live in a ranch-style home with annoying 12-year-old son Sherman (Chad Allen) and crotchety patriarch Grampa (Bert Remsen), and own one of them new fangled satellite dishes - a contraption that turns out to be the garbage chute for a civilization in a distant galaxy. Amongst the space junk sent to Earth is a beyond absurd sock-puppet monster that proceeds to eat the adults and the neighbors, leaving the fate of the world in the hands of young Sherman, who must convince the authorities that something's not quite right at the end of the cul-de-sac. Helmed by Subspecies auteur Ted Nicolaou, this black comedy - still missing in action on DVD – appears on television in its correct aspect ratio this morning.
6:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Dick Tracy (1937 USA): We're getting near the end! This week's chapters are numbers 13 and 14, also known as The Fire Trap and The Devil in White.
5:00 PM HBO
Slumdog Millionaire (2008 GB): Director Danny Boyle finally earned the acclaim he's long deserved at last year's Academy Awards thanks to box office hit Slumdog Millionaire, a bracing blend of neo-realism and Bollywood boot-strap musical. Dev Patel is superb as Jamal, a young man whose unlikely success on India's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? earns him a beating in a police station and earns us some lengthy flashback sequences. Jamal's childhood is revisited, supplying us with clues to his impressive quiz show performance and casting light on his relationships with troubled brother Salim and beautiful girlfriend Latika. Shot by the great Anthony Dod Mantle and impressively scored by A. R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire is amongst the best and most deserving of recent Best Picture winners. Also airs at 8:00 PM and throughout the month.
Sunday 10/18/09
7:00 AM IFC
Kidnap (2008 IND): For those who prefer their Bollywood features funded by Indian money and produced by Indian filmmakers, here's this week's Wake Up to Bollywood entry. Sanjay Dutt stars as Vikrant, a middle-class Indian whose daughter has been kidnapped — but not for ransom. Instead, the kidnapper wants Vikrant to perform a series of tasks, including assisting with a prison break and murder. As you might expect, this is less light-hearted and frivolous than most of the Indian films airing on IFC these days, and is all the better for it—one can only take so many light-hearted romantic musical comedies.
12:45 PM IFC
The Vanishing (1988 HOL): If you've ever had the misfortune of tuning in to Fox Movie Channel with expectations of seeing the original version of this film - only to be confronted by the inferior-in-every way American remake of the same title - help is on the way. IFC is airing director George Sluizer's terrific Dutch-language version this morning, and while it may not have Kiefer Sutherland, Sandra Bullock, or Jeff Bridges with a silly accent, it compensates with an intriguing and suspenseful plot. You may not have heard of any of the actors in this film, but at least you'll end up caring about the characters they play.
9:00 PM Sundance
World Without Thieves (2004 CHI-HK): When taking the train in China, watch your wallet. That's the lesson preached by this decent Hong Kong crime drama featuring Andy Lau and Rene Liu as Bo and Li, a pair of pickpockets victimizing passengers on the Hong Kong Express. After Li has a change of heart and gets religion, Bo continues his wicked ways — even after Li warns him away from Dumbo (Baoqiang Wang), a humble and innocent lad transporting a large sum of money to his new home in the country. World Without Thieves was co-produced by a cellphone company, which probably explains the film's inordinate number of phone conversations, but if you can overlook the product placement you'll be reasonably pleased with the proceedings.
Monday 10/19/09
4:25 PM IFC
Turistas (2006 USA): It's yucky, gross, tasteless, and (worst crime of all) numbingly unoriginal, but this torture porn epic makes its widescreen television debut on IFC tonight. Hey, there's nothing else on today, so if you're completely bored, take a trip to Brazil with the Turistas.