TiVoPlex
By John Seal
March 21, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 03/22/11
7:00 AM HBO Signature
Ultima y Nos Vamos (2009 MEX): Four young men spend a night on the tiles in this episodic Mexican coming-of-age drama. Unlike many of the Spanish-language films that appear on HBO Signature, I can’t speak very highly of this one: the characters are frequently annoying, the screenplay predictable, and the production values unimpressive. However, this is the first time Ultima y Nos Vamos has had wide exposure in the United States (it played very briefly on the festival circuit), so you may want to check it out if Spanish-language cinema is your cup of meat.
11:35 AM Encore Dramatic Stories
Minnie and Moskowitz (1971 USA): Yeah, it's a John Cassavetes film, which means there's no story and most of the cast spend their screen time mumbling and twitching. Still, any film that teams Gena Rowlands (known as Mrs. Cassavetes to her neighbors) with Seymour Cassel is worth a look. Rowlands is Minnie, who works in a museum, and Cassel is, er, the other one, who works in a parking garage. Together they make discordant, atonal music. Also on hand is the always wonderful Timothy Carey, as well as Holly Near and numerous members of the extended Cassavetes-Rowlands family.
5:00 PM Fox Movie Channel
Only the Strong (1993 USA): Unpicky viewers looking for a dose of widescreen martial arts, mark your calendar — everyone else, slowly edge away from the remote control and don’t look back. Only the Strong features capoeira practitioner and rumored actor Mark Dacascos as Louis Stevens, an ex-Special Forces soldier who returns to his old Miami neighborhood to put the kibosh on drug-dealers, who are pushing their foul wares on local teenagers. Just say no? Just say uncle is more like it, as Louis puts boot in ass and saves the town from some stereotypical South American narco lords. Dacascos's "acting" is on a par with other wooden wonders such as Christopher Lambert and Johnny Weissmuller, so you’re tuning in strictly for the acrobatics. Also airs at 9:00 PM.
Wednesday 03/23/11
3:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Good Morning (1959 JAP): Here’s the TiVoPlex catch o’ the week. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu, Good Morning is another of the director’s pointed yet good-spirited tributes to the middle-class Japanese family, with particular attention paid, of course, to the younger generation. The story focuses on Isamu (Masahiko Shimazu) and Minoru (Koji Shitara), two pre-pubescent brothers whose constant nagging for a television set prompt mom and dad to tell them to be quiet and to stop asking. The disgruntled lads oblige by refusing to utter a sound until their demands are met, setting off repercussions at home, at school, and in town. Ozu’s first film in color, Good Morning is an absolute delight and will please viewers who enjoyed his (technically) silent tributes to the joys and mysteries of childhood, Tokyo Chorus and I Was Born, But…
Thursday 03/24/11
12:15 PM HBO2
Secrets of the Tribe (2010 GB-BRA): The effect of modern civilization on Brazil’s isolated Yanomami aboriginal tribe is the subject of this outstanding documentary directed by Jose Padilha (Bus 174). "Discovered" by the outside world in the 1960s, the Yanomami became an instant hit on the anthropological circuit, attracting attention from academics both home and abroad. A slew of books and academic papers duly followed, but Secrets of the Tribe questions the wisdom and necessity of the scientific intrusion: warfare, disease, and discord were just some of the gifts given by anthropologists to the Yanomami. The film gives full vent to the still ongoing ethical debate, offering a no holds barred look at academic infighting. Also airs at 3:15 PM.
7:00 PM Flix
Louie Bluie (1985 USA): This Terry Zwigoff-helmed documentary examines the life and times of Howard "Louie Bluie" Armstrong (not to be confused with Louis Armstrong), an African-American fiddle player who entertained generations of Chicagoans from the 1930s through the 1970s. Zwigoff tracked Armstrong down in the early '80s, after he had relocated to Detroit, and records his observations herein (Armstrong would live until 2003, when he was well into his 90s). It’s a loosely structured salute to a genre-defying musician who was also an artist and amateur philosopher, and will be best appreciated by admirers of films such as American Splendor and Zwigoff’s own Crumb. Especially noteworthy: Armstrong’s jam with Banjo Ikey Robinson, whose 1930s hit My Four Reasons is performed herein with great gusto.
Friday 03/25/11
1:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Synanon (1965 USA): Here’s something pretty special: Columbia Pictures' forgotten "salute" to the once trendy Synanon rehab center, which came to prominence in the mid-'60s before being revealed as little more than a cult a decade later. Directed by Richard Quine, the film was shot on location and is an adulatory salute to the center and its work with recovering junkies. Alex Cord stars as Zankie, a strung-out newbie forced to go cold turkey whilst exchanging sob stories with fellow smackheads played by Chuck Connors, Eartha Kitt, Richard Conte, and Stella Stevens. He also crosses swords with cult leader — sorry, Synanon director — Charles Dederich (played in the film by a bloated Edmond O’Brien), whilst hairdresser Jay Sebring, later a murder victim of the Manson cult, makes a cameo appearance as Synanon’s barber. It’s not quite as lurid as you might hope, but remains a fascinating reflection of America’s attitudes towards addiction and recovery during the not so swingin’ '60s.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Carnival Magic (1982 USA): This appalling yet strangely appealing film actually debuted on TCM last Halloween, but somehow I overlooked it at the time. To the delight of dozens, Carnival Magic now makes an encore appearance! It’s a children’s film directed by the infamous Al Adamson, a name that strikes fear in the hearts of cineastes and glee in those of a more psychotronic persuasion. The film stars one-time child actor Don Stewart as Markov the Magician, whose talking monkey is threatened by a jealous competitor eager to see the simian seconded to scientists set on discovering the secret of its surprising ability. Seriously! Shot for peanuts in North Carolina and co-starring buxom Regina Carrol (Mrs. Al Adamson), Carnival Magic was thought lost for years but is now available on Blu-Ray. Thank God for home video.
Saturday 03/26/11
7:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Spook Chasers (1957 USA): For approximately the umpteenth time, the Bowery Boys have a run-in with the supernatural. In this outing, Sach, Duke, and Chuck get stuck in a spooky old house during inclement weather and find themselves threatened by gorillas, ghosts, and — surprise — gangsters. Yep, the old dark house is actually a cover for robbers looking to scare away prying intruders. Betcha didn’t see that plot development coming.
7:00 PM IFC
The Human Centipede (2009 HOL): I know I wrote last week that, due to IFC’s short-sighted decision to air commercial breaks during film broadcasts, I would only recommend films screening on the channel in exceptional circumstances. I jettisoned AMC and Bravo for the same reason and haven’t regretted it. So it is with some reluctance that I give the channel’s programming a mention this week — but when the programming in question involves a movie the likes of The Human Centipede, allowances must be made. Widely considered one of the grossest horror films of recent vintage, it’s the story of Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser), a mad scientist who grafts people together, anus to mouth, to create the titular monster. And with that charming image in your mind, I leave you to your own devices. Airs again 3/27 at 1:00 AM.
Sunday 03/27/11
7:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
Accident (1967 GB): Dirk Bogarde stars as a man in the middle of a mid-life crisis in this sterling ensemble piece directed by Joseph Losey and penned by Harold Pinter. Dirk plays Stephen, a married Oxford professor who foolishly falls for sultry Austrian student Anna (French actress Jacqueline Sassard). This, unsurprisingly, doesn’t sit well with either Stephen’s wife Rosemary (Vivien Merchant) or with Anna’s aristocratic toff fiancée William (Michael York), and bitter recriminations and cutting looks are soon the order of the day. As with all Pinter pieces, however, the dialogue is spare and to the point, so don’t expect any Burton/Taylor-style pyrotechnics. Also on hand: Stanley Baker as one of Bogarde’s academic colleagues and Delphine Seyrig (Daughters of Darkness) as another of Stephen’s lovers. What a naughty boy.
11:05 PM Starz
Micmacs (2010 FRA): Dany Boon stars in this surreal Jean-Pierre Jeunet (City of Lost Children) fantasy as Bazil, a French everyman who (in the film’s masterful opening sequence) loses his father to an anti-personnel mine in the Western Sahara. Years later, Dany’s late night video store shift (which seems to involve naught but eating candy and watching Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep) ends abruptly when a criminal’s stray bullet finds its way into his forehead. After a lengthy hospital sojourn in which a surgeon flips a coin to determine whether the bullet stays or goes (it stays), Bazil finds himself both homeless and unemployed. Tipped off to the existence of an encampment at a nearby scrap-yard, he is soon adopted by the commune’s quirky crew of outcasts: cook and den mother Mama Chow (Yolande Moreau), math whiz Calculator (Marie-Julie Baup), wordsmith Remington (Omar Sy), contortionist Elastic Girl (Julie Ferrier), human cannonball Buster (Dominique Pinon), professional thief and guillotine survivor Slammer (Jean-Pierre Marielle) and diminutive inventor Little Pierre (Michel Cremades). When Bazil discovers that the armaments companies responsible for both his father’s death and his own misfortune carry out their trade on opposite sides of a nearby street, he and his friends plot revenge. In best Topkapi fashion, they insinuate their way into the belly of the beast, turn the company chairmen (Andre Dussolier and Nicolas Marie) against each other, and give them a taste of the deadly gruel they’ve been serving for decades to their Middle Eastern and African customers.
Despite its deadly serious denouement, in which the horrors of "extraordinary rendition" are recreated to darkly comedic effect, Micmacs also has its share (though by no means an overabundance) of Amelie-style whimsy. (The crowd-pleasing Amelie was directed by Jeunet.) Jeunet is, as usual, a visually audacious director unafraid to acknowledge his influences: in addition to the excerpts from The Big Sleep and the use of numerous Max Steiner cues throughout the film’s score, there are numerous references to popular films of the past, including Marcel Carne’s Le jour se leve, Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, Buster Keaton’s The General, and Jacques Tati’s Play Time. Also airs 3/28 at 2:05 AM.