TiVoPlex
TiVoPlex for October 18 2011 through October 24 2011
By John Seal
October 17, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 10/18/11
6:30 AM Showtime
The Boxer and the Bombshell (2008 AUS): Though it sounds like an ABC Movie of the Week, The Boxer and the Bombshell is actually an Australian drama originally released as The Tender Hook. Why someone concocted such a terrible new title for the film’s stateside home video release, I can’t imagine! As for the film, it stars Hugo Weaving as a hoodlum who gets mixed up in a love triangle with the bombshell (Rose Byrne) and the boxer (Matt Le Nevez). Hey, I guess that new title does make sense! Set in Sydney, The Tender Hook (sorry, I can’t bring myself to call it anything else) is a solid if unspectacular tale of crime, love, and pugilism during the roaring ‘20s. Also airs at 9:30 AM.
3:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Stop, You’re Killing Me (1952 USA): Broderick Crawford headlines this amusing Warners’ comedy, a remake of the studio’s 1938 feature A Slight Case of Murder. Crawford is Remy Marko, a former bootlegger who’s turned his previously illicit Prohibition-era sideline into a beer business strictly on the up and up. He has a few problems, however: his brew is foul tasting stuff; the old strong arm marketing tactics no longer work; and worst of all, four corpses show up on Remy’s doorstep, unsurprisingly drawing unwanted attention and further complicating his efforts to go legit. Co-starring noir regular Claire Trevor as wife Nora, Sheldon Leonard and Harry Morgan as thugs, and Margaret Dumont as a snooty society dame (shocking casting, I know!), Stop You’re Killing Me is slight but decent fun.
Wednesday 10/19/11
3:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Follow That Dream (1960 USA): Contrary to general opinion, there were a few good Elvis movies after King Creole. Repeat after me: there were good Elvis movies after King Creole, and this is one of them. Admittedly it's no Jailhouse Rock, but it's miles better than unwatchable fluff like Frankie and Johnny and It Happened At the World's Fair. In Follow That Dream, Elvis has a decent role as a sharecropper's son trying to find a new home with his extended family - and he doesn't sing a lot. (I'm as big an Elvis fan as any, but when Elvis sings in one of his '60s movies, it's frequently embarrassing.) Arthur O'Connell is marvelous as Elvis' dad, Simon Oakland plays a hood who can't come to grips with the King's disingenuous manner, and there's the usual assortment of Memphis Mafia types floating around in the background. Elvis doesn't Do the Clam, nor does he have Room to Rhumba In a Sports Car, but he does the humble thing right fine, ma'am. Incidentally, I think this is the first time this film has aired on TCM in widescreen. Not sure why it took them so long, but previous screenings have been in pan and scan.
7:00 PM Sundance
Fear Me Not (2008 DEN): The perils of pharmaceutical testing are examined in this outstanding thriller from Danish director Kristian Levring (The King Is Alive). Ulrich Thomsen (Brothers, Adam’s Apples) headlines as Mikael, a middle-aged man suffering from a serious case of ennui. Unable to hold down a job, he mopes around the house all day - until brother-in-law Frederik (Lars Brygmann) tells him about a clinical trial for a new anti-depressant. Perhaps the drug will provide the morose one the spark he needs to get off the sofa - or perhaps it will have some unintended and not at all pleasant side effects! Co-starring the wonderful Paprika Steen as Mikael’s spouse Sigrid, Fear Me Not was co-written by Levring and frequent collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen.
Friday 10/21/11
4:15 AM Showtime
Boundaries of the Heart (1988 AUS): We’re certainly getting more Antipodean films than usual this week - though two isn’t a lot, it’s on average two more than usual! Boundaries of the Heart stars two of Australia’s biggest stars, Wendy Hughes and John Hargreaves, and examines the mid-life crisis of Stella Marsden (Hughes), a strumpet who beds every man who passes her way in a remote Western Australia hamlet. One of her conquests is Andy (Hargreaves), a rodeo rider and periodic visitor who finds out to his displeasure that he’s not the only man in Stella’s life. While Andy wants to settle down, the object of his affection seems unwilling to cooperate - but will a soured dalliance with the local school teacher change her mind? Co-starring Norman Kaye as Stella’s pa, Boundaries of the Heart is a slow burner featuring outstanding performances and some first-rate outback cinematography. Also airs at 7:15 AM.
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
She (1965 GB): Four British sci-fi and fantasy features are on tap this evening courtesy TCM, commencing with Hammer Film’s adaptation of H. Rider Haggard’s novel She. Directed by Robert Day (also responsible for this week’s Tarzan feature), the film stars Ursula Andress as Ayesha, She Who Must Be Obeyed, wielder of absolute power in a remote African fiefdom. After visitors from the outside world drop by uninvited, Ayesha decides one of the travelers (John Richardson) is the reincarnation of her long lost love - and trouble brews when she discovers it ain’t necessarily so. Co-starring Peter Cushing, Bernard Cribbins, Christopher Lee, and Andre Morell, this version of Haggard’s once wildly popular tale is inferior to its 1935 RKO predecessor, but offers considerable value to Hammer fans and admirers of Andress, Cushing, and Lee. It’s followed at 7:00 PM by the widescreen television debut of Prehistoric Women (1967), an absurd Hammer effort about warring tribes of blonde and brunette babes (way) back in the day; at 9:00 PM by The Viking Queen (1967), a rather dull tale of Viking and Roman fraternization in Ancient Britain; and at 11:00 PM by The Gamma People (1956), a wacky science-fiction outing in which a behind-the-Iron Curtain scientist (Walter Rilla) plots to create a race of Commie geniuses.
Saturday 10/22/11
6:45 AM Fox Movie Channel
The Reward (1965 USA): Serge "Beef" Bourguignon directed this rather odd western, sadly not screening in its original aspect ratio this morning. Everything about this film seems just a little off: from its French director to the casting of Max Von Sydow (!) as a Wild West bounty hunter, The Reward is far from your garden variety oater. Which, of course, makes it of considerable interest to yours truly! Add in Yvette Mimieux as eye candy, legendary Mexican director Emilio Fernandez as a policeman, Henry Silva as a baddie, and you have the ingredients for a pretty entertaining feature. Pity about the pan and scan, though.
8:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Zorro’s Fighting Legion (1939 USA): The mid-point of our serial is reached in Chapters 6 and 7, in which Zorro rescues his sweetie from a fate worse than death.
9:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Tarzan’s Three Challenges (1963 GB): Jock Mahoney played the T-Man one last time in this widescreen adventure in which our hero, last seen on the Indian subcontinent, travels to Indochina. This time Tarzan is hired to rescue the rightful heir to the throne of Sun Mai from a remote monastery, but that’s the easy part: once back in Sun Mai, our hero must lock horns with false prophet Khan (Woody Strode), who’s determined to seize the reins of power for himself. This is one of the most impressive of all Tarzan features, highlighted by excellent location footage and a riveting finale in which Tarzan and Khan lock horns above a deadly pit.
7:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Illegal (1955 USA): Illegal stars Edward G. Robertson as Victor Scott, an attorney with a black spot on his record: responsibility for a zealous prosecution that led to the execution of an innocent man. After a bout of drinking and soul-searching Scott decides to make amends for his misdeed and takes up a new career as a defense attorney. Hired by mob boss Frank Garland (Albert Dekker) to defend one of his murderous goons, Scott does the job and wins a not guilty jury verdict, raising the eternal scriptural question: what good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Co-starring Nina Foch, Hugh Marlowe, Edward Platt, DeForrest Kelly, and newcomer Jayne Mansfield, Illegal is an above average courtroom drama that sometimes gets mistakenly pigeon-holed as noir. It isn’t.
7:30 PM The Movie Channel
Frankenstein Syndrome (2010 USA): I haven’t seen this low-budget chiller yet, but I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt thanks to the presence of Ed Lauter, here playing a doctor willing to go to any lengths to find a cure for his terminal case of cancer. The film may suck, but Lauter will be good. Also airs at 10:30 PM.
Sunday 10/23/11
6:00 AM Fox Movie Channel
A Life in the Balance (1955 MEX-USA): Ricardo Montalban stars in this obscure Mexican-American co-production. He plays unemployed everyman Antonio Gomez, accused of a series of murders he didn't commit, and reliant on the investigative talents of his eight-year-old son (Jose Perez) to exculpate him and finger the real baddie (who else but Lee Marvin). Apparently based on a story by Georges Simenon (though it's not clear to me precisely which one), A Life in the Balance also features Anne Bancroft as a friendly woman of ill repute and character actor Rodolfo Acosta as a south of the border cop. It's pretty predictable and bears similarities to 1949's The Window, but the top-line cast makes it worth your while.
Monday 10/24/11
9:00 PM HDNM
The Host (2006 KOR): I don’t usually write about movies on the HD channels (I don’t have an HD TV and probably wouldn’t pay for those channels if I did), but its otherwise skimpy pickings today, so I’ll make an exception for The Host. A rather old-fashioned (in a good way) giant monster flick, The Host examines what happens when waste from a U. S. military facility gets dumped into the Seoul water supply. Without giving too much away, it ain’t good. Definitely worth a look if you get HDNM.