TiVoPlex
TiVoPlex for Tuesday December 18 2012 through Monday December 24 2012
By John Seal
December 17, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 12/18/12
1:50 AM Starz
My Afternoons with Marguerite (2010 FRA): Ol’ sausage schnoz Gerard Depardieu headlines this sentimental character study of an illiterate man’s special relationship with an older woman. The whiny future tax exile plays Germaine, a self-employed jack of no trades who meets cute with a retiree (96-year-old Gisèle Casadesus, active in French cinema since 1934 and still working) in the park one day. Together, they develop a profound love for pigeons and the writings of Albert Camus (hey, it is a French movie). Directed by Jean "son of Jacques" Becker, My Afternoons with Marguerite clocks in at a brisk 82 minutes, its brevity and strong lead performances trumping its somewhat saccharine story. Also airs at 4:50 AM.
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
In the Good Old Summertime (1949 USA): Though I’m not generally a fan of MGM musicals, I make an exception for this one. Featuring a well written script and an engaging cast, In the Good Old Summertime’s only drawbacks are the less than memorable songs, including one of the worst Christmas ditties you'll ever hear, and its somewhat inappropriate title: most of the story takes place during the winter months! Castwise, Van Johnson and Judy Garland make a marvelous screen couple and Judy does her best with the meager tunes. The film also benefits from a surprisingly large role for Buster Keaton, who even gets to show off his still unsurpassed physical comedy skills in a few all too brief scenes. This is a typically glossy MGM production that will surely please all fans of Johnson and Garland.
Wednesday 12/19/12
5:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Where Danger Lives (1950 USA): Robert Mitchum stars as an MD with a heart of gold - and an eye for the ladies - in this fine Warner Bros. noir-thriller. Big Bob is Jeff Cameron, a doctor who enjoys reading books to sick children when he isn’t entertaining beautiful colleague Julie (Maureen O’Sullivan). A roaming eye, however, gets him into trouble with patient Margo Lannington (Faith Domergue), who - uh oh! - already happens to be married. Murder and a Mexican getaway soon follow. Directed by John Farrow and co-starring Claude Rains, Where Danger Lives offers some genuine surprises before concluding on a somewhat predictable note.
10:00 PM HBO Signature
Un Cuento Chino (2011 ARG-ESP): Droopy-eyed Ricardo Darin is one of the best actors in the world; sadly, he’s yet to appear in an English-language film worthy of his talents (sorry, 1987’s The Stranger doesn’t count). Here’s another film in which Darin showcases his considerable talents, this time as Roberto, a hardware store owner who gets involved with a Chinese immigrant (Ignacio Huang) who speaks nary a word of Spanish. It’s a little bit drama, a little bit comedy, and a whole lot endearing, as the odd couple develop a special relationship on the back streets of Buenos Aires.
Thursday 12/20/12
2:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Witness to Murder (1954 USA): Barbara Stanwyck plays a woman whose claim to have witnessed a murder in a nearby apartment building is rubbished by the police in this solid Roy Rowlands-helmed suspenser. In best Rear Window fashion, Cheryl Draper (Stanwyck) espies neighbor Albert Richter (George Sanders) strangling a woman to death, but when cops Lawrence Matthews and Eddie Vincent (Gary Merrill and Jesse White) show up to investigate, evidence of the crime is lacking. Soon the oily Richter is working hard to get Cheryl committed to the loony bin, but her blossoming relationship with Matthews means she finally has a sympathetic ear downtown. Will someone ever believe the awful truth about the dastardly Richter? Tune in to find out!
6:00 PM HBO
Project Nim (2011 GB-USA): Everybody loves monkeys, right? Even the kind that wear diapers and down jackets to the mall, right? Unless you’re one of the miserable few who don’t find our primate chums positively scintillating, you’ll love Project Nim, which is not actually about a monkey but a chimpanzee, but what’s the dif. Directed by James Marsh (Man On Wire), the film is an utterly fascinating documentary about a long-term scientific (?) experiment conducted on New York’s Upper East Side. Brought to the Big Apple by Columbia Professor Herbert Terrace, young Nim Chimpsky was taught sign language by human stepmother Stephanie LaFarge (who also helpfully allowed her "child" to smoke pot and drink beer). However, being a chimp and not a human being, Nim soon began to revert to wilder ways, suggesting that the ability of nurture to trump nature has its limits. This is a terrific documentary, albeit somewhat undercut by some necessary but still distracting "dramatic recreations." No truth to the rumors that either Cheetah or Lancelot Link body doubled for Nim. Also airs at 9:00 PM.
7:00 PM Sundance
Christine (1983 USA): Immovable object (general crappiness of Stephen King adaptations) meets irresistible force (John Carpenter at his peak) in this ultimately "meh" chiller about a death-dealing automobile. I’ve never been much of a Christine enthusiast, but will check it out again this evening in hopes that this will mark its widescreen television debut. Also airs at 10:00 PM.
Friday 12/21/12
7:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Monte Carlo (1930 USA): Did I say I don’t like musicals? Let me be a little more specific: I don’t like musicals, unless they were made between 1929 and 1934, in which case they’re utterly fascinating examples of the early days of talking pictures. Directed by Ernst "son of" Lubitsch (sorry, I always remember that classic Mae West line when I think of Lubitsch), Monte Carlo takes place, of course, in the gambling capital of Europe. Jeanette MacDonald (happily without her normal cinema counterpart Nelson Eddy) headlines as Countess Mara, a noblewoman who dumps fiancee Duke Otto (Claud Allister) in favor of a trip to the titular city. Alas, she loses all (except, we hope, her virtue) on the roulette wheel, and takes up with a man much beneath her station (Jack Buchanan). Will love trump class? Though the film features nothing in the way of Busby Berkeley pyrotechnics, I still find it fascinating. Perhaps I’m simply grateful for Eddy’s absence.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Crumb (1994 USA): Poor Robert Crumb. The talented misanthrope came to prominence during the hippy era and his artwork was embraced by the pot-smoking counterculture. Crumb, however, was not interested in any of that, his predilection for old time jazz, natty hats, and suits standing in sharp contrast to the stoned noodlings of lank-haired losers like Quicksilver Messenger Service and The Grateful Dead. Of course, there’s a lot more (much of it quite unpleasant) about Crumb, and its all covered in Terry Zwigoff’s compelling documentary, which makes its TCM debut tonight. Keep on truckin’!
Saturday 12/22/12
3:30 AM Encore Family
Challenge to be Free (1975 USA): For some reason, there was a huge market for family-friendly nature films in the 1970s, and even old time director Tay Garnett got into the act. Garnett, who’d got his start in Hollywood in 1920, helmed this Alaska-set adventure in which he also appears as a grizzled frontier sheriff. The film’s real star, however, is fellow veteran Mike Mazurki, here playing Trapper, a rugged individualist/lunatic fleeing civilization (and the police) in the Great White North. I haven’t seen this film since it first came out, but I recall it featuring a lot of snow.
6:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
Twist of Fate (1954 GB): Here’s one of those British films tarted up with an American star (Ginger Rogers) and a glamorous foreign setting (the French Riviera) but shot on the Shepperton backlot. Rogers plays Johnny Victor, an actress involved with shady (and married) businessman Louis Galt (Stanley Baker). Galt stashes Johnny away in a villa pending his rumored divorce from wife Marie (Margaret Rawlings), but she runs into the equally shady Emile Landosh (Herbert Lom) at a casino and...well, things get exceedingly far-fetched after that (and no, it doesn’t involve anyone "going Galt"). Also on hand: Coral Browne, Eddie Byrne, Ferdy Mayne, and John le Mesurier (playing "man at baccarat table").
1:35 PM Starz in Black
Five Minarets in New York (2010 TUR-USA): I haven’t seen this thriller yet, but judging from the comments on IMDb it sounds interesting and controversial, in a good way. Written and directed by Turk Mahsun Kirmizigül, the film - released in some territories as The Terrorist, in others as Act of Vengeance - features Danny Glover, a sure sign of a film with an underlying left-wing political message. Then again, it also features Robert Patrick, which suggests that futuristic killer robots forged from liquid metal may also be involved. We’ll just have to watch and find out.
Monday 12/24/12
1:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Hell’s Heroes (1929 USA): You can never go wrong when Charles Bickford is on the job. Here he’s cast as Bob Sangster, one of a quartet of bank robbers who stumble across a dying woman in the course of their getaway and "adopt" her newborn infant. It’s the old Three Godfathers story, shot by William Wyler in lovely Bodie, California (the town with the most extreme climate in the state), and is worth watching for Bickford’s performance alone.