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Wednesday 12/12/07

5:30pm Sundance
Mary, Queen of Scots (1971 GB): Frock flicks are bad enough, but when you graft the trope onto another bêtes noire of the cinema - the biopic - the potential threat ratchets up to Code Red levels. Luckily, Mary, Queen of Scots manages to thread the needle thanks to outstanding performances from Glenda Jackson (as Queen Elizabeth I) and Vanessa Redgrave (as the titular Catholic monarch), and avoids being the dull, dry fancy-dress historical recreation we all fear. There are secret passages, palace intrigue, and sexual peccadilloes for all, plus a first-rate supporting cast, including Patrick McGoohan, Ian Holm, Trevor Howard, and Timothy Dalton. Mary, Queen of Scots earned five Academy Award nominations, and is making its American wide-screen television debut this evening.

11pm Fox Movie Channel
Luna (1979 ITA-USA): Included in this week's column less for its quality than for its obscurity, Luna is a long- (and some might argue justifiably) forgotten Bernardo Bertolucci flick about the European adventures of American opera star Caterina (Jill Clayburgh) and her drug-addicted son Joe (Matthew Barry). Caterina has been the stereotypical bad parent, spending all her spare hours treading the boards whilst her son roams wild and free through the backstreets of Rome, where he has acquired a taste for heroin. Determined to get the monkey off her son's back, Caterina devotes herself to him full-time, but takes things a wee bit too far in the motherly love department when she uses sex to wean Joe off his horse high. The film is way overlong at 142 minutes, burdened by a glutinous surfeit of opera, and the sex scenes make for uncomfortable viewing, but it's also very rare and unavailable on home video, and considering it's the only film to feature the combined talents of Fred Gwynne and Roberto Benigni in its cast allowances must be made.

Thursday 12/13/07

4:15pm IFC
Wild Tigers I Have Known (2005 USA): Ah, the sexual awakenings of adolescence, one of the most reliable themes for artsy-fartsy filmmakers the world over. Here's the one about the 13-year-old lad coming to terms with his homosexuality whilst trying to control the crush he has on his best chum. Our hormonally-challenged youngster is portrayed by Malcolm Stumpf, his older pal by Patrick White, and his mother by Fairuza Balk. Fairuza Balk is playing moms now? I must be getting REALLY old. Shot in and around Santa Cruz, California, Wild Tigers I Have Known mines similar territory to Michael Cuesta's Twelve and Holding, and like Cuesta's film tends to over-egg the pudding at times. But narrative absurdities aside, it's a fine-looking film that hints at better to come from young auteur Cam White. Also airs 12/14 at 6:15am and 11:15am.

6pm Starz! Edge
Curse of the Golden Flower (2006 CHI): This impressive looking fable of ancient China has been airing in pan-and-scan over the last few weeks, but appears in its essential original aspect ratio for the first time today. Directed by the increasingly populist Yimou Zhang, the film features a very tightly-corseted Gong Li as the adulterous Empress Phoenix of the Tang Dynasty. Her Majesty is beset by illnesses and is being treated by a doctor (Ni Dahong) employed by the Emperor himself (Chow Yun Fat), who is well aware of his wife's extracurricular bedroom activities and is also trying to maneuver favored son Prince Wan into pole position in the line of succession. There are machinations and double-crosses aplenty, and ulterior motives and hidden agendas are the order of the day, but most viewers will be satiated by the gorgeous set direction, well-mounted action sequences, and Ms. Li's divinely arranged cleavage. Also airs 12/14 at 1:45am.

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