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11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Emma Mae (1976 USA): An amazing TCM underground double bill kicks off with an ultra-rare widescreen print (there is a DVD, but it's full-frame) of this long forgotten black action flick, also known as Black Sister's Revenge. Directed by Jamaa Fanaka, whose career began in 1975 with the legendary-for-all-the-wrong-reasons Welcome Home Brother Charles, Emma Mae features Jerri Hayes as the title character, a backwoods country girl who relocates to hardscrabble South Central L.A. with her aunt. Teased relentlessly by the locals for her unsophisticated ways, the fish out of water Emma soon proves she can hold her own by beating a local bully to a pulp and falling in love with two-bit pill-popper Jesse (Ernest Williams II). Determined to stand by her man after he ends up in jail, Emma goes on a crime spree to raise bail money, but ultimately learns Jesse doesn't really appreciate her efforts. Though rough hewn, Emma Mae is a fairly earnest effort to capture the rhythms of African American urban life, and though it's never going to be mistaken for Killer of Sheep, is as valuable a document in some respects. And to make things even better it's followed by...

Saturday 03/22/08

12:45 AM Turner Classic Movies
Penitentiary (1980 USA): ...Jamaa Fanaka's NEXT production, another film never before seen on television in its original aspect ratio. Penitentiary stars Leon Isaac Kennedy as Too Sweet, an unlucky, candy-suckin' average Joe who gets jumped by thugs at a diner but ends up serving time after one of his assailants is killed. Determined to avoid anal intercourse with his cellmates, Too Sweet gets involved with the prison's boxing program and hooks up with trainer Seldom Seen (Floyd Chatman), who helps him prepare for a big throw-down with mean mutha Jesse (Donovan Womack). Shot by Fanaka whilst he was still at UCLA Film School, Penitentiary has considerably less redeeming social value than Emma Mae, but was the most successful independently financed film of 1980 and ultimately spawned two much inferior sequels.

1:30 PM Sundance
Edvard Munch (1975 NOR): Okay, first off, this is a LONG movie. And it's Scandinavian. And it's about a depressed artist. Still with me? Okay, good! Directed by Peter Watkins (The War Game, Culloden), this three and a half hour epic relates ten years in the life of Munch (Geir Westby), a Norwegian artist best known today for his nightmarish painting The Scream. Richly detailed and audaciously edited, this is an exhausting yet fascinating film that transcends the usual "this happened, then that happened" style of most biopics. It's followed at 5:30 PM by Watkins' brilliant 1971 dystopian essay Punishment Park, in which a group of pacifist hippies are baited to violence by their National Guard captors. The two films couldn't be more dissimilar, but are both highly recommended.

6:00 PM The Movie Channel
Ju-On 2 (2000 JAP): Takashi Shimizu's Japanese-language sequel to the incredibly successful Ju-On (The Grudge) gets its first American television airing this evening, but not as part of Sundance's Asia Extreme package! Yuuko Daike returns as actress Kyoko Suzuki, who loses her unborn child in a car accident but finds herself mysteriously pregnant again after recovering and returning to work. Could her immaculate conception be related to her latest horror project, a film that seems to be taking an inordinate toll on those associated with it? Also airs at 9:00 PM.

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