TiVoPlex
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 through Monday, February 16, 2009
By John Seal
February 9, 2009
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.
Tuesday 02/10/09
10:00 AM HBO
Hard Times at Douglass High: A No Child Left Behind Report Card (2008 USA): One of the best original docs to come out of the HBO non-fiction factory, Hard Times at Douglass High takes an up close and personal look at the staff and students toiling within the bowels of the titular Baltimore campus. Focussing on the school's efforts to comply with the unbending strictures imposed upon it by the No Child Left Behind Act, Alan and Susan Raymond's film is an at times heartbreaking, at times maddening look at bureaucratic overreach and educational underfunding in urban America. There are also plenty of engaging stories and characters on display here, and even at two hours, the film doesn't wear out its welcome.
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Room at the Top (1958 GB): Laurence Harvey became a star thanks to his superb performance in this kitchen sink classic. Based on John Braine's novel, Harvey plays Joe Lampton, an accountant trying to maintain separate but equal relationships with unhappily married Frenchwoman Alice (Simone Signoret), who he really fancies, and factory owner's daughter Susan (Heather Sears), whose connections may help him advance his career. I'm sure that seemed like a good idea at the time. Pilloried and lauded in near equal measure for its, ahem, frankness, Room at the Top netted Signoret a Best Actress Academy Award, whilst Neil Paterson also scored a gong for his screenplay. Nominated for a further four Oscars, director Jack Clayton's film co-stars Donald Wolfit, Hermione Baddeley, a young Ian Hendry, and the eternally and deliciously snooty Allan Cuthbertson.
9:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Tunes of Glory (1960 GB): It's 31 Days of Oscar month at TCM, and here's another classic Brit-flick that garnered positive attention from the Academy. Alec Guinness stars as hard-drinking career soldier Jock Sinclair, whose place on the regimental pecking order is threatened by the arrival of new commanding officer Barrow (John Mills). The two are as alike as cheese and chalk, and soon the officer's dining room is awash in invective, insolence, and insubordination. It's a brilliant character study highlighted by the two leads, who are ably supported by Dennis Price, Susannah York, Gordon Jackson, Andrew Keir, and, erm, Allan Cuthbertson — who's even snootier here than in Room at the Top.
Wednesday 02/11/09
3:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Sea Around Us (1953 USA): If there's one Oscar category that TCM rarely highlights, it's the documentary. The channel makes amends this morning by airing this obscure Irwin Allen film, which took home the Best Documentary Oscar in 1953. Based on a book by Rachel Carson — who would later become a household name thanks to her proto-environmentalist classic, Silent Spring — it's an hour long look at the briny deep featuring what was then some extremely impressive Technicolor underwater photography. It doesn't look like much now, but The Sea Around Us was a groundbreaker in its day. It's just a shame that it came a year or two too early for Cinemascope.
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