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10:15 PM Flix
Gunshy (1998 USA): I'm no William Petersen fan — I find him either overbearing or impossibly dull — but this neo-noir is worth a look, especially as it features the vastly entertaining R. Lee Ermey in a small but crucial cameo role. Petersen plays Jake Bridges, a failed writer who hooks up with Joisey hoodlum Freddie (Michael Wincott) in order to learn some life lessons and perhaps give his moribund literary career a resuscitatory spark. Gunshy is not a great film, but does try to do something new with the gangster genre, and makes its widescreen television debut this evening. Interesting footnote: director Jeff Celentano is previously credited with a film entitled Dickwad, which I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing.

Thursday 04/02/09

7:00 PM Sundance
Caramel (2007 LEB): I love firsts in TiVoPlex, but after almost seven years of writing this column, they're coming fewer and further between. Happily for me, I get one this week, as Caramel is the first Lebanese film I've ever recommended! Directed by Nadine Labaki (who also stars), it's the episodic tale of six Beirut women: Jamale, Layame, Nisrime, and Rima, all of whom work in a beauty salon; seamstress Rose, and pensioner Lili. A lot goes on in this busy little film, and though it offers little that you haven't seen before in other character-driven indies, it's ultimately successful thanks to an excellent cast and a few well-placed applications of social realism.

8:45 PM IFC
Sugar (2004 CAN): And what better title to watch right after you've finished consuming Caramel? To be honest, I haven't seen Sugar, but couldn't resist putting it in for thematic reasons alone. It's a well-regarded drama about street hustlers in Toronto, and stars Brendan Fehr as a jaded gigolo named, appropriately, Butch. Look for indie darling Sarah Polley in a small role.

Friday 04/03/09

3:45 PM Showtime Extreme
Cutting Class (1989 USA): This is a terrible film, but c'mon...are you really going to say NO to a movie featuring folksinger Donovan's son (imaginatively also named Donovan) as a mental patient? How about one featuring Brad Pitt as a horny high school jock? Or one with Roddy McDowall as a school principal? Martin Mull as a murder victim? STILL not ready to take the plunge? Well, once you realize Dirk Blocker plays the basketball coach, your remaining resistance will crumble. Sadly, even with that cast — and even considering the standards of the slasher genre — Cutting Class is crap. Showtime Extreme is, however, airing it in widescreen this afternoon, so Original Aspect Ratio mavens may want to give it a look, or at least a cursory sideways glance.

Saturday 04/04/09

6:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Real Life (1979 USA): An evening of mockumentaries kick offs with Albert Brooks' Real Life, which features Brooks himself as an egocentric filmmaker named Albert Brooks (not to be confused with The Green Slime), whose cameras intrude into the private lives of the Yeagers, a typically middle-class, all-American family. Filming with the sanction of the (fictional) National Institute of Human Behavior, Brooks' camera soon begins to have an unanticipated effect on husband Chuck (Charles Grodin, hilarious as always), who turns from loyal husband to star-struck camera hog, and on wife Jeanette (Frances Lee McCain), who overcomes her initial shyness and develops a serious Stockholm Syndrome crush on the director documenting her life. Produced in the wake of Network and PBS's An American Family, both of which anticipated the full-scale arrival of reality television, Real Life is a prescient and still amusing look at this now depressingly ubiquitous genre. It's followed at 8:15 PM by the first widescreen television broadcast of Christopher Guest's shaggy dog tale Best In Show (2000), and at 10:00 PM by everyone's favorite mockrockumentary, (This Is) Spinal Tap (1984).

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