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9:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Mockery (1927 USA): Put Lon Chaney together with brilliant Swedish director Bernard Christiansen, and what do you get? Surprisingly, a somewhat bland costume drama set in Imperial Russia. Chaney portrays Sergei, a peasant who lucks into a gig serving noblewoman Countess Tatiana Alexandrova (Barbara Bedford). Sergei loves his mistress, but resents her suitor, handsome Cossack Dimitri (Ricardo Cortez), and doesn't disguise the fact very well. Will Sergei fall under the spell of the Reds in the servants' quarters — or will he expose their nefarious scheming against the Empire? Lavishly produced by MGM, Mockery is one of Chaney's more obscure extant features, and makes its TCM debut this evening on Silent Sunday Night. It's far from the great actor's best, but absolutely essential viewing for his legion of fans, as the film is unavailable on home video.

11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Crazed Fruit (1956 JAP): For those who enjoyed Nagisa Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth, here's another film about raging teenage hormones in post-war Japan. Directed by Ko Nakahira (best known for directing the Rica films), Crazed Fruit stars Yujiro Ishihara and Masahiko Tsugara as brothers Natsuhisa and Haruji, a couple of spoiled rich kids who spend their copious free time water skiing, gambling, and chasing skirts. Trouble arrives in the shapely shape of Eri (Mie Kitahara), and the lads soon find themselves competing for her, only to discover that she harbors a deep, dark, and potentially very shameful secret. The film was very controversial in its time, and while the intervening decades have softened its impact, it still looks terrific and offers fascinating insight into the changes wrought on Japanese society by the American occupation.

Monday 07/06/09

4:30 AM Sundance
The Man Who Became King (2007 CAN): Adongo Adaga was just another Sudanese exile living in Canada at the turn of the 21st century, until he received word that he was needed back home. This compelling documentary takes a look at the challenges facing Adaga, who desperately wanted to relocate his family from his homeland to the Great White North but was instead called to serve as the king of a tribe in his native Southern Sudan. A large tribe of several hundred thousand subsistence farmers, the Anyuak needed him to settle outstanding issues, such as their strained relationship with neighboring tribes and the difficulties faced by their fellow Anyuak across the border in Ethiopia. The film focuses on Adaga's efforts to balance the needs of his people with the needs and safety of his immediate family, and his grace under pressure should be a lesson for us all.

6:00 PM Sundance
Obscene (2007 USA): In 1951, a man named Barney Rosset purchased tiny Grove Press and turned it into one of the most important (and perhaps the most controversial) of all American publishing houses. This is his story. Rosset would publish Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic of Cancer, and many other pieces of literature deemed "obscene" at the time and was constantly tied up in litigation for his troubles. Rosset is still with us, and though he no longer owns Grove, he still has plenty of opinions to share regarding his days as the bad boy of belle lettres. In addition, Obscene features interview footage with such literary luminaries as Jim Carroll, Erica Jong, Gore Vidal, and the ubiquitous non-literary (though quite literate) John Waters.

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