TiVoPlex
By John Seal
November 2, 2009
5:15 PM Showtime Extreme
Sukiyaki Western Django (2008 JAP): The prolific Takashi Miike takes a stab at the spaghetti western genre in this energetic and colorful tribute to the oeuvre of Corbucci and Leone. Hideaki Ito plays an anonymous Old West gunman caught between the Heike and Genji clans, who've been engaged in a feud for centuries in their Japanese homeland and are now butting heads over some hidden Nevada gold. Our hero must protect a cute as a button half-breed kid whilst negotiating a treacherous path between the rival gangs and preparing for a violent climax of epic proportions. Dubbed by the Japanese cast in pidgin English, Sukiyaki Western Django isn't as good as 2000's Thai spaghetti oater Tears of the Black Tiger, but is still thoroughly enjoyable — even after factoring in the presence of TiVoPlex nemesis Quentin Tarantino during the film's prologue. Caveat: if Showtime airs a pan and scan print, don't bother watching — just rent the DVD or hope the film shows up on Sundance Channel's Asia Extreme series.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Putney Swope (1969 USA): I'm not a huge fan of this Robert Downey Sr.-helmed counterculture comedy, but it's been a very long time since I last saw it, so maybe it's improved with age (or maybe I'm just an idiot, and it's always been a great film). Arnold Johnson plays the title character, an African-American businessman hired by a Madison Avenue ad agency to diffuse complaints about the firm's lack of diversity. When the chairman of the board unexpectedly dies, the surviving members elect Putney in his stead, fully expecting him to be an easily manipulated figurehead. He soon proves them wrong when he renames the company Truth and Soul, Incorporated and hires a group of radical black activists to produce a series of outrageous, way-outside-the-box television commercials. Shot in glorious black and white, Putney Swope co-stars Allen Garfield, Antonio Fargas, and a guy named Spunky-Funk Johnson. Really! It's followed at 12:30 AM by Downey's 1972 effort Greaser's Palace, a very odd revisionist western/Christian parable featuring Herve Villechaize, Toni Basil, and Luana Anders.
Saturday 11/07/09
7:50 AM Encore Action
Legend of Drunken Master (1994 HK): One of many Hong Kong films badly mis-marketed by Miramax and the Weinstein Brothers, this Jackie Chan winner returns to the small screen this morning. If you're a Chan fan, it's a must see, with Jackie playing a young man who must square his love for his pacifist father with his desire to fight the evil foreigners who plan to smuggle some valuable cultural artefacts out of the country. Though chock full o' chop socky goodness, this will probably turn out to be the same old yucky pan and scan dubbed version we've seen in the past, but it's a lot of fun regardless.
9:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Gumshoe (1971 GB): A favorite from childhood days spent vegetating in front of the ol' black and white (yes, my family had a black and white set well into the late ‘70s), Gumshoe is a low-key comedy delight starring Albert Finney as Eddie Ginley, a bingo caller who exchanges bouncing pneumatic balls for a trench-coat and a new career as a private eye. Eddie soon finds himself up to his eyeballs in a drugs and weapons smuggling case — and begins to regret changing jobs when he discovers his own brother (Frank Finlay) is implicated in the crimes! Also featuring Billie Whitelaw and Wendy Richard, Gumshoe is a loving if scruffy tribute to the American detective movie, and marked the feature directorial debut of Stephen Frears (Dirty Pretty Things, The Queen).
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