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From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.

Tuesday 9/28/10

11:15 AM HBO
The Fence (2010 USA): An HBO original documentary about the barrier constructed along the Mexican-American border to keep undesirables out of our green and pleasant land, The Fence is the latest from Emmy-award winning director Rory Kennedy (Ghosts of Abu Ghraib). Shifting the focus from traditional liberal concerns such as environmental degradation and migrant deaths to those more typically associated with deficit hawks, the film ponders the wisdom of spending $3,000,000,000 on a boondoggle that doesn’t even begin to accomplish its purported task. Tune in to see your tax dollars at work! Also airs at 2:15 PM.

10:00 PM Sundance
Strangers (2007 ISR): Liron Levo and Lubna Azabal play star-crossed lovers in this thoughtful drama from Israeli filmmakers Guy Nattiv and Erez Tadmor. Levo plays Eyal, a kibbutznik who meets Palestinian exile Rana (Paradise Now’s Azabal, who won the Most Promising Actress award at the Jerusalem Film Festival for this performance) during the 2006 World Cup in Berlin. The couple fall in love after being forced to share quarters but soon find their relationship under strain when Rana returns to Paris and the Israeli Army invades southern Lebanon. Strangers accomplishes the near impossible: it works as both character-driven romancer and as pointed political polemic. Goal!

Wednesday 9/29/10

5:00 PM HBO2
War Don Don (2010 USA): This outstanding documentary takes a look at the civil war that tore apart the west African republic of Sierra Leone during the 1990s and the war crimes trials that followed in its wake. Taking place in a courtroom built with American and British money and funded by the international community, the trials were never going to be easy sledding for the defendants - including Issa Sesay, military leader of the Revolutionary United Front and the film’s primary focus - but War Don Don takes great pains to treat them fairly whilst posing important questions. Can such trials ever truly be fair, or are "truth and reconciliation" panels, such as those utilized in Rwanda and South Africa, a more efficacious solution to the problem? And do military commanders bear the same (or greater) responsibility than the men who give them their orders? War Don Don (“the war is over”) airs again at 8:00 PM.

5:45 PM Sundance
Alexander the Last (2009 USA): In the mood for a little mumblecore? Here’s Alexander the Last, a better-than-average example of the style featuring Jess Weixler as the title character, a twenty-something who gets more than she bargained for after getting cast in an amateur theatrical production. Alone at home whilst musician hubby Elliot (Justin Rice) is on the road, she develops an unhealthy interest in co-star Jamie (Barlow Jacobs) - little knowing that sister Hellen (Amy Seimetz) also has an eye on him. Co-starring the wonderful Jane Adams as the play’s director, and produced with the assistance of wunderkind Noah Baumbach, Alexander the Last is never going to be Armond White’s idea of a good time, but it really is a well-made little film that would make John Cassavetes proud.

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