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Thursday 11/25/10

11:45 AM Flix
Voyager (1991 FRA-GER): Volker Schlondorff’s existential drama makes its widescreen television debut this morning. Set during the 1950s, the film stars Sam Shepard as Faber, a man who finds himself on a plane that is about to crash. An engineer by trade, Faber is not inclined to panic and takes an analytical approach to his impending doom. He survives the crash, however, and his brush with fate sets in motion a journey of personal rediscovery - and a search for the elusive woman he (thinks) he loves (Julie Delpy). Though at times ponderous and overly impressed with itself, Voyager is worth a look for both Delpy’s performance and that of Barbara Sukowa, here cast as Faber’s old flame Hannah.

11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972 USA): Before there was The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, there was The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. What’s the connection? The character of mountain man Adams was essentially a television spin-off of a character of the same name depicted in LATOJRB by director John Huston. As for Roy Bean (Paul Newman), he’s a lean, mean adjudicatin’ machine dispensing Texas frontier justice the way we like it: extra-judicially! The story is nothing special and Newman is a bit of a cypher, but an excellent supporting cast—including Ava Gardner, Richard Farnsworth, Ned Beatty, Anthony Perkins, Tab Hunter, Jacqueline Bisset, Roddy McDowall, Victoria Principal, Anthony Zerbe, and Stacy Keach - renders this a quite enjoyable western.

Friday 11/26/10

5:05 AM IFC
Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976 USA): Documentaries don’t get better than this. Directed by Barbara Kopple, Harlan County U.S.A. is an up close and personal look at a Kentucky community as they do battle with the big mining company trying to crush their union. It’s bittersweet viewing, of course: the bad guys won this war long ago, and the events depicted herein were merely one of many "last stands" fought by working people over the last quarter century. The film went on to win the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 1977. Also airs at 10:15 AM.

5:00 PM Showtime
The Road (2009 USA): I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a gloomier, more depressing film than The Road, and I’m including Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom in that estimation. Directed by Aussie John Hillcoat, whose revisionist western The Proposition previously cast brilliant rays of cheery sunlight through arthouses across the land, The Road stars Viggo Mortensen as Man, an itinerant survivor of a major (but unspecified) catastrophe. Man spends his days trying to take care of Boy (Johnny Sheffield - oops, no - Kodi Smit-McPhee), but food shortages, inclement weather, and roving Mad Max loonies make that a difficult proposition. The film’s refusal to tip its hand concerning the nature of the catastrophe allows us to concentrate on the trials and tribulations of post-Apocalyptic life without getting hung up on the petty details (are Man and Boy survivors of global warming? nuclear war? Or are they simply post-rapture ‘left behinders’?). Based on a Cormac McCarthy novel, The Road could just as easily have been titled Life’s a Bitch and Then You Die. It’s good, but you might want to slit your wrists after it’s over. Also airs at 8:00 PM.

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