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11:45 AM Encore Mystery
The Least of These (2009 USA): Some folks aren’t going to take too kindly to this documentary, which casts a baleful eye on Texas’ treatment of ‘illegal immigrants’. Too bad: The Least of These is a powerful and unsettling film about the Lone Star State’s Hutto Detention Facility, where Texas houses asylum seekers, undocumented aliens, and their families as they await determination of their legal status. Think it’s cool to send pre-pubescent kids to jail? Then you will love Hutto. All others will be suitably disgusted.

10:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984 GB): Other than the first two Johnny Weissmuller movies, this is the only really decent film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' pop culture phenomenon - sorry, that Disney version is pretty overrated. What's even more remarkable is that the ape-man is played by the acting-challenged Christopher Lambert, star of numerous awful Highlander films. On the other hand, Weissmuller was probably the WORST actor to ever step in front of a camera (did anyone else sit through those Jungle Jim movies TCM aired a year or two ago?), so Lambert doesn't look so bad in comparison. What makes this version as enjoyable as it is? There's a quality supporting cast (Ralph Richardson, Nigel Davenport, James Fox, and Ian Holm), excellent cinematography by Kubrick colleague John Alcott, and a (relatively) close screen adaptation by Robert Towne. Towne also manages to bring a patina of intellect to otherwise uninspiring source material; Burroughs' prose is horribly flowery and badly outdated, relying on long discredited theories of race and breeding to tell his tale. Director Hugh Hudson made his name with the gauzy nostalgia of Chariots of Fire, but this is the better film.

Thursday 3/3/11

3:05 AM HBO Signature
Cinco Dias sin Nora (2008 MEX): Jews...in Mexico? They do exist, of course, but until now have been pretty much persona non grata on the big screen. Cinco Dias sin Nora changes all that, and stars septuagenarian sex symbol Fernando Lujan as Jose, a man forced against his will to deal with the funeral of his late (divorced) wife Nora, who’s committed suicide, inconveniently, on Passover. Lujan is the heart and soul of this wry character study, in which his character—a dyed-in-the-wool atheist—has to make some compromises with the faith of his ancestors. A huge festival hit, the film won seven Mexican Academy Awards (which for some reason aren’t listed on IMDB).

5:30 PM Showtime
Ahead of Time(2009 USA): And while we’re on the topic of elderly Jewish people, here’s a fascinating documentary about a genuine feminist trailblazer. Now 99 (98 when the film was completed), Ruth Gruber became America’s youngest PhD in 1931 at the tender age of 20. She spent time in the Soviet Union writing for the New York Herald Tribune, worked for the Roosevelt Administration, and traveled extensively through the fractious Middle East—all before she celebrated her 40th birthday. The born in Brooklyn Gruber has seen it all and been everywhere, and Ahead of Time features a super added bonus: narration by fellow nonagenarian Eli Wallach! Also airs at 8:30 PM.

7:00 PM HBO
Twelve Monkeys (1997 USA): Director Terry Gilliam briefly flirted with popular success with Twelve Monkeys, a dystopian fantasy starring box-office biggies Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis. Willis plays James Cole, a convict sent back in time from 2035 to ‘the present day’ to discover the source of a virus that has wiped out 99% of Earth’s (future) human population. His story, unsurprisingly, does not sit well with Earth’s 1996 residents, and he’s promptly sequestered in a mental hospital, where he meets insane genius Jeffrey Goines (Pitt). Goines has a special link to the virus, as well as connections in the shadowy world of animal rights activists, who (unintentionally) have played a role in the propagation of the bug. Though I can’t stand Pitt, he’s worth suffering through in Twelve Monkeys, one of Gilliam’s very best works. Also airs at 10:00 PM.

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