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Friday 4/8/11

1:45 AM Showtime Extreme
Fidel (2002): Che Guevara has now been the subject of four major motion pictures, but where’s the cinema love for his revolutionary comrade Fidel Castro? Here it is, albeit in the form of a Showtime original. Regardless of its small screen origins, however, Fidel has the look and heft of a major release, clocking in at an impressive three-plus hours and featuring a solid array of Latin acting talent, including Gael Garcia Bernal as Che (he would play the asthmatic Argentinian a second time in Walter Salles outstanding 2004 feature The Motorcycle Diaries). As for Fidel, he’s portrayed by Victor Huggo Martin, an actor I’m otherwise unfamiliar with. He’s brilliant as the cigar-chomping jefe who leads his ragtag rebel army from the remote mountains of the Sierra Maestra Mountains to the capital city of Havana, and the film takes a valiant stab at accurately portraying 50 years of Cuban history, though the last three-plus decades get shorter shrift than the first two. Love him or hate him, no one can deny that Fidel’s story is an amazing one and a rich and worthy subject for film.

4:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
Sparrows (1926 USA): A bit of an outlier in Mary Pickford's filmography, Sparrows is a Gothic melodrama about a decrepit baby farm deep in the rural hinterlands of the southern United States. Directed by William Beaudine, a director deserving of considerably more respect than he gets thanks to late career gaffes such as Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, the film features 34-year-old Pickford as Molly, a parentless adolescent abused by her caregiver, Grimes (the suitably gaunt Gustav von Seyffertitz). When the repulsive Grimes decides to dispose of a troublesome infant by tossing it in the local bog, Molly decides he's gone a tot too far, springs into action, and leads the parentless brood on a treacherous journey across an alligator-infested swamp to safety. Surely a great influence on Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter (1955), Sparrows has aged far better than many of America's Sweetheart's more famous pictures, and remains potent (if manipulative) stuff 80 years on.

12:45 PM Starz
The Runaways (2010 USA): Hello Daddy, hello Mom, I’m your ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch cherry bomb!! Here’s the television debut of last year’s not terrible biopic about The Runaways, impresario Kim Fowley’s mid 70s jailbait rock band. It’s a linear retelling of the band’s rise to — well, not exactly fame so much as notoriety — and the legion of personal problems confronting its young members (including Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, Sandy West, and Lita Ford). You know the routine: boys, booze, and drugs punctuate the rockin’ highlights. I wish someone like Mary Harron or Penelope Spheeris had had the opportunity to direct the film rather than Italian-born music video producer Floria Sigismondi, who offers precious few insights, but it’s entertaining enough and some of the songs still sound pretty good. Also airs at 3:45 PM.

Saturday 4/9/11

7:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Up In Smoke (1957 USA): In which Sach and Duke try to smuggle marijuana from Mexico to the United States, to hilarious effect. Well, not quite...but Up in Smoke, the penultimate Bowery Boys flick, is definitely one of the more outre entries in the series. This time, Sach (Huntz Hall) sells his soul to the Devil (Byron Foulger) in order to get advance info on which horses are going to win at the track, allowing him to get revenge on some crooked bookies (is that an oxymoron?).

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