New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Saturday 6/18/11

8:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Ace Drummond (1936 USA): TCM recently revived their Saturday morning chapter play series by airing all 12 episodes of 1939’s Buck Rogers. Now that Buck’s futuristic adventures have come to end, the channel brings us the first two chapters of this Universal serial, in which B-western veteran John ‘Dusty’ King portrays the title character, a granite-jawed "G-Man of the Sky" sent by Uncle Sam to Mongolia and tasked to take down a villain known as The Dragon. If you enjoy chapter plays, this is a good one, with familiar faces such as C. Montague Shaw, Lon Chaney Jr., and Jean Rogers on hand to enliven the proceedings.

9:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Tarzan and the Huntress (1947 USA): Jane’s back, but sadly she’s now portrayed by dishwater dull Brenda Joyce instead of sultry siren Maureen O’Sullivan. In RKO Tarzan flick number five, the Jungle Lord (Johnny Weissmuller) does battle with a wicked big game huntress (Patricia Morison, still with us today at 97) looking to capture some of the T-Man’s animal companions, whom she intends to sell to wildlife hungry zoos. Girlfriend, the T-Man is about to teach you a lesson.

8:00 AM More Max
Switch (1991 USA): Body switch movies were all the rage in the '80s and '90s. With the traditional post-war nuclear family in its final death throes during the Reagan and Bush 1 years, Hollywood seemed to revel in the gleeful reversal of gender and age roles. In Switch (love the incredibly original title), Jimmy Smits stars as Walter, a guy whose best friend Steve (Perry King) is murdered and reincarnated as a woman (Ellen Barkin). Now tasked by Satan to find the love of a good woman or spend an eternity burning in Hell, male chauvinist pig Steve must take his new body in a distinctively Sapphic direction. This being a Blake Edwards film, the potential for softcore exploitation is almost entirely avoided, leaving Switch as a pretty average example of the genre - albeit one with a solid supporting cast (Lysette Anthony, Lorraine Braco, Bruce Payne, and Catherine Keener).

Sunday 6/19/11

1:00 AM Encore Dramatic Stories
Dream Lover (1994 USA): Anyone else here have a thing for Mädchen Amick? It’s not just that she’s gorgeous - well, she is - but her name is enough to give any red-blooded male goose-bumps. In Dream Lover, the charming Ms. Amick plays Lena Mathers, a femme fatale who meets cute with architect Ray Reardon (James Spader) over a glass of spilled wine. Ray is naturally enchanted by the wondrous Lena, and the relationship blossoms rapidly into marriage. But is she really who he thinks she is...or are there some unpleasant skeletons in Lena’s massive walk-in closet? It would be easy to lump Dream Lover into the "erotic thriller" genre so popular at the time (and even more prevalent than body switch movies), but the absence of Shannon Tweed suggests it’s something a bit more. Look for ugly mug character actor Irwin Keyes as a policeman.

10:40 PM Encore
Something Wild (1986 USA): I hate Melanie Griffith. Her squeaky little girl voice drives me up the wall. That said, she’s really rather good in Something Wild, in which she plays a bad girl with a Louise Brooks bob who gets a hapless guy into trouble over the course of a crazy weekend. Griffith plays Audrey Hankel, aka Lulu (of course), a carefree gal who whisks uptight yuppie Charles (Jeff Bridges) from his workaday world for a couple days of fun and frolic. Little does Charles know, however, that Audrey has an ex-con hubby (Ray Liotta) who’s none too happy that his wife’s been playing the field. Well directed by Jonathan Demme, Something Wild co-stars Tracey Walter as a liquor store owner and John Waters as a used car salesman. Also airs 6/20 at 1:40 AM.

Continued:       1       2       3