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10:00 PM Showtime 3
A Beautiful Life (2011 PRC-HK): I haven’t seen this China-Hong Kong co-production, and frankly I suspect the program guide is incorrect in listing it. In fact, I’d put even money that this will be a broadcast of 2004’s A Beautiful Life, a wretched and cliché-driven drama about down and outers in Los Angeles. Just in case, though, 2011’s A Beautiful Life involves an inebriated woman who barfs all over a cop and then falls in love with him. Really.

Thursday 9/22/11

7:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Deceivers (1988 GB-USA): Here’s another example of the Merchant-Ivory production team thinking a little outside the box. Set (like most M-I pics) in India, The Deceivers is an historical drama about the sub-continent’s infamous thugee sect and the British officer (Pierce Brosnan) assigned the unpleasant task of ferreting them out and crushing them. Before you know it, though, he’s donned body paint and gone native...which can only be bad news for non-thugees in the neighborhood. Not only is this darker subject material than you usually encounter in a Merchant-Ivory feature, the film always struck me as being exceptionally dark: must be Brosnan’s makeup, plus the fact that much of the story takes place during the wee, wee hours of the morning.

10:45 PM Sundance
Nitro (2007 CAN): Ready for a French-Canadian action movie, eh? Wait, how do you say ‘eh’ in French? Before your head explodes pondering that conundrum simply tune in to Nitro, a surprisingly good action flick that powered its way to the top of the Quebec box-office in 2007. The film stars Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge as Max, a nice guy forced by unfortunate circumstance - his girlfriend is in desperate need of a heart transplant - to play footsie with some not quite so nice folks, including old gal pal Morgane (Lucie Laurier). The film relies on some hoary Hollywood cliches but for the most part manages to maintain its north of the border personality, and even won a Jutra award for editing! (The Jutras are Quebec’s equivalent of the Academy Awards: admittedly they’re a bit self-limiting, but still, a gong is a gong.)

Friday 9/23/11

9:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Golden Mask (1953 GB): Van Heflin slums it in this cheapo British feature from poverty row outfit Mayflower Pictures. Van the Man plays Nicholas Chapman, a newshound who, along with a brilliant archaeologist (Eric Portman) and his beautiful daughter (Wanda Hendrix), is searching for the titular priceless relic. Of course, priceless relics have more than academic value, and some slimy crooks (Jacques Brunius and Charles Goldner) are on the job, too. Who will get there first? There’s some second unit Algerian photography to spice up the affair, but much of the film relies on stock footage and process work to convey location. That said, cinematographer Oswald Morris does the best he can on a low budget, and Portman is particularly good.

11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Five on the Black Hand Side (1973 USA): Before there was Barbershop, there was Five on the Black Hand Side: produced independently, the film was marketed by distributor United Artists as a "blaxploitation" feature but is really more of an ensemble character study. Set in a Los Angeles barber shop, the story revolves around the folks who drift in and out of the life of shop owner Brooks (Leonard Jackson) - not least, his irksome family, including about-to-be wed daughter Gail (Bonnie Banfield), black power advocate and would-be Maoist son Booker T. (D’urville Martin, excellent as always), and put-upon wife Gladys Ann (recently deceased Cosby Show semi-regular Clarice Taylor). It’s episodic and not terribly eventful, but an excellent cast - fleshed out by Glynn Turman, Carl Franklin, and Ja’net Dubois - makes it all worthwhile. I also think this broadcast marks the film’s widescreen television debut - not that Five on the Black Hand Side features much in the way of sweeping Technicolor vistas!

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