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8:35 PM Showtime 3
Clash (2009 VIE): I wish I could report that TiVoPlex’s first Vietnamese film (YAY!) is better than it is, but sadly I can’t. It’s a fairly routine action crime-drama about a hired gun (Johnny Nguyen) despatched to steal a computer critical to Vietnam’s national defense system. Our hero has the help of a beautiful sidekick (Veronica Ngo), and you can guess what happens next - they fall hard for each other, and the job gets increasingly dangerous. Fists and feet proceed to fly with gay abandon.

Saturday 2/11/12

11:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Gloria (1980 USA): Of all the bad Hollywood remakes over the years, few have been as pointless as the Sharon Stone "re-imagining" of this John Cassavetes classic. The original airs tonight and stars Academy Award-nominated Gena Rowlands - terrific as a moll with a heart of gold - and benefits tremendously from director Cassavetes’ verite approach and outstanding use of New York locations. Best of all, it airs in its original aspect ratio tonight as part of TCM’s annual 31 Days of Oscar celebration.

Sunday 2/12/12

7:45 PM Turner Classic Movies
Hester Street (1975 USA): This movie freaked me out when I was 13. Well, not the movie so much as the ad campaign, which relied largely on the gaunt, goggle-eyed presence of star Carol Kane to sell the picture. Perhaps it was the massive crown of Bride of Frankenstein hair that scared me, not the eyes - I’m not sure anymore because Carol Kane no longer freaks me out. Not surprisingly, it was many years before I gathered enough courage to actually watch Hester Street, and though by no means one of my favorite films it’s certainly better than I would have imagined in 1975.

Kane plays Gitl, a Jewish immigrant newly arrived in America, where she’s joining her husband Jake (Steven Keats) who left the old country some years ago. Jake is fully assimilated and soon discovers his wife’s habits and superstitions are no longer quite as endearing as they once were, inevitably leading to familial friction and estrangement. The story is fairly pedestrian but the acting is excellent, and director Joan Micklin Silver’s decision to shoot in black and white a wise one. Kane’s performance earned her an Academy Award nomination, but she lost out to Louise Fletcher’s enjoyably over-the-top outing in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I guess hair spray trumps the natural look.

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