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Thursday 4/19/12

10:10 AM Encore Suspense
Roman de Gare (2007 FRA): Director Claude Lelouch will sleep when he’s dead, because he sure isn’t sleeping much alive, even in his 70s. Roman de Gare is not, as I initially feared, a documentary about the Roman à clef, but a typically Lelouchian tale of a novelist (Fanny Ardant) who finds herself in trouble when her ghost writer goes missing. Though not prime Lelouch, it’s still enjoyably tricksy stuff, with Dominique Pinon particularly good as the escaped con who knows a little too much about our heroine for her own good. The National Board of Review selected this as one of the five best foreign films of 2007; that’s overstating the case, but it’s far from bad.

12:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Wasp Woman (1960 USA): Here’s one of my very favorite Roger Corman features. Susan Cabot headlines as aging beauty queen Janice Starlin, a cosmetics mogul who learns to her chagrin that growing old gracefully is not good for business. Determined to stave off the advances of Father Time, Janice hires flaky scientist Eric Zinthrop (Michael Mark) to develop something to stop her wrinkles in their tracks. Using venom extracted from wasps, Zinthrop succeeds...but when Janice uses his concoction herself the results are less than pretty. Look for an uncredited appearance by Corman as a hospital medico.

Friday 4/20/12

2:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Dr. Goldfoot and his Bikini Machine (1965 USA): Both features in the short-lived Dr. Goldfoot series air in succession on TCM this morning. Produced by AIP, the first film introduces the Goldfoot character, a scientist hoping to bilk the world’s richest men with his army of specially constructed bikini-clad automatons. In addition to star Vincent Price’s ultra-campy performance in the lead role and its completely daffy plot, the film also features a dazzling array of AIP talent, including Frankie and Annette, Fred Clark, Aron Kincaid, Salli Sachse, Susan Hart, Dwayne Hickman, Deborah Walley, and Harvey Lembeck. It’s followed at 3:30 AM by the peripherally related Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1967), a shot-in-Italy sequel directed by, of all people, Mario Bava. Only Price returned from the original cast, this time supported by Fabian, a very young Laura Antonelli, and the popular in Italy but nowhere else in the world comedy team Franco & Ciccio. If you’re not Italian you won’t find them funny.

4:00 PM Showtime
Square Grouper (2011 USA): If you enjoyed such drug smuggling documentaries as Cocaine Cowboys and Ganja Queen, you should be all over the curiously titled Square Grouper. (Turns out the title refers to bales of pot thrown out of airplanes.) Directed by Billy Corben (who’d previously helmed both Cocaine Cowboys movies), the film examines the marijuana business in Everglades City, a small Florida town whose fishing industry has died off and been replaced by dope importation. Amongst the weed merchants are the members of Zion Coptic Church, an evangelical sect dedicated to wacky tobakky as sacrament, and the delightfully named Black Tuna Gang, some dudes from Philly who moved south for fun, sun, and drug money. Like most stoners, the film lacks focus and is easily distracted, but makes for appropriate 4/20 viewing. Also airs at 7:00 PM.

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