TiVoPlex
By John Seal
December 7, 2004
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.
Tuesday 12/07/04
12:30am More Max
Stevie (2002 USA): This riveting documentary from director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) takes a sometimes uncomfortably close look at its subject - a troubled young man named Stephen Fielding - and his relationship to the filmmaker. Born to a mother who didn’t want him, Fielding spent much of his youth victimized by child abusers and spent years moving between foster homes and juvenile centers. When James volunteered to be Stevie’s Big Brother in the mid-1980s, he provided one of the few periods of stability in the boy’s life. Returning to Fielding’s home in rural southern Illinois ten years later, James found his old friend still living on the cusp of society, a serious criminal charge looming in the not-too-distant future, and a completely dysfunctional family unable to support him. Once again thrust into the position of being the responsible adult, James finds himself removed from the comfort zone of objective outsider and spends more and more time on camera trying to reconcile his filmmaking responsibilities with his concerns for Stevie’s future. To say that Fielding’s life hasn’t been a happy one would be an understatement, and this lengthy but rewarding film does its best to document it all: the bad, the worse, and the extremely ugly. This is an underappreciated gem that all fans of non-fiction cinema need to see.
2:30am Black Starz!
Gas-s-s-s (1970 USA): A goofy anti-establishment comedy, Gas-s-s-s (yes, that’s three extra Ss) posits a world where everyone over 25 is dead, thanks to the leak of an age-targeted nerve gas from an Alaskan armoury. Low-budget king Roger Corman directed the film based on George Armitage’s outrageous script, but the results still didn’t please the suits at AIP, who found Gas-s-s-s way over the top and ended up cutting it down to its present shape and size. It’s a film long overdue for a DVD reappraisal (especially should the legendary excised footage still exist somewhere) and features an enjoyable selection of eclectic songs by everyone’s favorite counterculture hippy band, Country Joe and the Fish. Featuring familiar faces like Ben Vereen, Bud Cort, Talia Shire, and Cindy Williams (in her screen debut), this is an acerbic commentary on man’s apparently unquenchable desire to exterminate his fellow man.
Wednesday 12/08/04
2:30am Turner Classic Movies
The Balloonatic (1923 USA): This rarely seen on television Buster Keaton short airs in the dead of night shortly after TCM re broadcasts some of Buster’s least loved talkies. If you haven’t seen it (and don’t have the Seven Chances DVD, from which its excerpted), set your timer and enjoy 27 minutes of Keaton antics in this tale of a young man thrust into a savage wilderness when he accidentally hitches a ride atop a hot air balloon.
11:30am Showtime 2
Osama (2003 AFG-HOL): The first film shot in post-Taleban Afghanistan, and they go and call it Osama. Go figure. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the film focuses on the treatment of women in the former Islamic Caliphate, and the main character is actually a young girl with the unfortunate moniker of, you guessed it, Osama. She lives with her mother and grandma in a testosterone-free household - a problem when the ruling Taleban decrees that women can’t leave their homes unescorted. Driven to desperation by the family’s gnawing hunger, the youngster cuts her hair and assumes the identity of a boy, allowing her to take care of inessential niceties like getting a job and buying food so the household doesn’t starve to death. Could things get much worse for the family? Actually, yes, as the newly shorn Osama is snatched from her job by religious zealots and sent to a madrassah for indoctrination into the ways of Islamic fundamentalism! Talk about your poetic justice! Produced with the assistance of Iran’s Makhmalbhaf Film House, the film reflects the influences of that country’s rich cinema traditions - the focus on a child as narrative device is a favorite trick of Iranian filmmakers to circumvent censorship - and was directed by Siddiq Barmak, one of the educated, Soviet-era elite so despised by the mujaheddin. Osama won the 2004 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Also airs 12/11 at 11am and 2pm.
7:05pm Encore True Stories
Savage Messiah (2002 CAN-GB): Playing like an above average TV movie of the week, Savage Messiah is the true story of Roch Theriault (Luc Picard, in a fine performance), a French-Canadian cult leader who liked his women, and liked them even better if he could house them far from prying eyes in the backwoods of Nova Scotia. This being Canada, though, nosy social workers were looking out for the best interests of the women and children, and the happy-happy back to the land primitivism of Theriault was soon revealed to be just another abusive patriarchal cult. Savage Messiah methodically recounts the story, and while it’s not an exploitation film, it doesn’t shy away from brutality, especially when Theriault assaults one of his truculent wives (the excellent Isabelle Blais) with a kitchen knife. The film is weighed down by a weak lead performance from Polly Walker as the crusading government worker trying to convince Theriault’s women to leave him, but by and large this is a fine entry into the poison Kool-Aid genre. It’s not quite Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones, but it has its moments. Also airs 12/12 at 2pm and 10:35pm.
Thursday 12/09/04
1:50am More Max
After Hours (1985 USA): After the box office failure of 1983’s King of Comedy, disappointed director Martin Scorcese decided to test himself to see if he could still make a successful low budget picture. The result was After Hours, one of his finest films and an overlooked classic that deserves a far more prominent place on the great man’s resume. It’s another of his loving tributes to New York City, this time conveyed through the innocent eyes of a lonely computer programr played by Griffin Dunne. Dunne, who remains an underutilized comic actor to this day, meets Rosanna Arquette in a coffee shop, determines to date her, and then gets sucked into a maelstrom of hilarious misfortune as he stumbles around the streets of an eerily deserted Lower Manhattan. The cast is full of familiar and welcome faces, including Dick Miller, Linda Fiorentino, Victor Argo, and Cheech and Chong, and the film also features Teri Garr’s finest hour as a retro diner waitress who has trust issues with men. As an added bonus, Howard Shore’s minimalist score is one of the best and most effective of his career.
12pm IFC
You See Me Laughin’ (2002 USA): This week’s speculative pick is a documentary about the bluesmen of Fat Possum Records. Dedicated to preserving recordings by the last of the Delta blues singers, Fat Possum has released excellent discs by R. L. Burnside, T-Model Ford, and Junior Kimbrough, amongst others. Don’t let the presence of interview subject and motor mouth Bono put you off from checking out this tribute to these incredible musicians. Also airs at 6:30pm and 12/10 at 10:30am.
Friday 12/10/04
1:25am Showtime
Nine Lives (2002 GB): First, a disclaimer: I do not find Paris Hilton even remotely attractive. That said, she does appear - though fully clothed - in this dreadful British slasher film. Why am I mentioning it? Showtime is airing it - and the less than divine Miss H - in their original aspect ratios. Gentlemen, start your TiVos. Also airs at 4:25am.
9:50am Sundance
The Navigators (2001 GB): Ken Loach’s sympathetic portrayal of British Rail workers trying to cope with the cruel perils of privatization returns to Sundance this morning. The Navigators was written by Rob Dawber, a rail worker who died from work-related cancer before the film was released, and features a typical Loach cast of non- and semi-professional actors. Set in Yorkshire, it’s an episodic but satisfying entry in the Loach filmography and explores the personal and social devestation caused by two decades of Thatcherite economic shock therapy. Filled with warm characters, good humor, bitter tragedy, and bucket loads of injustice, The Navigators will appeal to all who like their cinema steeped in social consciousness.
11pm Turner Classic Movies
Le Jour Se Leve (1939 FRA): I haven’t seen this languid melodrama in many years, but its lead performance remains fresh in my memory. Matinee idol Jean Gabin was at the height of his popularity when he made this film, and he’s superb as the sympathetic murderer who kills villain Claude Berry, a shifty vaudevillian who’s got eyes for the film’s love interest, the radiantly beautiful Arletty. Directed by Marcel Carne and penned by the great Jacques Prevert, both of whose careers (and Arletty’s) would peak with 1945’s beloved epic Children of Paradise, Le Jour Se Leve is an old friend definitely worth revisiting. Even if it is just to see an actor named ‘Henry Farty’ appear on screen.
Saturday 12/11/04
6pm Starz!
Bad Santa (2003 USA): I thought I’d pretty much seen it all and couldn’t be fazed by anything on the big screen - and then along came Bad Santa to prove me wrong. This incredibly foul-mouthed and frequently hilarious comedy, starring Billy Bob Thornton as an alcoholic Father Christmas, makes its television debut this evening. I can’t imagine how Disney got this into theaters with an R Rating, and in fact, the DVD (which I haven’t seen) apparently includes an even raunchier cut. Absolutely, positively, not one for the kiddies, Bad Santa was directed by Terry Zwigoff, whose previous films - Ghost World and Crumb - seem positively gentle and benign in comparison. Also airs at 9pm and throughout the month.
10pm Turner Classic Movies
The Idolmaker (1980 USA): It’s Brooklyn circa 1960, and promoter Vincent Vacarri (Ray Sharkey) is trying to figure out what pop culture’s next big thing will be now that rock and roll is apparently dead. He finds an enthusiastic youngster named Tommy Dee (Paul Land) willing to do whatever it takes to acquire fortune and fame. This predictable sounding tale is actually quite well told, and the underutilized Sharkey (Who’ll Stop the Rain) is at his best as the oily impresario. The second film from director Taylor Hackford, The Idolmaker was based on the true story of Bob Marucci, who helped bring squeaky clean teen idols Fabian and Frankie Avalon to prominence, and is getting a wide-screen airing on TCM this evening.
Monday 12/13/04
4:30am More Max
The Boys (1998 AUS): David Wenham and Toni Collette star in this Australian drama about a family of working class ne’e’r do wells whose eldest son (Wenham) is returning home after a stint in the big house. Not a great deal happens in this character study, but the acting is superb, and Collette (who won an Australian Film Institute award for this performance) is particularly memorable. It’s only airing once this month, so if you’re interested, it’s now or never.
9am Sundance
The Game of Their Lives (2002 GB): If you enjoyed The Other Final, another screened-on-Sundance football (soccer) documentary about bottom of the barrel teams competing in the World Cup, you’ll want to take a look at The Game of Their Lives. Back in 1966 - the golden year when Britain won its one and only Cup final - North Korea shockingly ousted the vaunted Australian team from the tournament and made it all the way to Middlesbrough, where they competed against the Soviet, Italian, and Chilean sides. This is the implausible story of the team, and it features terrific footage from the tournament, as well as interviews with surviving team members, who were encouraged to ‘win one for the Dear Leader’.
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