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From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.

Tuesday 12/06/05

8pm Showtime 2
The Manchurian Candidate (2004 USA): I guess if you're going to produce yet another unwanted remake, you may as well get someone top-of-the-line - like this film's Denzel Washington - to star in it. Denzel takes the place of Frank Sinatra, Meryl Streep subs for Angela Lansbury, and Liev Schreiber fills in for Laurence Harvey in this makeover of the 1962 original, which replaces scheming Commies with greedy capitalists, who are out to subvert democracy and put a corporate stooge into the White House. No, this isn't a documentary; it's a good, solid Hollywood thriller, which airs in wide screen tonight and re-airs 12/7 on Showtime at 9pm and on 12/8 at midnight.

8pm Sundance
Saint Ange (2004 FRA-ROM): Basically an art-house horror flick, Saint Ange stars Virginie Ledoyen as Anna, a caretaker employed at a creepy old orphanage in the French Alps. In between mopping floors and dusting bookshelves, Anna befriends Juliet (Lou Doillon, daughter of chanteuse Jane Birkin), who turns out to be the only child still living at the institution. The two spend their spare time delving into the forbidden secrets of the orphanage - which is usually a bad idea in these sorts of films - and indeed, supernatural forces come out to play soon enough. Released directly to video in the US as House of Voices, Saint Ange is an atmospheric, well-shot feature with two fine performances from the leads that compensate for a somewhat muddled story.

Wednesday 12/07/05

10:40am Showtime 3
Tribute (2001 USA): It's true: I went to see Beatlemania in 1978. I even went to a Beatles convention that same year and enjoyed the polished mimicry of four lads from Southern California who called themselves Rain (check out their fine Web site at http://www.raintribute.com/). So I do have a certain appreciation for the hard work that goes into tribute bands, that bizarre musical subgenre that has spread far and wide over the last two decades, resulting in salutes to artists as disparate as Neil Diamond, Oasis, and The Doors. This film takes a look at three such bands: Sheer Heart Attack, Larger Than Life, and The Missing Links, who respectively ape Queen, Knights in Satan's Service, and The Monkees. It's hilarious, heartwarming, and a worthy salute to those who worship at the altar of the Rock Gods, though sadly, these guys don't seem to get as many groupies as the originals.

9pm Sundance
The Other Side of the Street (2004 BRA): If you enjoyed Walter Salles' great Central Station (1998), you may want to take a look at this Brazilian tribute to the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Fernansa Montenegro, who portrayed the grouchy-but-kind former schoolteacher in Salle's film, stars here as Regina, a bored grandmother who uses the local crime-watch program as a pretext for spying on the neighbors. After her trusty binoculars alight on a murder in an apartment across the street, her protestations to the police fall on deaf ears, and she decides to sleuth out some physical evidence on her own. Directed by Marcos Bernstein (who co-wrote Central Station), The Other Side of the Street is a quirky and engaging thriller that takes a surprisingly romantic turn in its third act.

Thursday 12/08/05

12:05am Sundance
Bad Guy (2001 ROK): Korean director Kim-Ki Duk is best known for Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring, his gorgeous existential drama from 2003. He's also responsible for the decidedly grimmer - though still beautiful to look at - The Isle (2000), which features some scenes with fishing hooks you wouldn't want Grandma to see. Bad Guy is much closer in tone to the latter than the former. That may be understating things, actually, as it's the story of a thoroughly reprehensible villain (the ghoulish Cho Ji-Hyun) who falls for a young woman far above his station and proceeds to plot her financial downfall so that she can sink down to his level, where he can presumably sweep her off her feet. Violence, sexual degradation, verbal abuse; it's all here for those with a taste for the macabre, or simply bad taste.

10:35pm Sundance
Play It As It Lays (1972 USA): Here's a rarity you'll definitely want to take a look at, as it's still MIA on home video. Based on a Joan Didion novel, Play It As It Lays features Tuesday Weld as Maria, a country gal from Montana who's moved to La-La Land and is now a small Tinseltown fish looking to make a big splash. Her hubby (biker-movie vet Adam Roarke) is an egotistical blowhard who doesn't have time for his wife, leaving her to drive the freeways and take trips to Vegas in between acting gigs. She also hangs out with her best friend, B.Z. (Anthony Perkins, who co-starred with Weld in 1968's creepy Pretty Poison), a film producer whose successes can't compensate for the empty feeling he gets every time he closes a deal. This tough, cynical look at life in the fast lane was directed by the great Frank Perry, whose previous films David and Lisa, Ladybird Ladybird, and Last Summer were equally disquieting meditations on the meaning - or lack thereof - of life in late-20th-century America.

Friday 12/09/05

4am HBO
Orphans of Nklanda (2005 GB): Whilst we all wait for the other feather to drop and an avian flu pandemic to break out, the continuing pandemic of AIDS continues to ravage the globe. It's taking an especially heavy toll in Africa, where poverty drives women into prostitution and polygamy helps spread the disease further. It's particularly prevalent in the southern part of the continent, where more than 30% of the adult population in nations such as Lesotho, Zambia, and South Africa are HIV positive. This film, shot in a small Zululand village, takes a look at one of the effects of this terrible scourge: children who must care for their sick parents, bury the dead ones, and take care of the surviving offspring. Produced for the BBC, Orphans of Nkandla won this year's BAFTA Award for Best Documentary.

9pm Sundance
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978 USA): I mentioned above my solid late-1970s Beatles credentials; credentials, I might add, similar to those that apocryphally led Malcolm McLaren to kick Glen Matlock out of the Sex Pistols. In 1978 I was still mad for the Mop-Tops - punk rock was still about six months away from assuming a frontal position in my consciousness - and, like all of my equally nerdy friends, was positively outraged at the prospect of this film. The Bee Gees...Aerosmith...Peter Frampton? Sullying the songs our lads from Liverpool made famous? How dare they! Nonetheless, we all trooped off to the mall to see just how bad it could be; strictly in the name of science, you know. And sadly, the punchline here is completely predictable: the film sucked, and for the most part, the music sucked, too. This campy nightmare from my past returns to premium cable this evening, and perhaps now I'll be able to exorcise its demons and view it through more impartial eyes. After all, Billy Preston - who was almost kinda sorta a real Beatle for a while - is present as the eponymous bandleader, and there are tons of more palatable musical celebrities making brief cameos, so perhaps I'll find some diamonds amidst this cinematic dung heap. Also airs 12/10 at 10:45am.

10pm Turner Classic Movies
Goodbye, Mr. Germ (1940 USA): It's only 14 minutes long, but fans of Poverty Row auteur Edgar G. Ulmer won't want to miss this very rare public-health short subject made on behalf of the National Tuberculosis Association. Shown to school kids throughout the nation during the 1940s, Goodbye Mr. Germ features an all-American family learning about the dangers of TB via some animated sequences and a talking parrot. You've never seen anything quite like it.

Saturday 12/10/05

10am Showtime
Busting Out (2004 USA): America's love affair with the breast is explored in this enjoyable and surprisingly informative little documentary. Did you know that Western culture stands almost alone with its mammary obsession? According to Busting Out, most other cultures fixate on OTHER parts of the female body. I guess objectification is a worldwide obsession for men of all persuasions; we just didn't get the same memo about what to objectify. At any rate, whether you're a man or a woman, you'll enjoy this humorous yet enlightening glimpse at female anatomy from director Francine Strickwerda.

6:45pm Showtime 3
Ball in the House (2001 USA): This unheralded feature has been playing a lot recently on Showtime, but I only caught up with it a few weeks ago. It's an above-average family drama about a bright teenager (Jonathan Tucker) who can't stay away from the bottle, his martinet of a stepfather (Dan Moran) who's determined to keep the youngster on the straight-and-narrow, and his wicked aunt (Jennifer Tilly), who stands to get a lot of money if she can seduce the lad and get him hooked on joy juice again. Director Tanya Wexler - who is Daryl Hannah's half-sister - only has one other credit to her name, but judging from this film, she needs more work. Now. Ball in the House is one of those rare American indies that truly transcends the genre ghetto, and it deserves as wide an audience as it can get. Watch it.

9pm Sundance
Porn Shutdown (2005 GB): The spectre of AIDS raises its head again in this documentary look at the crisis that temporarily closed down the San Fernando Valley porn factory last year. For those who may have forgotten - or for those who avoid these sorts of items in the news - veteran "actor" Darren James contracted HIV whilst filming Split That Booty 2 in Brazil. Porn Shutdown takes a look at the knock-on effects of his diagnosis, and also takes a no-holds-barred look at the kinky stuff that goes on in ranch-style homes throughout the Valley. Produced for Britain's Channel 4, this will have all but the most hardened (no pun intended) porn fans' jaws dropping in disbelief. No word yet on when Split That Booty 2 will premiere on The Spice Network.

Sunday 12/11/05

5pm Turner Classic Movies
All of Me (1984 USA): I can't stand Lily Tomlin, but Steve Martin's another matter. The two of them star in this amusing comedy about a lawyer (Martin) whose body becomes the vessel for his curmudgeonly client's (Tomlin) soul. Hollywood churned out a lot of these "body switch" movies in the �80s, but along with 1988's Vice Versa, All of Me is one of the better ones. Directed by Carl Reiner, it's airing in wide screen tonight.

Monday 12/12/05

12:50am Starz!
Vera Drake (2004 GB): The feel-bad movie of 2004 makes its American television debut this evening. Vera Drake (the amazing Imelda Staunton) is a 1950s British working-class mum with a secret: she's an abortionist on the side, helping girls get out of trouble and accepting very little in return. When one of her wealthier customers confesses her sins to her own mother, the police are compelled to take action, and this desperately sad, modern Greek tragedy takes its inevitable course, with the weepy and confused Vera forced to take the stand and ultimately serve time. Directed by Mike Leigh, Vera Drake is an astonishing period piece, vividly recapturing life in the London backstreets circa 1955, and features some truly great performances: besides Staunton's tour de force, keep your eyes on Richard Graham, stalwart yet ashamed as Vera's husband, and Eddie Marsan, whose subtle performance as her young son-in-law may well be the film's unsung high point. Also airs at 3:50am.

11:30pm Flix
Forbidden Zone (1981 USA): Have you ever felt that you've seen a film, even though you've never actually "seen" it? I have, and Forbidden Zone is that film. I spent a lot of time in the 1980s and 1990s attending rock shows at San Francisco's I-Beam, a former gay disco located at the Golden Gate Park end of sleazy Haight Street. On almost every occasion, the pre-show music was accompanied by a video broadcast of excerpts of this very film, which features little Herv� Villechaize running through a black-and-white fantasia which looks a bit like David Lynch's take on Alice in Wonderland. So I've seen the film's highlights - albeit without sound - on dozens of occasions, but have never actually seen the film itself. A product of the Elfman film family, Forbidden Zone returns to the small screen tonight, and I'll finally hear what Herv� was saying all those years ago. Chances are it wasn't "da plane, da plane."