TiVoPlex
By John Seal
December 27, 2005
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.
Tuesday 12/27/05
Noon Sundance
Brief Peace (2004 IRA): We still live in willful ignorance of life outside the United States; especially of life in Iran, the current "Great Satan" in America's Axis of Evil. It doesn't help that newly-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems more than happy to play along by issuing provocative statements apparently designed to make Dubya jump up and down and gleefully clap his hands in warmongering joy. So whilst this pair of brain-dead theocrats go into their dance of death together, the rest of us are left ill-informed or worse about the realities of daily Iranian life. That, of course, is where art, and more specifically film, enters the picture, because as anyone who's been reading this column over the years knows, I'm a huge admirer of Iranian cinema. By carefully skirting the clerically-imposed censorship rules, Iranian directors such as Mohsen Mahkmalbhaf and Abbas Kiarostami have produced some of the craftiest, most thought-provoking political films of all time, films that sent coded messages to both internal and external audiences. By serving as a conduit of information that helps circumvent the state propaganda they're spoon-fed every day, these films enlighten and politicize the home team. By the same token (and with an assist from The Sundance Channel), they allow American audiences occasional glimpses at the realities of Iranian life glimpses that remind us that not only are the citizens of that great nation human beings, but well-educated and relatively Westernized ones at that (So westernized, in fact, that Daddy Ahmadinejad recently felt compelled to ban all Western music - classical included - from the national airwaves). Which is a long, roundabout way of getting to the subject at hand: this short documentary about funeral rites at Tehran's largest cemetery. Watch ordinary Tehranis inter their war dead (still being buried over 20 years after the start of the disastrous Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s), play and picnic amongst the tombstones, and search for a "brief peace" with their departed loved ones. After the film, ponder the thought that one day very soon we may be carpet-bombing these same people in the name of "regime change" or "nuclear disarmament" or "democracy", or some other convenient label the White House will attach to the next episode of the Global War On Everyone Who Doesn't Do What We Tell Them to Do. Happy New Year!
5pm Fox Movie Channel
Last of the Mohicans (1992 USA): Daniel Day-Lewis stars as a love-struck multicultural trapper (that's TRAPPER, not RAPPER) in this underappreciated frontier drama from director Michael Mann. Based on a dreadful James Fenimore Cooper novel that caught the imagination of a Manifest Destiny-crazy nation in the 19th century, Last of the Mohicans has long been a favorite subject for filmmakers, but, with scant apology to the 1936 Randolph Scott iteration, this is the only version worth watching. Though the piney woods of North Carolina were pressed into service to fill in for the forests of New England, it's a fairly authentic look at Native American life in the 1750s that on release drew favorable comparisons to Bruce Beresford's masterful Black Robe (1991). Personally I prefer Beresford's bleak cogitation on faith and mission, but Mann does a fine job with the material, Day-Lewis is excellent as a man torn between his British roots and his loyalty to the tribe that adopted him, and Russell Means delivers the goods as Mohican chief Chingachgook. There are some pretty decent battle scenes to complement the scenery and some romantic subplots of little consequence. Airing in 1:2.35 wide-screen this evening, Last of the Mohicans re-airs at 9pm.
9:35pm Sundance
Walker (1987 GB): This film was absolutely slaughtered by the critics when it came out - Ebert famously gave it no stars, and others were not much kinder - and it was a disaster at the box office, too, but I reckon Walker has aged quite well. In 1987 it was a timely critique of American interventionism in Central America, and it remains so in 2005, but as a bonus it now offers some prescient commentary on a more recent money-grab dolled up in the garish drag of democracy-building. For the 99% of you who haven't seen Walker, it's the eponymous story of an American adventurer (Ed Harris, in an impressive pursed-lip performance) hired by robber baron Cornelius Vanderbilt (Peter Boyle) to bring "freedom" to the savages of Nicaragua and an economic windfall for American businessmen. Walker's ragtag mercenary army soon establishes control of the country, and he names himself President, with full authority to do whatever he damn well pleases. Initially a man of conviction, Walker is soon justifying some rather brutal ends with some equally unpleasant means, and the one-time abolitionist legalizes slavery in his new fiefdom, which doesn't take too kindly to the news. Walker is an astonishingly violent film, with countless deaths occurring in vivid slow motion, and though Joe Strummer's jazz-inflected score doesn't always work to best effect, there are moments of great power - and of great, extremely bleak humor - in it. Richly in need of critical reassessment, not to mention a digital upgrade (Sundance is airing a pan-and-scan print), Walker will eventually be acknowledged as a near-classic black comedy. Also airs 12/31 at 1:40am.
Wednesday 12/28/05
10:15am HBO
The Young and the Dead (2000 USA): Now that you know all you need to know about the funerary habits of the Iranian people, it's time to get back in touch with good old-fashioned American ones. This entertaining documentary takes a look at Hollywood Forever, the somewhat tacky predecessor to the rundown Hollywood Memorial Park in Guess Where, California. Instead of dreary mausoleums and mossy headstones, Hollywood Forever features video kiosks throughout the park where the life stories of its tenants will play forever, or at least until the next technological breakthrough makes them obsolete, too. Originally populated by Rudolph Valentino, Doug Fairbanks Sr., Tyrone Power, and others of their ilk, the cemetery now attracts a, er, younger target audience, such as deceased Ramones' bassist Dee Dee Ramone. Also airs at 1:15pm.
Thursday 12/29/05
1pm Sundance
Mickybo and Me (2005 GB-IRE): The long-running sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland comes in for some light-hearted but pointed treatment in this pleasant comedy/drama set at the outbreak of the most recent "troubles" in 1970. Mickybo is a ten-year-old Orange lad who can't understand why he and his best mate, Catholic Johnjo, really shouldn't be hanging out together. After the two sneak into the local bijou for a showing of the then-contemporary Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, they hatch a plot to escape to Australia, where few care whether or not the Pope is the anti-Christ and they can live a carefree life of jovial banditry. Armed only with a gun stolen from a neighbor, the lads set off for the bottom of the world, only to find out their friendship will come under unexpected stress and strain along the way. Avoiding Irish cinema's twin banes of miserabilism and tweeness, the film's adult cast includes Julie Walters and Ciarán Hinds as two of the boys' parents.
1:45pm Showtime 2
Semi-Tough (1977 USA): Burt Reynolds. Football. Not two things in life in which I have much interest, but this football (American variety) comedy with the mustachioed one is making its American wide-screen television debut this afternoon, so I'll give it a mention. I've never seen it, but apparently besides lots of gridiron action, it also involves Kris Kristofferson's search for the perfect self-improvement program. A solid supporting cast, which includes Carl Weathers, Jill Clayburgh, Brian Dennehy, Lotte Lenya (!), and, erm, Bert Convy offers further incentive for hardcore film buffs willing to overlook the plot.
Friday 12/30/05
9pm Sundance
Reconstruction (2004 DEN): Believe it or not, I saw this Danish art-film on an airplane. Three cheers for Virgin Atlantic! Directed by Christoffer Boe, it's the Insomnia-advised tale of a young Dane (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) whose brief fling with a mysterious woman (Maria Bonnevie) results in everyone else in his life forgetting he exists, literally. This very small-scale, sharply written feature is an intellectual shaggy-dog tale that will delight fans of the aforementioned Christopher Nolan-helmed puzzler.
11:15pm Turner Classic Movies
Quai des Brumes (1938 FRA): TCM has, from to time to time, aired Le Jour Se Leve, director Marcel Carne and screenwriter Jacques Prevert's 1939 collaboration. This week we're blessed with the presence of Quai des Brumes, a film they had produced together a year earlier. As in Le Jour Se Leve, the star is Jean Gabin, this time portraying an army deserter on the run. He's heading for the port of Le Havre, where he hopes to hop aboard a merchant ship and sail for points unknown. Alas, love intervenes, in the person of beautiful Michele Morgan, who's also being wooed by local gangster Pierre Brasseur. One of the classics of the short-lived "poetic realism" movement that set the stage for the films noir of the 1940s, Les Quai des Brumes oozes atmosphere, thanks to Eugen Schufftan's fogbound cinematography.
Saturday 12/31/05
3:50am Encore Mystery
Shamus (1973 USA): Burt Reynolds. Stolen diamonds. I can't believe the direction this week's column has taken, but sometimes this thing has a mind of its own. No wide-screen action this time, but Shamus features Reynolds as a private dick on the trail of some hot ice made even hotter by the flamethrower used in the initial robbery. Burt has sex with Dyan Cannon, beats up lots of bad guys, and drinks more than the entire state of Utah imbibes in any given calendar year. I HAVE seen this one, but it's been a long time, so whether or not it's any good I can't really tell you. Shamus hasn't been on TV much of late, so fans of Burt will not want to miss out this time.
6:30pm Turner Classic Movies
The Quatermass Xperiment (1955 GB): Here's an intriguing item: TCM is listing this film on its schedule with its British title. The Quatermass Xperiment was released in the US as The Creeping Unknown, so I don't know if they're airing a UK print or even if there are significant differences between the two, other than the title, of course. Either way, this is the highlight of TCM's "the end is near" sci-fi block this evening. Based on the still popular-in-Britain character of Quatermass, created by the great Nigel Kneale, the film's story revolves around the return to Earth of an astronaut (RSC alum Richard Wordsworth) who is slowly mutating into a hideous, tentacled creature after being exposed to deadly rays during a failed space mission. Produced by Hammer Films, The Quatermass Xperiment is an intelligently-made and atmospheric shocker that has been burned into my memory since I was a child.
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