TiVoPlex
By John Seal
February 27, 2006
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.
Tuesday 02/27/07
1:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Mystery Street (1950 USA): A middling police procedural/noir from director John Sturges, Mystery Street tells the tale of Boston Police Lieutenant Peter Morales (Ricardo Montalban) and his efforts to find the killer of local floozy Vivian (Jan Sterling), whose propensity for good times has exposed her to any number of potential homicidal maniacs. With the help of Harvard scientist Dr. McAdoo (former Tarzan Bruce Bennett, who turns 100 this May), Morales draws ever closer to the killer- and also overcomes his natural scepticism regarding the efficacy of forensic pathology. All that's well and good, but the major point of interest in Mystery Street is the underlying racial subtext, as the embittered Morales - whose career has reached an apparent dead end thanks to his swarthy complexion - tries to prove to himself and his superiors that a man of Portuguese extraction can solve The Big Case. There's also a modicum of class warfare in the mix, as well, as suspicions begin to point in the direction of James Joshua Harkley, a Boston Brahmin of considerable social standing. Elsa Lanchester co-stars as the murder victim's landlady and Marshall Thompson is quite good as working class red herring Henry Shanway, whose drunken dalliance with Vivian makes him a perfect fall guy.
11:45 AM Flix
Land and Freedom (1995 GB): Ian Hart stars as a Liverpudlian lad fighting on the side of the Republic in this Ken Loach feature about the Spanish Civil War. The always excellent Hart (Backbeat, The Hours and Times) plays David, an enthusiastic convert to Communism determined to play a part in the battle against Franco's falangists. Once enrolled in the anarchist-tinged POUM militia, David heads to the front, promptly gets wounded, and ends up back in Barcelona for medical treatment. After recovering from his wounds and briefly flirting with membership in the more doctrinaire International Brigade, he has a political epiphany, tears up his party card, and heads back to his POUM comrades, only to find their position compromised by the very government they were determined to defend. As much a bitter polemic about Stalinist authoritarianism as Fascist perfidy, Land and Freedom is one of the very few feature films to give anarchists and anarchism their day in court - or at least their day on the big screen. Also airs 2/28 at 2:15 AM and 3/3 on Showtime Extreme at 4:45 AM and 1:35 PM.
Wednesday 02/28/07
2:35 AM More Max
Rude Awakening (1989 USA): Cheech and Chong were long past their sell-by date in 1989, but that didn't stop them from making this last desperate stab for box office glory. Actually, I'm obfuscating: though Cheech duly reported for duty, Chong stayed home (no doubt too stoned to get out of bed) and sent daughter Rae Dawn along to fill in for him. The result is a desperately unfunny comedy about a pair of draft dodgers (Marin and the perennially unlucky Eric Roberts) on the run from The Man. Having fled the country in 1969, our anti-heroes have spent the last twenty years on a Central American commune, most of the time stoned out of their gourds. Their pot-addled idyll is shattered by the arrival of an American agent bearing plans for U.S. military intervention (Rude Awakening is nothing if not prescient, anticipating the invasion of Panama by several months), and our lovable losers are compelled to return to their homeland to warn the people that a new Vietnam is in the offing. But things have changed over the intervening years, and they find that revolution, patchouli, and Mary Jane are most definitely no longer in the air. An uncomfortable mix of stale drug jokes and outdated social commentary, Rude Awakening is terrible, plain and simple - but it hasn't been on premium cable for a very long time, so movie masochists will not want to miss it.
11:45 PM Turner Classic Movies
Chinatown (1974 USA): I was 12 when Chinatown came out, and R rated movies were definitely not on my family's movie-going menu. For years my only exposure to it was via the old MAD magazine takeoff (titled, insipidly, ‘Chinaclown'), which impressed me with its depiction of a nostril being sliced open. Fast forward a few decades - let's say to sometime in the mid '90s - and I finally got around to seeing the real thing, and naturally enough spent the early going eagerly anticipating that infamous nose scene - which didn't let me down. Ten years on, and not having seen Chinatown since that first screening, Jack Nicholson's cut-rate plastic surgery is once again the only memory I have of this much lauded Roman Polanski feature, which took home the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Robert Towne and garnered an impressive ten additional nominations. Sadly, it got nosed out of the big prizes by Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II, but returns in lemony fresh letterboxed condition on TCM this evening.
Thursday 03/01/07
4:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Paisan (1948 ITA): Director Roberto Rossellini's second neo-realist classic (the first, of course, being 1946's Open City), Paisan is an anthology of six episodes exploring life in Italy during the final years of World War II, from the 1943 invasion of Sicily to the liberation of Rome and points north. The tone varies from episode to episode, and there are elements of comedy and even romance to lighten the atmosphere, but Rossellini was determined to make a film that reflected as accurately as possible the experiences of living in wartime, and the film builds to a powerful final episode focussing on a group of partisans fighting side by side with Allied troops. Shot with a cast of amateurs, there's little art or artifice about Paisan, rendering it perhaps the greatest example of the neo-realist style. Can't say I understand how Federico Fellini could have contributed to the screenplay, though!
7:30 AM Encore Mystery
Amazing Stories: The Movie VI (1992 USA): Five more episodes from Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories television series are repackaged in this ‘movie', which of course isn't a movie at all. The two Amazing Stories anthologies previously aired on Encore (The Movie III and The Movie V) didn't correspond to the previous home video collections (Books One to Five), and as there was no Book Six, your guess is as good as mine as to which episodes will be part of this assortment. Let it be said, however, that the series was a generally good one, with some truly excellent episodes more than making up for the pedestrian stuff, and with creative types like Spielberg, Joe Dante, Brad Bird, Richard Matheson, and Paul Bartel behind the camera as well as lots of recognizable faces in front. I can't guarantee that every episode in The Movie VI will be a good one, but I can guarantee you'll enjoy the thrill of rediscovering a series that more often than not delivered the goods - and for those of you who just can't get enough, please note that Amazing Stories: The Movie (1989) airs 3/2 at 2:30 AM and Amazing Stories: The Movie II (1992) airs 3/5 at 5:30 AM.
9:45 PM Encore Love Stories
Chambermaid on the Titanic (1997 FRA): If you enjoyed Bigas Luna's wacky sex comedy Jamon Jamon (recommended in this here column a few weeks ago), you won't want to miss the mad Spaniard's Chambermaid on the Titanic, which makes its widescreen American television debut this evening. Released in the same year as James Cameron's bombastic and similarly titled disaster epic, Lunas' film is, by necessity and intent, a much cosier affair, focussing on the travails of Horty, a young French foundry worker (Olivier Martinez) who wins a trip to England to witness the launching of the aforementioned luxury liner. Relaxing in the splendour of a Southampton hotel room, our hero meets the titular chambermaid (Aitana Sanchez Gijon), a woman in need of a bad to sleep in and a man to snuggle with. Taken aback, he admits her to his room, fails to take advantage of her, and finds her gone when he awakens. Returning home, Horty finds himself plied with questions by the locals - and begins to weave an increasingly fantabulous tale of a wild fling with the mysterious chambermaid. If there is such a thing as magical realist erotica, Luna is its patron saint, and if the film tends to veer into standard soft-core territory during the third act, it also provides potent tribute to the power of memory, storytelling, and cinema itself.
Friday 03/02/07
11:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
Silence of the Lambs (1991 USA): There's not much I can add to your knowledge or awareness of Jonathan Demme's blood-soaked Silence of the Lambs, but it must surely rank as the goriest movie yet to get an airing on comparatively sedate TCM. It makes its widescreen television debut this evening on the last day of the channel's annual 31 Days of Oscar salute, in deference to its sweep of the big four prizes (Film, Director, Actor, and Actress) at the 1992 Academy Awards.
Saturday 03/03/07
4:35 AM HBO Comedy
Innerspace (1987 USA): Included in this column by special request, Innerspace is far from my favorite Joe Dante picture - in fact, to be quite truthful, it's probably my LEAST favorite Joe Dante picture. Basically an updated take on the Fantastic Voyage trope - with Dennis Quaid an inadequate fill-in for Raquel Welch - Innerspace follows the exploits of miniaturised pilot Tuck Pendleton (Quaid), who must manoeuvre his way through the body of Jack Putter (Martin Short) after being inadvertently injected into it. The film is primarily played for laughs, failing to invoke the sense of wonder so carefully crafted in Fantastic Voyage, but as with all Dante pics is worth seeing for the supporting cast alone, which in this case includes Kevin McCarthy, William Schallert, Kathleen Freeman, Kenneth Tobey, Dick Miller, Andrea Martin, and Rance Howard - as well as former New York Doll Arthur ‘Killer' Kane as an airline passenger!
7:00 PM Cinemax
V For Vendetta (2006 GB-USA): The fan boys didn't much care for it, but V For Vendetta was one of the better major studio films of 2006. Set in a near-future Britain under the velvet boot-heel of corporate fascism, the film follows the adventures of masked avenger V (Hugo Weaving), a Guy Fawkes knockoff determined to inspire Britons to rise up and throw off their shackles. Considering its Britcentric (not to mention, politically radical) subject matter, the film performed surprisingly well at the American box office ($70 million in receipts against a $54 million budget), and even managed to cast Natalie Portman in a role suitable to her extremely limited abilities. Alan Moore may not like it, but TiVoPlex gives V For Vendetta the victory sign. Also airs at 10:00 PM and throughout the month.
Sunday 03/04/07
10:10 AM Encore Westerns
Mrs. Sundance (1974 USA): There are plenty of men my age and older who had the hots for Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery, so this one's for you, fellas. It's a long forgotten made for television movie starring the vivacious Montgomery as Etta Place, the gal pal of outlaw Harry Longabaugh (a.k.a. The Sundance Kid), who, it is mooted herein, actually survived his South American sojourn and is on his way back home for some R & R. Etta is herself on the run from the law with a $10,000 bounty on her head, but when the rumors of Sundance's survival reach her, she resurfaces - with tragic consequences. Based in only the loosest sense on historical events, Mrs. Sundance co-stars L.Q. Jones, Arthur Hunnicutt, and the future Mr. Elizabeth Montgomery, Robert Foxworth.
11:00 AM Fox Movie Channel
The Lost World (1960 USA): It's not a particularly good film, but I believe this is the first widescreen television airing of Irwin Allen's 1960 adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's novel of the same name. A clearly ailing Claude Rains plays Professor Challenger, a scientist leading a South American expedition to locate a remote plateau where, it is rumored by the oh so wise and noble natives, dinosaurs still roam the Earth. Along the way the plot is larded with a boring romantic subplot involving Jill St. John, squirm-inducing ethnic comedy relief, and a really annoying poodle. As with most Allen-helmed, Saturday matinee targeted features, The Lost World's emphasis is on spectacle (provided on the cheap by lizards masquerading as dinosaurs), and the result is hardly on a par with the 1925 silent version. Nonetheless, it remains AWOL on DVD and deserves to be seen in its correct 2.35:1 aspect ratio - which is what's on tap this morning.
9:00 PM Encore Action
Dr. No (1962 GB): Encore aired a selection of widescreen James Bond features early last year, but there were some interesting titles omitted - not least Dr. No, the very first 007 feature starring Sean Connery. That oversight is corrected tonight, as the film makes a single letterboxed appearance before reverting to pan and scan for future airings. Shot in pre-independence Jamaica, the film introduces the Bond character as he investigates the death of a colleague and some strange energy beams that are causing American missile launchings to go awry - beams that seem to emanate from the private island of a scientist known only as Dr. Evil - er, no, No (Joseph Wiseman). It's not the best Bond, but it was the first - and we can only hope that a widescreen airing of From Russia With Love is on the horizon.
9:00 PM Sundance
Three...Extremes (2004 ROK-JAP-HK): Three masters of ‘Extreme Asian Cinema' collaborated on this anthology of tales delving into some of the darker corners of the human psyche. Beyond a doubt, the most memorable episode is Fruit Chan's opener, Dumplings, which explores an aging actress's desire to stay young by any means necessary, but equally impressive is Chan-Woo Park's Cut, about a film director, his wife, some piano wire, and a tall stranger who ties it all together. I'm less enthused about Takashi Miike's offering Box - I'm just not that big a Miike fan - but two out of three ain't bad, especially when it comes to horror anthologies.
9:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
Crainquebille (1922 FRA): I haven't seen this silent Jacques Feyder film, and actually hadn't even heard of it before finding it on the TCM schedule. I was even more surprised to learn it's had a DVD release as part of a Feyder package from HVE. Maurice de Feraudy plays the title character, an itinerant fruit and veg salesman who comes a cropper with the coppers and ends up in jail for being stroppy. It's based on an Anatole France novel, but the premise seems right out of Victor Hugo. Regardless, it's worth a look for fans of silent cinema.
Monday 03/05/07
6:00 PM Sundance
Derailroaded: Inside the Mind of Larry ‘Wild Man' Fischer (2005 USA): For those of us who grew up listening to Dr. Demento every Sunday night, the name Wild Man Fischer meant one thing, and one thing only: the tuneless repetition of a little ditty entitled My Name Is Larry. Little did we know that Larry ‘Wild Man' Fischer was not merely the construct of someone's imagination, but a real person suffering from a serious mental disorder who managed to get a record deal on Frank Zappa's Bizarre label years before fellow idiot savant Daniel Johnston ever saw the inside of a recording studio. It's unfortunate that anyone ever gave Larry Fischer the idea that he could have been a contender - the man is utterly though guilelessly lacking in talent. On a slightly happier note, Wild Man, who parted ways with Zappa after an incident involving a thrown bottle, has seen his condition improve of late thanks to finally being treated correctly for depression and schizophrenia.
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