Box Office Prophets: TiVoPlex for the week of February 17-23, 2004

TiVoPlex

By John Seal

February 17-23, 2004

The Amelie they didn't want you to see.

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

Tuesday 02/17/04

5:20am Cinemax
Solaris (2002 USA): Holy moly. Steven Soderbergh’s remake of Andrei Tarkovsky’s inert masterpiece made its US television debut at the end of January, but I had yet to see it, my well-known aversion to all things Tarkovsky having kept me out of movie theaters for the two or three weeks of its thuddingly unsuccessful theatrical run. So forgive me for the late recommendation, but after viewing the admittedly severely-compromised pan-and-scan print currently airing on Cinemax, I promptly purchased the film on DVD and revised my Best of 2002 list to include this in my top five. Heck, it’s probably Soderbergh’s best film ever, better even than his marvelous gangster flick, The Limey. Marketed mistakenly as a science-fiction film, Solaris is (unsurprisingly for those familiar with the original) a meditation on permanence, loss, and love. It was obviously of tremendous personal interest to its director, who also handled the cinematography and editing chores himself. George Clooney stars as an investigator sent to find out what’s going wrong on a space station orbiting the titular planet, and he continues to cement his position as one of the best - and least risk-averse - actors of the day with a subtle but brilliant performance. Equally noteworthy are Viola Davis as the station’s second-in-command and Natascha McElhone - an actress I thought I couldn’t stand after her bizarre appearance as an Italian doctor in the awful Laurel Canyon - as Clooney’s dead (?) wife. Stunningly shot, with brilliant art design and a magnificent score by Soderbergh regular Cliff Martinez, Solaris will eventually take its place as an American film classic. Also airs at 8:20am, 5:15pm, and 8:15pm.

9am Sundance
Elling (2001 NOR-SWE): I recommended this one sight-unseen two weeks back, and can now offer it a full-blown double thumbs-up. Starring Per Christian Ellefsen and Sven Nordin as a pair of socially-detached loners released from a mental-health facility and into the care of a Stockholm social worker (Jorgen Langhelle), the film follows the duo as they attempt to integrate into Swedish society. Ellefsen, the more introverted of the two, finds his outlet in poetry, whilst the cluelessly filthy Nordin falls for the pregnant, single mother-to-be (Marit Pia Jacobsen) who lives upstairs. Elling is a leisurely-paced comedy drama that doesn’t try to make any grand statements but succeeds superbly as a well-written character piece. The film ignores the typical Hollywood story arc that would precipitate a life-affirming crisis in the third act, instead settling into an increasingly upbeat groove that culminates in a very satisfying conclusion. This is a wonderful film for anyone who isn’t completely averse to subtitles. Also airs at 6:30pm.

11:30am Starz!
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (2002 FRA): The TiVoPlex jury is still out on whether or not Audrey Tautou is a gamin with acting chops or simply another Euro-pixie with a sexy French accent. The whole Amélie phenomenon went right past me, but she was okay in Stephen Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things. This Gallic thriller features her as an obsessed young woman with her sights fixed on the wedded apple of her eye, a handsome doctor played by the vaguely louche Samuel Le Bihan. The film relies on the gimmick of multiple perspectives, with Tautou and Le Bihan presenting their conflicting interpretations of their relationship in (respectively) the first and second halves of the story, but ultimately this is no Rashomon, and is simply attractive and enjoyable fluff. Considering, however, that director Laetitia Colombani was a stripling of 25 when she made it, this is an impressive feature debut. Also airs at 2:30pm.

Wednesday 02/18/04

4am Cinemax
Tarzan the Magnificent (1960 GB): One of a clutch of ape-man epics produced by producer Sy Weintraub in the late 1950s and early 1960s - after previous studio RKO lost interest in the series - Tarzan the Magnificent is the best of the second wave of Greystokian cinema. Starring Gordon Scott in his sixth and final appearance as the loin-clothed vine swinger, it’s basically a darkest Africa remake of 1939’s Five Came Back, with Tarzan trying to guide a group of stranded travelers through a jungle filled with wild animals, treacherous white folks, and politically incorrect tribespeople. Bad guy Jock Mahoney (who would take the Tarzan baton from Scott for 1962’s Tarzan Goes to India) is on hand to complicate matters, and the film is fleshed out with a solid supporting cast, including Lionel Jeffries, Betta St. John, and John Carradine, here playing Mahoney’s equally villainous dad.

4pm Cinemax
Horns and Halos (2002 USA): Nothing incenses us lefties quite as much as the sight of George W. Bush. We react to the sight of the man in much the same way that our right-wing brothers and sisters reacted to the sight of Bill Clinton parsing his sentences and biting his lip when he needed to reflect empathy or sadness. But here’s the rub; Clinton was a tribute to the kind of up-by-your bootstraps individualism so beloved of the right, whilst Bush is merely the latest acorn falling from the tree of a mighty family dynasty. This film - making its small-screen debut this evening - looks at the attempted suppression of a book entitled Fortunate Son, an unflattering portrayal of the rise and rise of The Silver Spoon Kid from hopeless businessman to clueless governor of the state of Texas, with particular emphasis placed on Dubya’s alleged use of cocaine and his avoidance of National Guard duty. The book was written by James Hatfield, a felon convicted of attempted murder who committed suicide shortly after the book was reprinted by a small independent publisher when original house St. Martin’s Press withdrew it from circulation. In equal parts a biopic of Hatfield and reprint publisher Sander Hicks, as well as an indictment of the control freak who is George Bush the Younger, the film won the top award at the 2002 New York Underground Film Festival. Also airs at 7pm.

Thursday 02/19/04

6pm Sundance
La Haine (1995 FRA): A decade before sanding off the last of his rough edges and helming the predictable and dull Halle Berry ghost story, Gothika, director Mathieu Kassowitz wrote and directed this unvarnished look at proletarian youth in 1990s France. The story of a day in the life of three working-class friends - one Jewish, one Arabic, and one African - set against the depressing tower blocks of suburban Paris and with racism and poverty simmering in the background, La Haine is a black-and-white near-masterpiece. American audiences may recognize Said Taghmaoui, here playing the son of North African immigrants, from his memorable appearance as an Iraqi Army captain in David O. Russell’s Three Kings (1999 USA).

Friday 02/20/04

1:45 Encore Mystery
The Werewolf (1956 USA): This is a surprisingly good low-budget tale of lycanthropy from director Fred F. Sears, whose next film was the even better Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (We’ll generously overlook 1957’s disastrous The Giant Claw). Contract player Steven Ritch portrays the unfortunate title character, whose curse is not the result of gypsy hex or genetic predilection, but that of science run amok. Rescued by two mad scientists after a road accident leaves him temporarily unconscious, Ritch is transported to a conveniently close-at-hand laboratory. When injected with experimental serum by men who dare play God, the predictably tragic result provides a frisson of sympathy for Ritch similar to that offered to audiences by Lon Chaney’s Universal Wolfman of the ‘40s. I’m not about to make the case that The Werewolf is as good as 1941’s The Wolfman - or even that Ritch was as good an actor as the limited Chaney - but this is an above-average and generally satisfying sci-fi/horror programmer.

12:05pm Sundance
The Cucumber Incident (2001 USA): This is a bleak and depressing film about three Ohio women who take violent revenge against a child molestor who sexually assaulted his five-year-old stepdaughter. Raising questions about the meaning of justice, the depth of family loyalties, and the sanctity of the law, this is a very hard film to watch; if you can imagine I Spit on Your Grave as an Afterschool Special you might be on the right track. The Cucumber Incident is Greek tragedy come to life; there are no winners here, not even the audience or the filmmakers, who are both complicit parties in this exhibition of the pornography of despair. Paradoxically, the child molestor comes across as the most reasonable person here, and that’s a pretty sad commentary about something, though I’m not quite sure what. Also airs 2/23 at 9:30am.

Saturday 02/21/04

7am IFC
Last Night at the Alamo (1984 USA): Here’s hoping the IFC schedule is correct this time. My apologies to those of you who took my recommendation last week and spent time preparing to watch the 1978 Australian film Mouth-to-Mouth, only to wind up contending with a Spanish phone-sex comedy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it wasn’t what the IFC Web site listed, and I share in your disappointment. This morning, the befuddled channel is indicating that they’ll be airing this long-forgotten, made-in-Texas indie about a local community’s efforts to save their favorite honky-tonk from the greasy paws of redevelopers. Believe it or not, Last Night at the Alamo was written by Kim Henkel, the man responsible for co-writing the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974 with Tobe Hooper, as well as Hooper’s follow-up, the 1977 killer croc opus Eaten Alive. Here’s hoping IFC don’t show Last Days of Disco or Last Year at Marienbad instead.

Sunday 02/20/04

3:50am HBO 2
Blue Vinyl (2002 USA): If you needed something else in your life to worry about, take a look at Blue Vinyl, an excellent documentary about the PVC industry that puts the lives of its workers at risk so that we can enjoy cell phones, vibrators, and vinyl siding. Director Judith Helfand brings a light touch to this tale of toxic horrors, though, and whilst you may be feel compelled to immediately re-side your house with clay, recycled wood, or stucco before a fire engulfs your neighbourhood in deadly smoke, you’ll have had a few chuckles beforehand. Helfand’s perspective is definitely that of a chemical industry victim, as her mother’s exposure to DES during pregnancy led to her daughter’s cervical cancer, but her sunny outlook and can-do attitude lift this film above the morass of death, doom and destruction documentaries. Also airs at 6:50am.

11:45pm Flix
Cult of the Damned (1969 USA): Wow. This has been an impossible-to-see title for decades, so pardon me for fearing the worst and suspecting Flix will pull a Mouth-to-Mouth on us and show Luchino Visconti’s The Damned instead (Please pardon my paranoia and forgive my antipathy towards Visconti, who - along with Kevin Smith - is one of the most overrated directors of all time). Cult of the Damned has circulated on the bootleg and tape-trading market for years as Angel, Angel Down We Go, but I think we can rest assured that Flix will be airing a watchable print tonight. I haven’t seen it, it probably stinks, but who cares; just take a look at the cast! Jennifer Jones! Roddy McDowall! Unitarian lesbian-folkie Holly Near! LOU RAWLS, for heaven’s sakes! All in a film about the destructive forces of the counterculture! With music provided by ace songwriting team Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil! Life just doesn’t get any better. This is the only scheduled airing of this film, so don’t take any chances; set that recorder NOW!

Monday 02/23/04

3:30pm Cinemax
The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt (2003 USA): This has certainly been a good week for non-fiction cinema. Ingrid Betancourt was a Colombian senator and presidential candidate who bravely conducted face-to-face negotations with FARC, the left-wing guerrilla army that controls much of rural Colombia, in an effort to end their use of hostage-taking as a fundraising tool. In an unfortunate tip of the hat to life’s little ironies, the guerrillas took her prisoner within days of her plea. Filmmakers Victoria Bruce and Karin Hayes had been planning to make a film about Betancourt’s quest for the presidency, but found their energies diverted into this new project about the fate of their unlucky subject. Betancourt remained on the 2002 presidential ballot whilst in captivity and garnered over 50,000 votes for her oddly-named Oxygen Green Party. Sadly, she remains in the hands of FARC, who last confirmed that she was alive in an August 2003 video released to the media and included here as a powerful coda to the film. Also airs at 6:30pm.