9pm Black Starz!
The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1973 USA): An atypical conclusion to director William Wyler's career, The Liberation of L. B. Jones is an interesting if flawed look at racism in a small Southern town circa 1970. The title character is played with typical aplomb by Roscoe Lee Browne, a classically-trained actor, university professor, and record-setting track athlete. How's that for a curriculum vitae? Adapted for the screen by the reliable Stirling Silliphant (The Lineup, In the Heat of the Night), the film details the efforts of undertaker L.B. Jones to divorce his cheating wife (Lola Falana) who's engaging in an affair with the local redneck policeman, played to the hilt by Anthony Zerbe, who can't afford to let HIS wife know that he's sleeping around. Lee J. Cobb is also on hand as the district attorney, and there are small roles for Lee Majors, Barbara Hershey, Yaphet Kotto, Fayard Nicholas, Dub Taylor, and Chill Wills. With cinematography by TiVoPlex fave Robert Surtees, a score by Elmer Bernstein, and a downbeat and realistic ending, this is well worth a look. Also airs 8/23 at 10:30pm.
5pm IFC
A Decade Under the Influence (Part 1) (2003 USA): Touted as an “expanded” version of the recently-released IFC original documentary, A Decade Under the Influence is being broadcast on television as a three-part mini-series in conjunction with a number of features highlighted in the film. It’s not clear what’s been added to Richard LaGravenese’s and the late Ted Demme’s work, but the theatrical version clocked in at 108 minutes, and the expanded is getting three full hours of air time, so there could be substantial changes. The list of interviewees featured is truly impressive, ranging from top-of-the-line old-timers like Scorsese and Coppola to present-day auteurs such as Alexander Payne and Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s also my pleasure to inform you that motormouth Quentin Tarantino is nowhere in sight. Also airs at 8pm and 11pm. Part Two airs 8/21 at 5pm, 8pm, and 11pm, Part Three on 8/22 at the same times. All three episodes air back to back 8/23 at 5pm and 10pm.
“Cigarettes burning, faster and faster,
Everyone talking about the everafter,
And captain sits and seems to be in a daze,
One minute high,
The next minute low,
Nobody knows where we are,
Nobody knows where we are,
Nobody will ever know why,
Nobody will ever know why…”
I’m sure all that stuff about being high and low is about the difficulties of negotiating a successful take-off and landing, and that the cigarettes are Lucky Strikes, which presumably leave the captain in a daze, and gasping for breath. Yul Brynner did, after all, die of lung cancer, a nasty end that possibly could have been avoided if he had heeded the prescient warning supplied by this record in 1967. At least Widmark and Chakiris are still with us, as is love interest Shirley Knight, though co-star Suzy Parker and narrator Paul Frees have since moved on. Also airs at 7:30am.
5pm Encore True Stories
Crumb (1994 USA): Before Terry Zwigoff made the incomparable Ghost World (2001 USA), he made this grueling documentary about the troubled and talented Crumb family. The focus is on R. Crumb, the counterculture hero of the comics who came to loathe the burden his accidental fame brought him, but there's also considerable time spent with Robert's brothers Charles and Maxon. Charles and Maxon make Robert look like a rock of success and stability, and the film is uncomfortable viewing, never sparing the viewer sordid but true stories of sexual abuse, insanity, and suicide. Zwigoff luckily doesn't mistreat his subjects, keeping an appropriate distance that would be entirely impossible for a documentarian like Nick Broomfield to maintain. Also airs 8/22 at 12:50am.
8pm Sundance
The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001 JAP): Another Takashi Miike film that I have yet to see, this is apparently a black comedy about a city family trying to run a country inn. Unfortunately, their guests are few and far between, and those that do check in have the unfortunate habit of checking out shortly thereafter, accompanied by the Grim Reaper. It sounds a bit like a cross between the recently recommended (and admired by me) Chinese films Shower and Happy Times, but this being Miike, I’d expect things to be a little edgier here, what with backyard burials, karaoke singing, and fullblown musical numbers hinted at in the film’s précis. Also airs 8/23 at 9:30pm.
11:05pm Showtime 2
The Cockettes (2002 USA): Love them or loathe them, there’s never been another theater group quite like San Francisco’s Cockettes. Founded in the late 1960s by a hippie named Hibiscus, the troupe took to the stage of the City by the Bay’s Palace Theater, where their outrageous improvisational drag act started to draw big crowds. Their guerrilla theater developed and became more polished and rehearsed, and the Cockettes soon were treading the boards in New York, where the reaction they drew was decidedly unkind. Their demise was assured, though the group soldiered on for a little longer on the West Coast, but the political chasms accentuated by the trashing given the troupe in the Big Apple eventually led to a break-up. This film is an amazing time capsule, featuring a generous selection of impossibly rare footage as well as numerous interviews with surviving cast members, not all of whom were (or are) male or gay. The original home of soul-disco singer Sylvester, The Cockettes were also the starting point for Screamers singer and performance artist Tomata Du Plenty, though Tomata, sadly, doesn’t warrant a mention in the film.
8:35am Encore Mystery
A Study in Terror (1965 GB): One of the better post-Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes features, A Study in Terror stars the always-excellent John Neville(The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Spider) as Holmes, Donald Houston as Dr. Watson, and portly Robert Morley as brother Mycroft. Unfortunately, Derek and Donald Ford’s screenplay thrusts the great detective into the Jack the Ripper case (a mistake repeated by John Hopkins in the 1979 film Murder by Decree), forcing the incomparable Holmes into the uncomfortable position of either solving a murder case still officially considered unsolved, or fictionalizing a solution to the infamous 1887 killing spree. That’s only going to offend Ripperologists such as myself, of course, but if you couldn’t care less about Sir William Gull’s venereal patients or whether artist Walter Sickert left clues to the crimes in his paintings, you’ll enjoy this feature, which co-stars a young Judi Dench, Anthony Quayle, and Frank Finlay. Also airs at 3:20pm.
6pm Sundance
Divorce Iranian Style (1998 GB): Definitely NOT to be confused with 1961’s Divorce Italian Style, 1967’s Divorce American Style, or, Heaven forbid, 1975’s Divorce Andalusian Style, this is a straightforward and frequently depressing look at the annulment procedure in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A man can legally separate from his wife by simply telling her he is divorcing her, but for a woman to win a divorce case, she must prove her husband insane, impotent, or financially bankrupt. Recording a single day’s happenings in Tehran family court, this documentary emphasises the culture clash of East and West, Muslim and secular, and medieval and modern.