Box Office Prophets: TiVoPlex

TiVoPlex

By John Seal

October 28 - November 3rd, 2003

Y Tu Mama Tambien is apparently Spanish for threesome.

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

Tuesday 10/28/03

1:30am Turner Classic Movies
Conspirator (1949 GB): This fairly interesting early Cold War thriller stars Robert Taylor as a British officer who falls in love with young American tourist Elizabeth Taylor in post-war London. Unbeknownst to Liz, however, her handsome hubby is actually a double agent spying on behave of the Soviet government. Torn between his loyalty to his Moscow masters and the love of his beautiful young wife, Taylor is faced with the ultimate decision: follow orders and kill her, or disobey and sign his own death warrant? A solid British supporting cast, including Wilfrid Hyde-White, Honor Blackman, Thora Hird, and Robert Flemyng, and top-notch cinematography by three-time Academy Award winner Freddie Young (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Ryan’s Daughter) elevate this one into worthwhile territory.

9pm More Max
Juana La Loca (2001 ITA-ESP-POR): This handsomely-mounted Iberian period piece stars the radiant Pilar Lopez as the title character, a Spanish queen of the early 16th century plunged into madness by the infidelities of her husband, an Austrian archduke (Daniele Liotti, recently seen as Mischa in 2002’s Doctor Zhivago miniseries). There’s a lot of screaming, a lot of scheming, and not a great deal of historical accuracy, but if you’re in need of an obscure frock flick, you could do worse. Fans of European film in general (and spaghetti westerns in particular) should note the presence of Italian actor Giuliano Gemma in a sizable supporting role. Also airs 10/31 at 2:30am and 5:30am.

Wednesday 10/29/03

Midnight Turner Classic Movies
Mother’s Cry (1930 USA): I haven’t seen this one, but TCM is airing this very obscure Warner’s drama due to the (uncredited) presence of Boris Karloff in a bit part as a murder victim, so all fans of the late William Henry Pratt will want to make time for it. Dorothy Peterson made her film debut as a single mother and widow with four grown children, including a psychotic elder son (Edward Woods) whose reappearance on the family doorstep soon leads to complications. Peterson’s other children are played by David Manners and Helen Chandler, both a year away from Dracula and respective stardom as Jonathan Harker and Mina Seward, and former vaudevillian Evelyn Knapp. With art direction by the great Anton Grot (Doctor X, The Mystery of the Wax Museum), Mother’s Cry is bound to look good, even if the screenplay turns out to be a dud.

8:35pm Black Starz!
Welcome to Death Row (2001 USA): This documentary about the rise and fall of a rap music empire actually accomplishes what was previously considered impossible: it paints an almost sympathetic portrait of Marion “Suge” Knight, Death Row Records’ co-founder and suspect (?) in the murder of Tupac Shakur. Filled with fascinating interviews from those who were there at the time - including Puffy Combs, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and, erm, Vanilla Ice - this is an engrossing film that doesn’t require either a familiarity with or affinity for hip-hop music to be of interest.

7pm IFC
Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001 MEX): I’m including this one because it’s making its cable premiere this evening, and it was a critical favorite last year. Have I seen it? No. Do I want to see it? No. The trailer for it completely turned me off and looked like another excuse to show teenage boys in flagrante delicto with an older woman. Yech. On the other hand, director Alfonso Cuarón was responsible for the thoroughly charming A Little Princess (1995 USA) and is helming the new Harry Potter film. And the film does star the super-talented Gael Garcia Bernal (Amores Perros). So perhaps I need to remove my blinders, stop being such a prude, and just go with the sexy flow of it all. At least the cinematography, by Sleepy Hollow cameraman Emmanuel Lubezki, should be good.

Thursday 10/30/03

1:15am Showtime
Gas Pump Girls (1979 USA): Aside from some gratuitous topless scenes and a few double entendres, Gas Pump Girls is a surprisingly sweet little film about five teenagers, their boyfriends, and a goofy motorcycle gang taking on the big bad Pyramid Petroleum Company in beautiful downtown Sacramento. The talents of old-timers Huntz Hall, Joe E. Ross, and Mike Mazurki are sadly wasted, but the film manages to provide 90 minutes of relatively painless entertainment. Even the wretched original songs work in the post-Grease context of this low-budget musical comedy. "Ooo wah ooh wah...ooh wah ooh wah...your mother is an ooo wah" indeed! Also airs at 4:15am.

3:45am HBO 2
The Struma (2001 CAN): This remarkable documentary about an unheralded tragedy of World War II - the complicity in the deaths of almost 800 ship-bound Romanian Jewish refugees by the British, Turkish, and Russian governments - features interview footage of David Stoliar, the only survivor of the sinking of the cattle barge Struma in 1942. The refugees, trying to escape from the European continent to British-ruled Palestine, ended up in a Turkish port when Britain refused to admit them, and then were sunk by a Soviet submarine when Turkey, after an over two month impasse, refused to extend landing rights any longer. Reminiscent of the recent shameful response by the Australian government to a boatload of Afghan refugees afloat in the Indian Ocean, the Struma incident remains a blot on the historic record of the governments involved, and is a timely reminder of the plight of wartime refugees throughout the world. Also airs at 6:45am.

Friday 10/31/03

9am Turner Classic Movies
A Kiss Before Dying (1956 USA): Robert Wagner stars as a remorseless college-student killer in this shot-in-Tucson Technicolor thriller. Hey, that rhymes. The ruthless Wagner is out to win the hand (and, by extension, the inheritance) of heiress Joanne Woodward, whose prenuptial pregnancy puts the kibosh on his plans. With her safely out of the way thanks to an artfully staged “suicide”, he soon moves in on her sister (Virginia Leith), next in line to inherit their father’s legacy. Co-starring Mary Astor, TiVoPlex favorite George Macready, and a very young Robert Quarry, this is an overly polite but well-made pseudo-noir that gets the nod this week thanks to TCM’s airing of the luminous wide-screen print recently resurrected on DVD.

9:30am Cinemax
The Lost Boys (1987 USA): I haven’t seen The Lost Boys in at least 15 years, but Halloween night would seem to be the appropriate time to rediscover the world’s first vampire-biker movie (the genre, not to be confused with either the werewolf-biker or zombie-biker sub-genres, now also includes the 1990 British oddity, I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle). I know I shouldn’t like it, this being a Joel Schumacher film and all, but for whatever reason I seem to remember enjoying it way back when. Of course, I’m no longer a fickle and tasteless youth, so perhaps it really stinks. At any rate, the cast is a good one, featuring Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland, Dianne Wiest, and Edward Herrmann, as well as the dubious talents of the two Coreys. At the very least, there should be an ample assortment of bad ‘80s hair and worse ‘80s music to supply a few chuckles.

Saturday 11/01/03

3:35am Encore Action
In the Year 2889 (1966 USA): NO, not the Year 2525, the year 2889! The difference, other than the three-plus centuries, is that in 2889, if man is still alive, post-atomic mutants will roam the Earth. If that plot sounds a little familiar, it should, because this is one of AIP’s remakes of their successful drive-in features of the ‘50s: specifically, Roger Corman’s fogbound The Day the World Ended. The original was actually a pretty decent little flick, surprisingly well shot (in wide-screen) if broadly overacted (hello, Touch Connors!) and underwritten. This one doesn’t have any excusable shortcomings, is probably one of the worst films ever made, and was directed by Larry Buchanan, a Texas independent filmmaker whose jaw-droppingly bad Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald (1964 USA) is about to grace a special-edition DVD (His 1967 stinker Mars Needs Women airs several times on Flix on 10/30). So why is it here? Well, this is In the Year 2889’s first appearance on commercial-free cable in at least a decade. And you wouldn’t want commercials to interfere with the anemic plot, awful screenplay, and deadly acting, would you? If you’re a genre completest who doesn’t want to shell out for a DVD (yes, it exists, as part of a triple feature, also including the unrelated British-made They Came From Beyond Space and the moderately entertaining Teenagers From Outer Space), this is big news for you.

5am IFC
Sanjuro (1961 JAP): It gives me tremendous pleasure to report that IFC is finally airing some new features as part of their Samurai Saturday package. Here’s one of Akira Kurosawa’s lighter films, an action comedy starring Toshiro Mifune as a wandering samurai hired by nine young villagers to clean up the corruption tainting their burg. There’s a playfulness rarely seen in Kurosawa’s oeuvre in Sanjuro (even The Hidden Fortress can’t match it), but the highlight of the film is the final face-off between Mifune and villain Tetsuya Nakadai. It’s not Kurosawa’s best or most important film, but for pure entertainment value, it’s near the top. Also airs at 10:45am and 11/2 at 3am.

5am Turner Classic Movies
Side Street (1950 USA): This top-notch noir stars Farley Granger as a postman who succumbs to temptation and finds himself on the run from blackmailers and worse in darkest Manhattan. This is a prime example of quality MGM ‘50s filmmaking, with a good Sydney Boehm screenplay, atmospheric Joseph Ruttenberg photography, and a terrific cast, including James Craig, Paul Kelly, Adele Jergens, and Whit Bissell.

7:40am Showtime Extreme
The Five Deadly Venoms (1978 HK): One of the greatest martial-arts films ever made, The Five Deadly Venoms makes a welcome return to the small screen. Directed by the great Chang Cheh and starring Philip Kwok (briefly seen by Western audiences in 1997’s Bond entry, Tomorrow Never Dies, as General Chang), the film pits a young student (Sheng Chiang) against the titular martial-arts experts in a battle of both wits (as he tries to determine which of the Deadly Venoms are friend and which are foe) and flying fists. Caveat: this appears to be a pan-and-scan print. I guess it’s still not a perfect world. Also airs at 5:20pm.

6pm Sundance
Eat This New York (2002 USA): This documentary about the cutthroat world of restaurateuring in the Big Apple makes its world television premiere this evening. Focusing on two relocated Mid-Westerners trying to establish an eatery in Brooklyn, the film also features extensive interviews with renowned foodies like Daniel Boulud and Tim Zagat. Sounds like a mouthwatering treat to me.

Sunday 11/02/03

2:35am Encore Love Stories
Slow Dancing In the Big City (1978 USA): It has a poor reputation, but I would be remiss if I didn’t at least put in a word for this John G. Avildsen drama about a newspaper reporter (Paul Sorvino) who falls in love with a ballerina (the otherwise-forgotten Canadian actress Ann Ditchburn). The film isn’t particularly original, but Sorvino is terrific, and there’s a decent Bill Conti score and some nice New York location photography. Avildsen’s brief firecracker career was already in descent after his successes with Save the Tiger (1973 USA) and Rocky (1976 USA), but he hadn’t yet hit Karate Kid bottom in 1978. Worth a look for those interested in The Decade Under an Influence.

3am Encore Action
Mission Over Korea (1953 USA) : This standard-issue wartime movie features the usual assortment of clichés and stock footage, but features a very interesting cast that may recommend it to hardier cinephiles (such, of course, as myself). The headliners are John Derek (future husband of Bo) and John Hodiak, here feudin’ between each other while fightin’ dirty sky-bound Commies, but the film also features future Beach Party star and motorcycle Rat Harvey Lembeck, noir goddess Audrey Totter, former Jane Maureen O’Sullivan, handsome Rex Reason, and even all-around character actor Dabbs Greer (now 86 years old and still working). If those names don’t excite you, you can safely give this one a miss.

Monday 11/03/03

6:45am HBO Signature
The Good Girl (2002 USA): I used to think George Clooney was a stiff with a pretty face, but I’ve since come around to recognize him as one of the top comedic actors of his generation. Gwyneth Paltrow used to turn my stomach until I noticed that she was actually really good in a pretty wide range of roles. Likewise Jennifer Aniston was once another subject of my derision, until her voice acting in Iron Giant convinced me that she had a heartbeat. I guess it IS possible to be both traditionally attractive AND capable of decent acting, though Aniston’s all-American girl good looks still leave me cold. The Good Girl (here making its television debut) is another indication that, under the blow-dried exterior, there’s an intelligent young woman willing to try out some challenging roles that don’t revolve around white yuppies trying to make it in the big city. In this ironically-titled film, Aniston plays a discount store employee who becomes involved with a troublesome co-worker (Jake Gyllenhaal) who thinks he’s Holden Caulfied, the fictional character beloved by a million pubescent adolescents who never bothered to finish another book in high-school English class. Written by School of Rock scribe Mike White (who also co-stars), this is a solid and surprising character study about a woman whose heretofore dull life gets a little more excitement than it really needs. Add in Tim Blake Nelson and John P. Reilly, and you’ve got an Indie Spirit award winner!

9pm Fox Movie Channel
The Laughing Policeman (1973 USA): Fox is airing a wide-screen print of this terrific police procedural starring Walter Matthau in best rumpled form as Jake Martin, a San Francisco cop on the trail of a killer responsible for the shooting deaths of a busload of Muni passengers. Isn’t having to ride Muni punishment enough? Based on the popular cerebral police novels of Swedes Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, this gritty little film co-stars Bruce Dern, Louis Gossett Jr., and Anthony Zerbe as Matthau’s colleagues, and, erm, Cathy Lee Crosby.