TiVoPlex
TiVoPlex for Tuesday, November 13, 2007 through Monday, November 19, 2007
By John Seal
November 13, 2007
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 11/13/07
1:20 AM HBO Signature
Casi Casi (2006 PUR): Arriving only one week after Ladrones y Mentirosos, the first Puerto Rican film to receive an American television airing in recent memory, comes Casi Casi, the second Puerto Rican film to...well, you get the idea. Written and directed by the Valles Brothers (Jaime and Tony), the film is basically Election—Caribbean-Style, and stars Mario Pabon as Emilio, a nerdy high schooler trying to impress object of affection Jacklynne (Maite Canto) by running for Student Council president. Alas, he learns too late that his chief opponent in the race is the very same Jacklynne, and Emilio decides he must engage in a little ballot-box fixing in order to ensure a political loss and a romantic win. Paging Sequoia, Diebold, and Intercivic! If you're in the mood for a light-hearted, PG-rated teen comedy, it doesn't get any better than Casi Casi, which won the Audience Award at the 2006 San Diego Latino Film Festival.
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Stakeout on Dope Street (1958 USA): Titles don't come much better than Stakeout on Dope Street, do they? As an added bonus, the film itself is actually pretty good, too. It's a black and white neo-noir about the temptations of big city life and three young men confronted by a terrible choice: report the brick of heroin they find to the local police, or pass it on to the local junkies in exchange for some fast cash? Shot on location around an already seedy downtown Los Angeles (including Chavez Ravine, a year prior to its redevelopment as Dodger Stadium), the film stars Yale Wexler, Morris Miller, and future Little Shop of Horrors lead Jonathan Haze as Jim, Nick, and Ves, three goofballs who clearly didn't get the message that ‘if it's brown, flush it down'. The first film directed by future Empire Strikes Back helmer Irvin Kershner, Stakeout on Dope Street also features a fantastic performance from Allen Kramer as smack-head Danny, who kindly assists the lads in their efforts to find out what brown can do for them. Watch for Russ Meyer/Ray Dennis Steckler regular Coleman Francis as a detective.
6:35 PM Sundance
Crapshoot (2003 USA): If you enjoy cable staple Dirty Jobs, your face will no doubt flush with joy at the thought of this full-length documentary about the dangers of sewage. Invented during the early can-do days of the Roman Empire, sewerage once served primarily as a conduit for our bodily excrescences but now doubles as a superhighway for all sorts of effluence, including chemicals, solvents, and all sorts of nasty toxic waste that gets carelessly poured down the drain. Crapshoot takes us up close and personal into this world of subterranean delights, where cancer-causing agents lie just around every u-bend, and poses the question: do modern sewer systems cause more problems then they solve? Go to the head of the class if you already know the answer—and start digging a deep hole in the backyard. Gardez l'eau!
Wednesday 11/14/07
2:30 AM Showtime
Glow Ropes: The Rise and Fall of a Bar Mitzvah Emcee (2005 USA): Don't be put off by the surprisingly low rating Glow Ropes gets on IMDb: it's actually a thoroughly enjoyable social satire about the second most important job in the world (number one, of course, being birthday party clown). The story revolves around eponymous entertainer Taylor James (Tom Peper), who's trying to parlay his wildly successful New Jersey act into success on the biggest stage of them all: The Big Apple. Told in mockumentary fashion via teenage filmmaker Barry (former Sesame Street regular Carlo Alban), the film chronicles the disastrous after-effects of Taylor's unfortunate encounter with some defective glow ropes (you know, those phosphorescent tchotchkes so beloved of adolescents the world over). You've seen this sort of ethnic indie comedy before, but this is a good one—especially if like things schmaltzed up a little.
5:00 AM Sundance
Topaz (1969 USA): It's poorly regarded by most critics and disliked by many Hitchcock fans, but I have a soft spot for the great director's third-to-last feature, a Cold War tale of Soviet spies infiltrating the highest reaches of the French government. It's one of Hitch's most complex and overplotted pictures, with a narrative arc more reminiscent of Day of the Jackal than Dial M for Murder. Little-known Frederick Stafford (who had served his apprenticeship in the popular OSS 117 spy series) is fine as a French secret agent assigned to uncover the spy ring, Dany Robin adds the va-va-voom factor as his wife, John Vernon offers a hilariously enjoyable turn as a Cuban revolutionary, Roscoe Lee Browne plays a Haitian agent masquerading as a flower salesman, and solid, reliable John Forsythe is fine, if somewhat left in the shadows, as Stafford's CIA counterpart. Topaz is also technically superb, especially Jack Hildyard's wide-screen cinematography and Michel Legrand's lush score. If you like Torn Curtain (as I do), you'll enjoy Topaz. Also airs at 1:30 PM.
6:00 PM Sundance
Transylvania (2006 FRA): Okay, I admit it: I kinda have a thing for Asia Argento, and as a result have frequently overlooked some of the embarrassing inadequacies of her film thesping. In Transylvania, however, we have a film that even folks not pre-disposed in Ms. Argento's favor might also enjoy, as long as they can put up with lots of gypsy music. The film offers Asia an opportunity to show off her admittedly limited range to best effect as Zingarina, a French wild woman searching the wilds of Romania in search of gypsy lover Milan, who has decamped for his native land without so much as a by your leave. Barefoot and pregnant, Zingarina soon finds herself immersed in the world of Romany music via itinerant tinker Tchangalo (Head-On's grumpy looking Turkish actor Birol Unel), who leads her on a liberating chase across the highways and byways of southeastern Europe. Directed by Gadjo Dilo creator Tony Gatlif, Transylvania looks terrific thanks to Celine Bozon's magnificent cinematography, which also captures the divine Ms. A to best effect.
Saturday 11/17/07
Midnight The Movie Channel
Bobby G Can't Swim (1999 USA): A small time coke-dealer tries to break into the big leagues in this predictable but satisfying indie drama from first time filmmaker John-Luke Montias (who also wrote the screenplay). Set in New York's pre-gentrification Hells Kitchen, the film depicts the day to day grind of Bobby Grace (Montias again), who tries to make ends meet flogging twenty dollar bags of snow whilst girlfriend Lucy chips in the proceeds from her gig as a prostitute. When Bobby meets some yuppie scum hoping to make a big score, he decides to risk everything and gets deep into debt with drug kingpin Astro (Steve Heinze)—but things turn sour when his clients develop cold feet, and he finds himself backed into a very unpleasant corner indeed. The winner of several awards on the festival circuit, Bobby G. Can't Swim is clumsily written, but executed with energy and enthusiasm, rendering it a worthwhile addition to the cinema of drug-addled despair.
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Kes (1970 GB): Last time I recommended Kes, it was airing on Trio, a long since defunct cable channel that occasionally dug up some really worthwhile rarities. Unfortunately, Trio also aired commercials and edited salty language from their programming, rendering Kes a distinctly frustrating affair for anyone tuning in at the time. Now, thanks to TCM, the film returns to American television uninterrupted, in its correct aspect ratio, and no longer shorn of naughty verbiage. Directed by Ken Loach, this tale of a boy and his bird on the Yorkshire Dales has long been one of the most beloved of British films, with fan votes consistently placing it near or at the top of best of British lists. Barnsley boy David Bradley stars as a youngster whose troubles at school and at home begin to fade into the background after he befriends a wild kestrel. If you think the setup sounds like a recipe for syrup and tears, you're only partly right, as the masterful Loach made an easy transition from the BBC kitchen-sink dramas on which he cut his teeth (e.g., the still discomfiting Cathy Come Home), bringing to the big screen his unique blend of social realism, humor, and working-class warmth. Featuring gorgeous photography by future director Chris Menges, this is a wonderful film that will appeal to those who enjoyed the similarly-themed Ring of Bright Water (1969 GB).
7:30 PM Encore Westerns
The Dalton Girls (1957 USA): A distaff take on the wild west outlaw sub-genre, The Dalton Girls is not terribly memorable cinematically, but quite interesting from a gender studies perspective. The film stars Merry Anders (The Hypnotic Eye), Lisa Davis (Queen of Outer Space), Penny Edwards, and Sue George as four female relatives of the notorious Dalton gang, who have all come to a sticky end and are no longer around to protect their womenfolk. When one of the girls kills a man after he tries to take advantage of her, she's accused of murder, and her sisters show their support by taking up where their male siblings left off (apparently women couldn't use justifiable homicide as a defense in the 19th century). The Dalton Girls is basically a 1950s juvenile delinquency story shoehorned into a ‘B' western setting, and your enjoyment of the film will depend primarily upon your tolerance for the former style—but it's a darn sight better Bad Girls, its 1994 knock-off.
Sunday 11/18/07
3:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Ring of Fear (1954 USA): A rather unusual independent production that ended up getting distribution through Warner Bros, Ring of Fear was originally intended for filming in 3-D, but ended up being shot flat in extreme 2.55:1 CinemaScope. The film features aging adventurer Clyde Beatty, who had made a number of jungle documentaries in the 1930s, as a circus operator whose road show is plagued by a series of deadly accidents that require the attention of a private investigator, played by none other than Mickey Spillane himself! To add to the bizarro quality of the proceedings, both Beatty and Spillane ostensibly play ‘themselves', receiving fictional support from Pat O'Brien and others. It's very colorful, quite enjoyable, and thoroughly strange.
9:00 PM Sundance
One Missed Call (2003 JAP): Directed by the prodigious Takashi Miike, One Missed Call is yet another telecommunications chiller in the vein of Phone and When A Stranger Calls, with a dash of Final Destination thrown in for good measure. This time, the victims receive voicemail from themselves on their cellphones—voicemail that apparently comes from the future and predicts their impending and extremely violent demise. Whilst the premise doesn't win any points for originality, Miike goes all out as usual, sparing little in the gore and grue department. And just to be on the safe side, I'm sticking to a landline.
Monday 11/19/07
9:00 AM Fox Movie Channel
Cabinet of Caligari (1962 USA): One of the most ill-advised remakes of all time, this Cabinet bears none of the hallmarks of its German expressionist predecessor and all of those of a sexually uptight early 1960s middle America. Glynis Johns stars as Jane Lindstrom, a young woman whose car breaks down near the remote mansion of Caligari (Dan O'Herlihy), a psychiatrist with some unhealthy obsessions. At first Jane is taken in by his apparent kindnesses, but when the sadistic shrink refuses to let her continue her journey she finds herself the victim of some extremely unpleasant mind games. Written by the estimable Robert Bloch, the producers would have been wise to excise the Caligari name entirely from the film, as it serves mostly as a reminder of how poorly it compares to Robert Wiene's original effort. Nonetheless, it's an intriguing little picture that reflects the unsavoury influence of Michael Powell's groundbreaking Peeping Tom, and gets a rare widescreen airing this morning.
4:45 PM Showtime
Fall From Grace (2007 USA): I haven't seen this documentary yet, but the subject matter renders it irresistible. Focussing on the bizarre antics of Pastor Fred Phelps and his Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church (where they hate the sin, hate the sinner, and pretty much hate every one else, too), Fall From Grace certainly won't be boring. And if perchance Phelps and family don't provide you with enough nutty religious entertainment for one day, you might also want to tune in to Sundance at 6:00 PM for Philip and His Seven Wives (2005), a BBC documentary about a messianic Jewish rabbi and furniture dealer who was informed by God that he's actually a Hebrew king entitled to have much more than just a bit of crumpet on the side—all whilst living in sunny Hove on the south coast of England.