TiVoPlex
By John Seal
December 8, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 12/09/08
8:15 PM Sundance
Breezy (1973 USA): William Holden and Kay Lenz star as lovers in this unlikely May/December romance from - of all people - director Clint Eastwood. Lenz plays hippie chick Breezy, who escapes an over-amorous admirer by hiding from him on the property of Frank Harmon (Holden), a cranky old businessman cut from the same cloth as most contemporary Eastwood characters. The two slowly begin to fall for each other, raising the inevitable question: can a hippie and a straight find true love, or is it just a one-night stand? Slightly marred by a cloying conclusion, Breezy is nevertheless considerably better than you might think, especially if you can overlook Lenz's penchant for sunny optimism and New Age glad-handing.
9:55 PM MGM HD
Last House on the Left (1972 USA): The great-granddaddy of the video nasties and Wes Craven's first film, Last House on the Left makes an extremely rare TV appearance this evening on MGM HD. The misanthropic, darkly comic tale of four miscreants (including the incomparable and unforgettable David Hess) and the misdeeds they visit upon a pair of teenage girls, Last House has a well-deserved reputation as one of the most squirm-inducing films ever made. Appropriately enough for a film from the future director of Scream, it's been sliced and diced countless times by innumerable censors, and it will be most interesting to see exactly which version MGM will be airing tonight. My guess is they'll be drawing from their 2002 DVD release, which matched up what remained of the original print with seven restored minutes obtained from a German source. If Pasolini's Salo made you shiver and shake, prepare for another shock to the nervous system. (If, on the other hand, Salo made you salivate, you've got a serious problem.)
Wednesday 12/10/08
5:15 AM HBO Signature
The Snake Pit (1948 USA): Olivia de Havilland stars as an amnesiac committed to a state hospital in this groundbreaking pic from director Anatole Litvak. De Havilland plays Virginia Cunningham, a young bride whose hubby (Mark Stevens) has seen fit to provide her board and lodging at the local insane asylum. Here she meets kindly Dr. Kik (pipe smoking Leo Genn), who tries to help her recover both memory and sanity, but ultimately presides over her complete mental breakdown and subsequent rehabilitation. Based on a best selling book by Mary Jane Ward, The Snake Pit set the tone for the new psychodrama genre, and garnered six Oscar nominations, including nods for Litvak and de Havilland. Though time has lessened its impact somewhat, it remains a periodically powerful indictment of our attitudes toward mental illness.
10:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974 USA): Oh boy. I can remember watching a pan-and-scan copy of this film and thinking, "I bet this would look great in its correct aspect ratio" (I really do think like this). Well, here it is. Robert Shaw plays the ringleader of a gang who hijack a New York City subway train and hold the passengers for ransom. Walter Matthau is the tough Big Apple cop out to stop them. This film probably influenced Quentin Tarantino (though what hasn't?), as that most overrated of auteurs gave color-coded names to HIS gangsters in Reservoir Dogs, just as this film did 20 years earlier. It remains one of the great suspensers of the 1970s, if not of all time.
Thursday 12/11/08
5:30 AM Showtime
JUMP! (2007 USA): No, this is not a VH-1 rockumentary about the song that allowed Van Halen to crossover into the disco market. It's a film about skipping rope, of all things, which—like other simple pleasures such as Frisbee and hacky sack—has now been brought into the competitive realm. Examining the national and world championships (which encompass a wide range of age groups), JUMP! will inspire you to bust a Double Dutch move in the comfort and safety of your own living room. Either that, or play that old Van Halen record again.
12:50 PM Starz Edge
The Last Winter (2007 USA): I've been an admirer of independent filmmaker Larry Fessenden for some time, but with The Last Winter Fessenden has started to repeat himself. Set at an environmental research station in the frozen Arctic, the film stars Ron Perlman as Ed Pollack, a scientist keeping watch over a company exploring the area for oil. He's assisted by a group of beardy tree-huggers, including James LeGros, who are starting to develop serious cases of cabin fever and paranoia. And out there in the long Arctic night, something seems to be stirring...which is a great set up, unfortunately let down by a completely disappointing third act. As with his superior Wendigo (2001), Fessenden can't quite pull it off, with the final reel 'revelation' being an extremely disappointing CGI creation that would have best been left unseen. Still and all, Perlman is always a pleasure to watch, and the first two thirds of the film do a nice job of establishing a simmering aura of dread beneath the midnight sun.
5:30 PM Showtime
Very Young Girls (2007 USA): I haven't seen this documentary yet, but it makes me nervous. It's a film about teen prostitution, which is a worthy subject, but that title is — I dunno — kinda creepy, doncha think? Couldn't they have called it something like Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway? Or was that already taken? Regardless, Very Young Girls has decent pedigree — one of the filmmakers interned with Errol Morris — and is probably worth a look. Also airs at 8:30 PM.
8:45 PM Flix
Penitentiary II (1982 USA): And here's where you end up if you mess around with Very Young Girls. The sequel to the memorable Penitentiary, which aired a few months back on TCM, Pentitentiary II sees Leon Isaac Kennedy return as ex-con Too Sweet, now on parole and trying to keep away from The Man, the po-po, and the boxing ring. Alas, his plans go awry when his girlfriend is killed by psychotic fellow parolee Half Dead (Ernie Hudson), and Sweet is forced once again to don the gloves of ignorance and do battle, though this time with Mr. T in his corner. Really! Penitentiary II isn't very good, but it's never boring — and cameo appearances by Tony 'Bad Santa' Cox and late, lamented dirty mouth comic Rudy Ray Moore add some extra spice to the proceedings.
Friday 12/12/08
1:30 AM Sundance
Only Human (2004 ESP): Jewish families are as funny in Spain as they are in the United States. That's the lesson taught by this periodically amusing comedy from the filmmaking husband and wife team of Dominic Harari and Teresa Pelegri, who share writing and directing credits for Only Human. It's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, 21st century style, as daughter Leni (Marian Aguilera) brings home Palestinian hubby Rafi (the mighty Guillermo Toledo, fresh off El Crimen Ferpecto) to meet the folks. The film treads treacherous ground, but its screenplay thankfully never descends into lecture mode, and the end result is watchable if hardly revelatory.
8:05 AM Encore Mystery
Firestarter (1984 USA): Most Stephen King screen adaptations suck. This one, somewhat surprisingly, does not. Little Drew Barrymore stars as the titular tyro pyro, a terrifying tot who can rub two brain cells together and start an unholy inferno. David Keith and my old school chum Heather Locklear play her parents, who, not too surprisingly, consider her behaviour well out of order. The outstanding supporting cast includes Freddie Jones, Moses Gunn, Art Carney, George C. Scott, Antonio Fargas, Louise Fletcher, and Martin Sheen. I wish Firestarter would show up in widescreen sometime, but as it hasn't shown up recently in ANY format, we'll give it a mulligan this time.
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Holly and the Ivy (1953 GB): Ten years ago this Christmas, we got our first satellite dish. The first thing I recorded from it was The Tomb of Ligeia. The second was the Alistair Sim version of A Christmas Carol — but I botched the job and only got half the film. Never mind, I thought — TCM probably airs it every holiday season. I'll get it next year. And sure enough, almost every year since, TCM has aired the 1938 version, or 1970's Scrooge, or A Christmas Story — but the Sim Christmas Carol has never returned. Not once. This is a very roundabout way of getting to The Holly and the Ivy, another British holiday classic from the same period that has, of late, made only infrequent appearances on American television. A tale of family reunion at the most wonderful time of the year, it stars Ralph Richardson as a Norfolk pastor and Celia Johnson, Margaret Leighton, and Denholm Elliott as his offspring. The drama is refreshingly complex and reasonably realistic, at least by the standards of the time, and it's great that TCM is giving us an opportunity to watch a film that used to pop up occasionally on PBS but rarely elsewhere. It's decent compensation for my annual disappointment, but I'm still going to write a Christmas letter to Santa Claus. Or Robert Osborne.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Beyond the Fog (1972 GB): More widely known as Tower of Evil, this low budget British thriller makes its widescreen television debut this evening in the TCM Underground. The film features Bryant Haliday (Devil Doll, Curse of the Voodoo) as a private dick hired to solve the mystery of The Horror of Snape Island, which involves the gory death of Robin Askwith at the end of a lance. (Anyone familiar with the collected works of Mr. Askwith will attest to the justness of this punishment.) If breasts and blood are your thing, Beyond the Fog is your film: it's a very minor genre entry, however, and unlikely to change anyone's mind regarding Haliday's utter incompetence in his chosen profession.
Saturday 12/13/08
4:30 AM CInemax
In Bruges (2007 GB): I had comp tickets to see this film last year, and due to boring family complications, didn't use them. I was willing to pay to see it, too, but it just never happened, so I'm thrilled that In Bruges is making its small screen debut this morning. Written for the screen by esteemed playwright Martin McDonaugh (The Lieutenant of Inishmore, which I enjoyed at the RSC in 2001), it stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as mob hit men temporarily stranded in the titular medieval city. I'm no Farrell fan, but I do love me some Gleeson, and the film got great reviews, so I will definitely be tuning in.
Sunday 12/14/08
6:00 AM Flix
A Taste of Honey (1961 GB): Director Tony Richardson's adaptation of Shelagh Delaney's controversial play returns to television this morning. Mousy Rita Tushingham stars as Jo, a 17-year -ld Mancunian who flees her harridan of a mother (Dora Bryan) for a flat-share with homosexual Geoffrey Ingram (Ken Russell regular Murray Melvin). Jo, however, has previously been knocked up by Afro-Caribbean sailor Jimmy (Paul Danquah), and once her condition becomes obvious, Geoffrey decides he'd make a good surrogate dad. Much knitting and shouting ensues. Considered very hot stuff in 1961, A Taste of Honey has aged well, right down to the grim but oddly uplifting denouement.
9:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Godless Girl (1929 USA): Cinema moralist par excellence Cecil B. DeMille put all his cards on the table in this salute to the values and virtues of That Old Time Religion. The film features Lina Basquette and George Duryea as Girl and Boy, two all-American Christian high schoolers led into temptation by — shock horror! — atheists. They get what's coming to them via a trip to reform school. This warning to youngsters to stay on Christ's bright shining path to salvation was DeMille's final silent picture before he embarked on more salacious material such as 1932's Sign of the Cross.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Das Boot (1981 BRD): This World War II actioner has frequently appeared on premium satellite, but I believe this is the first time it's been aired in widescreen AND with subtitles. Jurgen Prochnow stars as Kriegsmarine Captain Lehmann-Willenbrock, who must turn 42 raw recruits into an effective U-boat crew that will bring death, destruction, and terror to the North Atlantic convoy lanes. Like most submarine films, it's absolutely essential to see Das Boot in its correct aspect ratio, but the presence of subtitles is equally important: though the film was a surprising US box office hit in 1981, success came at the expense of its original language. Important note: TCM is airing the extended 200-minute director's cut, so short of investing in a DVD or opening your own revival house, you'll probably never have a better opportunity to see this film as God, nature, and director Wolfgang Petersen intended it.
Monday 12/15/08
3:00 AM Fox Movie Channel
Kipps (1941 GB): A completely forgotten film from director Carol Reed, Kipps makes a rare appearance this morning on Fox. Based on a novel by H. G. Wells, it's the story of a working-class draper (Michael Redgrave) who falls for a middle-class girl (Diana Wynyard) and finds Britain's class system unwilling to accommodate his desires. It's a lovely, sad little film about regret and resigned disappointment, which if you're British are two of the most important aspects of life. Caveat: at no point in the film does anyone say ‘Goodbye Mr. Kipps', which is a real shame.