TiVoPlex
TiVoPlex for Tuesday, March 17, 2009 through Monday, March 23, 2009
By John Seal
March 16, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 03/17/09
10:05 AM IFC
'Bama Girl (2008 USA): This fascinating documentary takes a look at the annual homecoming rites at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where a student body election determines who will be the belle of the ball. Until 2005, the process had been a tightly controlled insider game, with anointed (and generally white) favorites heavily promoted by "The Machine", a shadowy group of fraternities and sororities that also nurtured many Alabama power brokers - senators, congressmen, lawyers and the like - over the years. Tradition, however, didn't sit well with African-American student Jessica Thomas, who with some help from her own sorority sisters decided to run an independent candidacy, relying on a get out the vote effort aimed at student groups who traditionally had not been involved in the homecoming process. It's all a little reminiscent of the American democratic process in general. I won't give away the ending, but this is a wonderful little film that will keep your attention to the end.
7:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
Young Cassidy (1965 USA): Rod Taylor stars in this rarely seen big screen adaptation of playwright Sean O'Casey's autobiography Mirror in My House. Taylor portrays the titular John Cassidy, a lower-middle class Dubliner who makes good by transforming his shabby genteel life experiences into plays at the legendary Abbey Theatre. Like most biopics, Young Cassidy is episodic, but as most of us probably aren't deeply familiar with the life of its subject, that's a minor complaint indeed. Let's focus instead on the film's impeccable pedigree: directed by the great Jack Cardiff, it's highlighted by Taylor's excellent performance and also features a cornucopia of British thesping talent amongst the ranks of its supporting cast, including Sir Michael Redgrave, Flora Robson, Maggie Smith, Edith Evans, Julie Christie, and Jack MacGowran. Interesting footnote: John Ford actually helmed two short scenes for this film.
11:50 PM More Max
The Promise (1979 USA): Now here's a TiVoPlex first: a film based on a Danielle Steele novel! Actually released to theatres in 1979, The Promise stars Kathleen Quinlan and Stephen Collins as Nancy and Michael, two creative types truly, madly, deeply in love with one another. They make a cliff-side promise to wed—but cold water is doused upon their engagement plans when Michael's harridan of a mother (Beatrice Straight) voices her objections. Enraged, the lovers elope, only to get into a terrible auto smash-up that leaves Nancy horribly disfigured (of course, it's the woman who's horribly disfigured). Can their relationship survive reconstructive facial surgery? This film actually earned an Academy Award nomination in 1980 for best song ("I'll Never Say Goodbye", and no, I don't remember it either), but ultimately lost out to "It Goes Like It Goes" from Norma Rae (and no, I don't remember that one, either). The Promise is so-so at best, but unless you're going to pony up for Universal's four-movie, two-disc Danielle Steele DVD collection, this is your best option.
Wednesday 03/18/09
3:20 AM IFC
Wordplay (2006 USA): What's a nine letter word for a popular newspaper puzzle? That would be crossword, of course, which is the subject matter of this engaging if very laid back documentary focusing on New York Times' puzzle passionista Will Shortz. Shortz is also the host of the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and Wordplay devotes much of its running time to the machinations of the 2005 tourney. Compared to the contestants, Shortz comes across as a perfectly normal if slightly dull sort, but there's more than enough competitive intrigue and suspense here to keep you engaged. Also airs at 9:00 AM and 1:45 PM.
6:00 PM HBO2
Death on a Factory Farm (2009 USA): I haven't had an opportunity to pre-screen this new HBO original documentary, but with a title like Death on a Factory Farm, how can you resist? As you might expect, this is not a murder mystery but a look at the unpleasantries taking place at a hog farm in Ohio. Sounds like jolly fun! The film airs again at 9:00 PM and throughout the month.
Thursday 03/19/09
2:30 AM Starz in Black
Fast Forward (1985 USA): Or, To Sir With Leotards! The penultimate directorial effort of erstwhile filmmaker Sidney Poitier, Fast Forward is the squeaky-clean, family friendly tale of eight Ohio teenagers (none previously employed on a hog farm, we have been assured) who head to New York, The Big Apple, The City That Never Sleeps, where they hope to turn their raw dance skills into Broadway hoofing material. If you, like me, enjoy films about Midwestern rubes getting their eyes opened in the big, bad city (see also: Senior Trip), or if you just like cheesy eighties musicals and all they entail, you'll go ape for Fast Forward, which stars — well, no-one you've ever heard of, actually.
7:00 PM Sundance
Heavy Metal in Baghdad (2007 USA-CAN): No, not the heavy metal we brought Iraqis in our depleted uranium munitions — the kind we brought on our Metallica CDs! This astonishing rockumentary was shot at the height of the anti-occupation insurgency, and examines Mesopotamian metal misfits Acrassicauda (black scorpion), Iraq's one and only hard rock band. Though there are no feathered poodle cuts for these guys — that wouldn't sit well with the local fundies — and they have to rely on gas generators to power their amps, Acrassicauda otherwise make a valiant effort to replicate the sounds, sights, and yes, smells of metal at its finest. Even if the music isn't your thing, however, this film is a revealing document of life during wartime. Also airs 3/23 at 6:30 AM and 12:15 PM.
Friday 03/20/09
10:05 AM HBO Family
The Last Starfighter (1984 USA): Every teenage boy's dream — to actually become ONE with the videogame — was realized early on in this enjoyable science fiction effort from future Major Payne director Nick Castle. (Nick is also mooted to helm a forthcoming Starfighter remake.) Lance Guest stars as joystick jockey Alex Rogan, whose obsessive loyalty to an arcade game comes to the attention of Star League representative Centauri (Robert Preston), who realizes the boy's skills are needed in order to defend the galaxy from the evil Xur (Norman Snow) and his Alien Armada. It's not as good as Tron (hey, there's nothing wrong with Tron!), but is thoroughly entertaining bunkum nonetheless.
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Long Night (1947 USA): Henry Fonda plays Joe Adams, a World War II vet caught up in a web of deeply unfortunate circumstances in this excellent Anatole Litvak suspenser. As the film opens, Joe has apparently gone off the deep end and murdered semi-pro magician Maximilian (Vincent Price, clearly enjoying himself), and is now holed up by the police in his one-room apartment. Did Joe really commit murder — or were there extenuating circumstances? All is revealed in extensive flashbacks, which detail Joe's love affairs with Jo Ann (Barbara Bel Geddes) and Charlene (Ann Dvorak), who also happens to be employed by Maximilian as his very own lovely and charming assistant. A remake of Marcel Carne's masterful Le Jour se Leve, The Long Night's awkwardly structured flashbacks don't always gel, but first rate cinematography by Sol Polito and another fine Fonda performance make this a must-see.
Saturday 03/21/09
1:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Pace That Thrills (1952 USA): Here's an RKO programmer I've never seen, but with characters named Dusty, Rocket, Blackie, and Sour Puss, it's surely irresistible. Night of the Zombies' Bill Williams stars as play-dirty motorcycle racer Dusty; Frank McHugh is roommate and engineer Rocket; Robert Mitchum's brother John plays Blackie; and Perry White himself, John Hamilton, is Sour Puss! If those four aren't sufficient reason to watch The Pace That Thrills, factor in the presence of King Kong star Robert Armstrong as sickle manufacturer J. C. Barton.
Sunday 03/22/09
5:00 AM IFC
Fireman's Ball (1967 CZE): This was the last film Milos Forman made before fleeing Czechoslovakia after the 1968 revolution. Frothy and lightweight, with a tinge of political satire for seasoning, The Firemen's Ball reflects the more liberal atmosphere that briefly prevailed in Dubcek's Czechoslovakia. Forman's greatest work was awaiting him in the United States, but this early precursor of his talents is well worth watching.
7:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Nicholas Nickleby (1947 GB): Forever overshadowed by David Lean's 1946 Dickens adaptation, Great Expectations, this Alberto Cavalcanti feature surely deserves its own moment in the sun. Derek Bond stars as the title character, a typically Dickensian poor but honest sort thrust into adversity by the cruel hand fate has dealt him and his family. After his father dies, Nicholas, his mother (Mary Merrall), and sister Kate (Sally Ann Howes) find themselves placed in care of Uncle Ralph (Cedric Hardwicke), a mean-spirited old sod who also has less than honorable intentions for Nicholas' sibling. Scripted by John Dighton, Cavalcanti's film does a reasonable job of boiling down a very long novel into a reasonably proportioned 108 minutes, and though Bond is a less than magnetic screen personality, Hardwicke is deliciously malicious. Look for a youngish James Hayter as sunny chum Ned Cheeryble.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Mamma Roma (1962 ITA): Mama mia, papa pia, TCM's gotta Mamma Roma! Anna Magnani stars as a retired prostitute in this once controversial feature from bad boy director Pier Paolo Pasolini. Mamma is determined to keep teenage son Ettore (Ettore Garofolo) from making the same mistakes she made — but after moving to the city, he takes up with a gang of ruffians and is deflowered by Bruna (Silvana Corsini), a young lady of considerable disrepute. Cue lashings of Catholic guilt, Marxist ideology, and oedipal overtones. This was only Pasolini's second film, but censors were already sharpening their scissors for what they considered to be obscene material. Compared to the director's Salo (The 120 Days of Sodom), however, Mamma Roma looks like an afterschool special. Well, perhaps an afterschool special for gay Catholic Communists.