TiVoPlex
TiVoPlex
By John Seal
November 22, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 11/23/10
6:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
West of Shanghai (1937 USA): Five years after his remarkable performance as "the yellow peril incarnate" in The Mask of Fu Manchu, Boris Karloff took on another inscrutable Asian villain role in this seriously outdated but well-made and exciting Warners second feature. Stylishly directed by John Farrow, West of Shanghai features Karloff as General Wu Yen Fang, a warlord holding a group of westerners hostage in a remote village that also happens to be the location of vast oil reserves. There’s a boring romantic sub-plot involving the characters played by Beverly Roberts, Ricardo Cortez, and Gordon Oliver, but Karloff is the main reason to watch.
8:00 PM Fox Movie Channel
Rising Sun (1993 USA): It might be my imagination, but I think this is Fox’s first widescreen airing of this much more recent "yellow peril" film. Over half a century after West of Shanghai, Hollywood was still scared of Asians, though in Rising Sun it’s their cutthroat business practices that are causing problems. Sean Connery stars as John Connor (not the Terminator kind), a policeman of indeterminate origins investigating the brutal death of an L.A. model in the boardroom of a Japanese company’s U.S. headquarters. Connor immediately suspects boyfriend Eddie Sakamura (Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa), but is he a red herring? And will sidekick cop Web Smith (Wesley Snipes) manage to get a word in edgewise? I don’t remember Rising Sun being very good, but Connery is always watchable, and it’s the only film I’ve ever seen in which a laserdisc plays a primary role in solving a crime! Also airs 11/24 at 2:30 AM.
Wednesday 11/24/10
11:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
Big Jack (1949 USA): Big Jack marked the final screen appearance of screen legend Wallace Beery, who died three days after the film opened. Beery, a huge star in the ‘30s who wielded considerable box-office power until the end, stars as the title character, an Old West cowpoke with a nasty leg wound. Unable to visit a regular doctor, Jack has his men grab Alexander Meade (Richard Conte), a scientist and convicted graverobber about to be hung for conducting some questionable experiments. Meade offers to patch up Big Jack in exchange for help with continuing his experiments. Saving your life wasn’t enough, bub? This bizarre feature about men who rob both the living and the dead co-stars Marjorie Main, Edward Arnold, and Minerva Urecal, and though it wasn’t exactly the highest note upon which to end Beery’s career, it’s good fun anyway.
8:00 PM Sundance
What Alice Found (2003 USA): Another dark indie drama for those who can’t get enough ennui in their lives, What Alice Found features Emily Grace as the titular fresh-faced sweet young thing whose Florida road trip diverts her to the rocky side road of truck-stop prostitution. Shot on a shoestring (as well as on digital video), the film features a remarkable performance from Judith Ivey as a Good Samaritan who moonlights as Alice’s pimp. Co-starring Dogville’s Bill Raymond, What Alice Found will make you think twice about getting roadside help from kindly strangers.
Thursday 11/25/10
11:45 AM Flix
Voyager (1991 FRA-GER): Volker Schlondorff’s existential drama makes its widescreen television debut this morning. Set during the 1950s, the film stars Sam Shepard as Faber, a man who finds himself on a plane that is about to crash. An engineer by trade, Faber is not inclined to panic and takes an analytical approach to his impending doom. He survives the crash, however, and his brush with fate sets in motion a journey of personal rediscovery - and a search for the elusive woman he (thinks) he loves (Julie Delpy). Though at times ponderous and overly impressed with itself, Voyager is worth a look for both Delpy’s performance and that of Barbara Sukowa, here cast as Faber’s old flame Hannah.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972 USA): Before there was The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, there was The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. What’s the connection? The character of mountain man Adams was essentially a television spin-off of a character of the same name depicted in LATOJRB by director John Huston. As for Roy Bean (Paul Newman), he’s a lean, mean adjudicatin’ machine dispensing Texas frontier justice the way we like it: extra-judicially! The story is nothing special and Newman is a bit of a cypher, but an excellent supporting cast—including Ava Gardner, Richard Farnsworth, Ned Beatty, Anthony Perkins, Tab Hunter, Jacqueline Bisset, Roddy McDowall, Victoria Principal, Anthony Zerbe, and Stacy Keach - renders this a quite enjoyable western.
Friday 11/26/10
5:05 AM IFC
Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976 USA): Documentaries don’t get better than this. Directed by Barbara Kopple, Harlan County U.S.A. is an up close and personal look at a Kentucky community as they do battle with the big mining company trying to crush their union. It’s bittersweet viewing, of course: the bad guys won this war long ago, and the events depicted herein were merely one of many "last stands" fought by working people over the last quarter century. The film went on to win the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 1977. Also airs at 10:15 AM.
5:00 PM Showtime
The Road (2009 USA): I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a gloomier, more depressing film than The Road, and I’m including Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom in that estimation. Directed by Aussie John Hillcoat, whose revisionist western The Proposition previously cast brilliant rays of cheery sunlight through arthouses across the land, The Road stars Viggo Mortensen as Man, an itinerant survivor of a major (but unspecified) catastrophe. Man spends his days trying to take care of Boy (Johnny Sheffield - oops, no - Kodi Smit-McPhee), but food shortages, inclement weather, and roving Mad Max loonies make that a difficult proposition. The film’s refusal to tip its hand concerning the nature of the catastrophe allows us to concentrate on the trials and tribulations of post-Apocalyptic life without getting hung up on the petty details (are Man and Boy survivors of global warming? nuclear war? Or are they simply post-rapture ‘left behinders’?). Based on a Cormac McCarthy novel, The Road could just as easily have been titled Life’s a Bitch and Then You Die. It’s good, but you might want to slit your wrists after it’s over. Also airs at 8:00 PM.
9:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Burn! (1969 FRA-ITA): I’ve been waiting a long, long time to see this film in its correct aspect ratio, and the day is finally at hand. Directed by the great Gillo Pontecorvo (The Battle of Algiers), Burn! stars Marlon Brando as William Walker (the same historical character depicted by Ed Harris in Alex Cox’s Walker), an Englishman sent to foment unrest in a Portuguese colony that - if things go according to plan - will allow British sugar interests to profit mightily. The revolution goes swimmingly in the short term, but wouldn’t you know it - blowback is afoot, and the ungrateful rebel leader (Evaristo Marquez) Walker has left in charge starts to get a little uppity. Walker must return to regain control of the territory, but - in a twist perfectly atuned to the anti-colonialist times in which Burn! was made - finds that that train has already left the station. Here’s hoping this is the full-length Italian-language version, but even if it isn’t, I’ll be pleased to see this classic in its original aspect ratio.
11:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Strange Behavior (1982 AUS): Strange Behavior is set in Illinois but was actually shot in New Zealand, because the film’s Australian producers didn’t think Australia looked American enough! It’s a pretty terrible horror film about a mad scientist carrying out horrendous experiments on the neighborhood all-American Kiwi teens, but appears tonight in its full 2.35:1 glory, making it essential viewing for all fans of Le Bad Cinema.
Saturday 11/27/10
4:05 AM Sundance
Apres Lui (2006 FRA): Catherine Deneuve stars in this intense French drama from director Gael Morel. Deneuve plays Camille, a bookseller and loving mother who loses her young adult son in a car wreck and begins to obsess about his (still living) best friend Franck (Thomas Dumerchez). Camille wants to help Franck, and hires the lad to work in her shop, but things get out of hand when she decides to stalk him during his holiday in Portugal. Deneuve is excellent and the film features impressive cinematography from Jean-Max Bernard, but its tale of Oedipal Complex by proxy probably isn't for everyone.
7:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Paris Playboys (1954 USA): Sach gets mistaken for a brilliant French scientist in chapter 33 of the Bowery Boys saga. Commie spies grab him, believing he has a secret formula that will give the Soviets a leg up in the arms race. How wrong they are.
Sunday 11/28/10
5:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Beggar’s Opera (1953 GB): I’ve never seen this film before, primarily because it has the word "opera" in the title, and I absolutely cannot stand opera. Please, bring on the fat lady and tell me it’s over. Regardless, The Beggar’s Opera has an impressive enough pedigree that it’s probably time for me to check it out. Behind the camera: cinematographer Guy Green, producer Laurence Olivier, and director Peter Brook (Lord of the Flies, Marat/Sade). In front of the camera: Olivier, Hugh Griffith, Stanley Holloway, Yvonne Furneaux, Kenneth Williams, and Eric Pohlmann. Pass the earplugs.
7:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Nanny (1965 GB): Bette Davis essayed one of her best late career roles in this suspenseful Hammer thriller. Davis plays the title character (if she has a ‘real’ name, we don’t find out what it is), a child-minder employed by the Fanes (Wendy Craig and James Villiers) to care for ten-year-old Joey (William Dix). Joey has just returned from reform school after "serving time" for the death of his younger sister, drowned in the bathtub during what the authorities have assumed was some overly rough play, and everyone has him pegged as a troublemaker. But there are deeper, darker secrets hidden within the heart of The Nanny, and her relationship with Joey rapidly disintegrates. Directed by Seth Holt, this is one of Hammer’s best and even compares favorably to Polanski’s Repulsion.
7:00 PM Sundance
Red Riding 1974 (2009 GB): Here’s hoping Sundance intends to air all three chapters of the Red Riding trilogy - but this month, we’re only getting the first film. It’s a gritty retelling of the search for the Yorkshire Ripper, a serial killer who murdered at least a dozen women between 1975 and 1980 and consistently managed to elude the police. Red Riding is grueling stuff and probably won’t appeal to those who (for example) like opera, but all others (especially Paddy Considine fans) are advised to give it a look. Also airs 11/29 at 1:15 AM.
Monday 11/29/10
5:00 PM Sundance
Sounds Like Teen Spirit (2008 GB): Ever heard of Junior Eurovision? Me neither, but apparently it sounds like a deodorant. This popumentary examines the finalists of the 2007 Junior Eurovision competition, including a band from Belgium, a singer from Cyprus, a belter from Bulgaria, and, erm, a genuine Georgian. Phew, alliteration is hard! The result is an utterly charming film that you will enjoy tremendously - even if you generally prefer Nirvana to Neil Diamond. More alliteration!