TiVoPlex
TiVoPlex for Tuesday October 11 2011 through Monday October 17 2011
By John Seal
October 10, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 10/11/11
5:00 PM Showtime
Let the Right One In (2008 SWE): Unnecessary Hollywood remakes, part 549: here’s the original version of the film that became Let Me In two short years later. I shouldn’t complain too much, as I haven’t seen Let Me In, but Let the Right One In is one of the best horror flicks of the new millennium and offers little room for improvement - unless, of course, you’re averse to subtitles. The film stars spooky Lina Leandersson as Eli, an extremely pale young lady who befriends Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), a blonde mop-top who lives in an adjacent apartment. The two become good friends, but Eli has a secret - she’s actually a man named Edward Cullen. No, no, I’m kidding, but she DOES have some rather unusual dietary restrictions. Set during a freezing Stockholm winter, Let the Right One in offers the perfect blend of chills, suspense, and occasional shock (there’s one scene that the Seal family still talks about three years after the fact!). Also airs at 8:00 PM.
Wednesday 10/12/11
7:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (1939 USA): The sixth of eight Moto mysteries produced by Fox, Last Warning sees Peter Lorre don yellow face once again in the course of pursuing pale-faced villains. This time perfidy is personified by Ricardo Cortez, here cast as a secret agent planning to mine the approaches to the Suez Canal. Also on hand: John Carradine as a British secret agent, George Sanders as a mittel-European spy of uncertain provenance, and Japanese-born Teru Shimada as a Moto doppelganger. Because nothing says "fake Japanese man" quite like a real one.
7:30 PM Fox Movie Channel
The Name of the Rose (1986 USA): Imperfect as it is, this was the film that made me start reading Umberto Eco and made me appreciate the work of character actor William Hickey. A medieval murder mystery set in a dank Italian abbey with the ever-present threat of plague in the background, The Name of the Rose does a decent job of portraying the incredibly unpleasant lives and even worse living conditions of the time. If you can overlook the fact that, yes, that's Christian Slater under the cowl, you'll enjoy seeing Sean Connery tease out the answer to the mystery of who is killing the great monks of Europe.
Thursday 10/13/11
1:45 PM Turner Classic Movies
Devil By the Tail (1969 FRA-ITA): Here’s one of the more drool-worthy films to show up in the TiVoPlex in quite some time. Directed by Philippe de Broca, Devil by the Tail stars Yves Montand as Cesar, a supposed diplomat who ends up sequestered in a remote French hotel after his car is sabotaged by the local garage mechanic (who has a sweet deal with the hotel operators to send traffic their way). Cesar, however, is actually a gangster, and chateau owner La Marquise (Madeleine Renaud, Jean Gabin’s co-star in the recently aired on TCM Stormy Waters) soon begins to have second thoughts about her business plan. This delightful crime comedy has never had a US home video release, remains unavailable on disc overseas, and has rarely been seen on these shores outside long dead rep houses. Don’t miss it - and be sure to stay tuned at 3:30 PM for the almost as rare but otherwise completely dissimilar Bwana Devil (1952), a ridiculous 3-D jungle adventure featuring a very young Robert Stack.
2:25 PM Sundance
Barry Lyndon (1975 GB): How director Stanley Kubrick settled on Ryan O’Neal to play the title role in this film, I don’t know - but somehow pretty boy makes it work. Yes, an American leading man who specializes in light comedy delivers the goods as an 18th century Irish villain! Much credit, of course, is also due Kubrick himself, who miraculously adapted William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel for the screen, as well as cinematographer John Alcott, whose work here is as exemplary as ever. Grudgingly, though, I must issue a thumbs up for O’Neal as well. Hey, he was pretty good in Paper Moon, so why not Barry Lyndon?
Friday 10/14/11
4:15 PM HBO Signature
Contracorriente (2009 PER-COL): A married man has a gay lover on the side in this unusual Peruvian drama with supernatural overtones. Cristian Mercado is Miguel, a fisherman who’s haunted by the ghost of drowned lover Santiago (Manolo Cardona). Miguel hopes his secret lies safe below the waves, but when a nude painting of himself is found amongst Santiago’s belongings, word is out toute de suite. This subtle, nuanced character study won the Audience Awards at both the Miami Film Festival and at Sundance.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Stunt Rock (1979 AUS): Here’s one of the stranger films you’re likely to see, and one virtually no one outside of Australia had heard of before 2010 when it somehow got a Region 1 DVD release. Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith (also responsible for such classics as Pimpin’ Pee Wee and Leprechaun 4: In Space), Stunt Rock relates the misadventures of Aussie stuntman Grant Page (playing himself) during his sojourn in Southern California, where (in addition to working in Hollywood) he plays guitar in a heavy metal band named Sorcery.
Sorcery, mind you, is no garden variety metal band: no, these guys perform magic tricks in between shaking their shaggy locks and reeling off wicked hammer-ons. I guarantee you have never seen (and probably will never see) another film quite like Stunt Rock. It’s followed at 12:45 AM by the animated musical Heavy Metal (1981), which seems pretty mundane in comparison.
Saturday 10/15/11
8:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Zorro’s Fighting Legion (1939 USA): Zorro’s on the trail of some purloined ammunition in the fourth and fifth chapter of this Republic serial.
9:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Tarzan Goes to India (1961 GB): This is definitely one of my favorite Tarzan adventures, though not because of the quality of the film or its story. Oh, the film’s fine - the Jungle Lord does indeed travel to India, where he tries to save a herd of elephants threatened by a hydrological project (a.k.a. dam) - but it’s the body of Tarzan that’s most interesting in this outing. You see, star Jock Mahoney immediately contracted dysentery upon arriving in India for the location shoot, and if you watch the film carefully you’ll see Tarzan transform from rippling beefcake to diarrhea-racked beanpole and back again over the course of ninety sphincter-clenching minutes! Poor Jock hung up his (soiled?) loincloth after making one further Tarzan feature. I guess this one really took it out of him.
5:00 PM Showtime
Nowhere Boy (2009 GB): Mixed feelings on this one. As The World’s Biggest Beatle Fan, it’s hard not to watch this film and not pick, pick, pick at all the minor discrepancies and moan, moan, moan about how that guy in the background doesn’t really look like Mal Evans and how John didn’t comb his hair that way until 1961. On the other hand, Nowhere Boy is an above average rock biopic: well-acted (especially by Aaron Johnson as John Lennon) and brimming with great music and period detail. It probably works best for those who aren’t hardcore Fabs admirers. Airs again at 8:00 PM.
7:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Bitter Rice (1949 ITA): I haven’t seen this neo-realist classic in 30 plus years and my memories of it are faint at best, but it’s clearly worth watching for its cast alone. Nominated for a "Best Writing" Academy Award, Bitter Rice relates the agricultural misadventures of Walter (Vittorio Gassman) and Francesca (Doris Dowling, a Yank thesp slumming in Italy), two petty criminals on the run from the cops after a jewel heist. The duo makes their escape by blending in with a trainload of migrant workers heading north to harvest rice, and consequently befriend crop-picking sex bomb Silvana (Silvana Mangano, producer Dino de Laurentiis’ spouse for almost forty years) and embittered Army vet Marco (Raf Vallone). That’s as much as I can remember, but I hope you’ll agree that any film featuring Gassman, Mangano, and Vallone deserves your consideration.
Sunday 10/16/11
Midnight Fox Movie Channel
Damnation Alley (1977 USA): I can’t think of this early entry in the Bleak Future genre without thinking of the Hawkwind song it inspired: “Thank you Doctor Strangelove for going doolally, leaving me the heritage of Damnation Alley!” I’m not even a very big Hawkwind fan, but I do enjoy their 1978 LP Quark, Strangeness, and Charm, which (in addition to Damnation Alley) includes such classic tracks as Hassan I Sahba and The Forge of Vulcan - and I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the motorik brilliance of their pioneering 1971 proto-punk elpee In Search of Space.
As for Damnation Alley, the film, it’s an entertaining road movie about a group of nuclear war survivors trying their darnedest to travel from Las Vegas to Albany, New York. Well, that would be my first thought, too, should somebody push the button: get to Albany! The film stars Jan-Michael Vincent, George Peppard, Paul Winfield, and Jackie Earle Haley, fresh off his Kelly Leak role in the first two Bad News Bears features. And by the way, Fox - when can we expect you to air this in its correct aspect ratio?
11:30 PM HBO Signature
George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011 USA): It’s clearly Beatle Week in the TiVoPlex, and though I haven’t yet seen Martin Scorsese’s mammoth salute to the quiet one, I’m pumped. If you miss it tonight its airing throughout the month, in whole or in part, on various HBO-related channels. Check your local listings.