TiVoPlex
By John Seal
July 25, 2005
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 07/26/05
1:15am HBO
Urbania (2000 USA): This episodic and twisted tale of big-city life comes from actor and erstwhile director Jon Shear and features Dan Futterman as Charlie, a gay New Yorker searching for peace and happiness whilst in the grip of anger, confusion, and melancholia. Instead he finds homelessness, terminal illness, and, thanks to some barflies in a seedy hangout, a plethora of urban legends right out of a Jan Harold Brunvand book. Urbania is an entertaining and intriguing feature that updates some of the conventions of the "psychological noirs" of the late 1940s and even reminds me of the bizarre 1955 psycho-noir feature Daughter of Horror. This unique film, nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2001, features Alan Cumming, Barbara Sukowa, and Lothaire Bluto in supporting roles. It also plays better the second time around, so watch it again at 4:15am.
1:30am IFC
Patti Rocks (1987 USA): Here's a relative rarity: a romantic comedy with the rough edges left intact. Screenwriter Karen Landry stars as the eponymous Patti, a tough Minnesota gal who doesn't take any nonsense from her chauvinist boyfriend Billy (Chris Mulkey, Landry's real-life spouse). Things are going fine until Patti tells him she's pregnant, and consequently finds out that Billy already has a wife and kids on the side. If you have an aversion to naughty words (especially euphemisms for female body parts), you'll want to give this artistic slap-in-the-face a miss; the language is so raw the MPAA originally awarded the feature an X rating. If, however, you're of the opinion that men really ARE pigs, Patti Rocks will leave you laughing and gasping at its audacity. Briefly available on VHS, the film hasn't been revived in digital format yet, so take advantage of this rare opportunity to see it. Of course, this being IFC, it will either A) not air at all, or B) air ad nauseam for the next six months.
Wednesday 07/27/05
2:30am Cinemax
Kandahar (2001): It takes a while to get used to the amateurish acting (especially that of star Nelofer Pazira), but if you can adapt, you'll be richly rewarded by this fascinating drama. Pazira basically plays herself: a young, Westernized Afghan refugee who returns to her war-torn country to search for her sister, whilst dodging the misogynistic enforcers of the Taliban regime. Filled with stunning imagery - especially the shots of crippled war veterans - Kandahar also features a magnificent performance by Hassan Tantai as an African-American Muslim doctor trying to blend the blessings of Western medicine with the austerities of fundamentalist Islam. Another classic from director Mohsen Makhmalbhaf, Kandahar is an extremely powerful educational, emotional and political statement. Also airs at 5:30am.
2:25pm Showtime
Same Sex America (2005 USA): This is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen; perhaps not Maysles good, but within shouting distance of the brothers' finest. It's a Showtime original production detailing the legal and legislative movement to ban gay marriage in the state of Massachusetts. Though the film is clearly aligned on the side of same-sex couples, it provides plentiful time to ban proponents, allowing them to speak for themselves without censure or judgment. Frequently angry and at times blatantly homophobic, the anti-marriage activists nonetheless are not reduced to caricature, and the film's editorial restraint is to be commended. Everyone deserves the right to marry, and this eloquent film should be required viewing for anyone interested in the issue - on either side. Also airs at 5:25pm and 7/29 on Showtime 3 at 8:15am and 6:30pm.
7pm Fox Movie Channel
The Last Hard Men (1976 USA): Disclosure: I've never seen this Charlton Heston Western, but thanks to its suggestive title - suggestive, of course, only to those of us with filthy minds - I couldn't resist giving it a mention. Really, it's 1976, the Village People are atop the charts, Tom of Finland's erotic artwork is popping up on punk rock T-shirts, and a major studio like Fox didn't think there was something a little funny about releasing a mainstream action film entitled The Last Hard Men? Or perhaps they were just on the cutting edge of social change; I don't know whether or not the film played on 42nd Street, but if it didn't, the studio missed a huge marketing opportunity. At any rate, it's airing tonight in 2.35:1 Panavision, and co-stars James Coburn, Barbara Hershey, Thalmus Rasulala, and Michael Parks in, reputedly, a tale of Old West revenge. It's not available on home video, so Chuck Heston fans should check it out.
Thursday 07/28/05
3am Turner Classic Movies
Broadminded (1931 USA): Seventy years ago, America was in love with a rubber-faced comic named Joe E. Brown. Brown, whose Jim Carrey-on-downers shtick is all but forgotten today (barring his critical and hilarious cameo in Some Like It Hot), gets his due this morning with an impressive selection of 11 features, several of which have rarely been seen of late. TCM's tribute kicks off with Broadminded, a goofy slapstick comedy about a loose cannon from Manhattan (William Collier Jr.) sent by his father into California exile to escape the twin temptations of booze and broads. Along as an escort is Ossie (Brown), whose taste for gambling and women doesn't make him the best candidate for the job, and things naturally get even more complicated when the lads encounter bad guy Pancho (an unbelievably miscast Bela Lugosi). Thelma Todd and Ona Munson provide the love interest. Amongst the more interesting Brown films on tap today are 1931's Local Boy Makes Good, with Joe as an unlikely track star, at 4:15am; 1932's The Tenderfoot, with our hero reversing direction and playing a cowboy migrating to the Broadway stage, at 5:30am; 1934's completely wacky Damon Runyon adaptation A Very Honorable Guy, with Brown trying to sell his body to science, at 10:30am; and 1936's self-explanatory Polo Joe at 3:45pm.
Friday 07/29/05
9am Sundance
7th Street (2002 USA): Director Josh Pais grew up in the tough East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, a part of town that was once charitably considered colorful, but is now well along in the process of gentrification. Pais' film is a journey home for the filmmaker, and his discoveries aren't particularly surprising: the East Village may be a lot safer than it once was, but like its uptown sibling Times Square, has lost a lot of the character that made it so special in the first place. If you miss the peep shows, punks, and junkies, too, this film may be salve for your wounded soul.
12:15pm Starz!
Riding Giants (2004 USA): Cowabunga! Seems like there's been a resurgence of interest in surfing of late, and here's the most recent big-screen tribute to this most dangerous of water sports. Considering I'm a committed landlubber with a pasty complexion, it may come as a surprise to some that I'm a pretty big fan of the genre established by Bruce Brown's Endless Summer back in the ‘60s, and along with Dana Brown's 2003 feature Step Into Liquid, Riding Giants is the sine qua non of 21st century surf flicks. Director Stacy Peralta (Dogtown and Z-Boys) aims high with this film, and it's more than just a collection of impressive shots of big waves and big wipeouts. Encompassing the history of the sport from its Polynesian beginnings, with particular emphasis on those who popularized the sport in the 1950s, Riding Giants also tries to explain why its practitioners eagerly thrust their unprotected bodies into gigantic breakers that crash into ominous and treacherously rocky beachheads. Unless you suffer from vertigo, this is a very enjoyable and occasionally enlightening documentary about some of the most obsessive and reckless athletes ever. Also airs at 3:15pm.
Saturday 07/30/05
7pm Cinemax
Napoleon Dynamite (2004 USA): I usually find myself in critical accord with the great Roger Ebert, but here's one where we part company. For those who spent 2004 in a cave with Osama Bin Laden, it's the story of a socially inept high-school loser (the astonishing Jon Heder, soon to be seen in the Reese Witherspoon vehicle Just Like Heaven) whose efforts to get his pal Pedro (the equally superb Efren Ramirez) elected student body president lead him to a moment of break-dancing glory in the school auditorium. This is delightful stuff about adolescence, social rejection, and family, played to deadpan perfection by the poker-faced Heder and the sloe-eyed Ramirez. Somehow Napoleon Dynamite struck a chord with mainstream audiences (the PG rating no doubt helped), and ended up hauling in an astonishing $44,000,000-plus at the box office. Also airs at 10pm and 7/31 at 2:15am, and 5:15am and on More Max at 4:15pm.
Sunday 07/31/05
7pm IFC
Velvet Goldmine (1998 GB): Todd Haynes paean to the pleasures of British glam rock is far from perfect, but it's an enjoyable little bon-bon nonetheless, especially if you aren't a train-spotter offended by the narrative freedoms taken by Haynes' semi-factual screenplay. TiVoPlex object of disdain Jonathan Rhys-Meyers stars as Brian Slade, a reclusive rock star modeled after David Bowie, who appropriates the attitudes and manners of proto-punk rocker (and Iggy Pop archetype) Curt Wild, played to the hilt by Ewan McGregor , who once again gets to drop trou on-screen. Framed as a mockumentary, the film has the tone of a slightly more serious This is Spinal Tap, and its top-notch supporting cast includes Toni Collette as an Angie Bowie look-alike and Eddie Izzard in the Artie Fufkin role. Airing in wide screen, this is one any non-anorak under 50 will enjoy. Also airs at 11pm.
9pm Turner Classic Movies
The Red Kimono (1925 USA): Silent Sunday nights are back on TCM, and this rarity - produced by Mrs. Wallace Reid Productions - leads the charge. Directed by long-time Hollywood filmmaker Walter Lang, whose final film was the lamentable Snow White and the Three Stooges, The Red Kimono is yet another exposé of the white-slave trade, a popular topic in the ‘Teens and ‘20s. Adapted for the screen by Adela Rogers St. John and Dorothy Arzner, the film features Tyrone Power Sr. as the father of the young lady abducted by slavers.