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From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.

Tuesday 01/20/09

8:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
Washington Story (1952 USA): Dateline, Washington DC! Congressman Joseph T. Gresham (Van Johnson), renowned for being a tight-lipped ‘human clam', is placed beneath the microscope of ace reporter Alice Kingsley (Patricia Neal). Kingsley is determined to get the big scoop on Gresham and reveal him to be knee deep in Foggy Bottom filth - but, this being the 1950s and all, our public servants are actually squeaky clean paragons of virtue, and there's no story to be had! What's a gal reporter to do? Why, fall in love with her target, of course - only to find her new relationship entangled in the machinations surrounding a controversial bill. Co-starring Sidney Blackmer as a sleazy lobbyist, Washington Story is no All the President's Men, but it's probably as muck-racking as a film could get in 1951. Well, unless that film was digging under the mattress for Commies, which this one determinedly is not.

11:00 AM Starz Edge
City of Men (2007 BRA): A sequel of sorts to Fernando Meirelle's magisterial 2002 study of Rio favela life, City of God, City of Men follows the fraught adventures of residents Ace (Darlan Cunha) and Wallace (Douglas Silva), two 18-year-olds trying to move from the world of juvenile delinquency to adulthood. Ace is coming to terms with fatherhood whilst Wallace is trying to reconnect with his own father, but both of them find old friendships and relationships tugging them back into the gang warfare of their youth. Apparently the film works better if you've seen the TV series it was based upon; I haven't, but still consider it a thoroughly fine, if less then revelatory, follow up to Meirelle's modern classic.

4:00 PM More Max
Control (2007 GB): Do you ever feel so close to the subject of a biopic that you can't bring yourself to actually watch the film? This happened to me at least twice last year: once with What We Do Is Secret, which retold the life of LA punk rock god Darby Crash, and again with this film about Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. When I was a callow youth, the music of Crash's group The Germs and of Joy Division was incredibly important to me, and the fact that both singers killed themselves (Curtis only a month before his group's performance at the Starwood in Hollywood, for which I already had tickets) left raw wounds on my adolescent psyche. The wounds have long since healed, but I'm still not sure I want to live through those times again - hence my initial aversion to Control during its theatrical run. However, there are certainly plenty of reasons to see the film: it was directed by photographer Anton Corbijn, who took some of Joy Division's most iconic publicity shots; features Sam Riley - who bears a startling resemblance to Curtis - in the lead role; and is in black and white, which is almost always a good thing in and of itself. And who knows: maybe this is that special biopic that actually gets everything right. Now wouldn't that be a novelty. Also airs 1/26 on Cinemax at 4:20 AM and 7:20 AM.

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