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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 11/10/09

Midnight Showtime
Bangkok Dangerous (2000 THA): Here's the original version of Bangkok Dangerous, recently remade to pointless effect for the American market by The Pang Brothers. It should come as no surprise that the Pangs' Thai version is superior to their Nic Cage version, not least thanks to the absence of Cage's ridiculous bison-weave hairpiece. The film relates the tale of deaf mute Kong (Pawalit Mogkolpisit), a gun for hire who meets fellow reprobate Joe (Pisek Intrakanshit) at a Bangkok gun range. The men discover they make a great assassination team, but love soon rears its troublesome head when Kong falls for shopgirl Fon (Premsinee Ratanasopha), the first woman who doesn't reject him out of hand because of his disability. Beginning to realize that his chosen profession doesn't go well with a stable relationship, Kong's on the job performance begins to suffer, and tragedy looms in the team's future. This more thoughtful than usual action flick won the FIPRESCI Award at 2000's Toronto International Film Festival, and airs again at 3:00 AM.

6:00 PM Sundance
The Unforeseen (2007 USA): Most of the eco-documentaries that air on Sundance are informative, earnest, serious — and not terribly interesting cinematically. This one's different. Directed by Laura Dunn, The Unforeseen is a visually impressive look at what careless development has wrought upon one community near Austin, Texas. It's the tragic story of an aquifer transformed from a crystal clear swimming spot into a grungy lake, and its all beautifully lensed by Dallas-born Lee Daniel, who also shot the excellent Roky Erickson doc You're Gonna Miss Me in 2005, as well as that ten-minute Barack Obama puff piece shown at last year's Democratic National Convention. Also airs 11/11 at 1:00 AM.

Wednesday 11/11/09

10:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Tender Comrade (1943 USA): Ground Zero for the Hollywood Blacklist? Perhaps that's the most significant legacy of Tender Comrade, a rarely seen RKO drama written by fellow traveller Dalton Trumbo and directed by commie simp Edward Dmytryk. The film stars Ginger Rogers as Jo, the erstwhile leader of a group of female factory workers waiting for their men to return home from the war. In order to save money, Jo suggests that the group pool their resources and take up residence in a communal home where they can raise their children together and enjoy some sisterly solidarity. What's that got to do with the blacklist, you ask? Well, Rogers was a rock-ribbed Republican, and felt uncomfortable delivering Trumbo's seditious dialogue - lines such as "share and share alike" got her dander up, as she wrote in her autobiography, Ginger: My Story. Between Tender Comrade and Mission to Moscow (also 1943), Hollywood reactionaries had all the ammunition they needed with which to weed out Tinsel Town's reds - and Trumbo and Dmytryk both spent considerable time in exile or jail as a result. As for Tender Comrade itself, well, it couldn't be more of a sentimental flag-waver if it tried, and it's truly hard to believe Rogers got her knickers in a twist over such warm-hearted all-American fare.

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