New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Nanook of the North (1922 USA): The grandaddy of American documentaries, Nanook of the North returns to TCM this evening. Directed by Robert Flaherty, the film portrays a (semi-fictional) year in the life of the titular Inuit, with particular focus on trading, hunting, and migratory patterns. Though much of Nanook was edited to fit within a loose ‘plot’ framework designed by Flaherty, the film remains a landmark achievement: it exposed filmgoers to indigeneous peoples and harsh environments they’d never seen before.

6:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Exiles (1961 USA): Long out of circulation (it only screened at three film festivals back in the day) and virtually unknown, this outstanding ‘lost’ feature was released on DVD earlier this year and received a deservedly rapturous response. Directed by USC film student Kent Mackenzie, The Exiles is a simple, searing tale of life on the mean streets of Los Angeles circa 1960. Mackenzie’s primary focus is on the Native American ‘exiles’ who have moved from the rez to the big city, and the result is a beautiful, tragic black and white time capsule, perhaps the closest American film has ever come to Italian neo-realism. It’s a remarkable film and not to be missed, especially considering future television screenings will probably be few and far between.

9:00 PM Fox Movie Channel
The Fly II (1989 USA): When life gives you decaying matter, make maggots. Hence this slightly inferior but still gruesomely enjoyable sequel to David Cronenberg’s Fly remake of 1986. Directed by special effects genius Chris Walas, The Fly II stars Eric Stoltz as Martin, son of the first film’s ‘mad’ scientist Seth Brundle. Martin seems like a perfectly normal child, and after Seth’s demise is adopted by Bartok (Lee Richardson), his father’s former employer. But Bartok’s intentions are less than charitable: he’s interested in using Martin as a guinea pig to test his own genetic theories. The results are suitably horrific, but the film evokes deep sympathy for poor Martin, perhaps the silver screen’s most sympathetic monster of the ‘80s. The Fly II airs this evening in widescreen, immediately following an encore screening of 1986’s The Fly.

10:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Broken Rainbow (1985 USA): I’m embarrassed to admit that, prior to right about now, I’d never heard of this film—which won the Best Feature Documentary Oscar at 1986’s Academy Awards! What was I doing on Oscar night that year—getting hot and bothered about Out of Africa and A Trip to Bountiful? I think not. Broken Rainbow documents the relocation of 10,000 Navajo at the behest of a wicked mining company—some things, it seems, never change. It’s followed at 11:15 PM by another variant on the Nanook of the North meme, 1930’s The Silent Enemy, which examines the lives of the Ojibwe Indians of Ontario, Canada.

Friday 5/28/10

1:00 PM Fox Movie Channel
A Letter to Three Wives (1948 USA): Let’s not disparage this film by calling it a ‘women’s picture’. Even though A Letter to Three Wives is focussed on the story of, well, three women, it will still be of interest to sensitive guys who enjoy long walks on the beach, the postal service, and good movies. Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, and Ann Sothern star as Deborah, Laura, and Rita, three married ladies chaperoning a group of children on a boat trip (thankfully, Cuba Gooding Jr. is not aboard). As the vessel prepares to pull anchor, they receive a last minute missive from landlubber Addie Ross informing them that she’s run off with one of their husbands. The question, of course, is which one? Recently parodied on an episode of The Simpsons, A Letter to Three Wives is tough to pigeon-hole: it’s neither straight-up drama nor straight-up social satire, but whatever it is, it’s another feather in the cap of director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Jeffrey Lynn and the unrelated Kirk and Paul Douglas co-star as the three wives’ three hubbies.

Continued:       1       2       3