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1:15 PM HBO
Sins of My Father (2009 COL-ARG): Drug lord Pablo Escobar gets the documentary treatment in this excellent film from Argentinian director Nicolas Entel. Focusing on Escobar’s family life, Sins of My Father draws on copious interview footage with his widow and son, who strip away the cartoon villainy whilst making no excuses for their loved one’s frequently deadly ‘business affairs’. It’s a riveting tale of the most successful criminal in world history: a man worth billions who once offered to pay off the entire Colombian national debt. Also airs at 4:15 PM.

9:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Family Way (1967 GB): The Family Way is best known as a piece of Beatles trivia: it features an orchestral score composed by lovable mop-top Paul McCartney. What shouldn’t be overlooked (but frequently is) is the film’s overall excellence, so I’m very happy to report this evening’s rare television airing—the first on American television in a decade or more. Still unreleased on DVD in Region 1, it’s a prime kitchen sink comedy-drama about Jenny and Arthur (Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett), newlyweds who are having a heck of a time consummating their marriage.

Their wedding night a disaster and their honeymoon ruined by a crooked travel agency, the now penniless couple are forced to live at home with Arthur’s Mum and Dad (John Mills and Marjorie Rhodes), where the walls are thin and the neighbors nosy. In addition to McCartney’s lovely music, the film is a brilliantly written and beautifully acted tribute to British working class life in the mid ‘60s. In other words, even if The Family Way had been scored by Ringo it would be worth your while (Stop and Smell the Roses, anyone?). It’s followed at 11:15 PM by Behind the Mask (1958), an extremely obscure British drama starring Michael and Vanessa Redgrave (making her first screen appearance, by the way) in a tale of medical malpractice.

Sunday 10/10/10

1:35 AM Sundance
Edge of Heaven (2007 GER-TUR): Writer-director Fatih Akin, previously responsible for 2004’s rapturously received feature Head-On, returns with this equally fine ensemble piece about Turks living in Germany (and, to an extent, Germans living in Turkey). Nejat (Baki Davrak) has reconciled himself to the fact that his father’s live-in lover Yeter (Nursel Köse) was once a lady of the night. After Dad kills her in a drunken rage, Nejat goes in search of her daughter, Ayten (Nurgül Yesilçay), who he believes to be a college student in Turkey. But Ayten has actually been in Germany all along, where her political activities have attracted the attention of the police and upset the mother (Hanna Schygulla) of her lover Lotte (Patrycia Ziolkowska). It’s appropriate, perhaps, that Werner Fassbinder vet Schygulla is in The Edge of Heaven, which by coincidence or design channels some of the legendary German director’s spirit and political intensity—and, as with Akin’s Head-On, won scads of awards on the festival circuit.

Monday 10/11/10

10:45 AM Flix
Blue City (1986 USA): Brat packer Judd Nelson headlines this unexceptional crime drama, which makes its widescreen television debut this morning. Nelson is Billy Turner, a young Floridian who returns to his home town after his father is murdered by local hoodlums. Suspecting the town’s government and police may be implicated in the crime, Billy naturally takes matters into his own hands—with a little assistance from love interest Annie (fellow brat Ally Sheedy). Blue City netted an impressive five Golden Raspberry nominations in 1986, but sadly didn’t win a single one—it was, after all, the year of Howard the Duck. Also airs at 10:45 PM.

12:30 PM Showtime Extreme
Bullseye! (1989 USA): If Blue City whetted your appetite for Le Bad Cinema, consider spending some time with Bullseye!. Directed by Michael Winner, one of the worst directors ever, the film features Michael Caine and Roger Moore as a pair of con-men who masquerade as nuclear scientists in order to gain access to their safety-deposit boxes. Even with a cameo appearance by John Cleese, it’s not even remotely amusing, unless you enjoy watching people getting hit on the head or dogs engaging in carnal relations.

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