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Friday 2/4/11

4:30 AM Cinemax
Gattaca (1997 USA): Now here’s a film that genuinely needs to be seen in widescreen, but is airing in pan and scan this morning. It hasn’t aired on a premium channel in a while, though, so I’ll give Gattaca a brief shout-out anyway. Directed by New Zealander Andrew Niccol, it’s a bleak future classic starring Ethan Hawke as Vincent, an all-natural young man growing up in a world where in-vitro genetic modifications have become the norm. Born with numerous defects, including bad eyesight and a questionable ticker, Vincent can only get crummy janitorial jobs (one of his working-class colleagues is played by Ernest Borgnine). In order to get ahead, he makes a sample-swapping deal with now paralyzed test-tube baby Jerome (Jude Law)—but things can get messy when you start messing with Mother Nature, and his plan begins to unravel. Grumpy old man and iconoclast-in-chief Gore Vidal co-stars as the scientist who suspects all is not right with someone’s DNA. Also airs at 7:30 AM.

9:00 AM Fox Movie Channel
The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955 USA): The story behind this film is probably more interesting than the film itself, which, though it’s a perennial Fox Movie Channel fixture, I’ve never seen. I recently read Kevin Brownlow’s magisterial tome Behind the Mask of Innocence, however, and in it the author describes the notorious early 20th century murder case which inspired the film. In 1901, a stunningly beautiful (don’t believe me? Google her) Gibson Girl named Evelyn Nesbit became enamored of Stanford White, a rich architect who was also thirty years her senior. White wooed the teenager in his swanky apartment, a Manhattan loft accoutred with a swing upon which the object of his lust was invited to dandle. (Naked, of course.)

White ravaged the girl, who then left him in favor of a sadistic cocaine-addicted millionaire named Harry Kendall Thaw, whom she foolishly wed. The jealous Thaw murdered White and later divorced Nesbit, who, now penniless, began a career in vaudeville and movies, became addicted to morphine, wrote her biography, and served as technical adviser for this film. Deep breath! Now, I think we call all agree that the general outline of this story holds great cinematic possibilities. But in 1955?!? What was Fox thinking? Not having seen The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, I can only imagine how screenwriters Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch dealt with the sordid details of Nesbit’s life. Methinks someone should pitch a remake to...hmm, I think Darren Aranofsky would be the right guy to reboot The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing. In the meantime, I’m finally going to give this one a look.

9:30 AM Showtime 2
Hot Resort (1985 USA): I thought I would have something funny to say about this terrible sex comedy. Now that it’s time to actually write about Hot Resort, I realize I don’t. Unless ‘despite the presence of Frank Gorshin, this is a really terrible sex comedy’ could be considered hilarious.

5:00 PM Flix
The Woodsman (2004 USA): Kevin Bacon essays the difficult role of a pedophile in this intelligent feature about a man struggling to control his compulsions and live some semblance of a normal life. Released from prison after serving a twelve-year stretch, Walter finds himself inadvertently housed across the street from an elementary school, hounded by an unsympathetic parole officer (Mos Def), and employed at a lumberyard where some of the staff take an instant disliking to him. When Walter becomes involved with one of his co-workers (Kyra Sedgwick), he finds himself at a crossroads, and decides he must be brutally honest with her about his sexual history. The first feature-length film from NYU grad Nicole Kassell, The Woodsman is a powerful and thoughtful look at what is still largely an unmentionable transgression, and unless you simply can't deal with the subject matter, is strongly recommended. It’s airing on Flix in widescreen.

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