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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 11/8/11

6:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Target Zero (1955 USA): War movie buffs and admirers of granite-jawed character actors will go ga-ga over this Korean War drama. Richard Conte headlines as Tom Flagler, a U.S. Army lieutenant commanding a motley crew of international troops tasked with holding a ridge against the Chinese and North Korean hordes. They’re vastly outnumbered and outgunned, and to complicate matters further he also has to reckon with the presence of a lady relief worker (Peggie Castle) who’s been caught up in the fog of war. Dames! Amongst the testosterone-laden supporting cast are Charles Bronson, L. Q. Jones, Chuck Connors, and...Aaron Spelling? Yep, the man who launched a thousand prime-time soaps shows up as the inaptly named Private Strangler.

1:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Odongo (1956 GB): Here’s a painfully obscure jungle adventure that isn’t quite as exciting as you might hope. Directed by reliable John Gilling (The Reptile, Plague of the Zombies), Odongo is a British production headlined by Americans Macdonald Carey and Rhonda Fleming as (respectively) a hunter and a vet who find themselves chasing critters and locking lips in the jungles of Africa. It’s very tame stuff, but makes its widescreen (Cinemascope) television debut this afternoon.

10:00 PM HBO Signature
We Are What We Are (2010 MEX): This Mexican horror flick is not to be confused with the Frank Zappa-freakathon You Are What You Eat, but maybe it should be. Nor is its writer-director, Jorge Michel Grau, to be confused with legendary Spanish horror helmer Jorge Grau (Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, Blood Ceremony), though again...maybe he should be. After all, this is a film about a family of cannibals living in the middle of Mexico City! One of the most bracing (and disturbing) Mexican films of recent vintage, We Are What We Are - like all great genre classics—works equally well as horror and social commentary. It’s arriving a little late for Halloween, but if you’re still in the mood for something altogether ooky, look no further.

Wednesday 11/9/11

Midnight Fox Movie Channel
Along Came a Spider (1970 USA): Here’s an above average made-for-TV movie with an excellent cast. Suzanne Pleshette, quite the sex symbol in her day (well, my father lusted after her), stars as Janet Furie, widow of scientist David (Lex Johnson). Janet strongly suspects that David’s colleague Martin Becker (Ed Nelson) is responsible for her husband’s death, and hatches a devious plot to get her revenge - namely, disguising herself as another woman and making his professional and personal life as miserable as possible (or worse). Also on hand: Andrew Prine as a family friend and Richard Anderson as the D.A.

5:30 AM Encore Family
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972 GB): It may not be as entertaining as Paramount’s 1933 take on Lewis Carroll’s classic tale nor as beautiful as Disney’s 1951 cartoon, but this musical variation on the theme is far superior to Tim Burton’s recent headache-inducing monstrosity. Of course, that’s probably true of every other version of Alice ever produced, but I’m not about to damn this one with faint praise. Fiona Fullerton (previously seen to decent effect in 1969’s Run Wild Run Free) headlines as the precocious rabbit-hole rambler, ably supported by (amongst others) Ralph Richardson as The Caterpillar, Michael "Cheeky Chappy" Crawford as The White Rabbit, Roy Kinnear as The Cheshire Cat, Peter Sellers as The March Hare, Dudley Moore as The Dormouse, and Flora Robson as The Queen of Hearts. Though you probably won’t be writing home about the songs, Geoffrey Unsworth’s cinematography is outstanding (though it’ll probably be squeezed into pan and scan format for this airing).

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