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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 1/10/12

10:40 AM The Movie Channel
Silent Predators (1999 USA): With a title like Silent Predators, you might be anticipating an Animal Planet-style pseudo-documentary...but (this being the TiVoPlex) you’d be wrong! It’s actually a made for TBS thriller (hey, that’s a step above Sci-Fi, or Scy- Fy, or whatever they call that awful channel these days) directed by Noel Nosseck, best known in these here parts for helming the world’s only movie (non-Big Lebowski division) about bowling, 1979’s cinematic gutter ball Dreaming. In addition, John Carpenter co-authored the script, which details the horrors that unfold when a small desert town is invaded by deadly rattlesnakes! Starring Harry Hamlin (Clash of the Titans) and The Bad Seed herself, Patty McCormack, Silent Predators is actually pretty good Movie-of-the-Week style fare. Also airs at 1:40 PM.

2:30 PM HBO Signature
Retratos en un Mar de Mentiros (2010 COL): A young woman experiences the worst life has to over in this depressing but worthwhile Colombian drama tinged with a hint of magical realism. Paola Baldion plays Marina, a withdrawn teenager whose abusive grand-dad houses her in a dilapidated shed. When the old fart pops his clogs, Marina passes into the care of cousin Jairo (Julian Roman), a cheesecake photographer who "hires" her to help him with his gear, and the two end up taking an episodic road trip as they travel to reclaim grandpa’s legacy. Unpleasant flashbacks to Marina’s tragic childhood ensue. Yep, the good times never end in this one! Known in English as Portraits in a Sea of Lies, this meditation on the 50-year long Colombian civil war - as seen through the grueling experiences of our heroine - won the Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 14th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival.

8:05 PM Sundance
The Housemaid (ROK): Here’s a film that was supposed to air on Sundance a few months back but didn’t. I guess the channel’s programmers finally found some spare time for it in between fashion and cooking shows (Sundance is turning into Bravo at an alarming pace, don’t you think?) and it’s been rescheduled this evening. A remake of a 1960 feature I haven’t seen, The Housemaid stars Jung-jae Lee as Hoon, a more-money-than-sense businessman who hires Eun-yi (Do-youn Jeon) to care for his children whilst bored housewife Hae-ra (Seo Woo) spends her time looking at mail order catalogs and the Korean equivalent of House Beautiful magazine whilst preparing to bless the world with a new set of twins. Hoon, of course, can’t avoid the temptation of seducing his attractive new employee, who is soon pregnant herself. Who will win the ensuing battle for household supremacy? Stylishly shot if maddeningly opaque at times, The Housemaid is roughly analogous to those Shannon Tweed erotic thrillers of 20 years ago. Very roughly.


11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Prince of the City (1981 USA): If memory serves, this top-notch crime drama used to air with some regularity on either IFC or Sundance. If memory also serves - and memory is, of course, becoming less and less reliable with each passing year - the print utilized for those airings was poorly pan and scanned. Now Prince of the City finally arrives on the small screen in its original aspect ratio! Directed by Sidney Lumet, it stars Treat Williams as Daniel Ciello, a mildly compromised NYPD cop approached by Internal Affairs with an offer he can’t refuse: in exchange for clemency, he must rat out the rottenest of the Department’s many rotten apples. It’s hardly an original storyline, but execution is everything and Prince of the City remains one of the best cop movies ever made. Co-starring Bob Balaban, Lance Henriksen, and Jerry Orbach, it’s the one film you really don’t want to miss this week.

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