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Sunday 6/17/12

1:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Payment on Demand (1951 USA): Bette Davis plays a middle-aged woman confronted with marital problems in this worthwhile Curtis Bernhardt-helmed drama. Bette plays Joyce Ramsey, whose husband David (Barry Sullivan) surprises her one evening with a request for divorce. Looking back on her life via flashback, Joyce is forced to confront the fact that she’s been a less than ideal life partner - but continues to try to take David for every penny he has. Regrets, tears, and condemnation follow. Co-starring Richard Anderson, Otto Kruger, and Natalie Schafer, Payment on Demand looks pretty mild now but was fairly daring stuff for the early ‘50s.

8:35 PM Showtime 2
The Other F Word (2011 USA): Can men with polka dots dyed in their hair, piercings in multiple body parts, and a penchant for the F word possibly pass muster as parents? Andrea Nevins’ documentary The Other F Word loudly asserts: fuck, yeah! The film’s focal point is Jim Lindberg, a 40-something Manhattan Beach homeowner with a wife and three daughters. The lead singer in third-generation punk band Pennywise for almost 20 years, he’s a funny, intelligent, and self-aware guy who believes that being in a band extends your adolescence, that special time in life when you either want to throw rocks through windows or make music that sounds like rocks being thrown through windows. It’s also a job, however, and Lindberg brings home the bacon by playing more than a hundred shows a year. Jim’s stories of dyeing his goatee on tour and wearing a baseball cap onstage to hide his receding hairline are amusing, as are the tales of other “establishment punks” like TSOL’s Jack Grisham, who relates how he once took his daughter to school wearing a ‘fuck the police’ tee-shirt. Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus says expectations of his parenting abilities “couldn’t be any lower," while Rancid’s Lars Fredericksen ponders whether or not tattooing his forehead was a good decision from a child-rearing perspective. Live fast, die young is no longer an option for the gentlemen of The Other F Word. They’re now part of the system, their youthful hankerings for anarchy and rebellion replaced by hopes for professional and personal stability. They’re also dedicated to the task of not repeating the mistakes their own fathers made: as Everclear’s Art Alexakis puts it, the only yelling he’s going to do is on stage. It may not be the best way to establish punk rock street cred, but it strikes me as being a somewhat worthier goal.

9:45 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Circle (1925 USA): I’ve never seen this Frank Borzage silent, but his involvement alone is enough to render it worthy of your (and my) attention. This MGM production is based on a Somerset Maugham play, stars Eleanor Boardman, and includes a very, very young Joan Crawford in a small role. It must have aired on TCM previously, but somehow I’ve missed it every time.

Monday 6/18/12

2:55 PM HBO Signature
Rompecabezas (2009 ARG-FRA): A suburban housewife goes on an eye-opening journey of self discovery in this slight but enjoyable drama written and directed by Natalia Smirnoff. Maria Onetto stars as Maria, a 50-year-old frump who discovers her hidden talent for jigsaw puzzles as she confronts the impending departure of her grown children from the old homestead. Taking things up a notch, she begins to assemble puzzles at the competitive level and becomes romantically involved with teammate Roberto (Leo’s Room’s Arturo Goetz). It’s an unusual set up for a story that doesn’t offer many surprises, but it’ll hold your attention.

3:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Violent Road (1958 USA): Truckers transport deadly explosives in this cheap and not-so-cheery Wages of Fear rip-off. Directed by Howard W. Koch, Violent Road stars Brian Keith as Mitch Barton, the diesel jockey tasked with relocating Cyclone Rocket Company’s dangerous ordnance to a safer location. Naturally, that safer location lies on the opposite sound of the mountains and is accessible only via a bumpy road, so it’s up to Mitch to assemble a team of drivers crazy enough to take on the assignment. Dick Foran, Merry Anders, and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. co-star.

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