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Sunday 10/29/06

5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Grey Gardens (1975 USA): The Maysles Brothers are rightly revered for their documentary classics Salesman and Gimme Shelter, but this obscure left-field examination of old age on Long Island is just as good. It's a deceptively simple cinema verite look at the lives of Jackie Kennedy's aged aunt, Edith Bouvier Beale (no relation to Marge Bouvier, however), and her minder and daughter, ‘Little' Edie. The two lived for 20 years in a decaying East Hamptons mansion, slowly and perhaps inadvertently withdrawing into an increasingly small world of creeping neglect and eccentric behaviour. Over the decades, both the Beales and their home went to seed (apparently, the house is now owned by former Washington Post publisher Ben Bradlee and has presumably been renovated), with portions of the estate overrun by wildlife and the rest of it much the worse for wear. Originally intended as background material for a feature about Jackie O and Lee Radziwell, the Maysles decided the Bouvier footage was much more interesting subject matter, and turned it into Grey Gardens. Tracing the inexorable path from youthful promise to disappointment and decay - an arc that almost all of us will trace, regardless of social position or wealth - this is bittersweet and powerful testimony to the inexorable toll taken by the passage of time.

8:45 PM Starz In Black
Strange As Angels (2004 USA): Shot in Chicago for an astonishing $75,000, this indie feature from writer-director Steven Foley plays more like a foreign film than an American one. Defying the usual Hollywood stereotypes of African-American filmmaking, Strange As Angels subscribes to the less is more philosophy, with the film's lovelorn protagonists, an artist and a journalist (Marie-Francoise Theodore and Christian Payton), dancing carefully around the edges of commitment. It's not for everyone, and truthfully it's not that great a film, but any director who can complete a serious feature film for that little money deserves some recognition. Here's looking at you, Steven Foley.

Monday 10/30/06

12:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
Wildcat Bus (1940 USA): Poor Fay Wray had tumbled pretty far from the heady heights of King Kong by the time she made this RKO ‘B' feature in 1940 - but her presence is what makes this otherwise forgettable bill-filler worth a look today. Fay plays ‘Ted' Dawson, the daughter of the owner of Federated Bus Lines, a firm whose franchise is threatened by a suspicious series of accidents and breakdowns. She's determined to save the family firm from ruination, but a wildcat cab company run by oily Sid Casey (Don Costello) is determined to muscle in on Federated's lucrative territory, and is willing to resort to any underhanded trick to do so. It's far from thrilling stuff, but Fay is delightful, and film fans will enjoy spotting uncredited appearances by Minerva Urecal, Keye Luke, and a pre-stardom Alan Ladd.

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