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Thursday 01/25/07

3:15 AM IFC
The Emperor and the Assassin (1999 CHI): Beautiful Gong Li stars in this Chen Kaige costume drama about imperial machinations during the 3rd Century BCE. Li plays Lady Zhao, the concubine of the Emperor (Li Xuejian), sent by her master on a mission to employ an assassin to help him unite the Six Kingdoms under his autocratic thumb. Zhao finds her man (Fengyi Zhang), but ends up falling for him - and finding herself deeply troubled by the cruel excesses of her lord and master. In turns extremely violent, stunningly gorgeous, and unfathomably complex, The Emperor and the Assassin is a lengthy (two and a half hour) historical dissertation rendered watchable for mainstream viewers by the presence of Li, whose recent turn in Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower was equally riveting. Also airs at 10:40 AM.

8:40 AM IFC
The Great Silence (1968 ITA): Perhaps the greatest spaghetti western not to have the name ‘Sergio Leone' attached to it, The Great Silence makes its American television debut this morning. Starring Klaus Kinski as Loco, a crazed bounty killer with no moral compass, and Jean-Louis Trintignant as Silence, a mute gun for hire who prefers to offer his services to the weak and helpless, The Great Silence takes place during a harsh Utah winter, immediately setting the film apart from its dust and sand-encrusted genre compadres. The two meet aboard a stagecoach bound for the aptly named Snow Hill, a Mormon town offering business opportunities for both of them - but along for the ride is Sheriff Burnett (American émigré Frank Wolff), a straight arrow lawman determined to stamp out bounty hunting all together. Very much in the tradition of ‘political' westerns such as Sergio Sollima's The Big Gundown and the films of Damiano Damiani, The Great Silence never had an American theatrical release, and - unless you had previously invested in a pricey Japanese laserdisc - was virtually impossible to see until its 2004 Fantoma DVD release. For anyone interested in westerns - of any style - or of European cinema in general, it's a must see.

1:35 PM Showtime Action
Amazing Stories V (1992 USA): Four more episodes of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories TV series are packaged in this anthology initially aimed at the home video market, and as with most anthologies, it's a mixed bag. Included are The Sitter, a thoroughly predictable and borderline racist tale of a Jamaican woman who controls her charges (including a very young Seth Green!) with voodoo; Grandpa's Ghost, a genuinely moving mood piece featuring Ian Wolfe and Andrew McCarthy and directed by Timothy Hutton; the impossibly saccharine hospital weepie Dorothy and Ben, rendered tolerable by a fine performance from Crossroads' Joe Seneca; and the amusing Paul Bartel vehicle Gershwin's Trunk, featuring Bob Balaban as a Broadway songwriter relying on some beyond-the-grave help in order to complete his latest project. Half the fun of these things is watching for the guest stars and hoping the stories aren't completely insipid - and half the time, this collection gets things right.

Friday 01/26/07

6:30 PM Sundance
The Motel (2005 USA): The awkward years of tweeny adolescence are explored by writer-director Michael Kang in this indie feature which took home the Humanitas Prize at Sundance 2005. Jeffrey Chyau stars as 13-year-old Ernest, a pudgy boy weary of helping his mother run her seedy motor lodge by night and tired of being bullied at school by day. Enter stage right Sam (Sung Kang), an ostensible but unlikely Big Brother for the fatherless Ernest, and a font of questionable wisdom regarding the rites of passage and the meaning of manhood. Leaked into art-houses only last October, The Motel is a first-rate indie character study that will revive uncomfortable pubescent memories for many viewers, particularly male ones.

9:00 PM IFC
This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse (1967 BRA): The second entry in the Coffin Joe series— - or some reason being shown out of sequence this evening after last week's Awakening of the Beast - This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse is a sequel of sorts to the first film, At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul. Cleared of the heinous crimes committed during At Midnight, Joe is now free to resume his search for the perfect spouse - and is once again willing to go to the most extreme lengths to find the right woman. Complications, including more tarantulas, a boa constrictor, and a hunchback, ensue. Also airs 1/27 at midnight.

9:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
To Paris, With Love (1955 GB): Alec Guinness stars in this little known British comedy about a wealthy widower (Guinness) who takes his 20-year old-son (Vernon Grey) to Paris for lessons in the art of love. Why they couldn't just go to King's Cross for a snog I can't imagine, and it's hard to envision Guinness as being an expert in the amorous arts - rendering this a relative disappointment in Obi Wan Kenobi's otherwise impressive filmography.

11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966 USA): Delirious title aside, this is actually one of the most boring horror films ever made - and that's saying quite a bit. Directed by the legendary William ‘One-Shot' Beaudine, Billy the Kid Versus Dracula is a nearly unwatchable blend of bloodless horror and very old-fashioned western tropes starring John Carradine as the bloodsucking count. He's trying to start afresh in the Old West, but hasn't counted on the presence of young William Bonney (Chuck Courtney), who inexplicably has settled down with the rich femme landowner (Melinda Plowman) ticketed by Dracula as his next victim. Also on hand is Mrs. Olsen herself, Virginia Christine, as an Old World refugee wise to the ways of the vampire. It's followed at 12:30 AM the following morning by the equally inept Jesse James vs. Frankenstein's Daughter (1966 USA), which repeats the formula with different characters and heralded the end of Beaudine's long and once illustrious career. Both films have been unseen on national television since appearing a decade ago on TNT's 100% Weird, and Dracula still isn't on DVD - so cinema masochists, set your timers!

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