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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 05/22/07

3:05 AM IFC
Stevie (2002 USA): This riveting documentary from director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) takes a sometimes uncomfortably close look at its subject - a troubled young man named Stephen Fielding - and his relationship to the filmmaker. Born to a mother who didn't want him, Fielding spent much of his youth victimized by child abusers and spent years moving between foster homes and juvenile centers. When James volunteered to be Stevie's Big Brother in the mid-1980s, he provided one of the few periods of stability in the boy's life. Returning to Fielding's home in rural southern Illinois ten years later, James found his old friend still living on the cusp of society, a serious criminal charge looming in the not-too-distant future, and a completely dysfunctional family unable to support him. Once again thrust into the position of being the responsible adult, James finds himself removed from the comfort zone of objective outsider and spends more and more time on camera trying to reconcile his filmmaking responsibilities with his concerns for Stevie's future. To say that Fielding's life hasn't been a happy one would be an understatement, and this lengthy but rewarding film does its best to document it all: the bad, the worse, and the extremely ugly. This is an underappreciated gem that all fans of non-fiction cinema need to see. Also airs at 11:45 AM.

10:30 PM HBO
Wide Awake (2006 USA): I generally sleep like a log, though sometimes it's a bit hard dropping off whilst all the high and low-lights of the past 24 hours replay in my obsessive-compulsive brain. For some folks, though, sleep is even more elusive, and insomnia is their normal end of the day business. That's the subject of this enjoyable if somewhat facile HBO original documentary. Directed by dedicated night owl Alan Berliner, who operates at his peak during the wee, wee hours of the morning, Wide Awake is part autobiographical confessional and part unapologetic excuse for Berliner's workaholism. It's hardly an academic treatise on the subject, and it most assuredly won't put you to sleep. Also airs 5/23 at 1:30 AM, 5:00 PM, and 8:00 PM.

Wednesday 05/23/07

10:30 AM Sundance
Day of the Jackal (1973 GB-FRA): Frederick Forsyth's novel of the same name topped the best seller lists in 1971, and was hurriedly adapted for the screen by director Fred Zinnemann and screenwriter Kenneth Ross, who apparently couldn't bring themselves to trim much if any of its voluminous plot. The result is an overlong (145 minute) suspenser that takes its time to get going but delivers a decent quota of thrills by the time it wends its way to the final reel. Left-wing rabble-rouser Edward Fox stars as The Jackal, a right-wing assassin gunning for French President Charles de Gaulle on behalf of a group of disgruntled veterans of the Algerian wars. The Surete get wind of the plot, and assign Lebel (avuncular Michael Lonsdale) to sift the sparse tealeaves and stop The Jackal before he can complete his mission. The cat and mouse game that follows is low octane stuff, but the lack of action is no impediment to enjoying the film, which in addition to superb European location work also features a wonderful Georges Delerue score and an excellent supporting cast, including Alan Badel, Maurice Denham, Derek Jacobi, Delphine Seyrig, Howard Vernon, Jean Sorel, Eric Porter, and Cyril Cusack as The Jackal's personal artificer. Also airs 5/24 at 3:30 AM.

9:35 PM More Max
Action Jackson (1988 USA): This late in the day black action flick stars former Oakland Raider Carl Weathers as Jericho 'Action' Jackson, a hard-nosed Detroit flatfoot out for revenge against psychopathic auto magnate Peter Dellaplane (Craig T. Nelson). After his son, a brutal rapist, gets roughed up by our hero, the powerful Dellaplane engineers a police brutality charge that sees Jackson demoted from lieutenant to sergeant. Not content with his mastery over the Detroit police review board, Dellaplane is also intent on busting the local autoworkers union and using his hard-nosed business tactics as a foundation for a presidential run—presumably on the Republican ticket. Jackson, naturally, is intent on putting his boot into Dellaplane's ass, and enlists heroin-addicted good time girl Sydney (Vanity) to the cause. Also along for the ride is Sharon Stone as Dellaplane's put upon spouse Patrice, Robert Davi as a thug, and the great Bill Duke as the stereotypical screaming police captain who enjoys tearing folks a new one whilst crushing coffee cups in his bare hands.

Thursday 05/24/07

12:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Beach Party (1963 USA): Though it took its cues from Sandra Dee's Gidget series, Beach Party was the film that launched the sun, sand and bikini genre that made AIP producers Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson rich men. It stars decidedly un-hip health food enthusiast Bob Cummings as anthro Professor Robert Sutwell, who is studying the (squeaky clean) sexual habits of typical American teenagers and is convinced he sees parallels with the mating behaviour of certain ‘primitive' tribes. The plot, of course, is completely secondary to the romantic complications involving Frankie and Dee Dee (Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello), the comic misadventures of the Rats and Mice Motorcycle Club led by the great Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck), and the musical interludes provided by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones. It's the best of the series—though Bikini Beach is good fun, too—and appears this afternoon in widescreen.

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