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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 03/18/08

9:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
20 Million Miles to Earth (1957 USA): The third of twelve films in which producer Charles H. Schneer collaborated with stop motion animation wizard Ray Harryhausen, 20 Million Miles to Earth is not as well regarded today as the duo's dynamic output of the 1960s and '70s. Serving as a warm-up for their next effort, the far more ambitious 7th Voyage of Sinbad, the film nevertheless features one of Harryhausen's greatest creations - the Ymir, a Venusian native inadvertently brought back to Earth by space explorer Robert Calder (William Hopper, fresh off The Deadly Mantis), whose spacecraft crashes into the Mediterranean upon re-entry. Washing up on the shores of Italy in pupal form and put in the care of scientist Dr. Leonardo (Frank Puglia) and his beautiful daughter Marisa (Joan Taylor), the Ymir starts out small and cute but predictably ends up super-sized and misunderstood, and a rampage through Rome inevitably leads to a showdown with American military might at the world famous Colisseum. Whilst the denouement and the boring romantic subplot are right out of the '50s sci-fi playbook, it's clear that Harryhausen intended audiences to empathise with his creation, setting the film apart from more run-of-the-mill fare, and producer Schneer's decision to shoot on location in Italy underscores the project's heightened ambitions.

1:00 PM Fox Movie Channel
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995 USA): Which power ranger is YOUR favorite? I know, it's hard to choose just one - but here's a great opportunity to narrow the field, as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers makes its widescreen television debut this afternoon. As for the villains, the movie features highly regarded British stage thespian Paul Freeman (Hot Fuzz) as Ivan Ooze, an over the top baddy who looks a bit like an enraged California Raisin. When your significant other asks you why the heck you're watching Power Rangers, tell 'em it's all about the acting.

10:30 AM Sundance
The World (2004 CHI): Set in a Beijing theme park where the planet's most significant tourist attractions (including the World Trade Center) are recreated in small scale, The World is a uniquely Chinese take on the negative effects of globalization. Directed by maverick filmmaker Jia Zhangke, the film focuses on the park's employees, who live in grotty company houses behind the scenes and can only dream of visiting the places depicted in miniature at their place of employment. Zhangke's film depicts a world that grows smaller by the day but remains inaccessible to the average prole, who's paid a pittance to smile and look happy for the rubes. Though very long and a bit ponderous at times, The World's visual inventiveness and carefully plotted narrative will draw you in if you give it a chance. Also airs 3/21 at 3:40 AM.

Wednesday 3/19/08

3:30 PM Sundance
Nice Bombs (2006 USA): Not to be confused with Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams, Nice Bombs is the sophomore effort of Iraqi-American filmmaker Usama Alshaibi. Alshaibi, who left his native Iraq as a child in 1979, returned in 2004 to see what changes had been wrought by the American "liberation", and this film documents that visit. Shot as a video diary, the film follows the director, his wife, and his father as they travel to Baghdad and reunite with their extended family, still celebrating the overthrow of Saddam and relatively happy in the immediate wake of the invasion. The "nice bombs" of the title are, of course, those dropped by the Americans on insurgents and dead-enders, but by film's end, those same bombs have begun to wear down the Alshaibi family, and Usama finds himself all too eager to get out of town and return to the safer environs of Chicago. It's a fascinating time capsule shot when a better future seemed possible for educated, cosmopolitan Iraqis, rendered all the more bittersweet by the cruel lessons we've since learned.

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