TiVoPlex
TiVoPlex for Tuesday, May 27, 2008 through Monday, June 2, 2008
By John Seal
May 27, 2008
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.
Tuesday 05/27/08
2:30 AM Starz
Vitus (2006 SUI): Alas, this is neither a sequel to 1934's The Black Cat (which featured Bela Lugosi in a rare good guy role as Vitus Verdegast), nor a documentary about everyone's favorite moldy rye-bread induced soft-shoe routine, St. Vitus' Dance. It's actually a drama about the titular child prodigy (Fabrizio Borsani and Teo Gheorghiu, in a split role) whose pushy parents have big plans for their well-trained offspring. Mom and Dad envision their child harnessing his musical talents to become a renowned concert pianist--but Vitus has other ideas, one of which involves learning to fly with his beloved (and not at all pushy) grandfather (Bruno Ganz, a mite bit more restrained here than in Downfall). It's all a bit predictable, but the 6-year old Borsani displays a genuine affinity for acting and Ganz is always excellent. Also airs at 5:30 AM.
3:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Atlantic Adventure (1935 USA): A rarely seen Columbia programmer, Atlantic Adventure is of interest primarily thanks to its cast. Lloyd Nolan and Harry Langdon--yes, that Harry Langdon!--star as Dan and Snapper, a pair of news hounds pursuing a murderer aboard an ocean liner. The perp is responsible for the death of the District Attorney, whose life would have been saved if Dan had not skipped out on an appointment in favor of spending time with best gal Helen (Nancy Carroll). Making things complicated are primary suspect/red herring Mitts Coster (John Wray), plug ugly henchman Spike Jones (Dwight Frye), and a pair of genteel jewel thieves (Robert Middlemass and Nana Bryant). Nothing about Atlantic Adventure will surprise you, but it's good old fashioned fun.
6:30 PM Sundance
Contested Streets (2006 USA): This documentary takes a look at the growth and development of the arteries that keep New York City alive and functioning: its city streets. The film then contrasts them with transportation planning in other major metropolises, such as Copenhagen, London and Paris, and suggests the Big Apple still has a few lessons to learn from its Old World counterparts. My precis makes the film sound dry and academic, which I suppose it is to an extent, but for anyone interested in city planning or mass transit--or anyone who enjoys living or playing in urban environments--this is fascinating stuff.
Wednesday 05/28/08
4:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Garment Jungle (1957 USA): Back when I Was a Teenage Film Neophyte (and hey, how's THAT for a movie title?), I was intrigued by the number of 1950s and early '60s films which featured the word 'jungle' in the title. Most prominent, of course, was The Blackboard Jungle, with Glenn Ford engaged in battle with recalcitrant teen Sidney Poitier, but there was also The Concrete Jungle (Joseph Losey's The Criminal, retitled for the American market), The Square Jungle (a Tony Curtis boxing pic), The Beauty Jungle (a Val Guest feature co-starring Sid James!), Broadway Jungle (also known as Hollywood Jungle), and a bunch of other jungles I've long since forgotten. My favorite, though, was always The Garment Jungle, the title of which conjured up bizarre visions of immense Narnian cupboards and dense thickets of clothes hangers. The truth, alas, is a bit more mundane: it's the story of the cold, cruel world of New York City haberdashery. Lee J. Cobb stars as anti-union clothing magnate Walter Mitchell, who's hired thug Artie (Richard Boone) to keep labor organizers away from the factory floor. When Walter's union friendly partner Fred (Robert Ellenstein) and organizer Tullio (Robert Loggia) both get snuffed, however, Walter begins to realize that his investment is paying some unexpected dividends--dividends which idealistic son and heir Alan (Kerwin Matthews) wants no part of. A heavy-hitting social drama that comes down squarely on the side of the working man, The Garment Jungle belies its terrible title and is actually a good, hard-nosed pro-labor counterpart to On the Waterfront.
9:30 AM Fox Movie Channel
Time Travelers (1976 USA): Fans of sixties series Time Tunnel need to set their timers this morning to record this made for TV crypto-sequel. Original Time Tunnel cast member Sam Groom stars as Clint Earnshaw, an MD who must return to Chicago's Great Fire of 1871 and prevent an important medical development from being devoured by flames, and then return to the present, where it will save the nation from a special new Bicentennial edition of the plague. Like most Irwin Allen productions, this is stodgy and implausible science fiction at best, but if you're willing to chuck logic and the Butterfly Effect out the window, you might enjoy it.
1:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Houston Story (1956 USA): This minor crime drama was director William Castle's penultimate non-horror effort, and though it'll never be mistaken for The Phenix City Story (a superior Phil Karlson-helmed 'corruption in middle America' feature), it's still worth your time. Gene Barry (The War of the Worlds) stars as Frank Duncan, an oil prospector who's grown tired of waiting to hit pay dirt with black gold. He makes a deal with Houston mobster Paulie Atlas (Edward Arnold), who'll provide money to grease the palms of local foremen, who in turn will look the other way whilst Frank taps into their fuel lines and siphons off a few million dollars worth of spare crude. The plan goes swimmingly until a driver for the refinery is killed by Paulie's thugs, and things hot up for Frank when the feds show up to investigate. It's followed at 3:00 PM by Duffy (1968), a caper flick with a Donald Cammell screenplay and a super cast, including James Coburn, James Mason, James Fox, and James--er, sorry, Susannah--York. I've never seen it but I hear it's groovy.
Thursday 05/29/08
4:00 PM Sundance
Red Doors (2005 USA): Wayne Wang notwithstanding, films about the Asian-American experience are a rarity. Here's one that's pretty good and directed by a woman to boot. Red Doors tells the tale of the Wongs, a suburban family facing crisis on several fronts: patriarch Ed (Tzi Ma) has decamped for enlightenment in a monastery, eldest daughter Samantha (Jacqueline Kim) is re-kindling an old romance on the eve of her marriage, and young Julie (Elaine Kao) is coming to terms with her--shock, horror!--lesbian sexuality. There's little here that falls far outside the parameters of American indie filmmaking, but Red Doors is a good humored and attractively shot first feature from director Georgia Lee.
6:00 PM IFC
At the Death House Door (2008 USA): Did the world really need another anti-death penalty documentary? When the director of said film is Steve James (Stevie, Hoop Dreams), the answer is an unequivocal yes. Shot in Texas (where the film premiered at Austin's South by Southwest Film Fest), At the Death House Door explores its topic from two perspectives: that of Carlo de Luna, convicted and executed for a crime most likely committed by someone else, and of Death Row chaplain Carolle Pickett, whose 13 years consoling those about to die led him to become an anti-death penalty activist. Taken together, de Luna and Pickett's stories provide James' film with a compelling thesis: not only have mistakes been made, but some people have actually learned from them.
7:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
The One That Got Away (1957 GB): A night of rarely seen Roy Ward Baker features kicks off with this thoroughly entertaining (and true!) feature about a World War II German prisoner-of-war with a knack for escaping his British captors. Hardy Kruger stars as Franz von Werra, a Luftwaffe officer shot down during the Battle of Britain. Unwilling to spend the next few years peeling potatoes or cracking rocks, von Werra immediately began plotting his return to Germany, and after a few misfires miraculously pulled off the feat after taking a detour to a remote POW camp in Canada. The film defies convention by actually allowing the Bad Guy to outfox the Good Guys and contrasts neatly with more traditional tales of Stalag-bound heroism such as The Colditz Story (1955) and even The Great Escape (1963). It's followed at 9:15 PM by Jacqueline (1956), a kitchen-sink drama about a young girl trying to wean her father from the bottle, and at 11:00 PM by The Singer Not the Song (1961), in which John Mills portrays a priest trying to evangelize a Mexican village and Dirk Bogarde as the bandito who opposes his efforts. Really.
Saturday 05/31/08
6:00 PM The Movie Channel
Badge of Silence: Maniac Cop 3 (1993 USA): I'm a great admirer of William Lustig's first two Maniac Cop features, but sadly neither of them show up on the boob tube anymore, so I'll have to settle for this airing of the series' inferior final chapter. Robert Z'Dar returns as undead police constable Matt Cordell, whose previous trips from the grave saw him wreaking bloody havoc on the streets of New York City. Shot during the city's grimmest and grimiest years, those films tapped into the twin fears of out of control crime and the out of control cops then fighting it--cops all too eager to pull the trigger or insert a baton where the sun don't shine. Badge of Silence ratchets back the society-on-a-precipice fears in favor of a more personal story of love from beyond the grave, and though screenwriter Larry Cohen does his best to maintain the energy of the first two films, it just doesn't gel. It's still worth a look if you're a Cohen admirer. Also airs at 8:30 PM, 9:00 PM, and 11:30 PM.
7:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Screaming Mimi (1958 USA): A completely wacky thriller about an exotic strip tease artist and the troubles she encounters, Screaming Mimi is another of those wonderful features that once brightened our Friday nights as part of TNT's 100% Weird package. It's finally back tonight on TCM, sans commercial interruptions and still entertaining as all get out. Anita Ekberg stars as Virginia, an exotic dancer who finds herself in the loony bin after being attacked in the shower several years before Hitchcock's Psycho assaulted Janet Leigh. Sent to recover in a state mental hospital, she finds herself in the care of sleazy Dr. Greenwood (Harry Townes), who promptly decides his medical degree isn't worth the paper it's printed on and leaves the premises with Virginia in tow. Naturally, the retired psychologist decides to become his former patient's agent, and she soon finds herself booked into a strip club operated by Gypsy Rose Lee! That's only the beginning of this outre classic, which also features boring Phil Carey as Bill Sweeney, a newspaper reporter who tries to save Virginia from a life of pasties and g-strings.
9:00 PM Sundance
Sheitan (2006 FRA): French bad boy Vincent Cassel stars in this unsettling black comedy about a Christmas Eve party gone terribly wrong. He plays Joseph, a twisted caretaker who takes advantage of three Parisian idiots who stumble into his rundown rural hotel one December 24th. Sheitan bears marked similarities to the Belgian film Calvaire, which also suggests that urban-dwellers have a lot to fear from hicks in the sticks. If you're a fan of Deliverance or Straw Dogs, you'll probably also enjoy Sheitan.
Sunday 06/01/08
9:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Peach Girl (1931 CHI): I'm almost wholly ignorant of pre-1970s Chinese cinema, so here's a good starting point for me--and for you, too, perhaps. Restored thanks to the efforts of the good folks who run the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, The Peach Girl explores love and betrayal in rural China. Though I've yet to see it, I suspect there will be no inbred yokels with banjos to spoil things for the protagonists. It's followed at 11:00 PM by Nagisa Oshima's 1960 classic, Cruel Story of Youth, a film that would be required viewing for Takashi Kawamata's gorgeous, color-saturated cinematography alone. Happily, Cruel Story of Youth is fascinating as both narrative and visual feast, rendering it essential viewing for anyone interested in arthouse cinema. Directed by sensualist Oshima, this tale of teenage love and lust in post-World War II Japan was no doubt considered shocking in its day. Fresh-faced high schooler Makoto (18-year-old Miyuki Kuwano) is searching for excitement, and starts hopping into the cars of older men with ulterior motives (this phenomenon, known as enjo kosai('compensated dating')is still prevelant in contemporary Japan). After suffering abuse at the hands of one such middle-aged gent, she's rescued by university student Kiyoshi (Yusuke Kawazu), who promptly takes advantage of her himself. The two then decide to run their own scam, wherein Makoto exposes herself to danger and Kiyoshi rescues her and demands retribution from her attackers. Tragedy soon strikes, however, in the form of an unwanted pregnancy. Cruel Story of Youth is not available on DVD, so SET YOUR TIMER!
Monday 06/02/08
6:00 PM IFC
Newsfront (1978 AUS): Philip Noyce's historical drama remains one of the triumphs of the Australian 'new wave' of the 1970s, and if it doesn't provide quite the same jolt as artier fare such as The Cars That Ate Paris or The Last Wave, it's still worth watching. Set during the 1950s, the film examines the changes wrought on the humble newsreel photographer by the advent of television. Episodically following the adventures of reporter Len Maguire (Bill Hunter), Newsfront brilliantly recreates the immediate post-war years through an impressive series of black and white set pieces that recreate such key events as the Maitland floods and the Melbourne Olympics. When viewed in the context of 21st century media--where the newspaper itself is rapidly descending into obsolescence--Newsfront is a bittersweet reminder that time and change are remorseless masters who have little interest in a feel good narrative. Also airs at 9:00 PM.
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