TiVoPlex
TiVoPlex for Tuesday, January 13, 2009 through Monday, January 19, 2009
By John Seal
January 12, 2009
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.
Tuesday 01/13/09
7:00 PM Sundance
13 Tzameti (2005 FRA-GEO): A good gambling film effectively blends character study with mounting intrigue and tension as the protagonist we've learned to care about gets in deeper and deeper. George Babluani (brother of Georgian director Gela Babluani) stars as Sebastien, an immigrant contractor hired to do some work on the house of drug addict Godon (Philippe Pason). After the morphine maniac comes to an untimely but not entirely unexpected end, Sebastien finds himself out of pocket - and decides to help himself to some of his erstwhile employer's belongings to make up for the lost income. Amongst the goodies are a rail ticket and an invitation to a Paris hotel room where apparent riches await, and our callow hero is unable to resist the siren call of either. If you liked the terrific Spanish thriller Intacto, you'll definitely enjoy this black and white neo-noir, now mooted for an English-language remake (helmed by director Babluani) in the near future. Also airs 1/18 at midnight.
Wednesday 01/14/09
3:00 AM MGM HD
Fearless Frank (1967 USA): A fascinating misfire that should be approached with considerable caution, Fearless Frank features a young Jon Voight in his first big screen role. He plays the titular character, a country bumpkin not a million miles afield from Midnight Cowboy's Joe Buck, who comes to the big city, gets himself killed by gangsters, and is reborn as the titular super hero. Directed by Philip Kaufman, who would go on to far better things, Fearless Frank is an extremely unfunny and overly arch satire that even co-star Severn Darden can't rescue, though cameos by "word jazz" poet Ken Nordine and author Nelson Algren are mildly diverting. However, attention must still be paid, as the film is unavailable on home video and will be getting an extremely rare widescreen airing on MGM HD this morning.
11:00 AM HBO Signature
La Punta del Diablo (2006 ARG-URU-VEN): I know absolutely nothing about this film except its title is "Devil's Point" in English, which sounds promising, and that it's the first Uruguayan film I've ever mentioned in six plus years of TiVoPlex, which is a huge plus. An online translation of the film's Spanish language synopsis reads, "a surgeon who knows he is short time to live and decides to travel in order to isolate their affections and their occupations" manages to make it sound mundane of plot but exotic of syntax. Naturally, I plan on punta-ing my remote at HBO Signature this morning to find out the truth about La Punta del Diablo.
Thursday 01/15/09
4:40 AM MGM HD
Odyssey of the Pacific (1980 FRA-CAN): Better known (if at all) as The Emperor of Peru, this is a strange little film from surrealist director and novelist Fernando Arrabal, whose other efforts include Fando and Lis, I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse, and Tree of Guernica. It features Mickey Rooney, of all people, as a retired railway engineer who meets some children who help him put an old steam locomotive back into service. It's a kids' movie shot in English with some very odd touches, and is surely one of the strangest items in Rooney's voluminous filmography. There's a very rare (and now quite expensive) Canadian VHS of Emperor of Peru; if you don't own a copy, this is likely to be your only viewing option for the foreseeable future.
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