New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.

Tuesday 02/17/09

10:35 AM Starz
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007 USA): One of my favorite contemporary guilty pleasures, the Resident Evil series went above ground for its 2007 chapter Extinction. In this outing, Alice (scream queen Milla Jovovich), the gun-toting conqueror of Raccoon City, is en route to Alaska but gets diverted to Las Vegas, where she teams up with a group of fellow survivors and blows away several hundred zombie flesh eaters. Though there are a few too many dark corridors — the bane of the modern horror film — in evidence, the film makes the most of its low budget and doesn't disappoint in the mayhem department. Shot in Mexico and featuring production design by Academy Award winner Eugenio Caballero (Pan's Labyrinth), Resident Evil: Extinction is good, gory fun with oodles of grey matter splatter. Also airs at 1:35 PM.

7:05 PM Flix
Manhunter (1986 USA): First, the good news: Michael Mann's Hannibal Lecktor (sic) adaptation is airing on Flix in widescreen, and looks absolutely terrific. Now, the not so good: Manhunter is suffused with Mann's Miami Vice-style trappings, including an over-the-top soundtrack and the director's general inability to cut the fat out of overlong scenes. William Petersen stars as frustrated FBI agent Will Graham, assigned to track down serial killer The Tooth Fairy (Tom Noonan) with the assistance of penitentiary inmate Lecktor, whose insights into the mind of a fellow psychotic are of incalculable value to the G-Men. Whilst Petersen is a bit of a one-note Johnny, there are superior turns by Dennis Farina as fellow agent Jack Crawford and, most notably, Brian Cox as Lecktor: though the chianti-slurping, fava bean-munching killer is only a secondary character in Manhunter, the surprisingly young-looking Cox delivers a performance the equal of Anthony Hopkins' in Silence of the Lambs. On balance, Lambs is the superior film, but Manhunter is worth watching for Cox alone.

Wednesday 02/18/09

Midnight HBO Signature
Plastic Disasters (2006 USA): Ever wanted to know what happens when plastic surgery goes awry? If you've got a strong enough stomach, this is the film you've been waiting for. Examining the unappetizing fallout of three badly botched nip and tucks, this HBO original doc may have you reaching for the smelling salts. Meet Lucille — honey, is that you?!? — whose collagen injections and facelifts make her look far older than she actually is; Mona, whose liposuction goes horribly wrong; and Tony, whose nose job leaves him looking less than handsome. Plastic Disasters is, thankfully, more than just a freak show — it places its unfortunate victims within the context of a burgeoning cosmetic surgery industry, which now encompasses millions of dangerous and arguably unnecessary medical procedures every year. Sometimes, it really is better to leave well enough alone.

4:00 AM Sundance
Return of the War Room (2008 USA): 1992's The War Room was a groundbreaking, fly-on-the-wall examination of a modern political campaign — specifically, that of "New Democrat" Bill Clinton. This sequel reunites many of the usual suspects — er, sorry, political operatives — who ran the Clinton presidential campaign, including, amongst others, the loathsome but oft hilarious James Carville, the loathsome and reptilian George Stephanopoulos, and the just plain loathsome apparatchik Rahm Emanuel, for a chat about how politics has changed in the intervening years. If you can stand the thought of looking at these guys for 80 minutes, Return of the War Room offers manna for political junkies who enjoy the nuts and blots of a campaign as much as, if not more than, the high flown rhetoric and promises that get broken as soon as the inauguration confetti is swept away. Watch this and ruminate on what little progress, if any, we've made in the last two decades.

Continued:       1       2       3