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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 09/15/09

10:05am Showtime Extreme
Sleepy Hollow (1998 USA): Tim Burton's loose adaptation of Washington Irving's famous tale returns this morning in wide-screen. Burton regular Johnny Depp stars as Ichabod Crane, a New York policeman sent to a remote upstate burg to investigate a series of bloody decapitation murders. At first he doesn't believe the locals' tales of a vengeful ghost, but he soon witnesses the spectre himself, and finds its interests are about to coincide with his own. A wonderfully atmospheric feature that also serves as Burton's tribute to the best aspects of Hammer Films, Sleepy Hollow features impressive gothic cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki, and co-stars Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Miranda Richardson, the much-maligned and underappreciated Jeffrey Jones, and - as the villain of the piece - Christopher Walken. Also airs at 7pm.

7pm Encore Westerns
Rancho Deluxe (1975 USA): Frank Perry's contemporary anti-Western makes an out-of-character appearance this evening on the normally rootin' tootin' Encore Westerns channel. Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston star as Jack and Cecil, a couple of drifters who take up rustling in Montana and attempt to drive cattle king John Brown (Clifton James) round the bend by stealing his prize bull. The enraged Brown hires ex-cattle thief Henry Beige (Slim Pickens) to track down the villains, but Jack and Cecil manage to stay one step ahead of their pursuer. The film isn't prime Perry (the man was off his game throughout most of the 1970s), but an excellent supporting cast, including Pickens, Joe Spinell, Harry Dean Stanton, and an uncredited Warren Oates make it all worthwhile.

11:40pm Starz!
Legend of the Red Dragon (1994 HK): It's been a while since I've had a good old-fashioned martial arts picture to recommend, so I'm happy to highlight this Jet Li feature, even though we're getting the dubbed version tonight. In this outing, which borrows generously from the Lone Wolf and Cub playbook, Li portrays Hung Hei-Kwun, an itinerant whose family and friends have been butchered by a mysterious third party. Hung will travel as far as he must to avenge their deaths, and he'll be ably assisted by his eight-year-old son (Miu Tse), a remarkable martial artist in his own right. Released theatrically in the US as New Legend of Shaolin, this is a non-stop actioner which should satisfy all but the pickiest of genre fans.

Wednesday 09/16/09

1:15pm Starz!
Synecdoche, NY (2008 USA): Bad, BAD John Seal. Bad! Despite multiple opportunities and considerable enthusiasm, I never made it to the cinema to see this award-winning Charlie Kaufman joint. Since then, I've deliberately avoided reading anything about Synecdoche (I typically hate to know too much about the films I'm most interested in seeing), but apparently it involves Philip Seymour Hoffman constructing a scale model of New York City, or some-such. I'm still über-excited about visiting Synecdoche, and definitely plan to catch it now that it's on the small screen. Don't hold me to that, though. I'm fickle when it comes to commitment. Also airs at 4:15pm.

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