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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 12/14/10

10:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
Baby, the Rain Must Fall (1965 USA): Steve McQueen plays a parolee with a talent for tunesmithery in this suitably dour version of Horton Foote’s play. Adapted by Foote for the screen, Baby the Rain Must Fall features McQueen as Henry Thomas, now out of jail and back home singing the blues in a small Texas town. Wicked stepmother Mrs. Ewing (Josephine Hutchinson) wants him to return to the pen because he won’t get himself an edumacation; estranged wife Georgette (Lee Remick) just wants to see him straighten up and fly right. Henry’s ultimate fate is never really in doubt and nary a glint of hope is in sight, rendering this one of the bleaker major studio productions of the ‘60s. Though stretched, McQueen isn’t bad, but Remick is better — and be sure to check out Glen Campbell as a member of Henry’s backing band!

8:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
A Matter of Time (1976 ITA-USA): Vincente Minnelli got to direct his daughter Liza in this bizarre and fantastical drama, which plays better as train wreck than timeless classic. Liza with a Z plays Nina, a plain jane Roman chambermaid who befriends hotel guest Countess Sanziani (Ingrid Bergman). The Countess transforms Nina into a ravishing beauty, Liza sings some songs, and Charles Boyer shows up to rekindle old movie memories with Bergman. It’s completely befuddling, strangely watchable, and co-stars Bergman’s daughter, Isabella Rossellini, as a nun. Yep. Nun.

Wednesday 12/15/10

3:15 AM The Movie Channel
Ed and His Dead Mother (1993 USA): This is the sort of film you wish you could have witnessed the pitch for. “Um, yeah, JB, we have this great concept for a movie: let’s get Steve Buscemi — don’t worry, he’s gonna be a star — to play a guy who loves his deceased mom so much he makes a deal with a traveling salesman to bring her back to life! But she eats bugs and people to stay reanimated and Steve decides he needs Ned Beatty to help him put her back in the grave! You like?” As an added bonus, if you look up this film on IMDb, you’ll see that someone has attached a picture of an Edward R. Murrow documentary to its image file. Also airs at 6:15 AM.

9:00 AM Starz
Walt and el Grupo (2008 USA): Early in 1941, the notoriously anti-labor Walt Disney suffered a terrible indignity: his animators went on strike. Rather than hire scabs to replace them, Walt, wife Lillian, and more than a dozen Disney employees packed their bags and embarked on a State Department-sponsored trip to South America, where they and Mickey Mouse were supposed to blunt the advances of Nazi German diplomacy — and maybe pick up some new creative ideas, too. Directed by Theodore Thomas, son of one of Walt’s fellow travelers, Walt and el Grupo tells the story of what happened during their sojourn in the southern hemisphere, and features amazing footage shot during the trip. If you ever wanted to watch Walt Disney dance the samba or don a sombrero, or if you’re simply a Magic Kingdom junkie, this is essential viewing. Also airs at noon.

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