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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 2/15/11

4:00 AM Flix
Courtship (1987 USA): Flix has been on a bit of a Horton Foote rampage recently. Last month they brought us his rarely seen big screen adaptation of 1918; this month we get the even more obscure film version of Foote’s play Courtship. I’ve never seen it, and as I sometimes say, neither have you: the film has no reviews on IMDb and was apparently shot for pennies on location in Mississippi. How can I be sure the budget was of the bargain basement variety? Because half the cast consists of people whose last name is "Foote" - we’ve got Daisy, Hallie, and Horton Junior treading the boards here, in a tale of young love and disapproving parents in Texas circa 1914 — and the other half is named "Amanda Plummer." Flix is apparently airing Courtship in widescreen, though all indications are that it was probably shot on a Brownie. (And if you don’t know what a Brownie is, you’re too damn young.)

11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985 BRA-USA): William Hurt suffers from a severe case of deadly smoochie boochies in this late-period Universal Sherlock Holmes mystery starring Gale Sondergaard as the Spider Woman. No, not really — he actually plays a gay prisoner doin’ time on cell block 9 with fellow inmate Raul Julia in Hector Babenco’s adaptation of Manuel Puig’s magical realist novel. Hurt plays Luis, a man imprisoned for immorality, whilst Julia is Valentin, a political prisoner locked up for sticking it to the Man. (Now, now. You know what I mean.) Luis spends his days spinning outrageous fantasies as a way of escaping the narrow confines of their cell, whilst macho realist Valentin thinks he’s a bit of a wuss for doing so and would prefer it if all concerned would just man up. The two eventually develop an understanding and become allies after they realize they each deeply respect Sonia Braga, though for different reasons. Hurt won an Oscar for his performance here, proving as usual that no one can play a homosexual window dresser as effectively as a heterosexual man.

Wednesday 2/16/11

Midnight Fox Movie Channel
Moving Violation (1976 USA): Is it March yet? No? Oh, well, in that case there’s room in the TiVoPlex for this run of the mill action entry, which Fox isn’t even giving us in widescreen! C’mon, guys! Pontypool’s Stephen McHattie stars as Eddie Moore, a free spirit who offends the powers that be in a small California town: him being Canadian and all doesn’t sit too well with the Sherriff, played with stereotypical glee by Lonny Chapman, who made a career out of playing corrupt and/or overbearing authority figures. Moving Violation is a perfectly decent time-waster with a good supporting cast (Eddie Albert, Kay Lenz, Will Geer, Dick Miller), but please, Fox...let’s get this one screening in its full 1.85:1 glory soon.

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