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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 6/14/11

6:30 AM Encore Dramatic Stories
The Philadelphia Experiment (1984 USA): True story: if I’d played my cards right, I might have worked on this film. When I was 17 years old, my father - at the time a loan officer at a small Southern California bank - introduced me to a filmmaker client, with an eye to getting me connected to the movie biz. Being a man of the world at 17, I promptly blew the opportunity and haven’t looked back since. Nope, no regrets at all. The filmmaker was a gentleman named Doug Curtis, who would go on to produce this film and many others, including Nice Girls Don’t Explode, Next Friday, Freddy vs. Jason, and this year’s delightfully titled Shark Attack 3D. As for The Philadelphia Experiment, it’s a time travel tale of two sailors (Michael Pare and Bobby di Cicco) who find themselves transported from a World War II naval shipyard to the amazing future of 1984. Thoroughly disgusted by the brave new world of Duran Duran, Charles in Charge, and Chia Pets, the two desperately want to return ‘home’...but can they reach the portal to the past before it’s too late? Or will they be stuck in the '80s, where they’ll meet a rueful would-be best boy named John Seal? Tune in to find out!

Wednesday 6/15/11

4:30 AM The Movie Channel
Hunter Prey (2010 USA): Here’s something you don’t see every day (at least not these days): a medium-budget, independently made science fiction film that is actually pretty good. Produced by Sandy Collora - whose 2003 effort Batman: Dead End was a huge hit on the convention and comic book geek circuit - Hunter Prey takes place on Prometheus, a planet (played by Baja California) on which a space cruiser has crash-landed. The damaged ship has been carrying a dangerous prisoner named Jericho (Clark Bartram), and when he escapes from the wreckage the surviving crew begin a desperate attempt to recapture him. Jericho, however, is too smart for them, and one by one, his would-be captors fall victim to his wily ways. There’s definitely a bit of Enemy Mine in Hunter Prey - both thematically and visually - but it’s still a breath of fresh air in a pretty stale genre, and looks great in widescreen. (And no, the Patrick Magee in the cast isn’t that Patrick Magee.) Also airs at 7:30 AM.

9:50 AM Sundance
Carny (2007 USA): This film has aired on Sundance in the past, but it still doesn’t have an entry in IMDb. Odd. It’s an excellent documentary about the humble sideshow worker, the endangered but surprisingly hardy species still stubbornly hustling its way through the fairgrounds and tilt-a-whirls of America - and still considered unwelcome company in polite circles. This Carny is the perfect double bill partner for 1980’s fictional Carny, a solid Gary Busey drama which really needs to get hauled out the vault sometime soon by Sundance or TCM.

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