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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 8/30/11

1:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Impasse (1969 USA): I’m back, and better than ever! Well, perhaps not better than ever...would you believe better than three weeks ago? How about better than last night? Now that I’ve wowed you with my Maxwell Smart impersonation, let’s start things off in this week’s TiVoPlex at an Impasse: in this case, an obscure 1969 feature starring Burt Reynolds as a soldier of fortune searching for some lost World War II gold in the Philippines. Originally produced for television, Impasse ultimately earned a theatrical release, but that didn’t help its prospects much...it basically sank without trace, and occasional syndication appearances aside, this is the first time it’s had any wide exposure since. Anne Francis, Jeff Corey, and Filipino heavy Vic Diaz co-star in what is a pretty average, but oh so rare, action pic.

3:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Floods of Fear (1959 GB): The title isn’t very promising, but Floods of Fear is actually quite a bit better than you might expect. Howard Keel headlines (in a non-singing role) as Donovan, a convicted (but innocent) criminal who gets caught in some seriously inclement weather after he busts out of the joint in hopes of tracking down the dirty rat who framed him. Based on a pulp novel (hence the crap title), Floods of Fear was directed by the great comedy specialist Charles Crichton, who herein proves himself equally adept at drama, and co-stars sex goddess Anne Heywood alongside walking abstinence advert Cyril Cusack. The film’s only major drawback is some dodgy accents: though shot in Britain, Floods of Fear is set in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Wednesday 8/31/11

1:00 AM Sundance
The Necessities of Life (2008 CAN): This unique French-Canadian drama stars Natar Ungalaag as Tiivii, an Inuit battling one of the diseases gifted to his people by the white man: tubercolosis. Set in 1952, the film follows Tiivii’s travels from the remote interior to urbane Quebec City, where he is sequestered against his will in a sanitarium. As in Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala, the transition is an unhappy one, but a supportive nurse (Eveline Gelinas) intervenes before it’s too late and helps Tiivii by introducing him to bilingual child patient Kaki (Paul-Andre Brasseur). Though that sounds like a recipe for sloppy sentiment, The Necessities of Life thankfully dodges the three-hanky bullet in favor of a more honest and delicate approach to human relationships.

Thursday 9/1/11

1:45 AM Showtime 3
The Tillman Story (2010 USA): His story is well-known: granite-jawed Pat Tillman was a football star, an all-American hero, and a martyr to the causes of both America’s ten years and counting war in Afghanistan and the peace movement hoping to end it. Tillman, of course, was killed in combat in 2004, and his sacrifice instantly became fodder for Washington’s propaganda mill. The truth, however, was quite different from the porkies being told by the Pentagon: not only was Tillman an articulate war skeptic, it also turned out he had died as the result of so-called "friendly fire." This superb documentary from director Amir Bar-Lev (My Kid Could Paint That) brings all the threads of the Tillman story together in one maddening, anger-inducing package that should convince even the most conservative of viewers that authority should be questioned every once in a while. Airs again throughout the month.

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