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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.

Wednesday 9/28/11

3:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Heroes of Telemark (1966 GB): Remember last week’s column, which featured my ruminations concerning Operation Crossbow, an action-adventure story about Allied heroes sabotaging Axis plans to develop long-range missiles? Well, here’s the same story, only this time it’s heavy water - not missiles - that are the target (heavy water, as you probably know, being a key component in nuclear weapons development). Kirk Douglas plays lead hero Rolf, a Norwegian resistance fighter aiming to put the kibosh on the Nazi plans with the assistance of fellow Scandinavians Knut (Richard Harris) and Anna (Ulla Jacobson). Yumpin’ yiminy! Co-starring Michael Redgrave, Roy Dotrice, and Anton Diffring, The Heroes of Telemark was directed by action specialist Anthony Mann and airs in widescreen this morning.

11:00 AM Encore Love Stories
Nil by Mouth (1997 GB): Now here’s a film I never expected to see on Encore Love Stories. One of the most depressing films ever made, Nil by Mouth stars Ray Winstone as Ray, the foul-mouthed, hard-drinking patriarch of a working-class South London family. In addition to contending with a drug-addled brother-in-law (Charlie Creed-Miles), Ray has anger management issues of his own to deal with, and not infrequently gives wife Val (Kathy Burke) a good kicking - sometimes with force sufficient to send her to the hospital (hence the title). Written and directed by actor Gary Oldman, this grim slice of life drama features more profanity than you can shake a Scarface at. Maybe Encore needs to start a Kitchen Sink Stories channel.

5:00 PM HBO 2
Position Among the Stars (2011 GER): The third film in director Leonard Retel Helmrich’s trilogy recording the lives and times of an average Indonesian family, Position Among the Stars makes its American television debut this evening. Helmrich’s subjects are the Shamsuddins, a tight-knit family just getting by in the slums of Jakarta, and the film follows their efforts to assist niece Tari achieve her dream of a higher education - including, if need be, pawning the family home to help pay for it. Think of Position Among the Stars as a really, really good South Asian version of PBS’s An American Family. Also airs at 8:00 PM.

5:00 PM Sundance
Rain (2008 ARG): I’m used to HBO Signature being the only premium channel airing Argentine movies, but this week we get one on Sundance, too. It’s Rain, a character study about two folks who meet not-so-cute during a torrential and apparently endless winter storm. Alma (A Boyfriend for my Wife’s Valeria Bertuccelli) is homeless and alone - she’s recently broken up with her boyfriend - whilst Roberto (Ernesto Alterio) is a newly returned émigré who needs a place to stay dry. Where better than in Alma’s car? Written and directed by Paula Hernandez, this talky but never boring feature won the Main Prize at the Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival. For those in the mood this evening for more foreign language features, Rain is followed at 7:00 PM by Night and Day (2008), a stranger in a strange land tale of Parisian alienation, and at 9:30 PM by Secret Sunshine (2007), a Korean drama about a woman coming to terms with her husband’s death.

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