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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 10/11/11

5:00 PM Showtime
Let the Right One In (2008 SWE): Unnecessary Hollywood remakes, part 549: here’s the original version of the film that became Let Me In two short years later. I shouldn’t complain too much, as I haven’t seen Let Me In, but Let the Right One In is one of the best horror flicks of the new millennium and offers little room for improvement - unless, of course, you’re averse to subtitles. The film stars spooky Lina Leandersson as Eli, an extremely pale young lady who befriends Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), a blonde mop-top who lives in an adjacent apartment. The two become good friends, but Eli has a secret - she’s actually a man named Edward Cullen. No, no, I’m kidding, but she DOES have some rather unusual dietary restrictions. Set during a freezing Stockholm winter, Let the Right One in offers the perfect blend of chills, suspense, and occasional shock (there’s one scene that the Seal family still talks about three years after the fact!). Also airs at 8:00 PM.

Wednesday 10/12/11

7:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (1939 USA): The sixth of eight Moto mysteries produced by Fox, Last Warning sees Peter Lorre don yellow face once again in the course of pursuing pale-faced villains. This time perfidy is personified by Ricardo Cortez, here cast as a secret agent planning to mine the approaches to the Suez Canal. Also on hand: John Carradine as a British secret agent, George Sanders as a mittel-European spy of uncertain provenance, and Japanese-born Teru Shimada as a Moto doppelganger. Because nothing says "fake Japanese man" quite like a real one.

7:30 PM Fox Movie Channel
The Name of the Rose (1986 USA): Imperfect as it is, this was the film that made me start reading Umberto Eco and made me appreciate the work of character actor William Hickey. A medieval murder mystery set in a dank Italian abbey with the ever-present threat of plague in the background, The Name of the Rose does a decent job of portraying the incredibly unpleasant lives and even worse living conditions of the time. If you can overlook the fact that, yes, that's Christian Slater under the cowl, you'll enjoy seeing Sean Connery tease out the answer to the mystery of who is killing the great monks of Europe.

Thursday 10/13/11

1:45 PM Turner Classic Movies
Devil By the Tail (1969 FRA-ITA): Here’s one of the more drool-worthy films to show up in the TiVoPlex in quite some time. Directed by Philippe de Broca, Devil by the Tail stars Yves Montand as Cesar, a supposed diplomat who ends up sequestered in a remote French hotel after his car is sabotaged by the local garage mechanic (who has a sweet deal with the hotel operators to send traffic their way). Cesar, however, is actually a gangster, and chateau owner La Marquise (Madeleine Renaud, Jean Gabin’s co-star in the recently aired on TCM Stormy Waters) soon begins to have second thoughts about her business plan. This delightful crime comedy has never had a US home video release, remains unavailable on disc overseas, and has rarely been seen on these shores outside long dead rep houses. Don’t miss it - and be sure to stay tuned at 3:30 PM for the almost as rare but otherwise completely dissimilar Bwana Devil (1952), a ridiculous 3-D jungle adventure featuring a very young Robert Stack.

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