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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 10/25/11

5:00 PM Encore Suspense
The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009 GB): Here’s another film with a title that sounds like it should be attached to a TV movie-of-the-week. It’s actually a low-budget British thriller with a cast of three, but it’s quite the trio: former Bond girl Gemma Arterton is the titular Alice, a rich girl held for ransom by a pair of kidnappers played by Martin Compston (Red Road, The Damned United) and Eddie Marsan (who’s going to win an Academy Award one day, trust me). The debut feature effort of director J Blakeson, The Disappearance of Alice Creed could have easily ended up being some awful English variation on the torture porn meme (poor Alice does get tied to a bed) but happily relies on some good old-fashioned cinema virtues - including an intelligent and very suspenseful script - to tell its tale.

8:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
We Can’t Go Home Again (1976 USA): Once upon a time, Nicholas Ray was one of Hollywood’s top directors, the filmmaker responsible for helming such classics as In a Lonely Place, Rebel Without a Cause, and Johnny Guitar. By the 1970s, however, poor Nick’s reputation as a hell-raiser and his taste for substances licit and illicit had taken a toll, and he was making films with titles like Wet Dreams (which - for better or worse - I’ve never seen). TCM celebrates the 100th anniversary of Ray’s birth today by airing this rarely seen feature (and - for better or worse - by leaving Wet Dreams in the vault). Created while Ray was teaching at SUNY, We Can’t Go Home Again is no Stan Brakhage riot of imagery, but is definitely an unusual project in which Ray and his students experimented with all sorts of footage (staged, found, and otherwise) and effects (most prominently, split-screen). First released in 1973 and tinkered with by Ray until his death in 1979, there’s probably no definitive version of this film, but TCM is screening what is being called the most "complete" cut, newly restored by Oscilloscope with an eye to an eventual DVD release. For now, though, this is the only way for most of us to see this remarkable feature (unless you were able to attend last week’s Big Apple screening at Film Forum).

8:00 PM The Movie Channel
Isolation (2005 GB-IRE): If you’re in the mood for a moist horror flick, this deadly serious tale of genetic experimentation gone horribly wrong fits the bill. John Lynch stars as Dan, a dirt poor Irish farmer who allows scientists to conduct experiments on his livestock - experiments which soon get out of hand, leading to a population explosion of deadly cows threatening to lay waste to everything and everyone in their path. It sounds ridiculous, but the film is written and played with an udderly straight face (sorry) and will have you on the edge of your seat (more sensitive viewers may also be on the edge of their barf bag). Also airs at 11:00 PM.

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