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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 10/912

11:45 PM Showtime Extreme
Pyaar, Ishq Aur Mohabbat (2001 IND): Somehow I think this is a mistake in the program guide - but just in case it isn’t, we’ll give Pyaar, Ishq Aur Mohabbat a brief mention. Here’s the film’s IMDb plot synopsis, written by someone named rAjOo:

“Three eligible bachelors, Yash Sabharwal, Taj Bhardwaj, and Gaurav Saxena, all of them attracted to the one lady, Isha Nair. While Yash is rich, wealthy and influential; Taj's dad is Lord Bhardwaj in Britain; and Gaurav is a student, working part-time. Isha gets to meet, and gets friendly with them all, not knowing that each of them have a motive and agenda of their own.”

Now, does that sound like material for Showtime Extreme? Not so much…but who knows, maybe rAjOo left out some critical details concerning gun battles and torture chambers. We’ll just have to set our DVRs and find out for ourselves.

9:45 PM Turner Classic Movies
Reach For the Sky (1956 GB): Kenneth More stars as fighter pilot Douglas Bader in this patriotic tribute to the boys who fought in the Battle of Britain. Bader flew Spitfires as a member of 242 Squadron during World War II and was credited with shooting down 22.5 German planes before being shot down himself and captured in 1941. The most remarkable thing about him? He’d lost both legs in a 1931 accident but was still able to fly. Bader also repeatedly tried to escape from his PoW camp, eventually being sent to Colditz, the Nazi equivalent of Alcatraz Island. As for this biopic, it’s stirring and inspirational stuff, with More delivering one of his best performances, bolstered by a terrific supporting cast including Michael Ripper, Nigel Green, Michael Gough, and Eric Pohlmann.

Wednesday 10/10/12

5:20 AM Encore Action
Solar Attack (2006 CAN): Back in the ‘90s, Mark Dacascos was the poor man’s Jean-Claude Van Damme, a martial arts champion who parlayed his athletic success into a modest feature film career. By 2006, however, he’d been reduced to appearing in made-for-Canadian TV movies like this one (known alternatively as Solar Strike). Dacascos is cast as Lucas Foster, a brilliant scientist tasked by President Gordon (Lou Gossett Jr. ) to discover why the world seems to be heating up. (Here in 2012, this is still a profound mystery, at least if you believe people like James Inhofe and Louie Gohmert). The culprit turns out to be some sort of sun spots, which have caused the ozone layer to spring a leak. Dacascos is terrible (no surprise there), Gossett cashes his pay check, and the only redeeming factor is the presence of Stephen McHattie, who has the uncanny ability of rendering even the worst Canadian movies watchable - well, as long as he’s on screen.

10:10 AM HBO Signature
The Bengali Detective (2011 USA-GB-IND): One of the most entertaining and unusual documentaries of recent vintage, The Bengali Detective relates the true life misadventures of Rajesh Ji, an overweight P.I. working cases in the back alleys of Kolkata, India. Rajesh specializes in cases the police are too busy to take an interest in: the black market, unfaithful spouses, and so forth. When a triple murder falls into his lap, however, it looks like he might be ready to hit the big time. The Bengali Detective features almost as much song, dance, and melodrama as your average Bollywood epic, but remember - it’s all true!

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