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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 11/20/12

4:40 AM Starz
Chasing Madoff (2010 USA-CAN): Chasing Amy this ain’t. Madoff, of course, is Bernie Madoff, the Ponzi scheme specialist who bilked thousands of Americans out of billions of dollars a few years ago, and is now spending time behind bars in a federal prison. But hey, it’s not all bad news...not only does he find prison life quite amenable (“it's much safer here than walking the streets of New York," he wrote to his daughter), now he even has his own movie! To be fair, though, this is as much a movie about the SEC’s unwillingness for many years to pursue a case against Bernie, and the dogged determination of a fraud investigator named Harry Markopolis, as it is about the king of the pyramid scheme. It’s not often that you can call a documentary taut and exciting, but that’s exactly what Chasing Madoff is. Also airs at 7:40 AM.

6:30 AM Fox Movie Channel
The Terrorists (1975 GB): Sean Connery plays a Scandinavian police officer negotiating his way through a tricky hostage situation in this odd but suspenseful thriller. Originally released as Ransom, the film follows the exploits of by-the-books copper Nils Tahlvik (Connery) after a plane is hijacked by international super-terrorist Ray Petrie (Ian McShane). Filmed on location in Norway and at Shepperton Studios, the film has the strange feel of a dubbed international co-production, but seems to have been shot in English by Finnish expat director Caspar Wrede. Previously seen on television in pan-and-scan, Fox now airs The Terrorists in its original aspect ratio.

Wednesday 11/21/12

3:00 AM Fox Movie Channel
Down to Earth (1932 USA): Will Rogers was a huge star in the 1930s, but this is one of his lesser known outings. The title, of course, reflects Rogers’ personality (or at least the public’s perception of it), and he’s cast here as Pike Peters, a wealthy Oklahoman living high on the hog until the Great Depression starts to catch up with him and his family. It’s a sequel to an earlier film I’ve never seen (1929’s They Had to See Paris) and is reminiscent of another "moneyed family fallen on hard times" comedy, Down to Their Last Yacht (1934).

11:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
Wise Blood (1979 USA): I'm not the biggest fan of this late-period John Huston flick, but I do like me some Flannery O'Connor. Adapted from O’Connor’s novel of the same name, Wise Blood stars Brad Dourif as Hazel Motes, a lad raised in the fire-and-brimstone American South by his fundamentalist grandfather (Huston). After returning from World War II duty, Hazel trades in his Army uniform for pastor's gear and becomes a traveling evangelist, eager to decry the cant and hypocrisy of his fellow man (and his kinfolk) via the newly established Church of Christ Without Christ. Grim, uncompromising, darkly comic, and laden with Southern Gothic imagery, Wise Blood is a hard slog at times and far from your average popcorn flick, but worth a look for Dourif's bravura performance, which, incidentally, I can't help but think informed that of Paul Dano in P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood. Watch Wise Blood tonight and let me know what you think.

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