TiVoPlex
By John Seal
May 25, 2004
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.
Tuesday 05/25/04
1pm IFC
Silent Tongue (1994 USA-GB-FRA-HOL): Silent Tongue looks and feels like a great lost ‘60s spaghetti oater crossed with a Japanese ghost story. The late Richard Harris is excellent (and restrained!) as the father of River Phoenix, who is haunted by the less-than-ethereal remains of his late wife, a half-breed purchased from traveling huckster Alan Bates (over-the-top but enjoyable!). Give playwright Sam Shepard his props for some outstanding direction; this man understands how to frame a shot better than 90% of the Hollywood hacks currently making big-budget crapola. Strongly recommended, especially as IFC is airing it wide-screen. Also airs 5/26 at 5:15am and 10am.
3pm Showtime 2
The Explosive Generation (1961 USA): Daring for its time, The Explosive Generation rails against parental hypocrisy when the taboo subject of sexuality arises in our public schools. Social studies teacher Peter Gifford (William Shatner, in one of his best performances) inadvertently begins a discussion of the birds and the bees in his high school classroom, realizing that his students have legitimate questions that mom and pop are too uncomfortable to answer. When he has the kids fill out questionnaires regarding the dos and don’ts of teenage courtship, angry parents rise in rebellion and try to get Shatner fired by principal Edward Platt, a go-along-to-get-along guy who soon caves in to the pressure. Of course, Shatner’s beloved students soon come to the rescue, leading the school in the kind of civil disobedience tactics which would soon become de rigueur on campuses around America. Gently pushing the envelope whilst carefully tiptoeing around some of the stickier questions, The Explosive Generation is a mild-mannered but prescient precursor of the generational conflicts about to burst wide open.
Wednesday 05/26/04
Midnight Showtime
Thief (1981 USA): Here’s a very rare letterboxed airing of this enjoyable James Caan/Tuesday Weld crime drama. Caan stars as a safecracker trying to go straight…but of course, only after pulling off a few last jobs to provide himself and his family with some financial security. Caan is, not suprisingly, excellent, and Michael Mann’s screenplay is gritty and reasonably intelligent. The first studio film from director Mann, Thief also features Willie Nelson, James Belushi, and Dennis Farina in supporting roles, as well as a droning Tangerine Dream score not a million miles from the one Mann used in his next film, the unusual but not entirely successful Nazi horror epic The Keep (1983). Also airs at 3am.
2pm Flix
Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988 USA): I’m not quite sure I can adequately explain why I like this film, but if you’re scared of clowns - or, like me, just don’t care for them - Killer Klowns is an effective comedy chiller. It doesn’t hurt to have a ridiculously catchy theme song by Los Angeles comedy punks The Dickies, whom I saw perform in full Halloween regalia one October evening in 1979 (Also on the bill were the even better LA band, The Weirdos, but that’s another story). At any rate, these Klowns are grotesque space aliens out to subdue Anytown USA and suck the life force from their kidnapped and cotton candy-cocooned victims. The tongue-in-cheek screenplay still provides viewers with a few spooky frissons, the cast (including low-budget stalwarts such as John Vernon and Royal Dano) are clearly having fun, and the big tent spaceship is not to be missed.
Thursday 05/27/04
7pm Fox Movie Channel
A Hatful of Rain (1957 USA): By the late ‘50s, mainstream Hollywood tentatively stopped tiptoeing around the realities of drug abuse. The burgeoning social problem, once confined to traveling road shows and B pictures, had graduated to the A list with 1955’s Nelson Algren screen adaptation, The Man with the Golden Arm. A Hatful of Rain, whilst not quite as brutal as its predecessor, is nonetheless a worthy and serious look at heroin addiction, featuring Don Murray as a young, disabled Army vet who can’t get the monkey off his back after being discharged from hospital. Supported by his family - including wife Eva Marie Saint and brother Tony Franciosa - Murray struggles to get control of his addiction, only to lose every time. Filled with wonderful location footage of New York City, and featuring an appearance by TiVoPlex favorite William Hickey, this is a prime example of the “problem pictures” of the period, right down to the downbeat but realistic finale.
6pm Sundance
Whole (2003 USA): We’re through the looking glass here, people. If the previously recommended American Eunuchs wasn’t enough for you, here’s something in a similar vein - a documentary about folks who voluntarily have entire limbs hacked off. The overwhelming desire to have appendages surgically removed, apparently a psychological condition known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder, is discussed in this film by men who have already undergone such unnecessary operations, as well as others who fantasize about getting legless without the benefit of hard liquor. Next week, a film about those who can’t wait to get a frontal lobotomy…Whole also airs 5/29 at 11:15pm.
Friday 05/28/04
3:30am Turner Classic Movies
The Dragon Murder Case(1934 USA): Here’s one of Warner's enjoyable Philo Vance mysteries, this time revolving around a murder at a late-night pool party. Warren William stars as the dapper private investigator, called in to figure out who drowned the unpopular victim, a wealthy socialite played by George Meeker. Of course, there are plenty of suspects, including stolid Lyle Talbot, and the ineffectual police are on the job too, in the person of gravel-voiced Eugene Pallette. A thoroughly enjoyable and surprisingly well-shot entry in the series, the Dragon Murder Case tosses in an ancient curse to serve as a red herring and further muddy the investigative waters.
7pm Turner Classic Movies
Saboteur (1942 USA): One of the best Alfred Hitchcock films most folks haven’t seen, Saboteur stars Robert Cummings as an armaments worker falsely accused of setting fire to his aircraft factory on behalf of the Third Reich. The real villain, however, is shifty-eyed Norman Lloyd, who ends up wrestling with Cummings atop the Statue of Liberty in one of Hitchcock’s most impressive set pieces. Before Saboteur reaches its thrilling finale, the two protagonists engage in a cross-country cat-and-mouse chase that takes them from the remote California ranch of co-conspirator Otto Kruger to a well-heeled Manhattan soirée. Priscilla Lane is the attractive but rather dull love interest, and the film also features Ian Wolfe, Hans Conreid, and Milton Kibbee.
Saturday 05/29/04
1:15am Turner Classic Movies
This Man’s Navy (1945 USA): I must admit, I’ve never seen this MGM war drama, nor had I heard of it before spying it on the schedule for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. But how many films are there about Navy airships? Besides this one, probably not too many, so I’m going to give it a qualified recommendation. Directed by William Wellman, the film stars Wallace Beery as a lovelorn sailor and apparently features a whole lot of real, honest-to-goodness dirigible footage. The film also features Beery’s brother Noah, longtime character actor James Gleason, and an uncredited performance by Blake Edwards as a blimp flyboy. Anchors aweigh!
9:50pm Encore True Stories
Otomo (2000 GER): Otomo plays a lot like a typical liberal Hollywood exposition on racism, until one realizes that it's based on the true-life case of an Ivoirian immigrant in Germany whose death came at the hands of overzealous police officers. The title role is brilliantly realized by Isaach De Bankole, also outstanding as the ice-cream seller of Jim Jarmusch's masterful Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999). De Bankole brings the perfect balance of empathy and mystery to his character, a man forced to try to survive by any means necessary, and the film features a surprising denouement that will defy the expectations of most viewers.
Sunday 05/30/04
6:30pm Sundance
At Five in the Afternoon (2003 IRA): I recommended this film a week or two back, but didn’t rave about it sufficiently, so please bear with me whilst I shower more praise upon this deceptively slight story of a young Afghani woman who aspires to her nation’s presidency. Hey, better her than the CIA’s man in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, though Karzai does get a name check in the film when poet Razi Mohebi announces to heroine Agheleh Rezaie that he has the transcription of a recent presidential speech available for her perusal. The strength of this film is not in arcane discussions of politics, however, but in its stunning and beautiful depiction of life in a wartorn and poverty-stricken country still in thrall to fundamentalist Islam (brilliantly personified by Abdolgani Yousefrazi as Rezaie’s father). There are scenes here that will move you to tears, make you smile, and even make you hope - if only fleetingly - that there might be a brighter future for Afghanistan. In addition to At Five in the Afternoon’s story of an ambitious young woman, director Samira Makhmalbhaf - the queen of veiled film symbolism - also comments on the stultifying rule of the Iranian mullahs, who have recently put the kibosh on father Mohsen’s newest film, Amnesia, by denying him permission to film it in his home country. Perhaps he can shoot it in Afghanistan instead.
Monday 05/31/04
3am Turner Classic Movies
The Hill (1965 GB): In between all the flagwavers and guts-and-glory war pictures comes The Hill, a decidedly odd choice for Memorial Day programming. It’s one of the most grueling war stories you’ll ever see, and it doesn’t even take place on a battlefield. Set in a prison camp in the Libyan desert for disobedient, recalcitrant or otherwise uncooperative British soldiers, The Hill is one of director Sidney Lumet’s greatest films and is in desperate need of a DVD restoration and reissue. Ian Hendry plays a brutal martinet who keeps his charges in line the old-fashioned way: he abuses them. Camp commandant Harry Andrews is more than willing to overlook the physical and mental torture of the inmates, but the kindly Sergeant Harris - played by Ian Bannen - takes issue with Hendry’s program of punishment. Sean Connery is the troublemaking ringleader of the prisoners, refusing to be cowed by the prospect of lugging sacks of sand up and down a hill in the middle of the prison yard (hence the film’s title), and he shares a cell with the simpering Roy Kinnear, the mentally-deranged Ossie Davis, and others. Michael Redgrave is also on hand as an ineffectual medical officer. Based on a play by Ray Rigby, who spent a considerable amount of World War II in detention himself, and shot by Oswald Morris, this is an unforgettable tale of military injustice that is as powerful in its own way as Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957 USA), and a timely reminder that absolute power corrupts absolutely, whether in World War II Libya or Abu Ghraib circa 2003.
6pm Sundance
Catching Out (2002 USA): I’ve long since been inured to the sight of homeless people on the city streets of America and Britain, but the idea that there are still hobos hopping freight trains came as quite a shock for me. This documentary takes a look at this phenomenon and includes interviews with several contemporary rail-riders, including one who - naturally - is a Berkeley dropout. Director Sarah George hit the rails herself to make this film, which took five years and 10,000 miles to complete, and it’s a truly remarkable look at wanderlust-stricken New Age travellers, some of whom don’t even listen to The Levellers or keep dogs on string.
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