From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.
Tuesday 07/06/04
1am Fox Movie Channel
A Wedding (1978 USA): Robert Altman’s ensemble comedy about the nuptial ties that bind an old Southern family to an Italian-American family isn’t regarded as one of his best films, but it has a terrific cast and hasn’t been on cable for several years. Fans of Altman will definitely want to take a look, as A Wedding overflows with the writer-director’s trademark misanthropic characters and barbed dialogue. Star spotters may also be interested, though, as few films can boast the presence of (deep breath) Lillian Gish (her 100th film), Carol Burnett, Desi Arnaz Jr., Mia Farrow, Howard Duff, Geraldine Chaplin, Viveca Lindfors, Bert Remsen, Tim Thomerson, Dennis Franz, and Pam "Mindy" Dawber. Unfortunately, Fox doesn’t have a wide-screen print scheduled in July, but with a bit of luck one may surface in the months to come, especially if Fox decides the film is worthy of a DVD upgrade.
8:30am Showtime
Zero to Sixty (1978 USA): Car movies were all the rage in the 1970s. From Cannonball Run to The Car, from Car Wash to Corvette Summer and to Vanishing Points beyond, the genre kicked off by Richard Sarafian’s underappreciated 1971 classic was still going strong in 1978, just in time for it to hook up with America’s hottest comedy commodity, The Hudson Brothers. What? You DON’T REMEMBER THE HUDSON BROTHERS? You’re either suffering from selective amnesia or are under the age of 35, because the Brothers were the talk of the nation when their fill-in summer variety show took off in the wake of their Saturday morning kids' program, The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show (One of them even married Goldie Hawn; hence, Kate Hudson). Zero to Sixty marked the Brothers’ first big-screen appearance, but it didn’t do much business and the boys were soon back to plying their wares on the small screen. Darren McGavin is the real star of the film, playing a repo man hired by term agent Sylvia Miles to repossess his own car, Denise "Violet Beauregard" Nickerson is on hand as his jailbait love interest, and there are brief cameos by TV comics Dick Martin and Lyle Waggoner, B-movie goddess Francine York, and wrestling legend The Great John L., presumably in between bouts with The Iron Sheik or Bruno Sammartino. Anyone who grew up watching too much television in the 1970s will want to take this trip down memory lane, preferably in a totally radical custom hot rod with mag wheels. Also airs at 11:30am.
Wednesday 07/07/04
11:10pm Sundance
Images (1972 GB): It’s an Altman kinda week, I guess. The shot-in-Ireland Images is hardly a typical Altman film, though, as it’s a psychological horror story with only a handful of characters. Starring Susannah York as Cathryn, an author of children’s books on the verge of a nervous breakdown (and identity crisis), Images is reminiscent of Polanski’s Repulsion (1965), and its rural setting vaguely echoes (or is echoed by) other British films of the period, including Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971) and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973). Cathryn is married to busy executive Hugh (Rene Auberjonois, excellent in a rare non-comedy role), and when the two take up residence in a remote farmhouse, things get complicated when old lovers Marcel (Hugh Millais) and Rene (Eurotrash veteran Marcel Bozzuffi) suddenly put in appearances. Marcel even brings his daughter Susannah (Cathryn Harrison, granddaughter of Rex) along on the trip. Featuring stunning cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond and a memorable score by John Williams (yes, that John Williams) in concert with electronica guru Stomu Yamash’ta, Images is one of Altman’s greatest accomplishments and deserves a much wider audience. If you enjoy a mind-bending puzzler à la Antonioni’s Blow-Up, you’ll love this film.
Thursday 07/08/04
3am IFC
Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale (2000 USA): What do you do when you’re a successful painter and amateur anthropologist living in New York City? If you answer to the name of Tobias Schneebaum, the subject of this unusual documentary, you journey to Papua New Guinea and Peru, settle down with a "primitive" local tribe, and partake of a little long pig when good table manners demand it. Schneebaum wrote a book about his adventures in 1969, and 30 years later, filmmakers David Shapiro and Laurie Gwen Shapiro somehow convinced the aged adventurer to return to the Outback, capturing the crotchety but loveable old-timer as he reacquainted himself with old friends and lovers. Schneebaum was much more than a tourist: he plunged wholeheartedly into the lives of those he visited, adopting their cultures lock, stock and barrel, and his memories - as well as those of his long-unseen friends - make this film a unique sociological document.
6pm HBO
Capturing the Friedmans (2003 USA): I missed it in theaters, so I can’t offer any advice regarding the merits of this well-regarded if controversial documentary. It’s making its television debut this evening, however, and I’m anxious to see what all the fuss was about. This Academy Award-nominated film also airs at 9pm and on HBO 2 7/9 at 8:55pm.
11:15pm Turner Classic Movies
Mr. Wu (1927 USA): It isn’t one of his better-known films, and it certainly isn’t politically correct, but Lon Chaney’s Mr. Wu is another fine showcase for The Man of a Thousand Faces’ acting and makeup skills. Chaney plays two characters, the title character (father of co-star Renee Adoree’s character, Nang Ping) and Wu’s grandfather, a wizened old bird with oversized spectacles and a long beard. When love comes calling in the person of rich white boy Ralph Forbes and in the shape of an unwanted bun in the oven, Wu takes dastardly revenge on Forbes and his mother (avuncular Louise Dresser). Whilst no means as successful as earlier Chaney box office smashes such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and Tell It to the Marines (1926), Mr. Wu still managed to gross over a million dollars worldwide. Look for the great Asian-American actress Anna May Wong in a small but important role as one of Wu’s servants.
Friday 07/09/04
4:20am Encore Action
Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (1978 HK): This early Jackie Chan feature is a slight cut above your average paint-by-numbers kung-fu flick, with the destined-for-superstardom Chan consigned to suffer through a fairly stodgy diet of martial-arts maneuvers. On display this time is the snake style, as thwacko Jacko gets promoted from school custodian to martial-arts master by headmaster Siu Tien Yuen, who’s pretty handy with his fists, too. If you’re a fan of the genre you definitely don’t want to miss this, but don’t expect to see Jackie riding a bicycle up a wall or recreating the boulder scene from Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances.
11pm Turner Classic Movies
Le Corbeau (1943 FRA): Fans of the original versions of Diabolique and Wages of Fear should be excited by this rare opportunity to see one of director Henri-Georges Clouzot’s earliest films. It stakes out familiar psychological ground, with the mysterious title character (The Raven) sending threatening letters to various big wigs in a provincial French town. As the townsfolk try to determine the identity of their poison-pen pal, they begin to turn on each other as sordid rumors begin to circulate, all based, of course, on the contents of the libelous letters. Starring Ginette “the most murdered actress in France” LeClerc, this film was actually produced with the help of a German company. As a result, Clouzot was temporarily blacklisted after the war, but the film can hardly be viewed as a collaborationist piece of art, though in the immediate post-war period it was apparently considered unpatriotic. Clouzot may not have been a patriot, but he certainly qualified as a misanthrope, and Le Corbeau fits neatly into his filmography of deceit, deception, and death.
Saturday 07/10/04
2:50am Sundance
Samia (2000 FRA): A mood piece and character study on the plight of the immigrant, Samia is a young Algerian girl who relocates with her family to Marseilles in the south of France. Played with insouciance by teenage actress Lynda Benahouda, she confronts the racism of the French natives on the one hand and the inflexible religiosity of her brother, the intractable Mohamed Chaouch, on the other. At a brief 73 minutes, the film makes its point - that ALL cultures are burdened with inherent prejudices and fears - succinctly and effectively. Also airs 7/12 at 4:15am.
Sunday 07/11/04
12:40am Encore
The Pickle (1993 USA): It’s no Altman film - nor a complete return to form for erratic writer-director Paul Mazursky - but The Pickle didn’t deserve the critical basting it received on its initial release. In a plot not a million miles from that of the Mazursky-starring Big Shot’s Funeral (2001), Danny Aiello plays a down-on-his-luck movie director whose previous three art films have bombed badly. In order to keep working, he’s forced into directing a more commercial project, a film about Kansas teens taking a trip into outer space via a flying cucumber. Will the film-within-a-film gherkin save his career, or simply bring finality to his foundering relationship with wife Dyan Cannon? Whilst THIS Pickle is hardly on a par with other Hollywood satires such as Altman’s The Player (1991) or Chris Guest’s The Big Picture (1989), it has its share of barbed Tinseltown laughs, and features Shelley Winters, Jerry Stiller, Little Richard, Ally Sheedy, Spalding Gray, Griffin Dunne, Stephen Tobolowsky, Dudley Moore, and Donald Trump. Not to mention the Arquette no one has ever heard of before or since, Richmond. Also airs at 3:40am.
9pm Turner Classic Movies
The Patsy (1928 USA): Long overshadowed by King Vidor’s dramatic masterpieces The Big Parade (1925) and The Crowd (also 1928), The Patsy was a rare comedy excursion for the great Texas-born filmmaker. Starring William Randolph Hearst’s favorite actress - the unfairly maligned Marion Davies - as flapper Patricia Harrington and Marie Dressler as her disapproving mother, The Patsy also features the forgotten Jane Winton as her socially-ambitious elder sister and matriarchal favorite. Davies, one of the silent screen’s great comediennes, had played a prominent role in getting Vidor’s controversial Big Parade released, perhaps explaining why the socially-conscious director was interested in making this frothy but delightful comedy. In unrelated news, The Patsy was also the first American feature film to show a toilet, paving the way for the potty humor of Austin Powers and Daddy Day Care. Thanks, King.
Monday 07/12/04
1pm Turner Classic Movies
The Girl Hunters (1963 GB): Apparently sick and tired of limp-wristed pansies like Ralph Meeker and Robert Bray making a mockery of his creation, author Mickey Spillane decided to take the bull by the horns and cast a real man as hard-bitten private dick Mike Hammer: himself. Spillane and director Roy Rowland (5,000 Fingers of Dr. T) took a trip to Britain, where they shot this unusual, though oft-befuddling, mystery feature. Co-starring future Bond girl Shirley Eaton as Hammer’s love interest, the dense story is standard stuff about tracking down a killer, albeit superbly shot in wide-screen by Kenneth Talbot (Born Free, Hands of the Ripper) and featuring a busy, if occasionally wan, jazz score by Philip Green. It’s not going to make you forget Kiss Me Deadly, but it is a unique independent production, and TCM is giving it a very rare letterboxed airing.
6pm Sundance
Yank Tanks (2002 USA): Cuba may be a backwards country run by an megalomaniacal autocrat, but they have the good ol’ US of A beaten in one respect: they have a better fleet of automobiles. Granted, those automobiles were constructed in 1950s Detroit, but still…I’d trade in some of my freedoms for a 1954 Hudson Jet, wouldn’t you? Heck, I’d definitely trade OUR megalomaniac for theirs. This film explores the car culture of our neighbor to the south, where a 30-year-plus trade embargo has resulted in ingenious jury-rigging efforts to keep these classic motors on the road. You can keep your Hollywood eye candy; I’ll take this 60-minute salute to these gorgeous cars of yesteryear.
Print this column
