TiVoPlex
By John Seal
July 20, 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 07/20/04
Noon Turner Classic Movies
So Well Remembered (1947 GB): This substantial and moving British drama stars John Mills as a crusading newspaper man trying to improve life for the residents of his childhood home, the suitably rundown, fictional Lancashire mill town of Browdley. Directed by Edward Dmytryk shortly prior to his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee (and subsequent induction into the Hollywood Ten) and adapted from a novel by James Hilton (who also provides the somewhat stilted narration), So Well Remembered also features Trevor Howard as a sympathetic doctor. Appearing uncredited are Mills’ young daughters, five-year-old Juliet (Nanny and the Professor) and one-year-old future-child star Hayley. Expertly shot on location in Macclesfield by the great Freddie Young, the film is a distinctly British echo of the social conscience displayed in many of Dmytryk’s American features.
5pm Encore Westerns
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970 USA): I’ve never been a big fan of director Sam Peckinpah, but I have a soft spot for this comedy-western featuring Jason Robards as an Old West entrepreneur whose stagecoach-reliant watering hole is threatened by the advent of the automobile. Puzzlingly still unavailable on DVD, this is a gentler Peckinpah film than usual, even featuring some female characters, only some of whom are prostitutes. Co-starring David Warner and Stella Stevens (she has a heart of gold, you know), the film also features Peckinpah regulars Strother Martin, Slim Pickens, and L. Q. Jones. What, no Jack Elam? Look for Jerry Lewis’ nemesis Kathleen Freeman as a merciless harridan, the other sort of woman Peckinpah was comfortable with. Also airs 7/24 at 9pm and 7/25 at 9:05am.
Wednesday 07/21/04
12:30am Turner Classic Movies
Salt of the Earth (1954 USA): One of the ten greatest American films, Salt of the Earth was made by blacklisted Herbert J. Biberman during his exile from Hollywood. Filmed in New Mexico and funded by the contributions of the Hollywood Ten and others, this rare example of American neo-realism deals with a strike in the zinc mines of the Southwestern United States. The film is beautiful to look at, righteous in its indignation, and utterly unique. Soft-hearted leftie Will Geer is the only recognizable name in the cast, essaying one of his antithetical villain roles, but the star of the film is Rosaura Revueltas, a Mexican film star hounded out of her own country by another anti-Communist witch-hunt. Revueltas' performance is stunning. This film changed the way people looked at cinema and paved the way for a new era of political consciousness on film.
6pm Sundance
The Navigators (2001 GB): Ken Loach’s sympathetic portrayal of British Rail workers trying to cope with privatization makes its American television debut this evening. The film was written by Rob Dawber, a rail worker who died from work-related cancer before the film was released, and features a typical Loach cast of non- and semi-professional actors. Set in Yorkshire, it’s an episodic but satisfying entry in the Loach filmography and explores the personal and social devestation caused by two decades of Thatcherite economic shock therapy. Filled with warm characters, good humor, bitter tragedy, and bucket loads of social injustice, The Navigators was shot by Loach’s regular DP, Barry Ackroyd. In the post-privatization 21st century of frayed infrastructure, late and canceled train service, and fatal rail accidents, we can only hope that Britain’s timid Labor government does the sensible thing and renationalizes Brit Rail, and last week’s moves by Transport Secretary Alistair Darling are a small step in the right direction. Also airs 7/22 at 8pm and 7/25 at 7:30am.
Thursday 07/22/04
1:10am Cinemax
The Cuckoo (2002 RUS): Most weeks I feature a speculative pick, a film I missed during its one-week run at the local art-house or single-date appearance at PFA or the San Francisco International Film Festival. More often than not, these picks aren’t in English and come from abroad, and sometimes they turn out to be neither entertaining nor interesting. They’re simply small indicators of the ever-burgeoning power of cinema to reach into the furthest corners of the globe, allowing us all to take a peak at the lives, concerns, and emotions of people very different (yet oh so similar) to those of us in the First World. The Cuckoo comes from Russia, and since the fall of the Soviet Union, it’s been a long, hard slog for that nation’s film industry, still suffering through a lengthy post-Mosfilm malaise. Here’s a hint of a minor resurgence in Russian cinema that actually DID play in American cinemas (I remember seeing the trailer), a No Man’s Land-style fable about two soldiers - one Finnish, one Soviet - trying to escape the Eastern front meat-grinder in 1944. And speaking of the San Francisco International Film Festival, The Cuckoo took home that fest’s Audience Award in 2003. Also airs at 4:10am.
11:30pm HBO
Capturing the Friedmans (2003 USA): I know I was amongst the last bipedal hominids on the planet to see this film, but just in case you’ve been living in a neighboring cave, here’s a very strong thumb’s up for this truly remarkable documentary. If you’re skittish about child pornography and pedophilia, you’re best advised to give it a miss, but Capturing the Friedmans is stunning documentation of an upper middle-class family coming apart at the seams (Luckily for us, the Friedmans were rabid home movie fans, and filmed everything, including family squabbles). Alerted to computer professor and former Latin bandleader Arnold Friedman’s penchant for ordering "special" magazines through the mails, the local vice squad turned the case into a headline-hogging story of rampant child sexual abuse by Friedman and his son, Jesse. Based on the apparently coerced interrogations of Friedman’s pre-pubescent computer pupils, the film discusses the national hysteria surrounding this issue in the 1980s, but doesn’t shy away from the truth: Friedman DID purchase child porn from Holland, and he DID admit to being attracted to young boys. Friedman also admitted to acting on those impulses in years past, but the lack of physical evidence in this case and the cockeyed accusations levied against him by some Long Island youngsters hardly ensured a clear-cut conviction. Featuring fascinating interviews with Jesse, troubled elder son David (America’s favorite party clown!), and embittered wife Elaine, this film raises as many questions as it answers. Also airs 7/23 at 2:30am, 7/25 at 10:30pm, and 7/26 at 1:30am.
Saturday 07/24/04
8:35pm HBO Family
The Frisco Kid (1979 USA): Ah, the venerable Jewish western. This thoroughly amusing (and still unavailable on DVD) buddy movie features Gene Wilder as a Polish rabbi en route to his new synagogue out West. Along the way his Torah is stolen, and he hooks up with reluctant outlaw-with-a-heart-of-gold Harrison Ford, who helps him maneuver his way through inhospitable territory, recalcitrant villains and uncooperative Native Americans on his way to San Francisco, a city Wilder’s character believes to be “somewhere near New York”. Director Robert Aldrich’s penultimate film, The Frisco Kid successfully blends action and comedy elements and features cinema villain William Smith, Vincent Schiavelli (whose single line is perhaps the film’s funniest), and Hollywood old-timer Ian Wolfe in supporting roles. It’s not quite Blazing Saddles, but it has its moments, including a hilarious dance sequence featuring Wilder and a tribe of Indians.
11pm Turner Classic Movies
The Stranger (1946 USA): Orson Welles’ vast body of work is burdened by the massive shadow cast by Citizen Kane (which airs on TCM today at 5pm). The Stranger is one of his very best films not featuring Charles Foster Kane, was the only American Welles’ film to turn a profit on release, and deserves a much wider contemporary audience. Welles plays Dr. Charles Rankin, a recently-hired professor at an exclusive boy’s school. He’s well-loved by both his students and the local community, but unfortunately Dr. Rankin has a dark secret: he’s an escaped Nazi war criminal called Franz Kindler, who’s being pursued by Edward G. Robinson (fresh off the trail of Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity), an investigator for the Allied War Crimes Commission. Welles’ acting brilliance shines through as he makes his characters and his audience empathize with his repulsive character; perhaps only Joseph Cotton in Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943) carried off the same task with as much aplomb. A wonderful piece of work, and an unusual one from Howard Hughes’ RKO.
Sunday 07/25/04
2:35am More Max
Night of the Creeps (1986 USA): Or, as I prefer to call it, That Slug Movie. Not to be confused with the wonderfully titled Spanish slug movie, Slugs, Muerte Viscosa (1988), Night of the Creeps has long been one of my favorite guilty pleasures, a rare horror parody that works both as a comedy and as a fright flick. A cross between Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Revenge of the Nerds, it stars Jason Lively and Steve Marshall as college buddies who get mixed up with fraternity high-jinks, laboratory corpses, and space aliens that enter the human body through oral cavities (At least they avoid the other orifice, left untouched by Hollywood until 2003’s memorable-for-all-the-wrong reasons Dreamcatcher). With characters named Romero, Raimi, Hooper, Cronenberg, and Landis, you know this is going to be one for the fans, and it doesn’t disappoint. Just don’t sleep with your mouth open after watching it.
1:15pm Showtime Extreme
Lone Wolf McQuade (1983 USA): You know things are changing when even a Chuck Norris picture gets the letterboxed treatment on cable. In all fairness to Norris, this is actually one of his best pictures, benefiting from terrific cinematography and a wonderful spaghetti western-style score by the great Francesco de Masi. I’d go so far as to say the film would be no better than most Norris films WITHOUT de Masi’s score, which meshes perfectly with the arid landscapes on display in this tale of a rogue Texas Ranger (guess who?) out to stop dastardly gun smugglers from supplying unnamed Central American "terrorists" with weaponry. Questionable politics aside, this is a most enjoyable action movie with a fine supporting cast, including David Carradine as a black-belted villain, L.Q. Jones as Norris’ sidekick, and Daniel Frishman (coincidentally, also in Night of the Creeps) as a wheelchair-bound baddie. Did I mention it’s letterboxed?
Monday 07/26/04
1:15am Showtime
The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984 USA): Also getting dusted off for the wide-screen treatment is Stuart Rosenberg’s tale of two two-bit criminals (Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke) who get in over their heads in Little Italy. I’ve always been a fan of both actors - if you haven’t seen Rourke in Volker Schlondorff’s Barfly (1987), run out and rent it - but they never really became bona fide stars, instead making careers out of straight-to-video and straight-to-cable quickies. In 1984, though, they were still at the top of their respective games, and are outstanding as Paulie and Charlie, clueless mugs who end up stealing Mob money intended to grease palms at the local police precinct. A sterling supporting cast, including Geraldine Page (nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award), Burt Young, M. Emmet Walsh, and Daryl Hannah, and good location photography offset Dave Grusin’s inappropriate score. Oh, and check out Roberts in Star 80. What a slimeball.
9am Sundance
Detained (2001 ISR): This Israeli documentary takes a look at the fraught relationship between Israel and Palestine, viewed through the prism of three Arab women residing in a "divided" building in the West Bank city of Hebron. Believe it or not, the front entrance of the building is controlled by Israel, but the back door falls under the jurisprudence of the Palestinian Authority. Living with their 11 children in apartments constantly patrolled by heavily-armed Israeli soldiers, the women - all widows - describe the hardships of life during undeclared wartime. Directors Anat Even and Ada Ushpiz sum the situation up much better than can I: “As Israeli women directors, tired of the cumulative effects of oppression in the occupied territories in our own society, we wished to present the arbitrariness of the occupation as seen via the barred windows of an occupied house, in order to show the thin line between a smile and a gunshot.”
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