TiVoPlex
By John Seal
July 26, 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 07/27/04
5:05am Cinemax
Pretty Baby (1978 USA): Condemned on its release as little more than child porn and burdened by the presence of the much-maligned Brooke Shields (who was 13 when Pretty Baby was produced), this is actually an exquisite and serious film from French director Louis Malle, who earlier explored the thin edge between adult and childhood in 1971’s Murmur of the Heart. Shields - who has never been better - plays the pubescent daughter of woman-of-ill repute Susan Sarandon, who decides to sell her offspring for $400 to love-struck photographer Keith Carradine. Written by the former Mrs. Peter Bogdanovich, Polly Platt, this potentially explosive and exploitative subject matter is actually handled with the utmost good taste - Malle keeps his distance and avoids graphic eroticism - and the turn-of-the-20th century New Orleans setting is beautifully, if somewhat gauzily, rendered by cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Featuring Antonio Fargas, Barbara Steele, and Gerrit Graham in the supporting cast, Pretty Baby’s downbeat tale of innocence, love, and lust is lightened by a selection of Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton compositions performed by the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra. Also airs at 8:05am.
5:45am Turner Classic Movies
Grand Slam (1933 USA): The World Series of Poker may be all the rage on ESPN these days, but back in the pre-TV ‘30s, folks had to go the local movie-house to relive the thrills, chills, spills, and excitement of professional-level card playing. Grand Slam stars Paul Lukas and Loretta Young as the Stanislavskys, a couple inadvertently responsible for a new system of playing bridge that promotes marital harmony. When the system starts attracting attention - resulting in a best-selling book on the subject and a national tour promoting it - the strain on husband and wife begins to tell, especially when beauteous Helen Vinson needs some private tutoring from Lukas. An enjoyably fluffy soufflé from reliable director William Dieterle, Grand Slam also features Warner's regulars Glenda Farrell and Ferdinand Gottschalk. If you enjoy the Hedgehog, the Herbert, or the High Gerber, this is your film.
Wednesday 07/28/04
12:05am Sundance
All or Nothing (2002 GB): We could really do with a thorough Mike Leigh retrospective - including early TV films like Nuts in May and Who’s Who, please - but at least we get to see his most recent feature, the kinder, gentler All or Nothing. Starring the always-terrific Timothy Spall as a taxi driver and Leigh regular Lesley Manville as Spall’s wife, the film is another paean to the London working classes that spawned the hirsute director. If you already love Leigh, you’ll love this. If you haven’t seen any of his films, this is as good an introduction as any. After watching this one, go out and rent Naked, Secrets and Lies, High Hopes, and Life is Sweet, and have your own Mike Leigh festival in the comfort of your own grotty tower block.
5:15pm Cinemax
My Little Eye (2002 GB-CAN): I’m not about to claim that this is a great film, but in a genre where expectations run extremely low at best, My Little Eye comes as a pleasant surprise. It’s a shot-in-Canada teen slasher film featuring a cast of no-names (well, no-names to this geriatric old codger at least) playing college kids living in a spooky old house. They’re participants in a Webcast competition to see if they can survive in the house for six months, at the end of which they will split the grand prize of $1 million; not a great deal in this day and age, but sufficient to carry them over until they sell the book and movie rights, I imagine. My Little Eye earns few, if any, points for originality - techno conceits aside, it could have been made any time in the last 20 years - but it does have the courage of its convictions, doesn’t pander to its audience, and manages to remain reasonably suspenseful to the end (including a final shot that will hit many viewers with the force of blunt trauma). And while My Little Eye does rely on considerable suspension of disbelief - after the body count starts climbing, it’s pretty hard to understand why the rest of the kids would stay in the house - it still manages to hold your interest. Even the gratuitous sex scenes don’t seem entirely...well, gratuitous. If you approach this one in the right frame of mind, you might enjoy it. Also airs at 8:15pm, 7/31 at 11pm, and 8/1 at 2am.
Thursday 07/29/04
4am The Movie Channel
The Monster That Challenged the World (1957 USA): Hyperbole aside, the monster is actually a gaggle of unsegmented, calcareous-shelled radioactive creatures who invade California’s Imperial Valley after being set loose by an earthquake in the Salton Sea. Nothing stands between them and the LA basin except former Western star Tim Holt, here cast as a Naval officer with the responsibility of saving Inland Empire residents from having their bones sucked dry by the malign mollusks. He’s aided by simpering love interest Audrey Dalton and scientist Hans Conried, somewhat miscast but a pleasure to watch as always. Will the sneaky snails jump the Southland’s bones, sucking the flesh and marrow from man, woman, and child alike? Or can America’s mighty military (here represented by, oh, half-a-dozen uniformed personnel) lay down sufficient metaldehyde bait to send the slimy intruders scurrying back to the subterranean hell from whence they came? You’ll have to tune in to find out. Also airs at 7am, 11:20am, and 2:20pm.
11pm Turner Classic Movies
Stay Hungry (1976 USA): In a plot reminiscent of this year’s not-terribly-good Ben Stiller comedy, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Jeff Bridges plays Trojan Horse for a group of developers who want to buy up Birmingham, Alabama’s shoddy Olympic Gym so they can redevelop the land it sits on and make millions. Ah, but the syndicate hasn’t considered the power of love, and Bridges is soon head over heels for gym manager Sally Field - he likes her, he really likes her! - and his mission gets forgotten in a welter of torrid love scenes and Mr. Universe competitions featuring gym owner Arnold Schwarzenegger (seen here in his first dramatic role as the oddly-monikered Joe Santo). Playing like a top-of-the-bill double-feature companion to the Gropenator’s Pumping Iron - which came out the same year, and was based on a book by Stay Hungry’s screenwriter, Charles Gaines - this is a very typical, character-driven ‘70s drama that hasn’t been seen on television for quite some time. The interesting supporting cast includes Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund, Fannie "Password" Flagg, Scatman Crothers, Ed Begley Jr., and Joe Spinell.
Friday 07/30/04
12:30pm Turner Classic Movies
Kansas City Bombers (1972 USA): It’s not close to being the best film about the wacky world of roller derby - Claudia Jennings' Unholy Rollers earns that prize - but Kansas City Bomber is getting a very rare wide-screen airing on TCM today. Fans of this once-wildly popular sport should definitely take a look, especially considering the film has long been unavailable - even pan-and-scanned - on home video. Raquel Welch stars as K.C., a star of the derby circuit trying to balance love, life, and her skates all at the same time. With TiVoPlex favorite Kevin McCarthy as Welch’s team owner and love interest and nine-year-old Jodie Foster as her daughter, Kansas City Bomber will rekindle childhood memories for men of a certain age who grew up watching these catfights on the oval track. Torvill and Dean it ain’t.
Sunday 08/01/04
9:30am Sundance
War and Peace (2002 IND): They may be all smiles and cricket bats at the moment, but the threat of war is never too far from the India-Pakistan border. With a two-and-a-half-hour running time, this documentary about the escalating nuclear arms race between these two countries echoes the general lengthiness of Indian film whilst also paying tribute to Tolstoy’s massive novel of the same name. With more and more flashpoints developing worldwide and an American president who prefers starting fires to putting them out, this is a deeply disturbing look at one of the most dangerous and long-standing disputes of the 20th - and now 21st - century. With Pakistan destabilized even further after the recent abortive attempts to uproot the Taliban from the Northwest provinces, this remains a timely and disturbing film.
Monday 08/02/04
4:45am Showtime
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990 GB): Tom Stoppard adapted his own hilarious play for the big screen, but sadly the results are mystifyingly mediocre. Tim Roth and Gary Oldman play the title characters, mentioned in passing in Shakespeare’s Hamlet but here developed into flesh-and-blood players in the intrigue swirling around the Prince of Denmark’s accession to the throne. Maybe the decision to film in Yugoslavia - already falling to bits and on the verge of civil war a decade following the death of Marshall Tito - sucked the enthusiasm out of the English-speaking cast, but neither Roth nor Oldman deliver top performances, and the presence of American comedy star Richard Dreyfuss is an unnecessary distraction. Showtime has a letterboxed print airing this month, however, so if you’re a big fan of either of the film’s leads you might want to give it a look. And whilst the play, of course, remains the thing you really want to see, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will at least give you a taste of Stoppard’s easy, inspired, and intelligent wit. Also airs at 7:30am.
10:30am Sundance
If I Should Fall From Grace (2001 GB): This is an excellent documentary about the troubled life of Shane MacGowan, an Anglo-Irish poet and musician who started out singing in the Nipple Erectors (later the Nips, who recorded the excellent Gabrielle in 1979) before rediscovering his Irish roots in The Pogues. There are tons of lengthy musical performances (including the sublime Fairytale of New York), as well as lots of interviews with MacGowan's parents, his oh-so-forgiving wife, former Radiator From Space Philip Chevron, and the man himself, whose oral fixation on speed, alcohol, and heaven knows what other substances have left him a shell of his former self. The man has no regrets, but his deterioration is obvious when you watch the film, and even those who take a live-and-let-live attitude -including myself - must feel a tinge of regret for the wasted days and nights of this talented and intelligent man.
6pm Showtime
Step Into Liquid (2003 USA): The son of Endless Summer director Bruce Brown, Dana, made his directorial debut with this surfing documentary, and from frame one it’s obvious he’s a chip off the old block. While the film naturally doesn’t have the nostalgic tinge of Bruce’s superb series of 1960s surfing flicks, it maintains the catholic approach of those films, observing and admiring surfers from the Irish Sea to the the shores of Vietnam. The only thing missing is Dad’s always witty and wise narrative observations - offspring Dana’s voiceover is somewhat lacking - but that’s a minor knock on an otherwise enjoyable watery travelogue. Also airs at 9pm.
Print this column
