TiVoPlex
By John Seal
November 29, 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 11/30/04
3am IFC
Telling Lies in America (1997 USA): Kevin Bacon delivers one of his best performances in this story based on the life of screenwriter Joe Eszterhas. Yes, THAT Joe Eszterhas, but this is no Showgirls or Burn Hollywood Burn. As a child, Eszterhas was a Hungarian immigrant to the United States, where he quickly learned that the easiest way to make friends and influence people was to exaggerate and tell a few whoppers. He’s portrayed in this film by a very young Brad Renfro, who hooks up with Cleveland radio DJ Billy Magic (Bacon, doing his best to channel the spirit of Alan Freed) in time to reap the benefits of a local payola scandal. Also featuring Maximilian Schell and Luke Wilson, Telling Lies in America is Eszterhas’ best writing to date and benefits from a location shoot in the Forest City itself. Also airs at 9am and 4:15pm.
11:45am Black Starz!
Buffalo Soldiers (2003 GB-GER): I’m not quite sure Black Starz! looked much beyond the title of this black comedy before they scheduled it, as Buffalo Soldiers has nothing to do with the famous African-American cavalry units of the post-Civil War era, and everything to do with corruption in the modern American army. That contentious subject matter was enough to get this film shelved for two years in the wake of September 11th, and frankly, it’s a surprise it got released at all. When distributor Good Machine did finally ease this one into theaters, they tried to market it as a wacky comedy, which it isn’t. Starring Joaquin Phoenix as a crafty supply specialist based in Stuttgart, West Germany, during the waning days of the Cold War, the story revolves around his scheme to cook up a vast supply of heroin - using Army supplies and equipment - for sale through the local criminal underground. Phoenix has his commanding officer (Ed Harris, in a fine performance) wrapped around his little finger, enabling him to easily requisition the things he needs to produce the smack. He doesn’t reckon with the local contingency of military police, however, who soon stumble on the plot and demand a cut of the proceeds. Needless to say, this is not respectful to those in uniform and was deemed too unpatriotic for Americans to see in late 2001. It’s still unpatriotic (and a British/German co-production anyway), but remains a very fine film that doesn’t fit comfortably into any genre, though at times it’s certainly reminiscent of productions such as M*A*S*H, Catch-22, and The Ninth Configuration. Highly recommended.
Wednesday 12/01/04
2:20am Starz!
Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time (2001 GER): This remarkable documentary about Scots sculptor Goldsworthy, who creates art out of the detritus of nature, arrives on American screens this morning. His delicate and ephemeral creations - which are made of ice, stone, and sand - are doomed to be undone by the same forces of nature that initially allowed him to sculpt them. Written and directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer, Rivers and Tides won the Best Documentary awards at the German Film Awards and from the San Francisco Film Critics Circle (the film made its American debut at the San Francisco International Film Festival). This is a beautiful and stunning film about creation, destruction, rebirth, and the artistic process. Also airs at 5:20am and 12/4 on Encore True Stories at 8am and 5pm.
4am Sundance
The Hired Hand (1971 USA): By the early 1970s, the combined forces of social and artistic change generated, respectively, by the Vietnam War and by the success of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns had rendered the traditional sagebrush saga obsolete. A rash of American-made “revisionist” Westerns was the result, foremost amongst them this very personal film directed by Peter Fonda after his lengthy post-Easy Rider break. Fonda directed himself as a wanderer who returns home, hoping to settle down with wife Verna Bloom after a lengthy road trip with drinking partner and general hell-raiser Warren Oates. Mirroring the experiences of returning Vietnam vets, Fonda finds readjustment difficult, as he becomes the “hired hand” on his own land, doing penance for abandoning his family seven years earlier. Beautifully shot by Vilmos Zsigmond and memorably scored by Bruce Langhorne, The Hired Hand is finally getting its due (after an ironically lengthy absence) thanks to a restored print that briefly played theaters in 2001. Now reappearing on television and newly available on DVD, this is one you’ll definitely want to make time for. Also airs at 12:30pm.
Thursday 12/02/04
1:45am Encore Mystery
Johnny Allegro (1949 USA): Not to be confused with Johnny Angel, Johnny Belinda, Johnny Cool, Johnny Guitar, or Johnny O’Clock, Johnny Allegro is a retired criminal (George Raft) whose past is about to catch up with him. The newly-reformed Raft, now engaged in the legal business of floristry, is being pursued by a master counterfeiter (George Macready, oily as ever) trying to enmesh him in a new criminal enterprise. This above-average Columbia crime drama also features Nina Foch and Will Geer and was well-shot by director Ted Tetzlaff and cinematographer Joseph Biroc.
9pm Fox Movie Channel
Cinderella Liberty (1973 USA): This is a wide-screen broadcast of this outstanding drama, displaying some of James Caan's finest work in this adaptation of Darryl Ponicsan's novel. Ponicsan also wrote The Last Detail, a superb slice of Navy life that was also adapted for the screen with great success in the same year. I haven't read the source material for this film, but the result is a fine example of character-driven '70s cinema. Caan plays a sailor whose Navy paperwork gets misplaced. As a result, he hangs around portside, meeting and falling in love with single mom and all-around woman-of-ill repute Marsha Mason. Mason is superb in a tough role, and the film has a rough but bittersweet edge that ultimately leads to a happy ending. There’s also a great performance by young Kirk Calloway as Mason’s streetwise child, a boy who projects a tough veneer to conceal an inner core of vulnerability. Calloway went on to appear in 1976’s Monkey Hustle, where he played a similar character to lesser effect.
11:15pm The Movie Channel
Subterano (2003 USA): Without comment, I provide the DirecTV synopsis for this film: "Eleven people become trapped in an underground parking garage with a slew of deadly toys". Sounds like a future Beyond the Slimy Wall article to me. Also airs 12/3 at 2:15am.
Friday 12/03/04
4:05am Black Starz!
Last of the Mississippi Jukes (2001 USA): This is more than the serviceable-if-slight documentary about down-home rhythm and blues that I was anticipating. Focusing on the Subway Lounge in Jackson, Mississippi, the film broadens its horizons to include the phenomenon of roadside juke joints throughout the Deep South, as well as touching on the civil rights movement, segregation and redlining. The music is better than I hoped for and includes a sublime performance by Chris Thomas King (Tommy Johnson in O Brother, Where Art Thou?) and a tear-the-roof-off-the-sucker appearance by Patrice Monsell. Essential viewing for fans of roots music and Southern culture in general.
11pm Turner Classic Movies
Ossessione (1942 ITA): I’m not much of a fan of the over-mannered and long-winded Luchino Visconti, but before his storytelling powers atrophied he was actually close to the forefront of the neo-realist movement, the style that put Italian films on the cinematic front burner in the years immediately following World War II. Ossessione was Visconti’s first film, an uncredited adaptation of James Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, and like most of the director’s work, doesn’t cheat on running time, clocking in at a generous 142 minutes. It’s followed on Saturday morning at 1:30am by the definitive Hollywood version from 1946, starring John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, and Lana "Sweater Girl" Turner in the lead roles. Compare and contrast the two films. Your essay is due on my desk Monday morning.
Saturday 12/04/04
10:30am HBO
Terror in Moscow (2003 USA): Detailing the October 2002 seizure of 700 Russian citizens by three dozen Chechen rebels in a theater in the heart of Moscow, this film will probably be the closest we’ll get to the truth of what happened over the course of the three-day siege that followed. Featuring footage shot by a theater stagehand, a Chechen soldier, and television reporters stationed outside the theater, Terror in Moscow ends, of course, with the building’s inundation with poison gas, followed by its storming by Russian special forces. The result - the deaths of over 100 hostages and execution of all 41 Chechen insurgents - has done little to address the root cause of the tragedy, the still-ongoing war for Chechen autonomy.
7pm Cinemax
Big Fish (2003 USA): Big Fish’s major studio credentials and box office success don’t really qualify it as a TiVoPlex film, but few films last year divided the BOP staff as much as Tim Burton’s weepy paean to an inveterate liar, the Joycean Ed Bloom (Albert Finney). The ailing Bloom has spent his life telling tall tales that drive his family to distraction, particularly son Wil (Billy Crudup), who just wants his dad to come clean and tell the truth about his life before he pops his clogs. I fall firmly into the pro camp for Big Fish and consider it the most moving Tim Burton film since Edward Scissorhands. Filled with marvelous and memorable fantasy sequences, it’s making its television debut this evening and re-airs at 10pm and throughout the month of December. Be sure to have a full box of Kleenex available.
Sunday 12/05/04
3am Encore True Stories
The Parson and the Outlaw (1957 USA): This is not a good film, but there are some interesting names attached to it, making it worthy of TiVoPlex attention. Produced by (and featuring) Mr. Mary Pickford, silent film star Buddy Rogers, the film purports to faithfully recreate one of Billy the Kid’s crimes, but is actually no more accurate than any other Hollywood take on the William Bonney legend. Long-time character actor Anthony Dexter (The Phantom Planet, Saturday Night in Apple Valley) plays Billy this time around. He’s on the trail of villain Jack Slade, played by Boston Brahmin and Hollywood troublemaker Sonny Tufts (Cat Women of the Moon). Also on hand is bad girl Marie Windsor as a hot-blooded Mexican woman (in real life, Windsor was actually a rock-ribbed Republican) and Ed Wood stalwart Kenne Duncan. With bloodlines like that, you know this is a film worth checking out.
10:45pm Turner Classic Movies
Number Seventeen (1932 GB): This relatively obscure Hitchcock feature returns to television this evening. It’s by no means Hitch’s best - not even close - but like all early examples of his work, worth a look, if only to sift out early hints of his developing style. The last of Hitchcock’s British International productions (he moved on to the more up-market Gaumont the following year), Number Seventeen is a crime drama set primarily in an old dark house where a gang of thieves are plotting escape after pulling off a big heist. They haven’t reckoned, of course, on a resourceful detective (John Stuart, whose career ended with a brief appearance in 1978’s Superman) being on their trail, and the film climaxes with an interesting, if primitively shot, car chase. Co-written by Hitch and his wife, Alma Reville, Number Seventeen provides glimpses of the prodigious talent about to burst forth with 1934’s The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Monday 12/06/04
2am Black Starz!
Fighting Black Kings (1976 USA): This week’s speculative pick is an incredibly obscure martial-arts documentary about fighters training for a big karate tournament in the 1970s. Not sure what to expect from this one, but you won’t want to miss it, especially considering it features the legendary Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr./Don King grudge match.
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