TiVoPlex
By John Seal
February 7, 2005
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.
Tuesday 02/08/05
5pm Fox Movie Channel
My Bodyguard (1980 USA): Continuing last week’s theme of “movies I haven’t seen since they first came out three decades back”, here’s My Bodyguard, an affable comedy/drama about a nerdy high school student who hires a local goon to protect him from the neighborhood bullies. Written by Alan Ormsby, the man responsible for scripting cult favorite Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, My Bodyguard features Chris Makepeace as the weedy geek, Adam “I’m not related to those other Baldwins” Baldwin as the bodyguard, and an extremely young Matt Dillon as the villain whose threats set the plot in motion. Though the film ends on a predictable note, the first two acts are exemplary, as Makepeace and Baldwin establish the ground rules and eventually learn to like each other. The film gets a wide-screen airing tonight, and boasts a strong supporting cast, including Ruth Gordon, Martin Mull, Joan Cusack, and John Houseman, and also features the first (uncredited) screen appearance of Jennifer Beals.
5pm Flix
The Falcon and the Snowman (1985 USA): Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton star as a pair of childhood chums who cross paths later in life and plot to sell government secrets to the Soviet Union. Hutton is the straight man, a former altar boy and seminarian whose CIA job privileges alert him to the fact that the American government is illegally trying to influence an Australian election. Penn is the goofball, a drug-dealing sleaze who happens to have connections Down Mexico Way which will help his old friend make contact with Soviet diplomats. Directed by suspense specialist John Schlesinger, The Falcon and the Snowman is based on a true story and, in one of those odd examples of programming synchronicity that pop up from time to time in the TiVoPlex, features My Bodyguard’s Chris Makepeace as Penn’s younger brother. It’s a first-rate character study burdened by a regrettable Pat Metheny score (not to mention an awful, Blue Jean-era David Bowie song), and airs this evening in wide-screen.
9pm More Max
Monsieur Ibrahim (2003 FRA) : Aging matinee idol Omar Sharif (Dr. Zhivago) made a late career comeback in this warm and nostalgic character study about a Turkish shopkeeper who befriends a French schoolboy during the 1960s. Monsieur Ibrahim makes its television debut this evening and will delight those who grew up enjoying François Truffaut’s 400 Blows or Louis Malle’s Murmur of the Heart. Though the film is extremely well shot and features impressive location work, there’s no new cinematic or narrative ground broken here; it’s just a satisfying and enjoyable little story with super performances from Sharif and co-lead Pierre Boulanger.
Wednesday 02/09/05
6:30am The Movie Channel
The Way Home (2002 ROK): This remarkable South Korean drama is one of the finest onscreen depictions of childhood you’re likely to see, and its protagonist is one of the least sympathetic of recent years. Seven-year-old Seung-Ho Yu plays a city boy left with his mute country grandmother whilst his unemployed mother tries to find a job back home. The culture clash is quickly and starkly apparent, as the boy discovers he’ll have to walk miles to replace the batteries for his Gameboy. To add insult to injury, his silent grandmother doesn’t know what Kentucky Fried Chicken is and, surely the greatest humiliation of all, he has to use a chamberpot. Yu’s performance is thoroughly believable; the child is impetuous, stubborn, and incredibly selfish, but he has a formidable match in Eul-Boon Kim as Grandma, equally stubborn and much more patient than her young charge. A quiet triumph of minimalist cinema, The Way Home cleaned up at awards ceremonies around the world. Also airs at 9:30am.
Thursday 02/10/05
7:30am Sundance
Motherland: A Genetic Journey (2003 GB): This fascinating documentary takes a look at the genetic legacies of the Atlantic slave trade. Focusing on three Afro-Caribbean residents of London, the film examines a recent study that traced the roots of its subjects back 12 or 13 generations, allowing them to reconnect with the modern-day descendents of their West African ancestors. The same research also produced the astonishing result that over a quarter of all British black men have traces of European ancestry, a shocking testament to the coercive and caustic effects of slavery’s master/slave dynamic. Produced for Britain’s BBC 2, Motherland was awarded the prestigious Prix Europa for television non-fiction in 2003.
11:35am Sundance
The Dream Catcher (1999 USA): What? Lawrence Kasdan’s spectacular 2003 disaster, Dreamcatcher, is making an appearance on America’s favorite art-house channel? Have the folks at Sundance lost their minds, or did they really schedule Kasdan’s craptastic cinematic wet fart, mayhap as part of some misguided Stephen King film fest or Donnie Wahlberg retrospective? Thankfully, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the answer is NO, as this Dream Catcher (two words in the title, not one) is actually a worthwhile indie road movie about two troubled juveniles fleeing Philadelphia for the Golden West, traversing America’s freight yards and super highways whilst meeting an eclectic assortment of fellow travelers along the way. Screenwriter/director Ed Radtke gets good performances from his leads - the otherwise unheralded Maurice Compte and Paddy Connor - and does a nice job of capturing the lay of the land as the two make their trek across the nation. And there’s nary a trip to the bathroom or display of intestinal discomfort in sight. Also airs at 11:25pm.
10:45pm Showtime
Code of Silence (1985 USA): This more-violent-than-usual Chuck Norris feature returned to cable a few months back, and now gets the letterboxed treatment thanks to Showtime. If you’re a Norris fan, this is one of his best films; not quite on a par with Lone Wolf McQuade, but close. Once again he plays an outsider, a Chicago cop hated as much by his fellow officers (including Bert Remsen and Dennis Farina) as by the thugs who run the town (personified by legendary character actor Henry Silva). It’s junk, but high-quality junk, if that makes any sense. Also airs 2/11 at 1:45am.
Friday 02/11/05
12:45am Flix
Up in the Cellar (1970 USA): Here’s a rarity I never expected to see on television. Featuring Larry Hagman and Joan Collins, it’s one of those late-‘60s, so-hip-it-hurts counterculture comedies, this time featuring Wes Stern as a college student out to get revenge on The Man (Hagman) by sleeping with his wife (Collins) and daughter (Nira Barab). It’s not on a par with writer/director Theodore Flicker’s earlier anti-establishment laugher, The President’s Analyst, but is an enjoyable period piece with a lively cast and some attractive location work in Las Cruces, New Mexico. One caveat: Up in the Cellar is scheduled to fill a two hour-and-15 minute time block this morning. The film actually clocks in around the 90-minute mark, so it’s possible this is a mistaken listing.
6pm Showtime
Trekkies 2 (2004 USA): For those who thought 1997’s Trekkies didn’t go far enough, here’s its recent sequel courtesy director Roger Nygard. I haven’t seen Trekkies 2 yet, but Nygard’s first film was great if disturbing fun about folks who like to dress up as Klingons whilst pretending to fire photon torpedoes. The excuse for producing a follow-up feature is that the first film concentrated on Star Trek’s legion of American fans, whereas this one takes a look at the phenomenon around the world, in locations as disparate as the UK, Serbia, Brazil, and the Romulan Empire. Also airs at 9pm.
Saturday 02/12/05
10:45am Showtime 3
Birdy (1984 USA): It no longer plays quite as well as it did when I was an impressionable stripling of 22, but Birdy remains a memorable film about the crippling psychological aftereffects of war and the power of enduring friendship. Nicolas Cage plays a (physically) wounded GI sent to a veterans’ hospital to try and help his shell-shocked compatriot, Matthew Modine, rendered speechless and uncommunicative after his own tour of duty in ‘Nam. Cage’s job is to re-establish contact with Modine’s suppressed human personality, and though the film tends to veer into Hollywood clichés and sentimentality (especially during its flashback sequences), at its heart are the two brilliant performances of its leads, especially Modine’s. Showtime is airing a wide-screen print at the moment, so if you’ve never seen Birdy before, now’s the time.
5pm The Movie Channel
Starship Troopers (1997 USA): Paul Verhoeven’s oft - and perhaps willfully - misinterpreted anti-war and anti-fascist screed returns to the small screen in the letterboxed format this evening. Far from being a forgettable and interchangeable run-of-the-mill sci-fi action romp, Starship Troopers is more relevant today than it was on its initial release, depicting a future of endless war and equally endless appeals to patriotism to keep fighting that war. Of course, you CAN watch this film for the blood, guts and bug innards, in which case you’ll also get your money’s worth, but this is one of the rare films that appeal to bloodthirsty teens and the liberal elite in equal measure, though the latter would be loath to admit it. Also airs at 8pm.
10:15pm Showtime Extreme
Ichi the Killer (2001 JAP): Japanese director Takashi Miike is well known for off kilter movies featuring bizarre situations and unsettling obsessions, but with the pic Ichi the Killer the filmmaker abandons all decorum in an over-the-top and gory take on the gangster lifestyle. The flick's manga-derived plot involves a clan of yakuza (which includes the great Tadonobu Asano) searching for their lost boss while at the same time being pursued by a group of former allies and the eponymous hit man of the title. Along the way come perversions galore, all directed with a nihilistic verve that you'll either take to right away or be completely appalled by throughout. Surely not for the kids or the faint of heart, this one stands out as perhaps the single most extreme example of Miike's violently absurd brand of cinema--and that, my friends, is really saying something. (With thanks to Chris Hyde for this recommendation)
Sunday 02/13/05
12:20am Sundance
Hoover Street Revival (2002 GB): The female member of the acting Fiennes dynasty, Sophie, directed this outsider’s look at South Central Los Angeles’ Greater Bethany Community Church. Fiennes does her best not to intrude into the proceedings, allowing the participants - amongst them Bishop Noel Jones, the brother of disco diva Grace - to relate the truths and realities of their lives in their own fashion. Though pastor and gay icon may seem like two completely disparate occupations, it’s soon clear that the Jones siblings are equally charismatic fruit from the same tree, with brother Noel holding forth like a fire-and-brimstone James Brown. Hoover Street Revival remains steadfastly non-judgmental, which can be frustrating at times, but is an intriguing low-budget look at life and faith in working-class America.
Monday 02/14/05
3am Turner Classic Movies
I Vitelloni (1953 ITA): I’m not a huge Fellini fan, but if you must have Fellini, better his early films such as La Strada (1954) or this semi-autobiographical Academy Award nominee. It features the great Alberto Sordi as one of five middle-class loafers trying - though not very hard - to escape the confines of their stultifying small town existence (The film’s title apparently means “big veal” or “overgrown calves”). The group talk big, making plans to move to Milan or Rome, become famous playwrights and fall in love with beautiful women, but in best slacker tradition never follow through on their plans. Beautifully shot on location on the Adriatic coast, I Vitelloni channels Fellini’s developing eye for the absurd through the lens of neo-realism, and features a typically lush and romantic Nino Rota score.
8:30am Turner Classic Movies
The Ladykillers (1955 GB): Of all the pointless remakes of recent years, surely none was as pointless or as infuriating as the Coen Brothers’ take on this classic Ealing comedy. Now you can become re-acquainted with the unimpeachable genius of the original, which features Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Danny Green, and Cecil Parker as a gang of criminals masquerading as a string quintet whilst plotting a bank robbery. Their foil is landlady Katie Johnson, who guilelessly manages to not only muck up their plot but stays alive throughout repeated attempts on her life by her unappreciative tenants. I hesitate to use the word “perfect” in relation to any film, but this is one film that perhaps earns that sobriquet, especially when contrasted with the remake.
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