TiVoPlex
By John Seal
March 28, 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 03/29/05
2:20am Cinemax
The Yakuza (1975 USA): Robert Mitchum stars in this first rate Sydney Pollack-directed drama about Harry Kilmer, an aging American vet who returns to Japan to help free the daughter of an old friend (Brian Keith) from the clutches of organized crime. He also has time to rekindle a long latent post-war romance and is reunited with an old army pal (Herb Edelman) who has spent his post-war years teaching school. Long time TiVoPlex readers know I’m a great admirer of Paul Schrader’s work, and this - his first filmed screenplay - is no exception to the rule. Co-written with his brother Leonard, Schrader’s script is intelligent, respectful of Japanese culture, and most importantly completely riveting, providing Mitchum with one of the most intriguing characters of his long and illustrious career. The film doesn’t skimp in the blood and guts department either, and action fans will be satisfied by a generous body count. Briefly available on laserdisc in its correct 2.35:1 aspect ratio, The Yakuza is unfortunately airing in full-frame this morning, and is long overdue for a DVD overhaul. Also airs at 5:20am.
10:30am Sundance
Catching Out (2002 USA): I’ve long been inured to the sight of homeless people on the city streets of America and Britain, but the news that there are still hobos hopping freight trains came as quite a surprise to me. This documentary takes a look at this phenomenon and includes interviews with several contemporary rail-riders, including one who - naturally - is a Berkeley dropout. Director Sarah George hit the rails herself to make this film, which took five years and 10,000 miles to complete, and it’s a truly remarkable look at wanderlust-stricken New Age travellers, some of whom don’t even listen to The Levellers or keep dogs on string. Also airs 3/30 at 2:10am.
Wednesday 03/30/05
9:15am Turner Classic Movies
The Man I Love (1946 USA): This Raoul Walsh feature apparently provided the template for Martin Scorsese’s New York New York (1977), but don’t hold that against it. Though not one of Walsh’s best pictures, The Man I Love is certainly superior to Scorcese’s mushy melange of music and history. Ida Lupino plays Petey, a nightclub singer smitten with San Thomas, a down at heel jazz pianist portrayed by former Tarzan Bruce Bennett. Bennett (who celebrates his 99th birthday on May 19th!) is no Robert de Niro, but neither is Lupino a Liza Minnelli, and on balance the film works better than its bloated offspring. Featuring a nasty turn by Robert Alda as sleazy club owner Nicky Toresca and some excellent Sid Hickox cinematography, The Man I Love is a pleasant if insubstantial Warner’s’ soap opera.
Thursday 03/31/05
3:30am IFC
I Was A Teenage Zombie (1987 USA): Is IFC’s Web site telling the truth this time? Recently the AMC/Bravo sister station has had a run of maddeningly unreliable information online, with some films listed to air at incorrect times and others not airing at all. This title is supposedly being broadcast as part of the channel’s inconsistent but intriguing ‘Pulp Indies’ series, and was the one and only feature of director John Elias Michalakis, who (according to IMDb, at least) promptly traded his camera for a cowl and became a monk after production of his magnum opus came to an end. An unattributed comedy remake of Toxic Zombies (1980) that also owes a debt to the oeuvres of AIP and Troma Studios, I Was A Teenage Zombie is a low rent horror comedy featuring undead reanimated by industrial sludge emanating from a nuclear power plant. Paging Beyond the Slimy Wall!
Friday 04/01/05
4:30am Turner Classic Movies
Pack Up Your Troubles (1932 USA): You couldn’t escape Laurel and Hardy when I was growing up: their films were in heavy rotation on television, their posters adorned the walls of college dormitories, and their short subjects provided an endless backdrop at pizza parlor birthday parties nationwide as they noisily spooled their way through countless 8 millimeter projectors. Times have of course changed, and the ubiquitous pop culture presence of the two comics has long since scattered to the four winds, leaving contemporary American youth decidedly unfamiliar with their unique comic stylings. Today, however, that’s all going to change, and I suggest parents keep their children home from school, chain them to the sofa, and provide them with some REAL education courtesy Messrs Laurel and Hardy. Kicking off this morning with Pack Up Your Troubles, the boys’ salute to the doughboys of World War I, TCM has an all day L & H festival on hand, and fans may want to invest in a new DVD recorder with a larger hard drive so as not to miss any of the eighteen and a half hours of Stan and Ollie on tap. Some of the highlights include many of the comedy duo’s most beloved features, including the hilarious Sons of the Desert at 6:15pm, as well as a healthy assortment of three-reelers, including 1932’s Oscar winner for Best Comedy Short Subject, The Music Box, at 7:30pm. (Sadly, none of their silent classics are scheduled, and their incredibly rare Spanish language productions, which last aired during anAMC film preservation festival years ago, also remain in limbo.) Most of these films aren’t on DVD and many of them are now hard to find on good ol’ videocassette, so that 160-gigabyte drive really will come in handy today.
9am The Movie Channel
Cutter’s Way (1981 USA): The perennially underappreciated Jeff Bridges stars in this thriller about two friends trying to bring a murderer to justice. Bridges plays the unfortunately named Richard Bone, a gigolo who witnesses the alleyway disposal of a body one evening. He’s not inclined to do much about it, but his alcoholic buddy Cutter (the equally overlooked John Heard) sees the possibility of redemption and becomes obsessed with tracking down the killer. Directed by Ivan Passer, whose excellent Born to Win (1971) also focussed on morally compromised characters with addictive behavior patterns, Cutter’s Way was a box office flop on release but is slowly gaining recognition as a minor classic, and makes its wide-screen television debut this morning. Also of note is Jack Nitzsche’s excellent score, which lends the idyllic Southern California setting a discordant and spooky atmosphere. Also airs at noon.
Saturday 04/02/05
1am Turner Classic Movies
Forever Ealing (2002 GB): This brief BBC documentary details the history of Britain’s Ealing Studios, founded in 1902 and still in business a century later. Of course, Ealing’s heyday came during the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, when they put together a remarkable run of comedy hits, including Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Ladykillers, and The Lavender Hill Mob. Featuring narration by Daniel Day-Lewis and interviews with Richard Attenborough, Sir John Mills, and Googie Withers, Forever Ealing also includes a glimpse of the beloved George Formby, a Lancashire born film star, musician and comedian who never got much exposure in the United States.
2:30pm Sundance
Sex In A Cold Climate (1998 GB): Four Irish women who spent their early years in institutes for wayward girls were interviewed for this film, which opened the eyes of actor-director Peter Mullan and inspired his superb 2002 dramatization The Magdalene Sisters. Produced for Britain’s Channel 4, Sex In A Cold Climate basically broke the story of these church-operated ‘reformatories’, the last of which didn’t close until (wait for it) 1996. Sent to toil unpaid as laundresses, over 10,000 Irish girls and young women spent time behind the walls of these former asylums, where they were mistreated, abused, and pilloried without legal recourse. Director Steve Humphries was unable to find women in Ireland willing to discuss this taboo topic, but found four expatriates residing in the United Kingdom who were willing to open up, and the result is one of the most gut-wrenching documentaries you’re ever likely to see.
5:25pm IFC
Piranha (1978 USA): With acknowledgement of the IFC caveat referenced above, one of BOP’s favorite cult films returns to the small screen this afternoon. Directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins, Matinee), this tongue-in-cheek tale of flesh eating piranhas who meet up with unsuspecting vacationers was co-written by John Sayles(!) and has a great cast: Dick Miller, Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn, Barbara Steele, and Paul Bartel, amongst many others. Will it really air? And if it does, will it be in wide-screen? Tune in to find out!
Sunday 04/03/05
1:30am Flix
Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1988 USA): On the other hand, here’s a station that rarely lets me down. Flix does a remarkable job excavating cult classics from the ‘70s and ‘80s and presenting them in their correct aspect ratio. Barely a month after airing the enjoyable Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (admittedly in pan-and-scan format), the third film in this slasher series debuts on Flix in wide-screen this morning. Filmed back-to-back with its predecessor, Sleepaway Camp III features the same villain (the toothy and perennially chirpy Pam Springsteen) and a lot of new victims, including dough faced character actor Michael J. Pollard.
9pm Turner Classic Movies
The Wind (1928 USA): Swedish director Victor Sjostrom (also known as Victor Seastrom) was one of the most artistically-inclined directors of the silent era, bringing an obsessive eye for composition and detail to his work. Hailed by Chaplin as the greatest director of his era, Sjostrom had already worked with Lon Chaney on 1924’s heart-rending He Who Gets Slapped and produced what remains the finest film adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter in 1926. That film featured Lillian Gish as Hester Prynne, and Gish also appears in The Wind, Sjostrom’s last silent film and one of the greatest of his career. Oddly reminiscent of Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes (1964), this film sticks Gish in remote East Texas, where an unhappy marriage and unpleasant surroundings lead to tragic consequences. Featuring another brilliant scenario developed by Frances Marion, this is an example of silent cinema at its apex, only months away from being consigned to inexorable oblivion by the advent of talking pictures.
Monday 04/04/05
3am Turner Classic Movies
April Fool (1924 USA): This is comedy month on TCM, so it seems appropriate that a film entitled April Fool should lead off today’s line-up of silent short subjects. It stars Charley Chase in his popular Jimmy Jump persona, this time as a newspaper reporter with a sideline in practical jokes. Amongst the many other highlights today are fourteen additional Chase shorts, including 1924’s The Fraidy Cat (with The Little Rascals) at 3:15am, 1925’s Isn’t Life Terrible (with Oliver Hardy and Fay Wray) at 4am, and 1926’s Mighty Like A Moose (with Stan Laurel) at 7am. They’re followed by a generous serving of Fatty Arbuckle one and two-reelers, including the classic Fatty Joins the Force (1913) at 10am and a number of his Mabel Normand shorts. These aren’t the familiar Arbuckle-Keaton films we all know and love thanks to DVD - these are long unseen, mouth-watering rarities. The day comes to a rousing conclusion at 3:45pm with the American television premiere of French comic Max Linder’s full length feature Seven Years Bad Luck (1921). I strongly recommend that you invest the time and effort to see as many of these shorts as possible - this is a particularly exciting assortment of films, most of which have never been available on home video and have rarely if ever been aired on television before.
12:20pm Encore Drama
Desperate Man Blues (2003 AUS): Friends of yours truly know that I’m a hardcore record collector - but I can’t hold a candle to Joe Bussard, the vinyl junkie portrayed in this documentary. Bussard limits himself to collecting the rarest of the rare - shellac discs recorded in the 1920s and ‘30s that documented the development of American popular music - and has amassed an impressive 25,000 plus items in his library. He disdains rock and roll - hey, we all have to place SOME limits on our vices - but loves the jazz, blues, and country music of the early twentieth century. After watching this wonderful feature there’s a good chance you’ll get the itch, too.
7pm Showtime Extreme
Mean Dog Blues (1978 USA):This first rate prison drama returns to television this evening after a very long absence. Directed by Willy Wonka/Wattstax man Mel Stuart, Mean Dog Blues stars Gregg Henry as Paul, a country-western singer who takes the fall for a drinking buddy who injures a young girl with his reckless and alcohol fuelled driving. Once behind bars, Paul soon finds out that his five-year term isn’t going to be an easy one with prison warden Kinsman (who else but George Kennedy) riding him hard. Also featuring William Windom, Tina Louise, Gregory Sierra, Scatman Crothers, and Ian Wolfe, Mean Dog Blues was produced by Bing Crosby, who surely couldn’t have been too happy with the R rated results - perhaps explaining why this film has since sunk into obscurity.
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