TiVoPlex
By John Seal
September 26, 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 09/27/05
12:30am Sundance
Trespass (1992 USA): I overlooked this Walter Hill action flick when it made its Sundance premiere a couple of weeks ago. It's certainly an odd programming choice for the artsy channel, but apparently Hill's name still has some post-Southern Comfort artistic cachet attached to it, so here it is. Trespass is an entertaining but muddled crime drama that tells the tale of a pair of greedy firemen (the excellent William Sadler and the bland Bill "Don't Call Me Pullman" Paxton) searching for some stolen gold secreted in an abandoned East St Louis warehouse. Little do they know that said warehouse also serves as headquarters for local crime lord King James (Ice T, doing his inimitable Ice T thing, though thankfully not in a kangaroo suit) and his gang of immaculately-dressed thugs. The Bob Gale/Robert Zemeckis script is absurd, but Hill remains a good action director and Sundance is, naturally, airing the film wide-screen, so less discriminating viewers might want to give it a look. Also airs at 9:30pm.
Wednesday 09/28/05
6:05am More Max
People Say I'm Crazy (2003 USA): It doesn't have the impact of last week's mental illness doc Tarnation, but this HBO production is a worthwhile look at paranoid schizophrenia as seen through the eyes of filmmaker John Cadigan. Cadigan, a talented woodcut artist who began to suffer from the illness whilst in college, retells his story with the help of his sister Kate, and their film serves as part of his therapy (along, of course, with medication) to assist in his journey back to "normalcy". Minus the flash and burning artistic conviction of Tarnation, this film covers the mundane day-to-day realities of its subject's life: the routine of getting up and getting through another day without slipping back into the "dark places" of his mind. People Say I'm Crazy is a moving and eye-opening look at the world inside one man's head.
8:50pm Encore Dramatic Stories
Five Easy Pieces (1970 USA): "I'd like an omelet, plain, and a chicken-salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee."
"A #2, chicken-salad sand. Hold the butter, the lettuce, the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else?"
"Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken-salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules."
"You want me to hold the chicken, huh?"
"I want you to hold it between your knees."
We all have our favorite lines of dialogue we like to quote from our favorite films, but the exchange between oil rig worker Bobby (Jack Nicholson at his acerbic best) and an uncooperative waitress (the recently deceased Lorna Thayer) surely ranks amongst the most memorable movie moments of all time. The rest of the film ain't bad either, with Bobby returning home from his blue-collar job to take care of his ailing father (Billy the Kid vs. Dracula's William Challee), a musical savant who hoped his son would one day be a renowned concert pianist. Penned with intelligence and great wit by erstwhile screenwriter Carole Eastman, shot beautifully by Laszlo Kovacs, and co-starring Ralph Waite and Karen Black, Five Easy Pieces remains an American classic, and one of the landmark character studies of the early ‘70s (or late ‘60s, if you prefer).
Thursday 09/29/05
6pm Showtime 2
The Real Blonde (1997 USA): Written and directed by Tom DiCillo, who worked as cinematographer on Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes and Stranger Than Paradise, The Real Blonde is a slight but watchable rom-com about the foibles of middle-class life in the Big Apple. Though the story isn't much more than a slightly upscale episode of Seinfeld, it'll hold your interest and features a super cast, including Matthew Modine and Catherine Keener as a struggling New York couple whose lives intersect with a plethora of weird and wacky characters played by (amongst others) Daryl Hannah, Christopher Lloyd, Steve Buscemi, Kathleen Turner, Denis Leary, Elizabeth Berkley, Buck Henry, Marlo Thomas, and, er, Maxwell Caulfield. Heck, even Dave Chappelle is in this film! Chances are one of your favorite screen stars makes an appearance at some point here, and if that doesn't provide sufficient incentive, Showtime is airing The Real Blonde letterboxed.
Friday 09/30/05
11pm Turner Classic Movies
Viridiana (1961 MEX): One of my favorite Luis Buñuel features gets an encore performance tonight. It's the story of the title character (gorgeous Silvia Pinal, later to memorably appear as the Devil in Buñuel's Simon of the Desert), a pious and innocent nun who is paying her rich uncle Jorge (Fernando Rey) a visit. When a grief-stricken Jorge asks Viridiana to don the wedding gown of his beloved but deceased wife, she - in an act of Christian charity, no doubt - complies, with results that will still seem shocking to many viewers today. Many of Buñuel's films are searing in their criticism of the Catholic church, and Viridiana is no exception. Naturally, I love it. Look for a cameo appearance by the great Mexican character actor Claudio Brook as one of the diners at the most profane Last Supper you've ever seen.
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