TiVoPlex for Tuesday January 17 through Monday January 23 2006
By John Seal
January 16, 2006
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.
Tuesday 01/17/06
7pm Turner Classic Movies
Brief Encounter (1946 GB): This much-beloved salute to marital loyalty returns to television today after a multi-year absence. Directed by David Lean, it's the story of a man and a woman (Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson) who meet on a railway platform (Celia gets a cinder in her eye from a passing train), fall for each other, and over their weekly tea and biscuits agonize about whether or not to cheat on their respective spouses. Personally I can't imagine wooing a woman over British Rail grub, but perhaps it was better in 1946 than it was in the late 1960s and 1970s. Brief Encounter has assumed an iconic place in British cinema history, and frankly it isn't as good as its reputation, but it struck a chord with a sexually repressed British public and remains a beloved film to this day. Shot beautifully in black-and-white by Robert Krasker, not a lot actually happens in the film, but the romantically inclined will need a bucket and a mop to swab all the tears they'll shed during the final reel. Beloved character actors Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Irene Handl, and Alfie Bass pop in to supply working-class comic relief.
8:30pm Turner Classic Movies
Genevieve (1953 GB): Airing immediately after Brief Encounter, this gentle piece of whimsy will seem like a tremendous dose of comic relief in comparison. Featuring John Gregson and Kenneth More as drivers competing in an antique car rally, Genevieve is a simple and brisk piece of entertainment that highlights the British countryside to good effect and will have viewers pining nostalgically for a simpler time when you could still speed across Westminster Bridge without getting an ASBO or triggering the congestion charge. Though the film has the look and feel of Ealing Studios, producer Michael Balcon turned it down - apparently his plate was full at the time - and it ended up being a low-budget Rank feature.
10:30pm Flix
Vampire Lovers (1970 GB): Everyone loves lesbian vampires, and here's one of the films that first outed them on the big screen (Oh, I hear you chattering about 1936's Dracula's Daughter, but there was an awful lot left unsaid and unshown in that admittedly fine Universal picture). Produced by the studio that couldn't say no to a bulging bodice, Hammer Films, The Vampire Lovers makes a rare appearance - in wide-screen, no less! - on American television this evening. Directed by Roy Ward Baker, the film features lovely Ingrid Pitt as Carmilla/Mircalla, a bloodsucking wench who preys on young girls in the dead of night. Amongst the estimable supporting cast of this enjoyable horror flick are genre regulars Peter Cushing (not cast as Van Helsing, this being a Le Fanu adaptation) and Ferdy Mayne, as well as Jon Finch in his cinematic debut.
Wednesday 01/18/06
12:40am HBO 2
Night Game (1989 USA): It's not a very good picture, but if you fancy murder mysteries and enjoy baseball - and especially if you're an Astros fan - you can't afford to miss this Roy Scheider vehicle. He plays a Galveston police detective on the trail of a killer with a very special modus operandi: every time his favorite 'Stros pitcher wins a game for the home team, he slices and dices a defenseless woman on the nearby beachfront. This regional oddity was helmed by Texas-born director Peter Masterson, whose first feature in 1985 was the somewhat more socially acceptable A Trip to Bountiful.
5pm Turner Classic Movies
House of Usher (1960 USA): A night of letterboxed Vincent Price features are on offer thanks to TCM, with the first of Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe adaptations kicking things off this afternoon. Penned by Richard Matheson, House of Usher is a reasonably faithful rendering of Poe's tale of 19th century moral and physical decay and provides Price with a meaty role as the doomed Roderick Usher. Co-stars Mark Damon and Myrna Fahey are less effective, but Floyd Crosby's gorgeous wide-screen cinematography is truly impressive, especially considering the film's low, low budget and two-week production schedule. It's followed at 6:30pm by the equally satisfying and bizarre The Masque of the Red Death (1964 USA) and at 11:30pm by The Bat (1959 USA), an unnecessary update of Roland West's 1926 Old Dark House chiller.
Thursday 01/19/06
6:45am Sundance
Deadline (2004 USA): Proving that even the most corrupt politician can do the right thing from time to time, beleaguered Illinois governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of all inmates on his state's Death Row in early 2003, two years after placing a moratorium on executions. With evidence mounting that more than a handful of innocent men may, in the past, have been put to death - and, no doubt, a desire to distract attention from racketeering and mail fraud charges - Ryan took the bull by the horns 60 days before he left office and granted clemency to 167 inmates. This low-key documentary about these events is refreshingly short on polemic, and all the more powerful for it.
Friday 01/20/06
11:25am Showtime
The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976 CAN): This quiet and effective Canadian thriller stars 14-year-old Jodie Foster as the titular lass, a confident and self-possessed youngster who purportedly lives with her father, a renowned author, in a snowbound house in a small rural town. Trouble is, no one ever sees dear old Dad, and folks start to wonder whether he's real or whether he's a figment of Jodie's imagination. Whenever visitors drop by, he's either working (and can't be disturbed) or taking a nap (and can't be disturbed). Yes, young Jodie's in a lot of trouble, and is digging herself in deeper every time someone knocks on the door. Directed with quiet assurance by Nicolas Gessner and written by Laird Koenig, the film is a fascinating puzzle box of moral ambiguity that also features excellent supporting performances from Martin Sheen as an über-creepy neighbor, Scott Jacoby as a friendly young man, and Alexis Smith as the very unpleasant landlady. Also appearing at 2:25pm, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane airs in wide-screen today.
10:15pm Turner Classic Movies
My Neighbor Totoro (1988 JAP): This week's dose of Hayao Miyazaki madness kicks off with this feature about a fantastic woodland creature who looks a bit like an inflated, sepia-toned Pikachu. It's followed at 11:30pm by 1992's Porco Rosso, about an, er, crimson pig who flies a plane, and on 1/21 at 1:30am by 1995's Whisper of the Heart, a feature penned by Miyazaki for anime colleague Yoshifumi Kondo.
Saturday 01/21/06
12:35am Showtime Extreme
I Escaped From Devil's Island (1975 USA): This is the first TV sighting of this Christopher George vehicle in close to a decade. I Escaped From Devil's Island is yet another film that would pop up from time to time on TNT's 100% Weird, and it makes its commercial-free and wide-screen television debut this morning. Reportedly laced with profanity, gore, and gay sex, TNT's print was presumably cut to ribbons, and I remember it being a largely action-free and generally incoherent picture in its sanitized format. Coming to Showtime Extreme in all its uncut glory, this tale of hard times in a French penal colony remains unavailable on home video, so if your library still includes an old video recording from cable, it's time to upgrade. This was the penultimate feature of prolific director William Witney, who had helmed more than 130 features extending back to the mid-1930s.
7:45pm Turner Classic Movies
The Hurricane (1937 USA): There aren't many films from the ‘30s featuring special effects that can still impress a 21st-century viewer, but this is one of them. Director John Ford and editor Lloyd Nosler seamlessly edited miniature and full-scale footage to create a truly impressive - and lengthy - storm sequence, but the pre-storm story is fairly engaging, too. Jon Hall, later typecast as a hardy islander as the result of his work here, plays a wrongly imprisoned tropical native for whom colonial administrator Raymond Massey has no sympathy. The film also introduced future Hope and Crosby foil Dorothy Lamour, who plays Hall's lady love, and features wonderful supporting performances by Thomas Mitchell, Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, and John Carradine. The Hurricane earned a well-deserved Academy Award for Best Sound, and would have taken home the prize for Best Visual Effects, but that category didn't exist until 1963!
Sunday 01/22/06
3:20am Showtime
Legend of Johnny Lingo (2003 NZ): There's more to New Zealand cinema than Peter Jackson, Part 12. Admittedly, not a GREAT deal more, but a bit more nonetheless. This family film about a Polynesian youngster (who thankfully isn't played by Jon Hall) won't make you forget Lord of the Rings, King Kong, or even Meet the Feebles - well, NOTHING could make anyone forget Meet the Feebles - but it is a pleasant little diversion about the life and times of the aforementioned Lingo, whose adventures had previously been chronicled in an even more obscure 1969 production. The film features Whale Rider star Rawire Paratene and apparently was a big hit in Utah. Also airs at 6:20am.
7pm IFC
Solaris (2002 USA): This is probably Steven Soderbergh's best film ever, better even than his marvelous gangster flick, The Limey. Marketed mistakenly as a science-fiction film, Solaris is (unsurprisingly for those familiar with the original) a meditation on permanence, loss, and love. It was obviously of tremendous personal interest to its director, who also handled the cinematography and editing chores himself. George Clooney stars as an investigator sent to find out what's going wrong on a space station orbiting the titular planet, and he continues to cement his position as one of the best - and least risk-averse - actors of the day with a subtle but brilliant performance. Equally noteworthy are Viola Davis as the station's second-in-command and Natascha McElhone - an actress I thought I couldn't stand after her bizarre appearance as an Italian doctor in the awful Laurel Canyon - as Clooney's dead (?) wife. Stunningly shot, with brilliant art design and a magnificent score by Soderbergh regular Cliff Martinez, Solaris will eventually take its place as an American film classic, and is making its wide-screen American television debut this evening. Also airs 1/23 at 12:30am.
Monday 01/23/06
7pm Flix
Leather Jackets (1991 USA): Do you love your leather jacket? Well, irrespective of whether or not you do, chances are you WON'T love this off-kilter Bridget Fonda feature about a cycle dude (D. B. Sweeney) who tries, and fails, to escape his violent past. Filled with arch dialogue and bad overacting, Leather Jackets wouldn't warrant a mention if it weren't airing in wide-screen tonight. An interesting supporting cast, including James Le Gros, Jon Polito, and Chris Penn goes some way towards making up for the awful leads.
8:45pm Encore
Red Dawn (1984 USA): John Milius' muscular, manly tale of patriotic young Americans - including Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, and, of course, C. Thomas Howell - fighting off the Commie hordes returns to the small screen after being MIA for many years. It's absurd hokum, but any film featuring Powers Boothe has something going for it, namely Powers Boothe. It's silly, it's implausible, and it's also pretty entertaining, especially if you long for the moral clarity offered by the Cold War. Also airs at 11:45pm.
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