TiVoPlex
By John Seal
April 25, 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 04/25/06
4:15am Sundance
Trees Lounge (1996 USA): The recent release of renaissance man Steve Buscemi's latest project, Lonesome Jim, has led to renewed interest in his first feature-length effort, Trees Lounge. By happy coincidence, that film returned to the small screen this month and gets another airing this morning. Writer-director Buscemi stars as Tommy, an unemployed Long Island auto mechanic who spends much of his copious free time in the titular watering hole. He's not an alcoholic yet, but he can't resist the siren song of the bottle, which helps him forget the grinding indignities of his daily life, including a part-time job driving an ice cream van. This semi-autobiographical feature co-stars Chlöe Sevigny in a difficult role as a 17-year-old ice cream enthusiast whose father doesn't take kindly to Tommy and Elizabeth Bracco as the mechanic's pregnant ex-wife. Other familiar faces on screen include Carol Kane, Seymour Cassel, Debi Mazar, Rockets Redglare, and even Samuel L. Jackson, in a memorable cameo appearance as a truck driver. Also airs 4/29 at 3am and 7pm.
8:05pm Showtime 3
Brain Dead (1990 USA): A psychological thriller from the pen of renowned Twilight Zone veteran Charles Beaumont (long dead by 1990, BTW), Brain Dead is also one of the better efforts from Roger Corman's Concorde Pictures years. The film stars Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton as, respectively, Rex Martin, the nation's pre-eminent brain surgeon, and Jim Reston, an ambitious corporate bigwig who talks Martin into conducting some questionable experiments on loopy accountant John Halsey (Bud Cort). After operating on Halsey, Martin acquires his subject's paranoid fantasies via some bizarre Hollywood form of osmosis, and ends up institutionalized and deeply confused about where reality ends and illusion begins. This interplay was a well-played-out narrative trope by 1990, but Brain Dead remains an enjoyable little thriller, and at a brisk 80 minutes doesn't wear out its welcome.
Wednesday 04/26/06
7pm Turner Classic Movies
Sullivan's Travels (1941 USA): My personal favorite Preston Sturges feature, Sullivan's Travels is a piquant mix of laugh-out-loud humor and stinging social commentary from America's foremost cinema satirist. Joel McCrea stars as John Sullivan, a director of lightweight film fare who takes to the road in order to learn something about the harsh realities of life and perhaps provide his features with an edgier touch that will appeal to the common man. Disguised as a hobo and with only one thin dime in his pocket, Sullivan soon befriends a beautiful would-be actress (Veronica Lake, who gives the best performance of her career), and the two partake of all that a life riding the rails can offer, including a stint in the poorhouse and some quality time on the chain gang. A flop on its initial release, Sullivan's Travels is now rightly considered an American film classic, and though ostensibly a comedy, features scenes as powerful as any in John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath. It's an essential viewing experience for anyone seriously interested in the cinema arts.
10:35pm Flix
Peacemaker (1990 USA): Lance Edwards and Robert Forster play a pair of space aliens competing for the trust of foolish Earthlings in this entertaining piece of sci-fi tripe from director Kevin Tenney (Witchtrap). One alien is a good guy (the titular Peacemaker) and the other's a villain, but a local coroner (Hilary Shepard) and a gun happy cop (Robert Davi) can't tell which is which, and they're left on the sidelines whilst the two extraterrestrials beat the living crap out of each other and blow up a bunch of cars. It may not be Sullivan's Travels, but it is good fun for action fans, and hasn't had a premium cable airing since late in the last century.
Thursday 04/27/06
6pm Starz! Edge
Kung-Fu Hustle (2004 HK): Stephen Chow's masterful martial arts comedy makes its wide-screen television debut this evening. Set in 1940s Shanghai, the film posits a world inhabited by superheroes who are most reluctant to showcase their talents but must when their poor-but-honest neighborhood is threatened by the encroachments of the intimidating and well-rehearsed Axe Gang. The kung-fu genre has taken a distinct turn to the art-house of late, ever since the success of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but Chow's film reasserts the style's populist roots whilst displaying his own special talent for blending fantasy, humor, and remarkable choreography. Even if you're averse to subtitles, you'll get a real kick from this wonderful and imaginative film.
8:30pm The Movie Channel
Red Trousers: The Life of the Hong Kong Stuntmen (2003 HK): The perfect companion piece for Kung-Fu Hustle, Red Trousers examines the life of the anonymous stuntmen who - Jackie Chan notwithstanding - provide the bulk of the excitement in Hong Kong action films. Red trousers were the traditional garb worn by acrobats in the Peking Opera, and the term has since become synonymous with the men and women who perform death-defying feats on camera, sans most of the safeguards provided for their over-protected and spoiled Hollywood compatriots. Directed by former stunt actor Robin Shou (best known to American viewers for his appearances in the Mortal Kombat film series), this documentary includes tons of interviews and backstage footage, as well as a short "film within a film" that offers further insight into the unique challenges and difficulties of martial arts moviemaking. Also airs at 11:30pm.
Friday 04/28/06
3am Turner Classic Movies
West of Zanzibar (1928 USA): Still unavailable on home video, this rarely-seen Lon Chaney/Tod Browning production returns to TCM this morning for the first time since 2002. Though generally not regarded as one of Chaney's best, it provides further astonishing examples of his seemingly limitless physical dexterity and wide-ranging acting skill. This time he plays Phroso (NOT the same character essayed by Wallace Ford in Browning's 1932 feature Freaks), a magician left paralyzed after brawling with his wife's lover Crane (Lionel Barrymore). The crippled Phroso, bitter and alone, departs for East Africa, where he hangs out with an alcoholic (Warner Baxter) and impresses the natives with his sleight-of-hand trickery and his spine-tingling stink-eye. After years of stewing over his misfortune, Phroso's time for revenge arrives when Crane conveniently gets into the ivory smuggling business down the road apiece. Lurid payback is at hand, and who better to deliver it than a stubble-covered, sweat-stained, and barely-ambulatory Chaney? This over-the-top meller may not be high art, but it sure is fun.
4:15am Turner Classic Movies
The Unholy Night (1929 USA): Another forgotten Lionel Barrymore vehicle, The Unholy Night was one of a dozen features directed by the beloved actor over the course of his long career. One of the earliest talking pictures, it's an Old Dark House thriller about a mysterious killer stalking a group of World War I veterans, including Lord Montague (Roland Young), whose drafty manse provides the setting for the bulk of the film's action. Though burdened by the unfortunate and unavoidable limitations of early sound cinema - including poorly recorded dialogue and static camera work - The Unholy Night remains eminently watchable thanks to the twists and turns of Ben Hecht's devious screenplay, and it's fun to see an uncredited Boris Karloff pop up in a small but important role.
5pm Turner Classic Movies
Cinema Paradiso (1989 ITA): This love song to the magic of cinema stars the wonderful Philippe Noiret as a cranky Sicilian contending with the usual day-to-day problems of running a projection booth: a censorious priest who forces him to cut even the most chaste kiss from whatever film is currently showing, a young and annoying boy who would rather spend time watching movies than spend time with his family, and ungrateful patrons who hurl imprecations skywards whenever things go awry on screen. Like many Italian films of the period, there's an almost mawkish sentimentality that takes the edge off the story - which perhaps unwisely is framed as a nostalgic flashback - but Noiret is wonderful and anyone who loves movies (which should mean anyone reading this column) will enjoy the results. Please note that TCM is airing the original (and superior) 122-minute cut of the film, and not the bloated "new version" that surfaced a few years ago.
Saturday 04/29/06
7pm Cinemax
Dominion: A Prequel to the Exorcist (2004 USA): Regular readers know I'm a sucker for all things Paul Schrader. Here's the small-screen debut of his most recent, and unfairly aborted, project. Nixed by the less-than-wise men at Warner Bros when early rushes revealed it to be a more cerebral and less sanguinary take on the Exorcist mythos, and then resurrected after Renny Harlin's more traditional bloodbath failed to make back its budget at the box office, Dominion features much of the same cast but avoids Harlin's comic-book excess. It's hard to imagine Warner's didn't know what they would be getting into by hiring Schrader in the first place, but kudos to them for quickly recognizing there was no need to compound their hasty errors by locking his work away in the vaults. Also airs at 10pm and 4/30 at 2am, 5am, and on More Max at 4pm.
Sunday 04/30/06
9pm Sundance
Memento Mori (1999 ROK): The final entry in Sundance's month-long salute to Asian horror, Memento Mori (which means "remember you must die" in Latin) is actually a sequel to a Korean film called Whispering Corridors. I've never seen that film, but this one is pretty good and surely qualifies as an above-average sequel. The story revolves around Min-Ah, a high school student who discovers the diary of a pair of young lovers which, unsurprisingly, holds some deep, dark, and dangerous secrets, which soon put our heroine in harm's way. The winner of the Vision Award for Cinematography at Slamdance 2001, Memento Mori is a surprisingly bloodless thinking-man's chiller that offers rich rewards for patient viewers.
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