TiVoPlex
By John Seal
June 27, 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 06/27/06
1:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Sparrows (1926 USA): A bit of an outlier in Mary Pickford's filmography, Sparrows is a Gothic melodrama about a decrepit baby farm deep in the rural hinterlands of the southern United States. Directed by William Beaudine, a director deserving of considerably more respect than he gets thanks to late career gaffes such as Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, the film features 34-year-old Pickford as Molly, a parentless adolescent abused by her caregiver, Grimes (the suitably gaunt Gustav von Seyffertitz). When the repulsive Grimes decides to dispose of a troublesome infant by tossing it in the local bog, Molly decides he's gone a tot too far, springs into action, and leads the parentless brood on a treacherous journey across an alligator-infested swamp to safety. Surely a great influence on Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter (1955), Sparrows has aged far better than many of America's Sweetheart's more famous pictures, and remains potent (if manipulative) stuff 80 years on.
10:45 PM Showtime
Crimen Ferpecto (2004 ESP): I recommended this film a few months back, when it premiered on The Movie Channel in a dubbed print. It's returning to the small screen this evening in a widescreen, subtitled print, so if you avoided it in March because of previous caveats, your time has come. I'm a huge admirer of Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia, whose previous efforts Perdita Durango and Day of the Beast combined intelligence, humor, and cinema grue to superb effect. Crimen Ferpecto — his most recent film — actually got a small-scale American release last year, and ended up being one of my favorite pictures of 2005. It stars Guillermo Toledo as Rafael, a floor-walking store manager and full-time ladies man who's bedded all the female employees in his department bar one. The one he's missed (Monica Cervera, in a deliciously hyperactive performance) is Lourdes, an ugly duckling who's a tad upset about being overlooked. Utilizing her still-considerable feminine wiles, the woman scorned soon snares male chauvinist pig Rafael in an inescapable, noirish web of murder and deceit, engaging him in an extended game of mutual deception. This is a comedy first and foremost, however, and the lengths our womanizing anti-hero must go to in order to escape Lourdes' clutches lead to a truly hilarious series of mishaps. Also featuring a very fine performance by Luis Varela as Don Antonio, Rafael's overbearing boss, this visually impressive feature serves as a reminder of how much is truly possible with a motion picture camera, and how the vast majority of filmmakers are either too lacking in imagination or too hidebound to try something new. Also airs 6/28 at 1:45 AM.
Wednesday 06/28/06
10:00 AM Fox Movie Channel
Boomerang! (1947 USA): A razor-sharp police procedural-cum-noir, Boomerang! was director Elia Kazan's first "problem" picture. Based on a true incident, the film details the murder of a Connecticut town's priest and the burg's subsequent rush to judgment against an outsider, one John Waldron (twitchy Arthur Kennedy, in fine form). Enter District Attorney Henry Harvey (a perfectly cast Dana Andrews), the man assigned to prosecute the accused and ultimately send him to the chair. Luckily for Waldron, however, Harvey is one of those incorruptible public servants that populated films in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and he begins to suspect that his target may not be the murderer after all. The film also features familiar faces such as Ed Begley, here playing a blustery town father; and Karl Malden, essaying the familiar role of a police detective. Boomerang! may not be one of Kazan's best-known films, but it's a very good one, deserving of your attention.
8:35 AM The Movie Channel
Head (1968 USA): One of my all-time personal favorites returns to the boob tube this morning on TMC. For the few of you who aren't already in the know, Head was the only feature film for the much-maligned manufactured pop group The Monkees. By 1968 the proto-boy band — who, contrary to popular opinion, could both write songs AND play instruments — were more than eager to shake off their teenybopper image, and the result was this psychedelic grab bag of scattershot skits loosely tied together by Bob Rafelson's and Jack Nicholson's deliriously out-of-their-tree screenplay. Rafelson, who also directed, somehow convinced everyone on Columbia's backlot to put in an appearance in the film, with the highlights including Victor Mature and his dandruff, Frank Zappa and his cow, and Carol Doda and her superstructure. Head also features a terrific soundtrack with some of The Monkees' best songs, including the anthemic Porpoise Song and the hard rockin' Circle Sky. Additionally, there's a considerable amount of political commentary for those willing to dig deep enough, as well as implicit recognition of the band's uncomfortable place in the music biz pecking order. It's one of those films I never get bored with. Also airs at 11:35 AM.
Thursday 06/29/06
1:45 AM Turner Classic Movies
The 25th Hour (1967 YUG-ITA-FRA): Perhaps the rarest feature presented by TCM during this month's tribute to Anthony Quinn, The 25th Hour features the Mexico-born actor as Johann Moritz, a Romanian peasant mistaken for a Jew and sent to a concentration camp during the Second World War. When a Nazi officer discovers the mistake, he frees Moritz and decides he'll be a useful propaganda tool, which then blows back on the poor farmer when Soviet liberation finds him accused of collaboration and trundled off to a forced labor camp. Based on a novel by Romanian writer C. Virgil Gheorghiu (no, I haven't read it), the film is a tragicomic existential vision of one man's abuse at the hands of a heartless universe. Ably directed by underappreciated French filmmaker Henri Verneuil (The Sicilian Clan, The Burglars), The 25th Hour also features a first-rate international supporting cast, including luscious Virna Lisi, Grégoire Aslan, Michael Redgrave, and John Le Mesurier. It airs tonight in 2.35:1 widescreen and is an unlikely candidate for home video, so you won't want to miss it.
8:35 PM The Movie Channel
Bukowski: Born into This (2003 USA): Famed novelist Bukowksi (1920-94) specialized in writing about the seamy underbelly of American society and the tortured individuals therein. This excellent documentary takes a look at the demons that drove the man to take up residence on Skid Row, a lifestyle choice that fuelled both his alcoholism and his muse. Though the film relies a bit too much on celebrity commentary (personally, I've seen enough of Bono to last me a lifetime, thank you), there's plenty of interview footage of the man himself, and it's never less than arresting stuff. A train-wreck of a man who also happened to be a prodigious and scathingly honest scribe, Bukowksi has been dead for over a decade, but remains one of post-war America's most influential storytellers. Also airs at 11:35 PM.
Friday 06/30/06
7:00 PM Sundance
Ae Fond Kiss..., (2004 GB): British auteur Ken Loach returns with this surprisingly warm look at an interracial relationship in modern-day Scotland. Written by Loach's frequent collaborator Paul Laverty, the film stars first-time actor Atta Yaqub as Casim, an Asian man who, to the eternal regret of his family, falls in love with good Catholic girl Roisin (Eva Birthistle). There's no wacky ethnic comedy foibles in Ae Fond Kiss..., which deftly avoids the condemnation of Casim's family and surprisingly also lacks the overt political subtext we expect in a Loach film. Taking its title from a poem by Robbie Burns, this is a quintessentially Scottish story that won awards around the globe, but sadly drew next to no attention in the United States...'til now.
Saturday 07/01/06
8:35 AM Showtime Extreme
The Purifiers (2004 GB): Hard to believe this was the second feature helmed by Scottish Renaissance man Richard Jobson, whose prior film was the memorable semi-autobiographical drama Sixteen Years of Alcohol. The Purifiers tells the story of a stroppy gang of Glaswegian youth who spend their copious unemployed spare time kicking the asses of all and sundry whilst rejecting the patronizing and compromising handouts from "The Man". They also abjure the approaches of local warlord Moses (Kevin McKidd), whose attempts to unite Glasgow's gangs under his command fall on deaf ears, setting the stage for an impressive series of kung-fu battles in back alleys, train stations, and, erm, Chinese takeaways. It's not what you would have expected from Jobson, and it's not terribly good, but as Scotland's first (and to date, only) martial arts film, it's a strangely fascinating oddity.
9:00 AM Flix
Elevator to the Gallows (1959 FRA): Recently released on DVD by Criterion, Louis Malles' first feature film makes its premium channel debut this morning. It's a taut Gallic take on the noir style, and features the luminous Jeanne Moreau as Florence, an unhappy housewife plotting the murder of her husband (Jean Wall) with her macho boyfriend Julien (Purple Noon's Maurice Ronet). Naturally, things go wrong when Julien leaves a crucial and incriminating piece of evidence at the scene of the crime, setting in motion further fateful and inexorable missteps by the doomed lovers. A near-perfect film, Elevator to the Gallows also features Lino Ventura in one of his patented police inspector roles, a magnificent Miles Davis score, and stunning black-and-white photography by the great Henri Decaë. If you haven't already purchased this on disc, you won't want to miss it on the boob.
Sunday 07/02/06
9:00 PM Sundance
H (2002 ROK): A bloody and confusing feature from South Korean director Jong-hyuk Lee - who hasn't made a film since - H gorily details the ultraviolent crimes of a mysterious Seoul serial killer. When a man (Seung-woo Cho) turns himself in and takes credit for the homicides of six women, the city breathes a collective sigh of relief...until the murders carry on in even more heated fashion. The police detain several suspected copycats, but the violence continues after each arrest, until a final revelation ties everything together in classic "only in the movies" fashion. For those not completely repulsed by the grue or overwhelmed by the head-scratching plot twists, H is a neat little thriller, albeit one indebted a wee bit too much to Hollywood predecessors like Se7en and Silence of the Lambs.
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