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From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.

Tuesday 08/22/06

12:20am The Movie Channel
Stormy Monday (1988 USA-GB): This above-average, Mike Figgis-helmed neo-noir makes its wide-screen television debut this morning. Set in Newcastle, a gritty coal town in north-eastern England, Stormy Monday stars Tommy Lee Jones as Cosmo, an ambitious Texan financier with mob connections looking to redevelop a seedy part of town with some decidedly dirty money. His plans are nearing fruition, but when nightclub owner Finney (Sting, better acting than singing, as usual) appears reluctant to sign on the dotted line, things rapidly heat up. Stormy Monday has the misfortune of featuring Melanie Griffith amongst its cast (here playing Cosmo's moll) and an overactive, over-amplified soundtrack, but works nevertheless thanks to Roger Deakins' superb and atmospheric camerawork and a first-rate performance by Jones. Also on hand are Sean Bean as the club's Irish caretaker and a jazz band featuring former Ian Dury and the Blockhead's saxophonist Davey Payne. Also airs at 3:20am.

6pm Starz! Edge
Secuestro Express (2005 VEN): The first film from Venezuela to garner international distribution, Secuestro Express probably won't impress jaded American viewers with its well-worn hyperkinetic tale of kidnapping and ultra-violence. Nonetheless, it's worth a look for anyone interested in South American cinema, and for its socio-political context, which seems alternately aligned or at odds with the policies of the Hugo Chavez government. Whilst the film comes down firmly on the side of social justice, it also peels back the seamy underbelly of Venezuelan society, revealing some unpleasant truths that most governments would prefer leaving undisturbed. On the other hand, perhaps Chavez found the film a useful tool, confirming the need for Bolivarian revolution, or perhaps he hasn't seen it at all, or simply subscribes to the well-worn maxim, "It's only a movie." Whatever the case may be, the presence of star Rubén Blades as the father of a kidnapping victim surely helped the film reach the Spanish-speaking diaspora after racking up impressive returns in its home country. Now this subtitled version looks to widen its appeal to Anglophone audiences. Also airs 8/23 at 12:50am.

Wednesday 08/23/06

6:15pm Encoren Dramatic Stories
Rosenstrasse (2003 GER): A rare theatrical feature from German director Margarethe von Trotta (The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum), Rosenstrasse is an unwieldy but worthy film with two intertwining narrative threads. Shifting from the present day to wartime Germany and back again, the complex story revolves around Hannah, a young Jewish woman (Maria Schrader) whose mother was saved by a racial Aryan during the Nazi era. Hannah takes a trip to Germany to track down the Good Samaritan and proceeds to learn - as do we - about a forgotten slice of wartime history: the treatment of Aryan women married to Jewish men during the Third Reich. At over two hours in length, this is a hefty film, but an extremely well-acted and intelligently written one from one of Germany's least-appreciated post-war auteurs.

7pm Sundance
Djangomania! (2005 CAN): Very few Europeans have had a big impact on the development of jazz music, but the great Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt is the exception to the rule. A musician since the age of 12, Reinhardt's unique, fast-fingered picking technique became hugely popular during the 1930s, when his group, The Quintet of the Hot Club of France (which also included renowned violinist Stéphane Grappelli) shot to international fame. Sadly, there's little extant footage of the Quintet available, and most of this tribute film features contemporary performances by not one but two Reinhardt tribute bands currently treading the boards. Even with little of the real Django on hand, however, the music is brilliant and timeless, and for those looking for an introductory-level primer to the man and his music, you won't do better than this hour-long Canadian documentary.

Thursday 08/24/06

1:25pm IFC
Dogfight (1991 USA): Here's an indie drama with an unpromising premise - Marine jarhead competes in ugly girlfriend contest - that undercuts both its genuine charm and its surprising sensitivity. River Phoenix stars as Birdlace, a grunt enjoying a final night of shore leave before shipping off for Vietnam in the early days of the war. When he and his buddies hatch a plot to stage a "dogfight" - in which the winner is the guy with the ugliest date - Birdlace finds himself scrambling to come up with a companion. He finally settles on unglamorous Rose (indie queen Lili Taylor), a tousle-haired Joan Baez fan who feels sorry for the apparently desperate young man, until she discovers his real motive for wanting a date. Director Nancy Savoca and screenwriter Bob Comfort could have taken Dogfight in the predictable direction of revenge, but opted instead to tell a bittersweet story of young love in which the contest serves as the beginning, and not the end, of an idealistic young couple's relationship during the last days of pre-Beatles, pre-Vietnam, Kennedy/Camelot "innocence". It's a lovely little film, which also happened to serve as the launching pad for the career of a young actor named Brendan Fraser.

9pm IFC
Willard (2003 USA): I missed Willard in theatres, and was disappointed with it when it showed up on premium channels shortly after completing its mildly successful original run. It was one of the more surprising ‘70s horror remakes to pop up over the last few years, and casting real-life rat fan Crispin Glover as the modestly disturbed title character seemed a positively inspired choice, but the result is a flat and unexciting rendering of the tale which barely allows Glover to show off his flare for the bizarre. Regardless of its many faults, however, Willard gets a mention this week thanks to the presence of the great R. Lee Ermey as the rat man's abusive boss, and because this broadcast marks the film's wide-screen television debut. Perhaps seeing it in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio will improve my opinion of it. Also airs 8/25 at midnight.

Friday 08/25/06

5am Fox Movie Channel
Call Northside 777 (1948 USA): Jimmy Stewart stars as a muckraking reporter in this top-notch Henry Hathaway police procedural. He plays P. J. McNeal, a Chicago newspaper man whose assignment - a follow-up story on the trial and conviction of Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte) for the murder of a policeman - leads him toward the conclusion that the real killer is still at large. When he tries to bring his findings to the attention of the fuzz, he finds them deeply uninterested, spurring the dogged McNeal on to greater efforts to uncover the truth of the matter. Mild stuff by today's standards, Call Northside 777 was a bit more controversial in 1948, when the idea that a man could be falsely convicted thanks to the machinations of The Powers That Be seemed somewhat outré. The film was based on real-life events that were documented by a reporter named Frank McGuire, and though hardly the stuff nightmares are made of, still works thanks to Stewart's performance and the film's Chicago location work.

Sunday 08/27/06

11am Fox Movie Channel
The Incident (1967 USA): One of the first films to capture and exploit the overwhelming fear of crime that was to define the city of New York in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, The Incident stars Tony Musante and a young Martin Sheen as two toughs who take over a subway car and terrorize the passengers. Directed by Bronx native Larry Peerce, who started his career with the flawed but fascinating racial drama One Potato, Two Potato, this is a somewhat dated but still powerful piece of filmmaking with an interesting supporting cast, including Beau Bridges, Ruby Dee, Jack Gilford, Thelma Ritter, Brock Peters, and, ah, Ed McMahon. Brilliantly shot in stark black-and-white by Gerald Hirschfeld (Fail-Safe), The Incident remains a riveting and gut-wrenching experience, and is still maddeningly MIA on DVD.

Monday 08/28/06

4am More Max
Skin Game (1971 USA): Another film deserving of a DVD dust-off, Skin Game stars James Garner and Louis Gossett Jr. as an Old West odd couple of the highest order. Garner portrays confidence man Quincy Drew, a man cut from the same cloth as the actor's small-screen archetype Maverick; and Gossett plays his business partner O'Rourke, a freeborn African-American. Together, they work a two-man con exploiting the Peculiar Institution: traveling from town to town, Drew repeatedly "sells' O'Rourke to new owners; O'Rourke promptly escapes, and the pair keep moving, one step ahead of those they have defrauded. It's a profitable scam, but when fugitive-slave hunter Plunkett (a deliciously malicious Ed Asner) gets on their trail, things quickly go south. Though the film treads through admittedly treacherous racial territory, it generally works, and Garner and Gossett make an engaging team. Co-starring the effervescent Brenda Sykes and the wonderful Henry Jones, Skin Game is a forgotten gem of ‘70s cinema.

7pm Turner Classic Movies
Exstase (1933 USA): Dripping with symbolism and filled with marvelous cinematography, Exstase is so much more than the erotic drama we've been programmed to expect. It's almost a silent film, with what dialogue there is in German, and highly simplified German at that. Perhaps the filmmakers intended the film to reach the widest possible European audience, as anyone with even a little high school-level Deutsch can easily dispense with the subtitles. The story is of little importance anyway, with the film succeeding on a cinematic level, not a narrative one. Symbols of fecundity and the power of nature overwhelm the human characters - there are even scenes where flowers obscure the face of supposed star Hedy Lamarr - and there are moments here that will remind viewers of the works of Dreyer, Vertov, and Riefenstahl. If the film has any message to convey, I think it's a political one: bourgeois man is timid and impotent; working-class man is a happy, productive creature; and woman is the creator, destined to be unfulfilled until she has borne a child. This blend of Soviet socialist realism and National Socialist dogma doesn't overwhelm the film by any means - it's a beauty to watch from beginning to end - but it does place it in a very distinct artistic era. And, oh yeah, Hedy does get her kit off.