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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 02/20/07

1:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
Pennies From Heaven (1981 USA): Steve Martin's career arguably reached its apex with his appearance in this wonderful Depression-set musical melodrama from director Herbert Ross. That career has long since devolved into a death spiral of saccharine family films and maudlin comedy dramas, but the sky must surely have seemed the limit for that wild and crazy guy in 1981. Coming on the heels of his big screen broad comedy breakthrough hit The Jerk, Pennies From Heaven - based on Dennis Potter's television play of the same name - stars Martin as Arthur Parker, a not terribly successful travelling salesman who falls for school teacher Eileen (Bernadette Peters) whilst making a sales call. Unfortunately, Arthur is already married to Joan (Jessica Harper), and tormented by guilt he decides to dump Eileen, precipitating her fall into the orbit of seedy pimp Tom (Christopher Walken). This is a schizophrenic feature, with relentlessly downbeat dramatic scenes counter-pointed by spectacular Technicolor musical interludes featuring the stars lip-synching and dancing to period hits from Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and others. The result was an artistic triumph that turned off filmgoers expecting a Jerk-style laff riot and put the kibosh on Hollywood musicals for years to come. I loved it at the time, and though I haven't seen it in years, still consider it Martin's best film. Nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Screen Adaptation, Pennies From Heaven returns to television this morning in glorious black and white (and color, too).

9:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Southerner (1945 USA): There's a rich ‘peasant epic' tradition in European, Asian and South American cinema typified by films such as Ermanno Olmi's tendentious Tree of Wooden Clogs, where hardscrabble toilers of the earth attempt to earn an honest living tilling the fields whilst bourgeois landlords squeeze them for all they're worth (which ain't much). There are comparatively few American examples of this style, but along with King Vidor's Our Daily Bread, here's one of that rare breed - directed, appropriately enough, by exiled Frenchman Jean Renoir. Set in the cotton fields of the midwest, The Southerner stars Zachary Scott as the patriarch of the Tucker family, a clan of honest, dirt-poor farmers trying to bring in the harvest and perhaps manage to make some improvements on the old homestead. Of course, time, tide, climate, and other elements - including floodwaters, disease, an especially unpleasant neighbor (J. Carrol Naish), and the unexpected arrival of grumpy widow Granny (Beulah Bondi) - conspire against them, though not always in predictable fashion. I last saw this film ten years ago (or more), and remember the print quality being execrable, with terrible sound to boot. I haven't seen VCI's DVD, but it came out in 2000 and surely isn't definitive. The works of a filmmaker of Renoir's stature deserve the Criterion treatment, but till then we'll have to hope TCM has access to a serviceable copy.

Wednesday 02/21/07

7:30 AM Encore Love Stories
Senior Trip (1981 USA): A made-for-TV movie trying to cash in on the then popular ‘teen shenanigans' genre, Senior Trip is sadly but predictably shorn of whatever lowbrow antics (not to mention nudity) we expect from such films. Scott Baio stars as Roger, one of a group of Ohio high school seniors enjoying their last fling together on a trip to big, bad New York City. They plan on cutting loose - in a squeaky clean, suitable for television way of course - but soon find themselves cowering in the safety of their hotel rooms whilst Broadway star Mickey Rooney threatens them with comp tickets to Sugar Babes. No trips to the Lower East Side to score skag, then. Buried at the bottom of the cast list are Jason Alexander (with hair!) and Robert Townsend, so if the long, lingering tourist shots of The Big Apple and the Mickster's toupee aren't enough to keep you entertained, you can try playing spot the future semi-star.

Thursday 02/22/07

12:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Backdraft (1991 USA): Personally, I enjoy that Backdraft attraction at Universal Studios more than I enjoy the movie (you can really feel the heat that thing generates!), but it's the latter making its widescreen television debut this morning. Overlong and laden with typical Ron Howard schmaltz, the film does benefit from the presence of Scott Glenn as a guy called Axe, as well as those Oscar-nominated pyrotechnics that were the film's real star attraction.

4:30 PM Sundance
When We Were Kings (1996 USA): With Muhammad Ali recently turning 65, there's been heightened media attention for The Louisville Lip, most of it focused on the champ's failing health. If you'd prefer to remember him in his better days, you can do worse than this documentary about the legendary Rumble In the Jungle, Ali's 1974 bout with George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire. Sold to Zairian strongman Mobutu Sese Seko by promoter and all around hustler Don King as a good way to improve his public image, the fight was tied in with an ‘African Woodstock' featuring James Brown (a belated R.I.P. for the Godfather, btw), Miriam Makeba, and others, but was briefly postponed whilst Foreman recovered from an injury. Filmmaker Leon Gast was there to record the proceedings, but delays, legal problems, and the sheer enormity of the task (cutting down hundreds of hours of footage) kept the project unfinished for over 20 years. A nostalgic time capsule that is also a bittersweet reminder of the place Ali once held in the hearts of millions worldwide, When We Were Kings took home the 1997 Best Feature Documentary Academy Award.

6:30 PM HBO
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (2007 USA): Fast on the heels of its world premiere at Sundance 2007, Rory Kennedy's Ghosts of Abu Ghraib comes to HBO. I haven't seen it, but Kennedy's track record (American Hollow, Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable) is a good one, and the subject matter - the systematic torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees held by the United States at the notorious aforementioned prison - is of vital importance to all of us. Also airs at 9:30 PM and 2/23 at 1:35 AM and 4:35 AM.

Friday 02/23/07

4:45 AM Encore
Meatballs Part II (1984 USA): A few weeks back I bemoaned the demise of the Meatballs franchise, which by the time Meatballs IV arrived in 1992 had basically shucked off its comedy roots in favor of copious T & A. Oh, how the mighty had fallen! Part II was definitely still close to family friendly territory, however, and even adds a modicum of science fiction ‘thrills' to its otherwise threadbare plot. In this outing, the usual assortment of sixth grade losers consigned to Camp Sasquatch are confronted by the presence of an E.T.-style alien intruder (Felix Silla), street smart punk parolee Flash (30-year-old John Mengatti) puts the moves on camp counsellor Cheryl (Paris Hilton's aunt, Kim Richards!), and hapless Coach Giddy (Richard Mulligan) attempts to fend off the unwanted and unfriendly advances of competitor Bat Jack Hershey (Hamilton Camp). It's formulaic and not very funny, but it's hard not to like (or recommend) a film that also features John Larroquette and Paul ‘Pee Wee Herman' Reubens in supporting roles - and a fleeting glimpse of director Ken Wiederhorn's Nazi zombie epic Shock Waves during a campfire scene!

9:00 PM IFC
Karate Bullfighter (1975 JAP): The first in Sonny Chiba's Mas Oyama trilogy (the second film, Karate Bear Fighter, aired last week), Karate Bullfighter actually does what it says on the label: puts the martial arts master into the ring with a real live bull! The plot revolves around Oyama's expulsion from the ranks of competitive karate after the accidental death of an opponent, but forget all that ethical dilemma stuff and tune in for the highlight, in which Chiba truly does take the bull by the horns. If that's not enough to entice you, you're a lost cause.

Saturday 02/24/07

9:30 AM Fox Movie Channel
Love That Brute (1950 USA): Here's a long unseen comedy rarity from the Fox vaults. The underappreciated Paul Douglas stars as Big Ed Hanley, a Roaring '20s Chicago racketeer who falls for a lovely lady in the park (Jean Peters) and immediately hires her to take care of his children so he can cosy up with her on a daily basis. Alas, there's a problem: Big Ed has no children, and he's compelled to scour the neighborhood to find youngsters twisted or desperate enough to take on the assignment. After ‘adopting' juvenile delinquent Harry (Peter Price), a couple of rival gangsters (Keenan Wynn and Cesar Romero) try to muscle in on Ed's business, and he finds himself hard-pressed to maintain the warm and fuzzy charade for his erstwhile babysitter. Fans of old time character actors should watch for the appearance of Charles Lane - who just turned 102 this January! - as a cigar shop proprietor.

8:25 PM Flix
Cross of Iron (1977 GB-BRD): Long almost impossible to see, Sam Peckinpah's epic Eastern Front bloodbath finally returned to television last April, uncut and in wide-screen as well. Based on one of author Willi Heinrich's extremely grim and realistic war novels, the film stars a miscast but excellent James Coburn as its protagonist, foot soldier Sergeant Steiner. Set during Germany's prolonged retreat from the gates of Moscow, the story revolves around the day-to-day struggle to survive on the front lines and Steiner's contentious relationship with his commanding officer (Maximilian Schell), a Prussian aristocrat looking to spruce up his resumé with some glorious battle reports. Thankfully for action fans, the office politics take a definite backseat to the Yugoslav-shot action sequences, which are lengthy and extremely well-mounted by DoP John Coquillon. Also on hand are James Mason and David Warner as Wehrmacht officers, and there's a fine, if out-of-character, score from veteran composer Peter Thomas. There are few more powerful war films, and Cross of Iron ranks as one of Peckinpah's best efforts.

Sunday 02/25/07

9:00 PM Sundance
Koma (2004 HK): Goodbye Seoul, hello Hong Kong! Sundance's Asia Extreme series puts the focus on ‘extreme Asian cinema's original homeland: the former Crown Colony of Hong Kong, where director Lo-Chi Leung helmed this paean to the pleasures of selling human organs on the black market. Koma (‘help' in Cantonese, apparently) features Angelica Lee and Karena Lam as Ching and Ling, two women who meet under extraordinary and bloody circumstances involving an errant kidney. The two have another connection - shared boyfriend Wai (Andy Hui) - and there's a second renal organ that gets into the act before this twisty psycho thriller wends its way to a baffling and unsettling conclusion. Perfect viewing if you're getting operated on this week.

Monday 02/26/07

4:45 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Stranger (1946 USA): Orson Welles' vast body of work (not to be confused with his own vast body) is burdened by the lengthy shadow cast by his earlier Citizen Kane, a film so venerated and over-rated at this point that its hard to consider objectively. The Stranger is one of Welles' very best efforts, was the director's only American film to turn a profit on release, and deserves a much wider contemporary audience. Welles plays Dr. Charles Rankin, a recently-hired professor at an exclusive boy's school. He's well-loved by both his students and the local community, but unfortunately Dr. Rankin has a dark secret: he's actually an escaped Nazi war criminal called Franz Kindler, who's being pursued by Wilson (Edward G. Robinson, fresh off the trail of Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity), an investigator for the Allied War Crimes Commission. Welles' acting brilliance shines through as he makes his characters and his audience empathize with the repulsive Kindler; perhaps only Joseph Cotten in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) carried off the same task with as much aplomb. A wonderful piece of work - and an unusual one from Howard Hughes' RKO - The Stranger was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, and makes absolutely no mention of its lead character's childhood playthings.

1:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
None Shall Escape (1944 USA): Eye-patched Hungarian director Andre de Toth helmed this little known but remarkably prescient drama, which features Alexander Knox as an unrepentant German officer on trial for war crimes. Knox, nominated for an Academy Award the same year for his portrayal of President Woodrow Wilson in the portentous biopic Wilson, plays the delightfully monickered Wilhelm Grimm, an ardent Nazi on trial for his role in the deportation and subsequent massacre of Polish Jews. Produced for Columbia and co-written by future blacklist victim Lester Cole, de Toth's film is surprisingly harsh for a Hollywood feature, broaching subject matter considered too incendiary for earlier films such as Fritz Lang's Hangmen Also Die (1943).