New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

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

Tuesday 03/13/07

7:00 PM Fox Movie Channel
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1993 USA): The movie responsible for unleashing its own pop culture phenomenon finally makes its widescreen television debut this evening. Wish I could say I'm more enthusiastic about this landmark, but frankly I consider the film little better than a TV pilot, and it wastes the great Paul Reubens in a thankless role. On the plus side, it also features an uncredited Ben Affleck as ‘basketball player #10', which is the rare role commensurate with his talents. Also airs 3/18 at 5:00 PM.

10:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Heat (1995 USA): An epic length gangster flick from director Michael Mann, Heat is another film appearing on the boob tube for the first time in letterboxed format - and though I've never really warmed up to Mann's ‘hey, Ma, look at me I'm a movie director' style, it's still better than Buffy. Starring Al Pacino and Robert de Niro, the film traces the cat and mouse games indulged in by police Lieutenant Victor Hanna (Pacino) and his prey, professional thief Neil McCauley (de Niro). McCauley is getting ready to hang it up, but his partner in crime Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) is still eager to pull off a final post-retirement job, and the gang targets a Federal bank for that One Big Final Score. The action sequences are predictably flashy and drawn-out, but Mann's screenplay allows de Niro and Pacino to show off their range, with their characters each serving as a positive-negative image of the other. Amongst the weighty supporting cast are Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Ashley Judd, Wes Studi, Hank Azaria, and a teenage Natalie Portman, no better at 14 than she is today.

Wednesday 03/14/07

1:50 AM Encore Dramatic Stories
Caesar and Cleopatra (1946 GB): Caesar and Cleopatra was scheduled to air on TCM back in January, but it didn't happen - so hopefully this won't be another false alarm. Fans of frock flicks should note this rare airing of George Bernard Shaw's screen adaptation of his own play about the (fictional) relationship between Caesar (snarky Claude Rains) and Cleopatra (sexy Vivien Leigh). After Rome invades Egypt, Caesar finds himself less than satisfied with the mere material rewards of imperialism, and yearns for female companionship. Whilst strolling past the Sphinx one day - in the merry, merry month of May? - he happens upon Cleopatra, a woman of striking looks and sharp intelligence who appeals to the great Pontifex Maximus' desire for a suitably grand spouse. The most expensive film ever made it Britain at the time of its release, it's hard to see where the money was spent, as Caesar and Cleopatra is decidedly short on spectacle and long - very long - on Shaw's witty dialogue. It looks fabulous nonetheless, with youngsters such as Jack Cardiff and Freddie Young behind the camera, and the supporting cast is exemplary, with Stewart Granger, Flora Robson, Ernest Thesiger, Michael Rennie, Leo Genn, Stanley Holloway, Jean Simmons, and even an 18-year-old Roger Moore populating the scenery.

4:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Carve Her Name With Pride (1958 GB): Virginia McKenna (Born Free) plays a woman torn between family responsibilities and patriotic duty in this above average espionage thriller from future 007 director Lewis Gilbert. She's Violette Szabo (nee Bushell), a war widow trying to raise her daughter during the darkest days of 1942. When she's approached by Britain's Special Operations Executive (roughly equivalent to the CIA, and the forerunner of MI6) to carry out a special mission in occupied France, Violette must make a decision - what's more important, her daughter or her country? No prizes for guessing which choice she makes, as the patriotic mum heads off for rigorous training, a parachute drop into France, and ultimately a grave in Ravensbruck, the concentration camp exclusively set aside for female prisoners. Based on a true story (you can go and visit the real Violette Szabo's blue plaque at 18 Burnley Road, SW9), Carve Her Name With Pride also features Paul Scofield as Vi's control, as well as Jack Warner, Billie Whitelaw, and an uncredited Michael Caine as a Nazi soldier.

5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Dick Tracy (1945 USA): All four RKO Dick Tracy features air this evening in chronological order, and while none of them are very good, they remain essential viewing for fans of the granite jawed private eye with the futuristic wrist-radio. First up is the series' initial outing, starring Morgan Conway as Tracy, here on the trail of serial killer Splitface, played to great effect by always wonderful plug ugly Mike Mazurki. Stylistically, this is the most interesting entry in the series, but Conway is simply terrible as Tracy, and on balance the film is little more than a slightly outré police procedural. It's followed at 6:15 PM by Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946), in which Conway returns to no great effect whilst pursuing another psychotic killer; at 7:30 PM by Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947), wherein serial star Ralph Byrd returned to his accustomed role as the eponymous hero, this time out to catch hook-handed villain The Claw; and at 8:45 PM by Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947), with Boris Karloff cashing a pay cheque as the titular nerve-gas wielding super villain.

7:50 PM Starz Edge
The Libertine (2004 GB): I haven't seen this Johnny Depp box-office dud, which features the be-whiskered thespian as a fully shaven 17th century poet and debauchee ravaged by syphilis and alcoholism, but it's making its television debut - in widescreen, no less - tonight. If you fancy your frock flicks with unhealthy doses of venereal disease, florid verse, and nasal deformity, look no further than The Libertine, which co-stars John Malkovich and Rosamund Pike. Also airs 3/19 at 6:00 PM.

11:00 PM Starz
Cache (2005 FRA): First, the good news: Michael Haneke's Cache (Hidden) was one of the best films of 2005, a fascinating puzzle box that echoes the voyeuristic themes of Michaelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966) and demands (and rewards) multiple viewings. Now, the not so good: it's debuting on Starz in pan and scan, reducing Haneke's carefully constructed framing to occasional incoherence. Is it still worth watching? Probably. Daniel Autueil plays Georges Laurent, a TV talk show host (for a decidedly high brow literary programme - this is France, after all) who starts receiving mysterious video-taped ‘messages' on his doorstep. At first he and wife Anne (Juliet Binoche) ignore them, but the determined efforts of their mysterious stalker start to wear away the complacency, and Georges is soon hitting the streets in an effort to find their tormentor. The answers are firmly rooted in France's colonial past and uneasy multicultural present, as well as Georges' own family history, which features a few well-buried skeletons in the family closet. Autueil delivers a powerful performance, and though the final scene is almost maddeningly opaque, Cache is still a deeply satisfying experience for those looking for a little meat on their cinema bones. Also airs 3/15 at 2:00 AM.

Thursday 03/15/07

3:00 AM Fox Movie Channel
Island In the Sky (1938 USA): Gloria Stuart stars as Julie Hayes, the new bride of crusading District Attorney Michael Fraser (She Shoulda Said No's Michael Whalen) in this long forgotten Fox second feature. About to embark on their honeymoon, the couple's celebrations are interrupted by a murder indictment for an apparently open and shut case. Julie, however, doubts the accused is guilty, and with the aid of reformed gangster Johnny Doyle (former San Quentin inmate Paul Kelly) sets out to prove his innocence. You've seen it all before, but you probably haven't seen Island In the Sky, which is making its first small screen appearance in decades this morning.

6:50 AM Encore Love Stories
Best of Youth (2004 ITA): If you missed this six hour Italian drama when it made its American television premiere last October, don't make the same mistake twice. Best of Youth tells the story of the Caratis, an urbane family of Romans living through the tumult of the 1960s and ‘70s, including papa Angelo, mama Adriana, brothers Nicola and Matteo, and sisters Giovanna and Francesca. Nicola (Luigi lo Cascio) is a doctor who chucks in medical practice for lumberjacking, Matteo (Alessio Boni) is a student of literature who joins the police, and together they try to help a psychologically damaged woman (the hauntingly beautiful Jasmine Trinca) overcome adversity over the course of four decades. Best of Youth is episodic but never boring, and though co-produced by RAI Television, hearkens back to the Golden Age of Italian cinema, when directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci and Luchino Visconti weren't averse to challenging the patience of the audience. I watched Best of Youth in three bite-size two hour morsels, but whatever your viewing preferences, don't miss it.

Friday 03/16/07

9:00 PM IFC
Killing Machine (1975 JAP): Over the last few weeks, IFC has aired Sonny Chiba's Mas Oyama trilogy, in which the actor recreated the decidedly fictional adventures of a non-fictional martial arts master. The Killing Machine was shot a year before the first of the Oyama films, and features Chiba as another real life practitioner of the manly arts - Doshin So, a Japanese secret service agent who returned home after World War II only to find the streets overrun by two-bit hoodlums and Ugly American G.I.s. So(nny)'s determined to regain control of the ‘hood, and starts training some of the local youngsters in the art of shorinji kenpo -but it's not long before the bad guys, including the ubiquitous Tetsuro Tamba, get wind of his scheming and decide to put the kibosh on his do-gooding ways. Also airs 3/17 at 12:20 AM and 3:25 AM.

Saturday 03/17/07

7:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Crime Doctor (1943 USA): Eight Crime Doctor features were produced for Columbia in the mid to late 1940s, but we're only getting the first entry this morning. The unique set-up for the series involves a renowned criminal psychologist (Warner Baxter) whose less than above-board past has been lost in the mists of time after a bout of amnesia induced by forcible expulsion from a speeding car. Crime Doctor provides us with the back-story, as ‘Robert Ordway' (surely no relation of William Burroughs' Dr. Benway?) recovers from his ‘accident' with the nurturing assistance of Dr. Carey (Ray Collins). Fast forward ten years, and Robert (now himself a doctor) has established himself as a brilliant practitioner whose knack for handling criminals - including one of his old mobster pals - has made him his profession's go-to guy. But a bump on the noggin begins to bring back some of Ordway's bad old memories, and the good doctor finds himself once again enmeshed in a criminal investigation. Watch for additional films in the series, scheduled to air on TCM throughout the spring.

2:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Wild One (1953 USA): Bike ‘clubs' sprang up across the United States in the immediate post-war years, populated by disillusioned veterans unwilling to settle for the comfy life promised by The Serviceman's Readjustment Bill of 1944 - more popularly known as the G.I. Bill. The mystique of the rebellious biker has stayed strong ever since, and the recent box office success of Ghost Rider and Wild Hogs suggests the biker movie genre still has some juice left 50 years since its inception courtesy this groundbreaking movie. Marlon Brando stars as Johnny Strabler, the leader of the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club (not to be confused with the JAMC), a collection of misfits who ride into the town of Wrightsville one day after raising hell at a nearby sickle rally. Strabler proceeds to eyeball the local maidens (including sweet young thing Mary Murphy), whilst ineffective local sheriff Bleeker (Robert Keith) wrings his hands from a distance. Things get even worse when rival gang The Beetles (not to be confused with The Knickernbockers) ride into town, with be-denimed hard man Chino (Lee Marvin) leading the way. Unsurprisingly, things rapidly come to a head, and motor oil is soon running in the streets. Directed by enigmatic émigré Laszlo Benedek, The Wild One also features Timothy Carey as one of Chino's henchmen, as well a heaping helping of classic Harleys and Triumphs.

9:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
Psyche '59 (1964 GB): Super rarity alert ! Patricia Neal stars as Alison, the psychosomatically sightless spouse of London businessman Eric Crawford (Curt Jurgens), in this very obscure drama from future Star Trek director Alexander Singer. When younger sister Robin (Samantha Eggar) pops in for a visit), randy Eric takes a fancy to her - and the two proceed to engage in a torrid affair whilst poor Alison listens from a distance. A box office disaster that has never seen a home video release, Psyche '59 (the title referencing the year when Alison first lost her vision) was written for the screen by Julian Zimet, who went on to pen such popular guilty pleasures as Horror Express and Psychomania (both 1972).

Sunday 03/18/07

5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Look Back In Anger (1958 GB): If the spitting of on-screen venom if your thing, this Tony Richardson feature provides it in spades. Richard Burton stars as Jimmy Porter, a failed jazz musician and candy salesman who spends his spare time raging, raging against the dying of the light - or, if the light is otherwise engaged, his wife Alison (Mary Ure), his lover Helena (Claire Bloom), and his cook, er, fellow purveyor of sweetmeats, Cliff (Gary Raymond). It's an hour and a half of Grade A Burtonesque self-loathing, concluding with a hard to credit come to Jesus moment that supposedly makes everything better. Written for the screen by Nigel Kneale and based on John Osborne's hugely successful play of the same name, Look Back In Anger was one of the highlights of British realist cinema of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, and made Burton an international star.

9:00 PM Sundance
R-Point (2004 ROK): Variety perhaps said it best: ‘Think "Full Metal Jacket" restaged as an Asian ghost movie'. Or you may prefer the BBC's take: ‘"Platoon" with ectoplasm'. Set during the Vietnam War, R-Point examines the supposedly ‘real life' (but actually entirely ficticious) experiences of a squad of Korean soldiers stationed on the titular island, where they are besieged inside a spooky old dark house by an invisible army of Viet Cong. Shot on the grounds of an old French plantation in Cambodia, R-Point is a derivative but enjoyable thriller that was a huge hit at the Korean box office - and already the subject of Hollywood remake rumors.

Monday 03/19/07

7:15 PM Sundance
Road to Guantanamo (2006 GB): The relentlessly productive Michael Winterbottom scored big with this politically charged tale of The Tipton Three, three young Britons of Asian descent who were in the ‘wrong place at the wrong time' and ended up imprisoned for over two years in the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp. If you want to experience some righteous anger, watch this film, and then go and read Moazzem Begg's Enemy Combatant. Then impeach the President.

10:30 PM HBO Signature
Fuga (2006 ARG-CHI): I have no idea if this is any good or not, but it's from Argentina, so how could I not mention it?