From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times PDT.
Tuesday 10/07/03
2 am Sundance Estonia Dreams of Eurovision! (2002): It doesn’t mean much to Americans, but the Eurovision song contest has been a pop culture favorite in Europe for decades. Previous winners have included France Gall, Lulu, Sandie Shaw, ABBA, and the never to be forgotten Bucks Fizz. The contest came to Denmark in 2001 (this year’s competition took place in Latvia), where director Marina Zenovich charted the progress of local musical heroes Tanel and Dave (the latter actually born on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba), representing Estonia with the song Everybody. Will they win? Or will the pressure be too much to bear against established Eurovision powerhouses like Greece, Luxembourg, or Turkey, who won it all this year with the stirring pseudo-feminist anthem, Everywhere That I Can? If the tension doesn’t kill you, some of the performances probably will.
7 pm Cinemax Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (2000 USA): There was no way I was NOT going to include this sequel to everyone’s favorite snowbound slasher movie of recent years, the underappreciated horror comedy Jack Frost (1997 USA). (Neither the original film nor this sequel should be confused with Michael Keaton’s bizarre family-friendly feature of 1998 bearing the same name, though inevitably some shell-shocked parent will make the mistake.) No, I haven’t seen this one -- surprisingly, this is Jack Frost 2’s cable debut -- but the original creative team behind the first film returned for the sequel, including director Michael Cooney, so the potential for entertainment (not to mention bloodshed) is high. Apparently our old pal Jack can now withstand tropical heat, so when the survivors of the first film take a Caribbean vacation, he’s, erm, hot on their heels. Sounds thoroughly implausible to me, which was one of the most charming attributes of the first film, too. Also airs at 10 pm.
Wednesday 10/08/03
1:30 am Turner Classic Movies Ghost Ship (1943 USA): For many years, this Val Lewton production was almost a lost film, unavailable on home video and never aired on television. Now it crops up from time to time on TCM, but it’s always worth a recommendation to fans of the Lewton oeuvre who have yet to catch up with it. Whilst the film is no classic, it’s certainly a worthy and more than watchable entry, with director Mark Robson eking out every possible drop of suspense from his fogbound, shipboard set. Russell Wade plays the Third Officer of the good ship Altair, whose crew begin to die in suspicious circumstances at the same time ship’s captain Richard Dix begins to exhibit some disturbing behavior. There are cameo appearances by Lawrence Tierney and the great calypso singer Sir Lancelot (a Lewton favorite who also appeared in 1943’s I Walked With A Zombie and 1944’s Curse of the Cat People), and the film is nicely shot by Nicholas Musaraca.
3 am Turner Classic Movies Parlor, Bedroom, and Bath (1931 USA): An all but forgotten Buster Keaton sound feature, this uneven MGM production isn’t as bad as some of Buster’s other talkies but won’t make you forget The General anytime soon. Directed by comedy specialist Edward Sedgwick, whose work with Buster straddled the silent/sound eras, the film co-stars Reginald Denny as a suitor using Keaton as a cat’s paw in his efforts to win the hand of Charlotte Greenwood. The dialogue is nothing to write home about, but when Buster gets to display his unequalled physical comic timing, the movie takes off.
6:15 am The Movie Channel Reptilicus (1961 DEN): Have you ever wanted to see downtown Copenhagen threatened by a huge, prehistoric monster? If so, here’s your chance. Director Sid Pink -- also responsible for the equally bizarre Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962 DEN) -- managed to concoct a very strange creature feature with Reptilicus, one which served double duty as both a box office attraction and as publicity for the Danish Tourist Board. The film features a tremendous amount of padding, with considerable footage of Copenhagen’s most beautiful sites shown at length whilst characters drive around the city in between clashes with the title monster. Apparently Pink had to include these scenes in order to get city approval to shoot anything at all, and it also enabled him to briefly receive cooperation from the Danish military, which provided a small contingent of troops to help keep Reptilicus in check. Starring Danish-born Carl Otteson as an American general out to stop the monster menace, this is truly a unique piece of filmmaking, not exactly worthy of recommendation, but riveting viewing nonetheless. It’s one of those films you will watch, jaw agape, whilst you pinch yourself and repeat: “it’s only a movie…it’s only a movie.” Also airs at 9:15 am, 1 pm, and 4 pm.
Thursday 10/09/03
3 am Turner Classic Movies Sporting Blood (1931 USA): This early Clark Gable feature is a prime example of pre-Code filmmaking. Gable plays a gambler who likes to put money on the horses, but when he ends up winning one on a bet and entering it in the Kentucky Derby he soon learns that backing the gee-gees can be a dirty game. Also featuring Madge Evans and Ernest Torrence, Sporting Blood has a sharp-as-a tack screenplay by Willard Mack that still has some bite to it. Co-star Marie Prevost, who became the subject of a Nick Lowe song on his 1978 Jesus of Cool LP, died in poverty at the age of 38, though whether she was actually eaten by her own pets -- as implied by Lowe’s song -- cannot be confirmed.
8 pm Sundance Habit (1997 USA): The best vampire film in a long time (or at least since Abel Ferrara's 1995 movie The Addiction), Habit is a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable look at the collapsing world of Sam, a semi-alcoholic loser played by writer/director Larry Fessenden. Fessenden, whose erratic but ambitious filmography also includes the horror sleeper Wendigo and the painful to watch drama Margarita Happy Hour, also wrote, edited, and directed this unusual feature. When Sam meets the mysterious Anna (played brilliantly by the slinky Meredith Snaider, who has no other film credits to her name) at a Halloween party, his life seems to be changing for the better...until people start disappearing and Sam develops an upset tummy. Oh, and Anna starts...biting him. This is a must see for all fans of the bloodsucking genre, and until the film tips its hand in the final reel, is also an outstanding character study about a man “committing suicide on the installment plan.” If you’re interested in seeing more of Fessenden’s work, Wendigo airs 10/13 on More Max at 8:30 am.
10 pm Turner Classic Movies Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978 USA): How often does a remake truly match up to the original film? Only, apparently, when it involves Jack Finney’s tale of extraterrestrial pod people, a novel that has now been filmed three times, with a fourth version currently feeding the Internet rumor mills. It probably helped to have W. D. Richter (Big Trouble In Little China, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai) on hand to adapt Finney’s novel and update it for the navel-gazing ‘70s, but astute casting (notably Jeff Goldblum and Leonard Nimoy), respectful nods to the original (including cameos by Kevin McCarthy and Don Siegel), and superb location work in San Francisco also factor into the film’s success. The icing on this particular cake, of course, is TCM’s airing of a superb wide-screen print. Perhaps it’s just the idea that intelligent and malicious plants may be out there waiting to prey upon mankind, but all three versions of this story -- including Abel Ferrara’s less successful 1993 take starring Forrest Whitaker -- give me the willies.
Friday 10/10/03
9 pm Fox Movies Earthbound (1940 USA): This odd fantasy-mystery isn’t much more than ‘B’ grade filler, but it’s certainly rare enough to earn a mention in this week’s column. Warner Baxter stars as a murdered man who returns from the dead to help his widow (Andrea Leeds, who ended her film career and got married after appearing here) solve the mystery of his demise. Competently if unimaginatively directed by Irving Pichel, Earthbound is typical of the vaguely supernatural fare favored over outright horror by most Hollywood studios in the late ‘30s and ‘40s, and probably owes the popular series of Topper films a debt of gratitude.
11 pm Turner Classic Movies Ivan the Terrible, Part II (1958 USSR): Completed and released years after the untimely death of director Sergei Eisenstein, the second part of his biography of Russia’s most fearsome Tsar is a bit of a slog in comparison to the epic sweep of the first segment. Nonetheless, there’s court intrigue aplenty as Ivan (Nikolai Cherkasov) tries to unify his people and cement his hold on the Russian throne. As mentioned in last week’s column, there’s a fine Prokofiev score, plus cameo appearances by fellow Soviet filmmakers V. S. Pudovkin and Semyon Timoshenko.
Saturday 10/11/03
6:45 am HBO 2 War Photographer (2002 SUI): This terrific documentary looks at the work of James Nachtwey, a photo journalist unafraid to risk life and limb to get his story on film. Nominated for the Best Feature Documentary Academy Award in 2002 -- where it lost to the superb Murder On A Sunday Morning -- War Photographer is a graphic and discomforting film about a man trying to hold on to his own humanity whilst recording the worldwide horrors of war and poverty. It’s not for the squeamish, but this film is a tribute to a photographer who refuses to leave the banality of evil unrecorded. Also airs at 9:45am.
6 pm Starz!! Far from Heaven (2002 USA): Perhaps a touch more mainstream than the usual fare touted in TiVoPlex, Far from Heaven makes its television premiere this evening. Believe it or not, I missed this one in theaters, though it spent considerable time atop my must-see list. Directed by Todd Haynes (responsible for the much maligned but really not so bad Velvet Goldmine) and starring the Academy Award-nominated Julianne Moore as a Connecticut housewife whose idyllic 1950s existence is threatened by sexual and racial forces beyond her control, Far from Heaven drew critical comparisons to the over-saturated Technicolor melodramas of ‘50s director Douglas Sirk. With a great supporting cast headlined by the resurgent Dennis Quaid, as well as Patricia Clarkson, Viola Davis, and Dennis Haysbert, Far From Heaven also airs at 9 pm, 10/12 at 5:30 am, 8:30 am, 12:35 pm, and 3:35 pm, and throughout the month of October.
Sunday 10/12/03
6 pm Sundance 24 Hour Party People (2002 GB): A huge box office hit in Britain and a moderate art house success in the United States, 24 Hour Party People tells the story of Mancunian motor mouth and all purpose businessman Tony Wilson and traces his influence on the punk and post punk cultural scene in his home town of Manchester. Starting out as a presenter for Britain’s Granada Television, where his program So It Goes provided early gogglebox coverage of local acts like Buzzcocks and national acts like The Sex Pistols, Wilson (played here brilliantly by comedian Steve Coogan) founded the independent Factory Records label and opened the Hacienda nightclub, the catalyst for later Manchester acts such as the loutish Happy Mondays and, erm, Northside. 24 Hour Party People is hampered by the somewhat unavoidable episodic nature of its storytelling, but is an energetic and enjoyable look at a man who single handedly served as midwife for one of the most important musical scenes of the last thirty years. In addition to Coogan, the film is blessed with a magnificent performance by Andy Serkis (Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Rings trilogy) as record producer and resident madman Martin Hannett, as well as cameos by real life scenesters Howard Devoto, Clint Boon, and Mani.
Monday 10/13/03
6 pm Turner Classic Movies Border G-Man (1938 USA): Slim pickings today, so we’re going to opt for this minor RKO second feature about G-men patrolling the Mexican border. Starring hunky George O’Brien as a government agent hot on the heels of slimy businessman John Miljan who is flagrantly breaking the Neutrality Act, Border G-Man is a catalogue of pre-World War II paranoia. Love interest is provided by Laraine Day (still with us and celebrating her 86th birthday on this very day!) and songs are courtesy the singing cowboy himself, Gene Autry.
11:30 pm Flix Brimstone and Treacle (1982 GB): When Sting came to that big fork in the road of life, he made the wrong choice, condemning the Earth to drown in a sea of insipid and unrecyclable pop-jazz CDs. It’s a shame, because when he appeared on the silver screen, he left a much more benign impression, whether in Quadrophenia (1979 GB), The Filth and the Fury (2000 GB), or this dark comedy about a strange young man who insinuates his way into the household of a middle-class professional (Denholm Elliott) and his family (wife Joan Plowright and daughter Suzanna Hamilton). (Oops, I forgot to mention Dune; there goes that thesis). The former Gordon Sumner’s intentions are naturally not good, as he has lascivious eyes for the ripe young Ms. Hamilton, but the film does a fine job of pulling its punches and doesn’t tip its hand until the final reel. Based on a Dennis Potter play (and adapted for the screen by the author), Brimstone and Treacle is a bitter but fascinating concoction.
