By John Seal
February 3-9, 2003
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times PST.
Monday 02/03/03
1:45am IFC
Donald Cammell: The Ultimate Performance (1999 GB): The late Donald Cammell was one of the unsung greats of film and another member of the Welles/Gilliam school of ambitious artists who rarely, if ever, were allowed to fully realize their cinematic vision. Cammell's filmography is distressingly short, but includes major works such as Performance (1970 GB) and the underrated Demon Seed (1977 USA). This BBC documentary goes some way towards restoring Cammell's reputation, and features interviews with a disparate group including Cammell colleague Nicolas Roeg, actress Barbara Steele, Performance actors James Fox and Mick Jagger, and avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger.
5pm Turner Classic Movies
John Garfield Story (2003 USA): This TCM original production on the tragic life of Garfield features narration by his daughter Julie and interviews with Hollywood greats like Patricia Neal, Hume Cronyn, and TiVoPlex fave Norman Lloyd. It's followed by three of the actor's finest films, including 1946's The Postman Always Rings Twice at 6pm, 1948's Force of Evil at 9pm, and 1951's He Ran All the Way at 10:30pm.
5pm Encore Mystery
The Lineup (1958 USA): This rare Columbia crime feature, directed by Dirty Harry and Charley Varrick auteur Don Siegel and written by Sterling Silliphant, stars Eli Wallach and Robert Keith as a pair of hustlers shaking down drug runners bringing heroin into the country. Sounds like a recipe for grittiness and gunplay to me. Look for Mr. Drysdale himself, Raymond Bailey, in a small role. Also airs 2/4 at 1:50am and 2/7 at 2:15am.
7pm Fox Movies
Raising Arizona (1987 USA): I'm not the world's biggest fan of this Coen Brothers film. Its sneering attitude toward the uneducated white working class (otherwise known as crackers or rednecks) has always rubbed me the wrong way. But there is something undeniably sweet at the heart of the film, and the performances by Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter, while still grounded in stereotypes, nonetheless won me over the second and third time I watched the film. Featuring Coen regulars John Goodman and Frances McDormand and an especially good performance by Trey Wilson (who saved the otherwise hard-to-watch Great Balls of Fire as record producer Sam Phillips), Raising Arizona is also getting the letterboxed treatment this time out.
10:30pm IFC
Double Life of Veronique (1991 FRA): I've never seen this film, but I'm a big fan of Krzysztof Kieslowksi's Three Colors trilogy, so I'm looking forward to correcting my oversight. Starring Kieslowski regular Irene Jacob as both a French and a Polish Veronique/Weronika, this will give you the perfect reason to stay up late and turn the channel to…
Tuesday 02/04/03
…1am Encore Love Stories
Three Colors: White (1994 FRA-POL): In a case of programming synchronicity that Kieslowski admirers will surely appreciate, the second film of the Three Colors trilogy is airing a mere half-hour after the conclusion of Double Life of Veronique. That they are airing on different cable channels owned by different corporations surely adds to the bizarreness. At any rate, Irene Jacob does NOT star in this film, making way instead for the ethereal Julie Delpy as a sexually unsatisfied woman looking to divorce bad-in-bed husband Zbigniew Zamachowski. Kieslowski's films aren't for impatient film fans who favor linear story lines and lots of action, but if you're in the mood for a film to savor and ruminate upon, you couldn't do much better than this.
9:50am Black Starz!
Deep Cover (1992 USA): This deeply flawed action film nevertheless deserves praise for trying something different. Laurence (here billed as Larry) Fishburne stars as a police officer sent deep undercover into the merciless world of drug dealing to try and get the goods on the big boys in Colombia. Written by Michael Tolkin (The Player, Changing Lanes) and directed by Bill Duke (familiar to filmgoers as corrupt cops in both Payback (1999 USA) and The Limey (2000 USA), this film, whilst staying true to its action genre roots, manages to question the War on Drugs with greater subtlety than the overrated Traffic (2001 USA). Deep Cover is marred by poor editing and silly camera flourishes, but Fishburne is fine, and the supporting cast excellent, including Jeff Goldblum and Gregory Sierra as bad guys, Sidney Lassick as Sierra's sidekick, and Roger Guenveur Smith (best known for his Huey Newton stage show) as a simpering lackey. The rap track over the closing credits scroll features Dr. Dre and "introduces" a guy called Snoop Dogg. Also airs at 5pm.
6:45pm Encore Mystery
Bloody Angels (1998 NOR): Norwegians hate it, Belgians love it, and I'm always interesting in seeing obscure films, so you know I'll be tuning in. Compared - favorably and unfavorably - to David Lynch's Twin Peaks, the film deals with murder and depression in the wintry wastes of Scandinavia. English-speaking audiences will inevitably compare this to the more widely known Insomnia (1997 NOR), and if Bloody Angels is half as good as that film, it will be worth watching.
Wednesday 02/05/03
Midnight Showtime Extreme
Spetters (1980 HOL): Paul Verhoeven's film about motorcycle racers and the girl they lust after was a critical success when it hit the art-house circuit in 1980, but the director's penchant for breasts and bloodshed was already in evidence, so those with an aversion to foreign films shouldn't let their prejudices keep them from this exciting movie. The cycling sequences are great and Rutger Hauer puts in an appearance as the racers' mentor. And while I'm on the subject of motorcycle movies, I'd like to offer abject apologies to anyone who watched Silver Dream Racer last week as a result of its inclusion in this column. Man, that was one BAD movie. Spetters also airs 2/9 at 10:10pm.
3am Turner Classic Movies
The Meanest Gal in Town (1934 USA): I know nothing about this RKO comedy, but the cast alone offers sufficient attraction: ZaSu Pitts as a spurned fiancée, the inimitable El Brendel as the spurner, James Gleason, and even John Carradine in a small role. And at 62 minutes, you know it won't be boring.
1:15pm HBO 2
Liam (2000 GB): Stephen Frears' film about poverty in 1930s Liverpool is a fine - at times great - film, at least until the absurd conclusion. Jimmy McGovern's screenplay is superb until the final ten minutes. I won't give away the ending, and I heartily recommend the rest of the film, but the way the story barrels along in an effort to tie up its loose strings is very disappointing, especially after the careful and deliberate pacing of the first 80 minutes. Beyond this serious flaw, Liam has a tremendously likeable and drop-dead cute lead in little Anthony Borrows, who couldn't have been more than five when he made this film, and solid grown-up stars in Ian Hart and Claire Hackett. And while we're on the synchronicity bandwagon, Hart has played John Lennon twice…and Anthony Borrows has played him once! Also airs at 4:15pm.
5pm Turner Classic Movies
Salt of the Earth (1954 USA): One of the ten greatest American films of all time, Salt of the Earth was made by blacklisted Herbert J. Biberman during his exile from Hollywood. Filmed in New Mexico and funded by the contributions of the Hollywood Ten and others, this rare example of American neo-realism deals with a strike in the zinc mines of the Southwestern United States. The film is beautiful to look at, righteous in its indignation, and utterly unique. Soft-hearted leftie Will Geer is the only recognizable name in the cast, essaying one of his antithetical villain roles, but the star of the film is Rosaura Revueltas, a Mexican film star hounded out of her own country by another anti-Communist witch-hunt. Revueltas' performance is stunning. This film changed the way people looked at cinema and paved the way for a new era of political consciousness on film.
10:15pm Encore Mystery
Miracle Mile (1988 USA): This is one of the best nuclear apocalypse films you may not have seen. Anthony "I'm Not as Old as I Look" Edwards plays a young man who receives a phone call warning him of imminent nuclear war. Convinced the threat is real, Edwards tries to rescue his girlfriend (Mare Winningham) and escape from Los Angeles before the first bomb drops. Genre hero John Agar had his last sizable - and decent - role as Winningham's father. Directed by Steve de Jarnatt, whose only other major credit is the fairly awful Cherry 2000, Miracle Mile is a bit of a miracle itself. Don't expect Dr. Strangelove or Fail-Safe, but you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Thursday 02/06/03
7pm Turner Classic Movies
New Orleans (1947 USA): Before being Red-baited out of Hollywood, Herbert J. Biberman helped produce and write this story of old-time jazz in the Big Easy. Perhaps his willingness to work with African-Americans in this film was one of the strikes against him when he faced the HUAC. New Orleans is strictly low-budget territory, and artistically is a train wreck compared to Salt of the Earth, but the parade of eminent musicians featured is truly impressive: Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, Ethel Waters, and Meade "Lux" Lewis, amongst others.
10pm Black Starz!
Willie Dynamite (1974 USA): Much as I regret sharing anything in common with Quentin Tarantino, I too have a place in my heart for the black action genre. Willie Dynamite is one of the harder-to-see examples of the style, so its airing is cause for celebration. The title character, played by Roscoe Orman, known to millions of children and their parents as Sesame Street's Gordon Robinson, is a dressed-to-the-nines super-pimp wrestling with his conscience (in the form of social worker Diana Sands) and his fellow businessmen, who resent his place atop the pimp pecking order. Also appearing are Joyce Walker - so incredibly affecting in The Education of Sonny Carson - and the great Thalmus Rasulala.
Friday 02/07/03
6am Sundance
NY NY: This collection of short subjects showcasing the Big Apple includes D. A. Pennebaker's very first film, the Duke Ellington-scored Daylight Express (1953); as well as 1948's In the Street, a series of street scenes from East Harlem in the '40s; and four other recent (and probably less interesting) meditations on the meaning of life in the City That Never Sleeps. The rarity of the two older films makes this essential viewing.
10:15am Showtime 2
Diamonds (1975 ISR-USA): Showtime is showing a very nice letterboxed print of this unheralded caper movie. Richard Roundtree teams up with Robert Shaw to pull off one of those "impossible" heists, perhaps explaining why this film was re-titled Diamond Shaft for some markets. There's a very fine soundtrack by Roy Budd (the original Get Carter), too.
9:30pm Turner Classic Movies
Gold for the Caesars (1964 ITA): Sword-and-sandals fans, awake! Here's a super rarity, another MGM made-in-Italy "epic" produced in the wake of Morgan the Pirate and The Mongols, two other films with American stars directed by Hungarian émigré Andre de Toth. This one features Jeffrey Hunter (off to Europe to save his career, like so many others), as a slave sent by his Roman masters to find more gold (there's NEVER enough gold around when you need it). Pray for letterboxing! It's followed at 11pm by Fellini's La Strada (1954 ITA), starring Anthony Quinn as a circus strongman and Giulietta Masina as the young woman sold into his service. An interesting and unusual double bill!
Saturday 02/08/03
12:15am More Max
Amores Perros (2000 MEX): Can I get in one more nasty dig about Quentin Tarantino in one week? Amores Perros is the movie Mr QT wishes Pulp Fiction could have been. Even more galling for the King of Hyperactivity, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu was no doubt influenced by that masterpiece of style-over-substance, and turned it into a better film in his first try! Inarritu's story is actually more than a clever collection of set pieces bundled together in an effort to tell one clumsy story, and his cast is far superior to the arch John Travolta and company. Oh, and the music - by Gustavo Santaolalla - is better, too.
3:15am Encore Mystery
Scream of Fear (1961 GB): A little-seen effort from Britain's scream factory, Hammer Film Productions, this was one of many Psycho knock-offs populating cinemas in the early '60s. Starring Susan Strasberg as a wheelchair-bound woman who sees dead people, this is a decent thriller that bears similarities to later films with handicapped heroines, such as Wait Until Dark (1967 USA) and See No Evil (1971 GB).
5am IFC
Zatoichi and the Doomed Man (1965 JAP): Equal measures of humor and action enliven this entry in the series. Zatoichi hooks up with a cowardly-but-greedy hustler who steals the blind swordsman's identity. Of course, he eventually needs Zatoichi's assistance! There's a lengthy battle at the end of the film to please aficionados of the genre, as Zatoichi must rescue a wrongly condemned man from execution. Like all of the Nikkatsu films in this series, this is a gorgeous-looking wide-screen extravaganza. Also airs at 11am.
6:20am Encore Mystery
Who's Minding the Mint? (1967 USA): This screwball comedy had me rolling on the floor when I was a youngster. It doesn't play quite as well now, but I still have a soft spot for this tale of broken currency plates and the men who try to replace them (and make a little extra money on the side). If you never spent any time on the Borscht Belt or in Vegas, here's your chance, because the film features Milton Berle, Joey Bishop, Jack Gilford, and Bob Denver, as well as earnest young Jim Hutton (as the unwitting mint worker who unintentionally starts all the trouble), Victor Buono, Walter Brennan, and a pre-M*A*S*H Jamie Farr. It's good, clean, wholesome criminal fun for the whole family!
10:30pm Turner Classic Movies
The James Dean Story (1957 USA): If you're a Dean fan and you haven't seen this before, here's your chance to see a morbid early example of the celebrity documentary. Unlike later entries like The Wicked Wicked World of Jayne Mansfield (1968 USA), this isn't aimed strictly at the exploitation market, though it was certainly designed to capitalize on the grief of America's youth over the death of their favorite Method actor. Directed by a young Robert Altman, the film is valuable for its interviews with friends and relatives, but the doom-laden narrative by Martin Gabel is not for all tastes.
Sunday 02/09/03
7pm IFC
Crumb (1993 USA): Before Terry Zwigoff made the incomparable Ghost World (2001 USA), he made this grueling documentary about the troubled and talented Crumb family. The focus is on R. Crumb, the counterculture hero of the comics who came to loathe the burden his accidental fame brought him, but there's also considerable time spent with Robert's brothers Charles and Maxon. Charles and Maxon make Robert look like a rock of success and stability, and the film is uncomfortable viewing, never sparing the viewer sordid-but-true stories of sexual abuse, insanity, and suicide. Zwigoff luckily doesn't mistreat his subjects, keeping an appropriate distance that would be entirely impossible for a documentarian like Nick Broomfield to maintain.
9pm Turner Classic Movies
Intolerance (1916 USA): After the firestorm unleashed by Birth of a Nation, D. W. Griffith - blind to the racial hatred encapsulated in that film - vowed to make recompense. His penance turned into Intolerance, perhaps the greatest epic of silent cinema. Four separate stories tell the same sorry tale of man's inhumanity to man, as religious turmoil leads to suffering in ancient Babylon, ancient Judea, 16th-century France, and 1916 America. The film is overlong and drags at times, but has some amazing sequences, primarily the Babylonian battle scenes. Griffith is commonly regarded as a racist; he may well have been, but the picture is more complex than the one presented in the potted history of his life would have it.
