By John Seal
December 1-7, 2002
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or under-appreciated - they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times PST.
Sunday 12/01/02
2:30 AM More Max
Zebrahead (1992 USA): This tale of racial unease in suburban Detroit takes place in a world a million miles from Eminem's 8 Mile. The film features the debut of Michael Rapaport, who went on to equally memorable roles in Hand Gun (1994 USA) and Bamboozled (2001 USA), and he's outstanding as a white youth trying to cross over to the African-American social scene. The film doesn't offer easy or pat answers to the conundrums of racial identity, and it's a shame that writer/director Anthony Drazan hasn't done much since.
6:15 AM Showtime 2
A.K.A. Cassius Clay (1970 USA): This documentary was filmed while Muhammad Ali's future in the ring was still uncertain. The film posits a possible future for Ali as a Black revolutionary, and there's plenty of evidence presented to support that possibility. Of course, things didn't turn out that way, and Ali resumed his ring career. Surprisingly sympathetic, this film is a valuable artifact that deserves renewed attention in this post-Will Smith period of Ali's life. Also airs 12/6 at 11:25 AM.
11:30 AM Sundance
Dear Jesse (1997 USA): America's favorite ogre, Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), is only weeks away from retirement, so an airing of this documentary is a timely reminder of his 'legacy'. The film was made when Helms was still at the peak of his career as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, having displaced the more even-tempered Richard Lugar after the 1996 elections. Director Tim Kirkman is a native North Carolinian who also happens to be gay, and he took his camera around his home state to try to understand the appeal of the man who seemed to get a great deal of satisfaction from spreading the gospels of hate and intolerance. Surprisingly, the film does supply some answers, revealing Helms was a tormented student at the receiving end of considerable abuse during his school days. It's hard to imagine a gay filmmaker making a somewhat sympathetic film about Jesse, but this is exactly that. Also airs 12/4 at 10:00 AM.
10:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Body and Soul (1947 USA): The oft-told tale of the hard luck boxer entering the ring for one last fight was never told better than in this John Garfield film. Written by blacklisted Abraham Polonsky, Garfield was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award but sadly lost out to Ronald Colman. At the time Garfield probably expected to have ample opportunity for future nominations, but his career was cut short by Red baiting and he died five years later at the ripe old age of 39. Featuring impressive fight photography by James Wong Howe and art direction by the recently deceased Nathan Juran, Body and Soul offers the rare opportunity of seeing William Conrad with a full head of hair, and there's a fine supporting turn by Canada Lee as one of Garfield's trainers.
Monday 12/02/02
1:15 AM Encore
Hi, Mom! (1970 USA): This film has aired pretty frequently on cable over the last few years, but it's still a very under-appreciated entry in Brian De Palma's resume. Considering the fact that the film stars a young Robert De Niro, it really should be known better. Audaciously filmed on location in gritty New York City and featuring numerous verityé segments, Hi, Mom! is biting satire of the highest order. There's a hilarious turn by the always reliable Gerrit Graham and there's even an appearance by John Garfield's son, Allen!
10:15 AM Encore Mystery
Rentadick (1972 GB): Okay, I know I shouldn't really be recommending a film called Rentadick. No, it's not a Skinemax erotic thriller, it's a lowbrow British sex comedy from the golden age of British sex comedies, the early '70s. The film actually has a reasonable pedigree, however, coming from producer Ned Sherrin, who had descended into the netherworld of naughty knickers humor after creating That Was the Week That Was for British television in the 1960s. Apparently Graham Chapman and John Cleese also provided some (uncredited) writing for the film, and with a cast of stalwarts like Julie Ege, Donald Sinden, James Booth, Spike Milligan, and Richard 'father of Kate' Beckinsale, I'm interested. There's even a theme song by Dave Dee, formerly of big in Europe pop group Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, and Tich. The film will probably stink, but it's a rare opportunity for Americans to experience this lowly but briefly popular genre. Also airs 12/7 at 3:40 AM and 10:30 AM.
9:00 PM Fox Movies
Little Murders (1971 USA): If you enjoyed Hi, Mom! you'll also want to catch this Alan Arkin film, another satirical look at the Big Apple in the '70s. Based on a play by Jules Feiffer, the story revolves around a young couple (Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd) going a-courting whilst random sniper murders are terrorizing the city. Arkin and Donald Sutherland appear in cameo roles but the real scene-stealer is quintessential New York tough guy Vincent Gardenia as Rodd's father.
Tuesday 12/03/02
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Hell Drivers (1957 GB): Thin pickings today, but here's an interesting and rarely seen British film starring the intense Welsh actor Stanley Baker as an ex-con trying to go straight as a lorry driver. Unfortunately he stumbles on graft and corruption in the trucking business. The supporting cast is worth the price of admission alone: Patrick McGoohan, Sid James, Herbert Lom, Jill 'Mrs. Charles Bronson' Ireland, Alfie Bass, William 'Doctor Who' Hartnell, David McCallum, Gordon Jackson, and a 27-year-old Sean Connery in only his seconded credited appearance! With cinematography by the marvelous Geoffrey Unsworth, and directed by Cy Endfield - who went on to work again with Baker in Zulu (1964 GB) - this looks like one of the best Rank Organisation dramas of the period.
Wednesday 12/04/02
1:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
High Tide at Noon (1957 GB): Another Rank drama making an infrequent appearance on American shores. I know even less about this one, and honestly there's not much about it that screams top of the line, though any film with Flora Robson is worth a look. Patrick McGoohan is also in this one (did Rank have contract players?). Director Philip Leacock relocated to the States and spent most of his career churning out disposable TV movies, but screenwriter Neil Patterson was about to create his piece de resistance, 1959's Room At the Top. Not bad for an ex-Dundee United football player…
4:00 AM Sundance
The Apple (1998 IRA): This is another amazing example of the flourishing art of Iranian cinema. Directed by Samira Makhmahlbaf, the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbhaf (Once Upon A Time, Cinema, Kandahar), the film is a radical feminist statement made in an Islamic country governed by a medieval theocracy. Quite how the Makhmahlbaf's got this past the censors must be an interesting story in itself. The scenario is slight on the surface, revolving around two (retarded?) young girls who have been kept imprisoned their entire lives in their own home. The metaphors are blindingly obvious to the average Western cinema-goer but must have gone over the heads of the clerics on the censorship board who are probably more concerned about enforcing strict edicts against on-screen male/female touching. The final shot of the film-as a street urchin dangles an apple tantalizingly above the heads of the girls-is one of the most powerful and revolutionary images ever screened. Also airs at 4:30 PM.
5:00 AM Cinemax
Che! (1969 USA): Every now and then I must succumb to the 'so bad it's good' ethos, and here's one of the leading lights of that cinematic bowel movement. If you want a serious bio-pic of the life of Bolivian bad boy Che Guevara, you'd be advised to wait for the soon coming, Walter Salles'-helmed adaptation of The Motorcycle Diaries. If, however, you are looking for a prime slice of Hollywood cheese, you can hardly do better than this train-wreck from the normally reliable Richard Fleischer. The Egpytian-born Omar Sharif is not entirely bad as the famed revolutionary, but you need to see the cigar and scenery chewing performance of Jack Palance as Fidel Castro to truly appreciate Che!'s unrelenting awfulness. The film's wrap-around segments - where actors portraying 'ordinary' South Americans expound their views on Che - are equally embarrassing. Also airs at 8:00 AM.
6:00 AM Encore
Light of Day (1987 USA): Bad news: Michael J. Fox gurning with a guitar again, much as he did two years earlier in Back to the Future. Good news: Joan Jett and writer/director Paul Schrader, who both bring a gritty realism to this story of a bar band trying to make the big time. Gena Rowlands is terrific as usual as the matriarch of the Jett-Fox family (the two actors play brother and sister band-mates) and there's a nice understated performance by Spinal Tap star Michael McKean as a bemused fellow musician. Also airs at 9:00 AM.
10:05 AM Encore Love Stories
Loving (1970 USA): No one seems to like this story of love, marriage, and betrayal in the swingin' late '60s very much, but I reckon it's rather good. The film's focus on marital infidelity hasn't aged too badly across the intervening decades, and George Segal and Eva Marie Saint make decent sparring partners. Add in Sterling Hayden as Segal's hard-nosed boss and you've got a winner.
Thursday 12/05/02
4:00 AM More Max
Strait-Jacket (1964 USA): More often than not, director-producer William Castle's films (The Tingler excepted) simply didn't live up to expectations, relying too much on the ballyhoo artist's beloved seat buzzers and skeletons on a string to generate the meager thrills the films failed to provide. This is one of Castle's more successful films, and also one of his most straightforward, as it mines territory already stripped bare by Robert Aldrich in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962 USA) and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964 USA). Starring Joan Crawford as a paroled axe murderess, the film starts out with a bang and manages to maintain a fairly suspenseful atmosphere throughout. The conclusion isn't entirely satisfying, but it's Crawford's best post-Baby Jane performance, and that - along with Robert Bloch's sharply written screenplay - has to be worth a recommendation.
6:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949 GB): It looks to be Ealing month on TCM, and they start off with one of the big guns, the film that cemented Alec Guinness' position as a star and started the cycle of Ealing comedies that would last through the 1950s. It's not the best of those films-The Ladykillers and The Lavender Hill Mob were on the horizon-but it's a marvelous portent of things to come, with Guinness essaying eight roles (all members of the Gascoyne D'Ascoyne dynasty) and a suave and handsome Dennis Price playing the murderous and illegitimate D'Ascoyne offspring determined to claim the family inheritance by hook or by crook. Another Ealing classic, Passport to Pimlico (1949 GB), airs on TCM at 9:00 PM.
6:45 PM IFC
Hollywood Shuffle (1987 USA): Few films have made me laugh as hard as Robert Townsend's directorial debut. Sadly, few films have made me laugh as little as Townsend's later super hero parody, The Meteor Man (1993 USA), and I think the less said about B*A*P*S* (1997 USA), the better. Hollywood Shuffle, however, is a brilliant satire of the motion picture industry, right up there with (if not better than) The Player, The Big Picture, and Bowfinger. Written by Keenan Ivory Wayans, about to direct the superb I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, this is bittersweet viewing: Townsend would never again deliver the goods the way he did here, and Wayans somehow lost the touch and ended up directing the awful Scary Movie franchise. Also airs at 11:45 PM and 12/6 at 3:00 AM.
Friday 12/06/02
3:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Rogue Cop (1954 USA): It's been a few years since I last saw Roy Rowland's version of William P. McGivern's outstanding police procedural, but I just finished reading the book and I'll be interested to revisit this one. I frequently cast film versions in my head as I read novels, and I had the lead character in this one pegged as the Sterling Hayden type. On reflection Hayden was probably too much of a straight shooter at this point in his career to play a corrupt cop implicated in the murder of his own brother, so actual star Robert Taylor will have to do. Screenwriter Sydney Boehm had collaborated with McGivern on The Big Heat a year earlier and would work with him again on 1955's Hell On Frisco Bay.
1:00 PM More Max
Pootie Tang (2001 USA): This black action spoof about a smooth street hero whose patois is as dense as a post-modernist academician's prose doesn't always hit the target-in fact, it too often hits below the belt-but it's still a very entertaining, quite funny, and occasionally insightful look at how black culture is subverted by corporate culture. Based on a sketch comedy character that I was totally unfamiliar with prior to seeing this, Pootie is played with aplomb by Lance Crouther, there are some very funny cameos by Chris Rock in multiple roles, and Wanda Sykes, playing Pootie's main squeeze Biggie Shortie, shouldn't be overlooked either. Robert Vaughn is on hand as the evil Dick Lecter, head of Lecter Corp., the big company that wants to put Pootie's good name on the fast food, cigarettes, and malt liquor the company is foisting onto the African-American community. Naturally the right-on Pootie won't play along…but the bad folks at Lecter (any relation to Hannibal?) have a devious plan… Clocking in at less than 80 minutes, this low-budget feature could have used a few re-writes, but its heart is in the right place. A good (profanity and bling bling free) rap soundtrack make this an enjoyable family film for the over-10s.
8:30 PM Sundance
Criminal Lovers (1999 FRA): I haven't seen this French film about teenage murderers, but it looks interesting, is apparently making its US television debut, and is directed by Francois Ozon, who recently delivered the art-house hit 8 Women. Approach with caution as it is, apparently, very violent.
Saturday 12/07/02
3:15 AM Sundance
The Gleaners and I (2000 FRA): In America we call it dumpster-diving, but in France, gleaning has a long, glorious, and perfectly legal tradition stretching back to the Middle Ages. Director Agnes Vardas' gentle documentary details this still prevalent practice whilst exploring its historical roots.
11:00 AM Showtime
Delirious (1991 USA): Goodbye credibility, hello Blockbuster cut-out bin. I cannot logically explain why I enjoy this John Candy comedy about a writer whose schlocky soap opera comes to life. Any film starring Mariel Hemingway (Personal Best excepted) should automatically be deleted from your Tivo. It's written by a guy who got his start scripting Gilligan's Island. And I like it. I really, really, like it. Sometimes there truly is no accounting for taste.
Sunday 12/08/02
1:45 AM Turner Classic Movies
Big City Blues (1932 USA): A rare old Warner's film starring Joan Blondell and Eric Linden (no, I wouldn't know him from Adam either), Big City Blues is noteworthy for the uncredited supporting cast: Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell, J. Carroll Naish, and Clarence Muse. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, known primarily for hard-edged Warner films like Little Caesar and I Was A Fugitive From A Chain Gang, this looks like a sleeper.
2:00 AM Cinemax
Switchblade Sisters (1973 USA): One of Quentin Tarantino's favorite films, but let's not hold that against it. Director Jack Hill's take on the post-puberty blues and street revolution is exploitation filmmaking at its finest. It's hard to go wrong with characters named Muff, Donut, and Crabs, and the only thing missing is an appearance by Hill regular Sid Haig. Where were you, Sid? Back in the Philippines shooting Wonder Women? Also airs at 5:00 AM.
4:30 AM Encore True Stories
Pandaemonium (2001 GB): Julien Temple's exploration of the relationship between the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth sounds like dry stuff, but it's a simply terrific film that also explores the meaning and reality of poetry and art. John Hannah, better known in America for playing Rachel Weisz's goofy brother in the recent Mummy series, looks a little uncomfortable as the government-sanctioned Wordsworth, but Linus Roache is perfection as the drug-addled visionary Coleridge. The unheralded star of the film is the transcendent Emily Woof, as Wordsworth's sister, the free-thinking Dorothy, and the film also features the marvelous Samantha Morton as Coleridge's wife Sara. The film looks gorgeous (I wish I had the opportunity to see it wide-screen) and in my opinion is the best British film since Simon Magus (1999). Also airs at 2:50 PM.
9:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Scarlet Letter (1926 USA): We're back on the Silent Sunday bandwagon with Swedish director Victor Sjostrom's MGM adaptation of the great novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Starring Lillian Gish, Henry B. Walthall, and the memorably ugly Karl Dane, this is probably the best version of this frequently filmed tale.
