TiVoPlex
By John Seal
November 9, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 11/10/09
Midnight Showtime
Bangkok Dangerous (2000 THA): Here's the original version of Bangkok Dangerous, recently remade to pointless effect for the American market by The Pang Brothers. It should come as no surprise that the Pangs' Thai version is superior to their Nic Cage version, not least thanks to the absence of Cage's ridiculous bison-weave hairpiece. The film relates the tale of deaf mute Kong (Pawalit Mogkolpisit), a gun for hire who meets fellow reprobate Joe (Pisek Intrakanshit) at a Bangkok gun range. The men discover they make a great assassination team, but love soon rears its troublesome head when Kong falls for shopgirl Fon (Premsinee Ratanasopha), the first woman who doesn't reject him out of hand because of his disability. Beginning to realize that his chosen profession doesn't go well with a stable relationship, Kong's on the job performance begins to suffer, and tragedy looms in the team's future. This more thoughtful than usual action flick won the FIPRESCI Award at 2000's Toronto International Film Festival, and airs again at 3:00 AM.
6:00 PM Sundance
The Unforeseen (2007 USA): Most of the eco-documentaries that air on Sundance are informative, earnest, serious — and not terribly interesting cinematically. This one's different. Directed by Laura Dunn, The Unforeseen is a visually impressive look at what careless development has wrought upon one community near Austin, Texas. It's the tragic story of an aquifer transformed from a crystal clear swimming spot into a grungy lake, and its all beautifully lensed by Dallas-born Lee Daniel, who also shot the excellent Roky Erickson doc You're Gonna Miss Me in 2005, as well as that ten-minute Barack Obama puff piece shown at last year's Democratic National Convention. Also airs 11/11 at 1:00 AM.
Wednesday 11/11/09
10:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Tender Comrade (1943 USA): Ground Zero for the Hollywood Blacklist? Perhaps that's the most significant legacy of Tender Comrade, a rarely seen RKO drama written by fellow traveller Dalton Trumbo and directed by commie simp Edward Dmytryk. The film stars Ginger Rogers as Jo, the erstwhile leader of a group of female factory workers waiting for their men to return home from the war. In order to save money, Jo suggests that the group pool their resources and take up residence in a communal home where they can raise their children together and enjoy some sisterly solidarity. What's that got to do with the blacklist, you ask? Well, Rogers was a rock-ribbed Republican, and felt uncomfortable delivering Trumbo's seditious dialogue - lines such as "share and share alike" got her dander up, as she wrote in her autobiography, Ginger: My Story. Between Tender Comrade and Mission to Moscow (also 1943), Hollywood reactionaries had all the ammunition they needed with which to weed out Tinsel Town's reds - and Trumbo and Dmytryk both spent considerable time in exile or jail as a result. As for Tender Comrade itself, well, it couldn't be more of a sentimental flag-waver if it tried, and it's truly hard to believe Rogers got her knickers in a twist over such warm-hearted all-American fare.
5:00 PM IFC
The Changeling (1980 USA): Recently mooted as one of the 11 scariest movies of all time - all TIME, I tell you! - by director Martin Scorsese, The Changeling makes a rare small screen appearance this afternoon on IFC. Directed by Peter Medak, the film (not to be confused with the Angelina Jolie vehicle of similar nomenclature) features lovable grouch George C. Scott as John Russell, a recent widower who's just moved in to a spooky mansion somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Guess what? Besides being drafty and in need of a paint job, the pile is also haunted by a spirit that reveals itself to our hero during a séance. Does Russell vacate the premises? Like Hell he does — after all, this is George C. Scott we're talking about! Instead, our curmudgeonly hero becomes determined to solve the secret of the haunted mansion and goes spelunking for clues in a nearby well. I'm not sure I agree with Scorsese's assessment, but it's been a long time since I've seen The Changeling so I'm prepared to get my pants scared off. It airs again at 11:15 PM, and is followed at 7:00 PM by Kingdom of the Spiders (1977), a ridiculous but fun eco-thriller starring William Shatner as a veterinarian trying to save a small town from arachnid invasion.
Thursday 11/12/09
5:00 PM Sundance
Che (2008 USA): Steven Soderbergh's magisterial Guevara biopic, released to theatres in two parts, makes its conjoined American television debut tonight. Benicio del Toro delivers the performance of a lifetime as the mercurial, egotistical dreamer Che, an asthmatic veteran of the Cuban Revolution who thought he could overthrow a repressive Bolivian government and replace it with a People's Republic. Far superior (though not as perversely enjoyable) as Richard Fleischer's 1969 take on the subject, and in some regards more enlightening than Walter Salles' quite excellent 2004 production The Motorcycle Diaries, Che is a hefty 257-minute history lesson, but a richly rewarding one if you can make time for it. Also airs 11/14 at 11:00 AM.
Friday 11/13/09
5:30 AM Sundance
Children of the Sun (2007 USA): Once upon a time, the Republic of Israel was going to be a socialist utopia. How times change. In those far off days, early adopters of the Zionist model banded together in kibbutzim, collectivist agricultural living arrangements where the best interests of the group took precedence over the desires of its individual members. This documentary from director Ran Tal examines the movement from its beginnings during the Palestinian mandate to its slow withering away during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It's a fascinating and thought-provoking look at a progressive social movement burdened with some disturbingly fascistic overtones.
10:30 AM HBO Signature
El bano del Papa (2007 URU): I must plead ignorance regarding this film (sorry, I missed its boob tube premiere in July), but c'mon...you know you want to see a Uruguayan movie! It's a drama about Pope John Paul II's South American tour in 1988, and scooped up almost a dozen awards at various and sundry Latin film festivals. Apparently, the title translates into English as "The Pope's Toilet", which doesn't make it sound all that enticing, so I think I'll keep calling it El Bano del Papa.
9:35 PM Encore Dramatic Stories
Mr. Frost (1990 GB-FRA): A decent if underdone thriller, Mr. Frost stars Fly-guy Jeff Goldblum as the titular fellow, a British serial killer caught in the act of burying his latest victims and imprisoned for two years. The police are desperate to get Frost to open up and blab about his exploits, but the man is resolutely tight-lipped and utters nary a peep — until he's sent to a posh clinic "somewhere in Europe", where he develops a bond with shrink Sarah Day (Kathy Baker). In fact, so comfortable is he with the good doctor that he reveals his true identity to her: he is Mephistopheles, Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer, sent to Earth on a mission to remind man that he really does exist, and will steal your soul to prove it! In short, he just needs a hug. This Euro-oddity co-stars Alan Bates as police inspector Detweiler, Jean-Pierre Cassel as his sceptical supervisor, and Vincent Schiavelli — who surely looks a lot more like the Devil than Goldblum does — as an asylum employee.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Poor Pretty Eddie (1975 USA): Sometimes, synchronicity happens. Take the case of Poor Pretty Eddie: unseen on small screens for decades, it's a film I recently acquired on VHS tape and was — quite literally — just about to transfer to DVD-R. Thanks to the TCM Underground, however, that won't be necessary, and I won't have to adjust my tracking after all! Shelley Winters stars as Bertha, a big woman running a tiny motel in the middle of nowhere with the assistance of her Elvis impersonator son Eddie (Michael Christian, who also produced the film). After traveling singer Liz's (Leslie Uggams) car breaks down nearby and she takes shelter at the inn, Eddie develops an unhealthy crush on her and decides that she can help him become a rock 'n' roll star. When Liz rejects his advances, Eddie goes cuckoo nutso and rapes the poor woman — and the local authorities, including Slim Pickens, Ted "Lurch" Cassidy, and Dub Taylor won't lift a finger to provide justice for a person of pigment. A wild mashup of themes lifted from Deliverance, I Spit on Your Grave, and Coffy, Poor Pretty Eddie is guaranteed to entertain, and guaranteed to have you running to the shower for a thorough scrub-down after the final credit crawl.
Sunday 11/15/09
9:00 PM Sundance
Dororo (2007 JAP): This epic length fantasy features Kiichi Nakai as Daigo Kagemitsu, a samurai who makes a deal with the devil in exchange for untold wealth and power. Actually, he makes a deal with 48 devils, each of whom claim a portion of the body of Kagemitsu's newborn son Hyakkimura — an easy decision to make, I'm sure. After Hyakkimura grows up (yes, he does, though with artificial body parts!), the lad determines to regain his original bits from the various demons, stitch himself back together, and become a real boy, just like Pinocchio! Though it clocks in at well in excess of two hours, Dororo is never boring: there's tons of bloody action and enough camp to pitch a tent under. Based on a comic book from the 1960s, Dororo went on to win the Orient Express Award at Sitges 2007. No, I'd never previously heard of the Orient Express Award, either.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Orpheus (1950 FRA): Jean Cocteau's contemporary re-telling of the Greek myth of Orpheus returns to the airwaves tonight on TCM. Handsome Jean Marais stars as the title character, a gloomy poet who falls in love with Death (Maria Casares) when he witnesses her attempt to claim the soul of an accident victim. This doesn't sit well with Orpheus' wife Eurydice (Marie Dea), who also happens to be the apple of Death's chauffeur's (Francois Perier) eye. Feel the sexual tension! For anyone who admires Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, Orpheus offers similar phantasmagorical delights and is filled with startling and poetic imagery. Look for young songbird Juliette Greco as one of the Bacchantes.
Monday 11/16/09
4:30 AM Encore Dramatic Stories
The Long Way Home (1997 USA): Life for Jewish survivors of the Holocaust didn't suddenly become easier with the arrival of VE Day. Most European Jews no longer had homes to return to and from 1945 until the establishment of Israel in 1948 were unwanted and virtually stateless. This unabashedly pro-Zionist documentary examines their three year trek in the wilderness and makes a strong case in favor of the establishment of a Jewish state. The avoidable tragedy of Palestine lay just over the horizon — but that's the subject of another documentary or three.
6:00 PM Sundance
The Glass House (2009 USA-IRA): I haven't seen this documentary about troubled teenage girls in Iran, but it received rapturous plaudits on the festival circuit and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance fest. I'll be tuning in.