Having grown rather disgruntled, last week, by the fact that the American Life Network has started inexplicably preempting everything (including beloved St. Elsewhere reruns) with irritating late night infomercials for thigh-press machines and hair conditioners, I eventually gave up and tuned into an animated short that I impulsively DVR’ed from the Sundance Channel, entitled Harvie Krumpet. And in the process, I discovered a minor miracle: a commendably offbeat, fresh, hysterically funny creation that was deservedly one of the breakout hits of the Sundance Film Festival six years ago (and won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short at the 2003 Oscars). Though only 23 minutes long, it has been released on North American DVD, supplemented by earlier shorts from the same director. It won me over instantly, and if you haven’t yet seen it, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

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It’s a full and exciting month as we return to the realm of outstanding television finds that have evaded home video issue. This month witnesses the return of a largely unknown Sean Connery psychothriller, a Kaneto Shindo horror outing never issued in stateside ancillary, and a Howard Keel cult favorite, among others. So sit back and keep your remotes handy, and enjoy the ride as we go channel surfing once again.

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As I discussed at length in a January 2008 blog post concerning Stanley Jaffe’s 1983 thriller Without a Trace, one of the great logical conundrums of the mystery thriller from a screenwriter’s standpoint is how to end a missing persons tale without disappointing the audience. Refuse to provide an answer as to the vanished character’s whereabouts, and an audience feels cheated; offer a solution, and the motion picture loses an element of fascination, especially with repeat viewings. As a result, very few films in this subgenre feel particularly successful. Some, like the way-overhyped Bunny Lake is Missing, practically hand us the solution from the first scene, while others (Jonathan Mostow’s cruelly manipulative Breakdown or Robert Schwentke’s Flightplan, for instance) take a dramatic shift away from the central conceit to hand us something overblown and even ludicrous.

One immediate exception that leaps to mind is an extraordinary British thriller from 1950, directed by Anthony Darnborough and Terence Fisher and entitled So Long at the Fair.

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After taking a month off from this regular list, I’m pleased to return to the annals of outstanding, overlooked cable programming that has evaded ancillary release. As usual, this month includes a trove of exciting finds, and one could lose oneself in observing the trends now overtaking these channels. With its after-dark programming, Turner Classic Movies seems to be resurrecting the treasures of old night owl finds from late-night TV thirty and forty years ago, while Ovation continues to list incredible arts programming that seemingly can’t be found anywhere else. (I hope that this list encourages viewers/readers to sample the programming on that wonderful network!) In any case, I’ve tried to showcase the best of these two trends in my list. So happy viewing as we head into March 2009!

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One of the most curious and interesting benefits of the ‘DVD Revolution’ is the ability to go back and re-watch decades-old series, years after they entered the public eye for the first time, thanks to their re-release on disc. But what of the outstanding network programs (and yes, there are a notorious few) that have either completely evaded digital reissue or that have only received a partial reissue, with no plans to expand beyond a Season One box set?

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Internet dwelling movie and TV nerds have long lauded the genius of TVTropes.org, a massive, usually hilarious database of nearly every recurring cliche found in fiction. The site has all the old school Greek, Shakespearean, and Biblical archetypes, but where TV Tropes really shines is in its multitude of nuanced, previously nameless ideas that you’ve seen a million variations on, most of which have hysterically appropriate names like Shut Up, Hannibal and Beard of Sorrow.

It’s truly a rabbit hole of delightful time-suck, especially when you’re exhaustively searching for one terribly specific trope. Case in point, as I set to work on my review for the Dakota Fanning sci-fi action thriller Push, my first order of business was to summarize the totally effing exhausted cliche that the whole story’s built around.

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Dazed Digital premiered a new short film directed by Roman Polanski as part of a spoof on marketing campaigns for high-end goods. The Oscar-winning director’s faux perfume ad stars Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams - and it also happens to be, with apologies to Adrien Brody, the sexiest film Polanski has made since Bitter Moon.

Enjoy it here.

This marks the January edition of my monthly list of outstanding cable programming that hasn’t been issued on home video in North America. Unsurprisingly, the possibilities for this list continue to slim down, given such events as Sony’s DVD debut of Michael Powell’s Age of Consent (1969) this month. Nevertheless I continue to come across wonderful titles, right and left, that have fallen through the cracks. On another note: this month’s post will be a mini-list – half as long as usual – because I was absent from the office the last week of December, and we’re already well into January. My plan is to return to a full Top Ten with the February ‘09 list. As always, keep your remotes handy, and get ready to channel surf. And just remember: for those of us in the northern climes, these films provide yet another great excuse to stay inside where it’s warm – as long as the cable hasn’t gone out from those blizzards.

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