VisionTV remains one of Canada's best destinations for prime time feature films, offering classics from past and present every Tuesday and Thursday at 9 pm and 12 am ET/6 pm and 9 pm PT (unless where noted).
This February is dedicated to a month of specials celebrating Black History Month, Valentine's Day, The Oscars, andThe Spirit of Rock and Roll.
Movie preview clips are now available via VisionTV Video On Demand
(NOTE: Due to
licensing
agreements some video clips are available to Canadian viewers only)
BLACK HISTORY MONTH ON VISIONTV
To honour the heritage of black Canadians, VisionTV offers this series of special feature film presentations
Tuesday, Feb. 5 9 pm ET
Ghosts of Mississippi (1996)
Rob Reiner (The Bucket List) directed this powerful courtroom drama about the real-life struggle to bring the killer of civil rights activist Medgar Evers to justice some 30 years after the murder. Alec Baldwin (30 Rock) stars as Bobby DeLaughter, a Mississippi prosecutor who is inspired to take on the case by the victim’s resilient widow, played by Whoopi Goldberg. James Woods (Shark) turns in an Oscar-nominated performance as murderer Byron De La Beckwith, a hateful racist who twice escaped conviction for his crime. Virginia Madsen and William H. Macy also star. The cast includes several members of the Evers family.
Tuesday, Feb. 5 Midnight ET
A Dry White Season (1989)
Donald Sutherland (Dirty Sexy Money) stars in this acclaimed drama about a complacent South African schoolteacher who is awakened to the realities of apartheid after tragedy strikes close to home. When the son of his loyal gardener (Winston Ntshona) disappears following a political demonstration, Sutherland’s character is reluctantly drawn into the search for answers. But asking questions in a police state is dangerous, and he is soon forced to choose between his loyalty to the white Afrikaner community and his belief in what is right. Marlon Brando earned an Oscar nomination for his supporting performance as a flamboyant attorney. Susan Sarandon also stars. Euzhan Palcy directed.
Thursday, Feb 7 9 pm ET
A Family Thing (1996)
Robert Duvall stars as Earl Pilcher Jr., an Arkansas man who is shocked to discover that his biological mother was black. Earl drives to Chicago to meet his long-lost half brother Ray (James Earl Jones), only to be rebuffed. But circumstances force them together, and their mother’s aged sister, the indomitable Aunt T (Irma P. Hall, in an award-winning performance), helps the two men to reach a wary understanding. With Michael Beach. Billy Bob Thornton (Bad Santa) co-wrote the screenplay. Richard Pearce directed.
Thursday, Feb 7 Midnight ET
Mandela (1996) *Feature-length Documentary
Few men have fought so hard and endured so much as Nelson Mandela. During his 27 years of political imprisonment, he came to symbolize the fight against South African apartheid. His release from prison and his 1994 election as the country’s first black president electrified the entire world. This feature-length documentary, co-produced by Oscar winning filmmaker Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs), tells the story of Mandela’s remarkable life: from his tribal origins, through his years of political activism, revolutionary leadership and imprisonment, and on to his ultimate triumph as leader of a racially united South Africa.
Tuesday, Feb 12 9 pm ET
The Great White Hope (1970)
James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander both earned Oscar nominations for their performances in this compelling drama inspired by the rise and tragic fall of the world’s first black heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson. In his relentless drive to capture the title, the proud fighter (Jones) incurs the wrath of the white establishment, which cynically conspires to bring him down by using his romance with a white woman (Alexander) against him. With Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild) and Moses Gunn. Playwright Howard Sackler adapted his Broadway hit for the screen. Martin Ritt directed.
Tuesday, Feb 12 Midnight ET
A Band of Angels (1957)
Set on the eve of the Civil War, this adaptation of the novel by Robert Penn Warren (All the King’s Men) tells the story of a young Southern belle (Yvonne De Carlo) who learns that her mother was a slave, and is herself sold into slavery. Clark Gable stars as Hamish Bond, the slaver trader turned plantation owner who acquires her, and Sidney Poitier plays his protégé, an educated slave who seethes with resentment against his master and the entire slave culture. A daring-for-its-time examination of the racial and sexual politics of the antebellum South, A Band of Angels features music by Max Steiner and cinematography by Lucien Ballard. Raoul Walsh directed.
VALENTINE’S DAY ON VISIONTV
Love endures. VisionTV gets into the romantic spirit of Valentine’s Day with a double feature
celebrating love’s power to outlast death itself. [more]
Thursday, Feb 14 9 pm ET
Chances Are (1989)
Cybill Shepherd (The L Word) stars as a Washington, D.C. widow whose departed husband returns to her more than 20 years later, reincarnated in the body of her daughter’s new boyfriend, played by Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man). Needless to say, complications ensue. This effervescent post-mortem romance also stars Ryan O’Neal (Bones) and Mary Stuart Masterson (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit). Features the Oscar-nominated song “After All.” Emile Ardolino (Dirty Dancing) directed.
Thursday, Feb 14 Midnight ET
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
A radiant Gene Tierney (Laura) stars as Lucy Muir, a widow who moves into a seaside cottage, only to discover it haunted by the ghost of a salty sea captain, played by Rex Harrison. Both of them lonely souls, the ghost and Mrs. Muir grow close, and he becomes jealous when she falls for a flesh-and-blood cad (George Sanders). Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve) directed this charming supernatural romance with a light touch. With Edna Best and a young Natalie Wood. The great Bernard Hermmann wrote the haunting score.
VISIONTV SALUTES THE OSCARS
No Oscars this year (potentially)? No problem. You can still have an Academy Awards celebration of your own:
Just break out the Versace, vacuum the red carpet, and settle in for a two-night special presentation featuring some of Oscar’s greatest hits.
Tuesday, Feb 19 9 pm ET
On the Waterfront (1954)
Marlon Brando gives one of the most indelible screen performances of all time as Terry Malloy, a prizefighter turned longshoreman who confronts union corruption on the grimy docks of New Jersey. The uncompromising story of a man whose loyalties are tested by conscience, the film won eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director (Elia Kazan) and Best Writing (for Budd Schulberg’s screenplay). The cast includes Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint and Karl Malden. Leonard Bernstein composed the score.
Tuesday, Feb 19 Midnight ET
Raging Bull (1980)
Martin Scorsese’s incomparable biography of champion prizefighter Jake LaMotta is his masterpiece – and to many critics, one of the greatest American films ever made. Robert De Niro deservedly claimed an Oscar for his virtuoso performance as LaMotta, a force of nature who rose from the slums of the Bronx to become middleweight champion of the world, but was brought to ruin by his own uncontrollable passions. Cathy Moriarty plays LaMotta’s wife Vickie, for whom he was consumed by obsessive jealousy. With Joe Pesci and Frank Vincent (The Sopranos). Thelma Schoonmaker won the Oscar for Best Film Editing. Filmed in black and white.
Thursday, Feb 21 9 pm ET
Philadelphia (1993)
Mainstream Hollywood finally dared to take on the AIDS epidemic in this powerfully affecting courtroom drama. Tom Hanks earned an Oscar for his starring performance as a young lawyer with AIDS who launches a wrongful dismissal suit after losing his job at a conservative Philadelphia law firm. His ally in the fight is a homophobic personal-injury lawyer (Denzel Washington) who begins to re-examine his own attitudes as he comes to know his client. Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” won the Oscar for Best Song. Joanne Woodward, Jason Robards, Antonio Banderas and Mary Steenburgen also star. Jonathan Demme directed.
Thursday, Feb 21 Midnight ET
Rain Man (1996)
The winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Rain Man stars Tom Cruise as self-involved car salesman Charlie Babbitt, and Dustin Hoffman as Charlie’s autistic brother, Raymond. (Hoffman took home an Oscar for his performance.) When Charlie, a callous hustler, learns that his estranged father has died and left the entire Babbitt fortune to the institutionalized Raymond, he abducts his brother and takes him on a road trip to California, hoping to be named his legal guardian. But the time spent with Raymond forces Charlie to confront his own lack of empathy and begin the hard process of salvaging his soul. Screenwriters Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow took the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, and Barry Levinson won Best Director.
THE SPIRIT OF ROCK ’N’ ROLL
Take a journey into the musical past, as VisionTV presents a special cinematic salute to the
pioneering days of American popular music.
Tuesday, Feb 26 9 pm ET
Bound for Glory (1976)
Director Hal Ashby’s warts-and-all biopic of American folksinging legend Woody Guthrie will appeal especially to those who enjoyed the early passages of the Bob Dylan portrait I’m Not There. David Carradine (Kill Bill) stars as Guthrie, an impoverished sign painter from Texas who rode the rails to California seeking his fortune, and whose sympathy for the plight of migrant workers fired his social conscience and fueled his emergence as one of the 20th century’s most impassioned and influential balladeers. The cast includes a who’s who of great character actors, including Ronny Cox, Melinda Dillon and Randy Quaid. Bound for Glory won Oscars for music and cinematography.
Tuesday, Feb 26 Midnight ET
That Thing You Do! (1996)
Tom Hanks wrote and directed this buoyant period piece about a fictitious 1960s pop band, The Wonders, which rides oh-so briefly to the big time on the strength of their lone hit, an infectious Beatles-esque number called “That Thing You Do!” Hanks delivers a scene-stealing performance as the cynical record company executive who pilots the band from obscurity to celebrity and back again. With Tom Everett Scott (Cashmere Mafia), Liv Tyler, Steve Zahn and Charlize Theron. Adam Schlesinger of the acclaimed indie rock band Fountains of Wayne wrote the Oscar-nominated title song.
Thursday, Feb 28 9 pm ET
The Buddy Holly Story (1978)
Gary Busey earned an Academy Award nomination for his electric performance in this biopic chronicling the brief, meteoric career of 1950s music legend Buddy Holly. A prodigiously gifted songwriter, Holly crafted some of popular music’s most indelible hits before his tragic death in a plane crash at age 22. The film charts his swift rise to the top, and deals head-on with the racial politics of the music industry – most memorably during a recreation of Holly’s famous performance at the all-black Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Busey and his co-stars Don Stroud and Charles Martin Smith (as Holly’s sidemen, the Crickets) performed all the music themselves. Joe Renzetti’s song score won an Oscar. Steve Rash directed.
Thursday, Feb 28 Midnight ET
La Bamba (1987)
Lou Diamond Phillips (Numb3rs) stars in this vibrant big-screen biography of Mexican-American music legend Ritchie Valens, who died in the same plane crash that claimed Buddy Holly. Born into a family of migrant workers, Valens pursued relentlessly his dreams of stardom, rocketing to the top of the charts on the strength of his hit “La Bamba,” only to perish while still in his teens. Esai Morales co-stars as Ritchie’s resentful half brother. With Rosanna DeSoto, Elizabeth Pena and Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos), as well as musicians Marshall Crenshaw (as Buddy Holly) and Brian Setzer (as Eddie Cochran). Valens’ songs were re-created for the soundtrack by Latino rockers Los Lobos. Carlos Santana collaborated on the score. Luis Valdez wrote and directed.
