Monday

Star Trek Beyond, Film 4, 9pm

Captain James T Kirk (Chris Pine) is considering relinquishing the bridge because "things have started to feel a little... episodic". He keeps his plans secret from the rest of the crew including human-Vulcan science officer Spock (Zachary Quinto). During a visit to a Federation starbase under the control of Commodore Paris (Shohreh Aghdashloo), Kirk and the team respond to a distress call issued by an alien called Kalara (Lydia Wilson). The Enterprise subsequently comes under attack from otherworldly despot Krall (Idris Elba) and his swarming drones. Star Trek Beyond is a familiar conflation of past, future and present that fails to set its phasers to stun, although scriptwriters Simon Pegg and Doug Jung stoke the comedic ante with a slew of wry one-liners.

Tuesday

Snatched, Film 4, 9pm

Self-absorbed dreamer Emily Middleton (Amy Schumer) is unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend Michael (Randall Park) shortly before a non-refundable trip to Ecuador. Unable to persuade one of her female friends to accompany her on the South American odyssey, Emily turns instead to her sensible mother Linda (Goldie Hawn). While the matriarch befriends fellow holidaymakers Barb (Joan Cusack) and Ruth (Wanda Sykes), thrill-seeker Emily sparks a boozy romance with handsome stranger James (Tom Bateman). One night of passion leads to disaster and notorious crime lord Morgado (Oscar Jaenada) holds Emily and her mother hostage for $100,00. It's great to see Hawn back after a 15-year break from the movies, but it's a shame the script couldn't find more funny lines for her.

Wednesday

The Darkest Minds, Film 4, 9pm

Sixteen-year-old Ruby Daly (Amandla Stenberg) is a survivor of a pathogen with the unwieldy name Idiopathic Adolescent Acute Neurodegeneration (IAAN), which has delivered a fatal blow to 98% of the world’s children. Youngsters who are resistant to IAAN are colour-coded: Green, Blue and Yellow are permitted to live under armed guard, while Orange and Red are eliminated via lethal injection. Ruby is an Orange but she lives under the radar as a Green in Thurmond rehabilitation camp. Kindly medic Dr Cate Connor (Mandy Moore) risks her life to smuggle Ruby out of the facility to join the fight against US President Gray (Bradley Whitford) as part of the Children’s League. The Darkest Minds conjures dystopian nightmares that will be achingly familiar to fans of the Hunger Games and Divergent series, but it’s anchored by the luminous Stenberg.

Thursday

Blade Runner 2049, Sony Movies, 9pm

Director Denis Villeneuve's sequel honours the past and expands the nihilistic universe imagined by Philip K Dick in his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Ryan Gosling stars as an android -hunter working for the LAPD who uncovers a secret and goes in search of the detective (Harrison Ford) who could provide him with answers. Motifs from Ridley Scott's 1982 film reverberate tantalisingly throughout, deftly stitching together two timelines without completely excluding audiences who are ignorant of the original. However, for all its bravura production design and flawless special effects, the film doesn't smack gobs with its invention. Like the automata that enrich human lives, Villeneuve's film is one small yet significant iteration shy of perfection.

Film of the Week

Friday

Don’t Look Back, BBC Four, 9pm

Bob Dylan turns 80 on May 24 and amid a raft of programming dedicated to the life and work of the iconic musician BBC Four is showing DA Pennebaker’s 1967 documentary, shot during Dylan’s short but eventful 1965 tour of England. The film’s best known segment is the one which opens it – Dylan standing on a street corner as Subterranean Homesick Blues plays, throwing away large cue cards on which the lyrics are written while Beat poet Allan Ginsberg stands behind him – but virtually every other scene is an unalloyed treat. Kurt Cobain wasn’t entirely right when he said Don’t Look Back is the only good rock documentary, but it’s probably in the top three best ones. The tour itself only lasted about 10 days, but Don’t Look Back is still being pored over half a century later.

Dylan, of course, is its beating heart. So young, confident and charismatic. So cool in his sunglasses and leather jacket. It’s no surprise that Pennebaker’s camera follows him endlessly, whether he’s sparring with journalists, trying to explain himself to pompous backstage interlopers – serious young men in jackets and ties, mostly – or ignoring everything and bashing away at his typewriter. Pennebaker’s unobtrusive, fly-on-the-wall style means you really do see him as his closest friends and confidantes would have, while the generous amount of concert footage gives a flavour of the audience experience as well.

If the film has a co-star it’s Joan Baez, who accompanied Dylan on the tour. Alternating between warm, goofy and beatific, her after-hours, hotel room performances of Percy’s Song and Love Is A Four Letter Word (“If you finish it, I’ll put it on a record,” she tells him) are stand-outs. Tour manager Bob Neuwirth, never seen without his sunglasses, is another ever-present, as is Dylan’s manager, folk impresario Albert Grossman.

Marianne Faithfull and Cream drummer Ginger Baker are supposedly visible in background shots somewhere but good luck spotting them (it’s hard to imagine either of them ever blending into the scenery). However you can’t miss Donovan or Alan Price, who had just left The Animals. The former performs for Dylan in his hotel room but his thunder is well and truly stolen when Dylan follows To Sing For You with It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue. You can’t out-Dylan Bob Dylan, is the moral of that scene. Whether you love Dylan or not, this is a genuine classic.

And one to stream …

The Woman In The Window, Netflix

Blending Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window with elements of 1990s thriller Copycat and – spoiler alert – Abi Morgan’s 2015 BBC drama River, Joe Wright’s thriller stars Amy Adams (pictured below) as Dr Anna Fox, a child psychologist and extreme agoraphobic whose curtain-twitching interest in the goings on in her wealthy New York neighbourhood takes a weird and unhealthy turn when a new family moves in. They are the Russells – mother Jane (Julianne Moore), rich banker father Alistair (Gary Oldman, playing a Brit for once) and 15-year-old son Ethan (Fred Hechinger), who’s the first of them to introduce himself. He comes bearing a gift – a lavender candle – followed shortly by Jane, who stays for drinks and dashes off a sketch of Anna as they talk. Alistair, when she meets him, is brusque and aggressive.

Apart from those visitors, the only other people Anna sees are her lodger David (Wyatt Russell), and her psychiatrist Dr Landy (actor and playwright Tracy Letts, who adapted the script from AJ Finn’s novel). She’s amicably separated from her husband Ed (Anthony Mackie), though they talk regularly on the phone. He lives elsewhere with their young daughter, Olivia (Mariah Bozeman). It’s to Ed that Anna first recounts the arrival of the Russells, what she has heard about them and, of course, how much they paid for their swanky townhouse.

Everything changes, however, when Anna thinks she witnesses a murder there. But did she see what she thought she saw, or is her excessive drinking combining adversely with her new prescription drugs to make her to imagine things that aren’t there? Did Jane Russell ever actually visit her, and if she did can she prove it? And what is it that has caused her agoraphobia?

Oldman and Moore are a little under-used but it’s great to see Jennifer Jason Leigh on screen and reprising some of her Single White Female creepiness. Still, the large, gloomy townhouse makes the perfect backdrop for Wright’s tight psycho-drama and there’s enough in the way of twists and set-piece reveals to keep you guessing until the end.

The Herald: