Saturday
Film of the week
Bohemian Rhapsody, Channel 4, 9pm
Released shortly before Rocketman, Dexter Fletcher’s 2019 Elton John biopic, this birl through the career of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury takes a very different approach. There’s nothing about Mercury’s childhood, little about his creative process, and the concert stage is the only place a song and dance routine breaks out. But it ends up in the same place, giving its iconic subject a burnish without avoiding the darker moments. For Elton John in Rocketman, those darker moments mostly involve drug addiction. For Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar in 1946 and played here by Rami Malek, it’s his feeling of otherness, of being an outsider both sexually and culturally.
The film opens with Queen about to take to the Wembley stage as part of the 1985 Live Aid concert then tells the story of the band in flashback, beginning with a fateful backstage meeting in 1970 when Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) are playing in a band called Smile which (wouldn’t you know?) needs a singer. It’s at the same gig that Mercury meets Biba-employee Mary Austin (Lucy Poynton), who will become his fiancée and, after he finally outs himself to her, his BFF and, in some respects, his conscience.
With bassist John Deacon (Joe Mazzello) soon in tow, the band rename themselves Queen at Mercury’s behest. Reinvention complete, they set about conquering the world, one over-blown, six minute rock epic at a time. Bohemian Rhapsody features heavily, of course, first in a crucial scene in which Mercury battles with the band’s record label to be allowed to release it, and later in the Live Aid scenes which close the film. There’s also a walk-on role for “drag fabulist” Dickie Beau as Kenny Everett, then at Capital but a key player in giving the song its first crucial air on UK radio (Everett loved it, supposedly playing it 12 times in two days).
In some respects, Bohemian Rhapsody was Fletcher’s audition piece for Rocketman: most of the movie was shot by X-Men/Usual Suspects director Bryan Singer but he left the project close to the end of filming and Fletcher was parachuted in to finish off. The script is by New Zealand playwright Anthony McCarten, who had already turned out biographical films about Stephen Hawking (The Theory Of Everything) and Winston Churchill (Darkest Hour). But from start to finish it’s Malek’s film, and it’s no surprise he took home the Best Actor Oscar at the 2019 Academy Awards.
Boy Erased, BBC Three, 9.45pm
Baptist preacher's son Jared Eamons (Lucas Hedges) is determined to live by the words of his father Marshall (Russell Crowe), who towers over his congregation and wife Nancy (Nicole Kidman). The shy and unassuming college freshman has a cheerleader girlfriend Chloe (Madelyn Cline) but he is questioning his sexuality. His parents enrol him in a Love in Action programme, run by Victor Sykes (Joel Edgerton, who also directs), that promises to ‘fix’ their son. Boy Erased is a deeply moving and unsentimental 2018 dramatisation of Garrard Conley's bestselling memoir of the same title. Hedges is heart-breaking as the teenage witness to controversial practices, including one harrowing scene of a family striking their terrified son with a Bible to drive out Satan from his body.
Notting Hill, ITV, 10.40pm
Writer Richard Curtis reunited with Four Weddings and a Funeral leading man Hugh Grant for this winning romantic comedy. Grant plays London bookshop owner Will, who has a chance encounter with the biggest movie star in the world, Anna Scott (a perfectly cast Julia Roberts). A spark develops, but can love overcome their very different lifestyles and the pressures of media intrusion? The leads make a great couple, and there's also scene-stealing support from Rhys Ifans as Will's oddball flatmate and a bit of Hollywood satire thrown in to stop it becoming too similar to Four Weddings - Will's attempt to navigate a press junket is a particular highlight.
Sunday
Wonder, Channel 4, 3pm
Auggie Pullman (Jacob Tremblay) is a 10-year-old boy with a rare genetic syndrome, which has necessitated 27 agonising operations to painstakingly rebuild his face. He has been home-schooled since birth by his mother Isabel (Julia Roberts) but she feels the time has come for her boy to venture into the classroom. "It's like leading a lamb to the slaughter," argues Auggie's concerned father Nate (Owen Wilson), who fears the reaction of other children to Auggie's disfigurement. Lovingly adapted from RJ Palacio's award-winning novel, Wonder is an exquisitely calibrated drama, which eschews mawkish sentimentality but still has us weeping uncontrollably by the end credits. Tremblay might be concealed behind Oscar-nominated prosthetics, but he conveys every flicker of Auggie's raw emotions.
The Silence Of The Lambs, ITV4, 10.30pm
Jonathan Demme's terrifying 1991 treatment of the Thomas Harris novel is one of only three films to sweep the big five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress. Jodie Foster plays FBI trainee Clarice Starling, who is eager to please her superior, Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn). He implores Clarice to earn the trust of cannibal murderer Dr Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in order to track down a serial killer known as Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), who kidnaps women then skins his victims. In a series of charged conversations, closely monitored by Baltimore State Hospital director Dr Chilton (Anthony Heald), Starling allows herself to understand the mind set of Buffalo Bill and anticipate where he might strike next.
Gone Girl, Channel 4, 11.30pm
On the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) calls the police to his home. There are signs of a struggle and his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) is missing. Amy's distraught parents (David Clennon, Lisa Beth) join Nick to front a high-profile media campaign to secure the safe return of their daughter, but in the glare of the spotlight, fractures appear in the Dunnes' marriage and the cops and public openly question Nick's innocence. Gone Girl is a spiky satire, skilfully adapted by Gillian Flynn from her 2012 bestseller. Admittedly, you have to dig deep beneath the surface of David Fincher's polished film to find the jet-black humour but it's there, walking hand-in-hand with sadism and torture that propel the narrative towards its unconventional denouement at breakneck speed.
Monday
A Fistful Of Dollars, ITV4, 9pm
Clint Eastwood became a Hollywood superstar thanks to his first outing as The Man with No Name in this Western from director Sergio Leone. The mysterious gunslinger rides into a town on the Mexican border divided by two warring families. After killing the henchmen of one clan, he seems to have made it clear where his loyalties lie and is hired by their rivals. However, he is secretly planning to play them off against each other to his own advantage. As Westerns go, this and its sequels For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly are as good as they get. Eastwood is perfect in the role, and he's well supported by Gian Maria Volonte, who's equally impressive as Ramon Rojo.
Entebbe, BBC Two, 11.15pm
Shortly after Air France flight 139 departs Tel Aviv carrying predominantly Israeli and Jewish passengers, German revolutionaries Wilfried Bose (Daniel Bruhl) and Brigitte Kuhlmann (Rosamund Pike) and their accomplices retrieve guns from hand luggage and storm the cockpit. The terrorists divert the plane to Benghazi in Libya, where Wilfried clashes with flight engineer Jacques Le Moine (Denis Menochet) during several hours on the runway to refuel. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (Lior Ashkenazi) and the rest of the cabinet, are faced with a ransom demand: the lives of the passengers in exchange for the release of prisoners. Entebbe is a tense geo-political thriller based on the real-life hijacking of an Air France flight in June 1976, although it fails to make the most of Bruhl and Pike.
Tuesday
Psycho, GREAT! Movies Classic, 9pm
When crooked young woman Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) hits the road with a stash of stolen money, she makes the mistake of stopping off at the Bates Motel. After being bumped off in the most famous shower scene in history, a string of people go looking for her, with no idea what they are going to find. Alfred Hitchcock's thriller is a masterpiece, with everyone involved doing some of their greatest work. Anthony Perkins is unforgettable as disturbed young man Norman Bates, Saul Bass's opening titles are simple but effective, and Bernard Herrmann's creepy score ranks among his finest and has been ripped off many times since. Forget the Gus Van Sant remake and ignore the host of sequels - just revel in this cheaply made movie which will give you nightmares for weeks to come.
Captain Fantastic, BBC Two, 11.15pm
Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen) and his wife Leslie (Trin Miller) raise their six-strong brood in relative isolation so their children won't be tainted by capitalism or organised religion. The youngsters learn to live off the land and fire their imaginations by reading classics like The Brothers Karamazov. Alas, Leslie has bipolar disorder and eventually takes her own life while undergoing hospital treatment. Ben wants to take the children to the funeral, but Leslie's father Jack (Frank Langella) forbids him from attending. So, the family boards their ramshackle bus and heads to New Mexico to give Leslie the Buddhist cremation she requested in her will. Captain Fantastic is a heartfelt and bittersweet meditation on the perils of modern parenting, which lives up the superlative of its title.
Wednesday
Captain America: The Winter Soldier, BBC One, 10.35pm
In his heroic guise as Captain America, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) leads a daring rescue mission at sea, flanked by sexy spy Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson). Soon after, SHIELD director Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) escorts Rogers into the bowels of the agency's headquarters, which houses three state-of-the-art heli-carriers. These aerial warships will extinguish threats to global peace from the skies, killing terrorists before they have a chance to strike, a concept that leaves Rogers decidedly uneasy. Addressing timely concerns about unrest in the Middle East and the corruptibility of the political establishment, the Russo brothers' sequel is a bombastic extravaganza that's every bit as entertaining as the opening chapter and features a welcome role for screen legend Robert Redford.
BlacKkKlansman, Film 4, 11.20pm
Spike Lee's impassioned, Oscar-winning movie handcuffs racial divisions in present-day America to the outlandish true story of a black police detective who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. African-American cop Ron (John David Washington) makes contact with a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan by simply ringing up its president Walter Breachway (Ryan Eggold) and pretending to be white. Jewish detective Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) is drawn into Ron's deception and the two men must impress Walter's second-in-command Felix Kendrickson (Jasper Paakkonen) if police are to get close to their prime target: David Duke (Topher Grace), Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Washington and Driver are a groovy double-act, and the script strikes a pleasing balance between suspense and humour.
Thursday
The Third Man, BBC Four, 8pm
Carol Reed's masterful 1949 evocation of Graham Greene sees failed novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) arriving in Vienna to meet his good chum, Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to find the poor chap dead as a doornail and his reputation besmirched by vile allegations. Determined to clear his pal's name, Holly ignores the advice of two British Army police officers – Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) and Sergeant Paine (Bernard Lee) – to hunt down the elusive 'third man' spotted at the scene of the crime. In the process, Holly becomes entangled in a web of murder and intrigue reminiscent of his own pulp fictions. Tightly plotted and expertly acted, The Third Man is a master class in sustained tension that puts most modern thrillers to shame.
I, Tonya, BBC Four, 10pm
As a girl, Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) learns to ice-skate at the behest of her domineering mother LaVona (an Oscar-winning Allison Janney). LaVona is far from impressed with Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) as a potential son-in-law but she is powerless to stop her daughter from falling under Jeff's spell. Tonya trains hard and becomes the first American athlete to land a triple axel jump in competition but the judges refuse to give her the high marks she thinks she deserves. In stark contrast, rival Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver) is lavished with praise. As frustration grows, Tonya's bodyguard Shawn Eckhardt (Paul Walter Hauser) and Jeff hatch a loopy plan. I, Tonya is a blackly humorous biopic, which illuminates a grubby episode in sporting history with considerable aplomb.
Friday
The Man In The White Suit, BBC Two, 1pm
Alec Guinness starred in some of the Ealing Studios' finest comedies, including The Ladykillers, The Lavender Hill Mob, Kind Hearts and Coronets and this sharp satire. Guinness plays Sidney Stratton, a chemist who invents a new textile that repels dirt and never wears out, and then uses it to make the titular white suit. Unfortunately, Britain's mill owners and trade unionists quickly realise that he could put them out of business, as no one will need to replace their old clothes, and try to suppress his discovery. Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker and Michael Gough are among the impressive supporting cast.
Internal Affairs, BBC One, 11.55pm
Dennis Peck (Richard Gere) is a uniformed cop and womaniser on the take whose crooked antics have aroused the interest of the Internal Affairs department. Agent Raymond Avilla (Andy Garcia) attempts to expose his dodgy dealings, but soon finds his life on the line. It was released in the same year as his hit rom-com Pretty Woman, but Gere is in a very different mode in this film, playing what turned out to be one of the most unpleasant Hollywood movie characters of the decade. Garcia is as charismatic as ever, while the always reliable Laurie Metcalf does her best, despite being handed a somewhat two-dimensional role. Director Mike Figgis adds some disturbing touches, ensuring this isn't one for the squeamish.
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