Pre-amble

Fred Astaire! Humphrey Bogart! Adam West! Ringo! Yes, all the big guns are out this Friday, as we take another tour of the week's listings, and make fun of Charlton Heston.

For those living in the present, rather than the past (shame on you), there should still be plenty to whet your whistle, satiate your thirst for knowledge and generally make you quite pleased, including David Lynch temporarily laying off the weirdness, Johnny Depp playing at pirates and Woody Allen double-faulting.

I've also a few ill-judged things to say about The Dark Knight, which should halve my meagre readership over night. Well, at least the half that remain will be the cool ones. And speaking of cool ones...

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From the Mailbag

Quite a bit of correspondence this week, including MOTH describing Where the Sidewalk Ends as "fantastic" and pointing out Dana Andrews' resemblance to Xabi Alonso, and Miles Messervy 007 questioning my contention that The Quiet Man is better than Taxi Driver.

DC Maximo is more our kind of guy (in that he agreed with me and I'm at heart quite an insecure person), slating the dreadful Death Proof and seconding the suggestion that the ending of the 1947 Brighton Rock movie is far darker than in the book. "I personally found it quite harrowing," he adds.

Your letters always welcome at rick.burin@ypn.co.uk

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That's about enough other business for this week, but there's our DVD of the Week on page three (featuring Reese Witherspoon) and I'll end this section with the teaser that I hope to have a very special one-off feature in the next two to three weeks, which I'm extremely excited about.

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Films on TV
Sep 5 to 11 - Your guide to the week ahead


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003, BBC1, 8.45pm) is rollicking good fun: one of the most purely enjoyable films of the decade, when it isn't being dragged down by a slightly stupid supernatural undercurrent. Johnny Depp plays rogueish, eye-linered pirate Capt Jack Sparrow, who allies with clean-cut Orlando Bloom and unconvincingly sassy Keira Knightley as he tries to reclaim his ship from hammy baddie Geoffrey Rush. Jonathan Pryce provides starchy support and Mackenzie Crook offers a few laughs, but really this is Depp's show and his colourful characterisation – allied with the film's concessions to good old-fashioned entertainment – keep this improbably successful theme park ride adaptation afloat (pun very much intended; I'm truly sorry). Depp's flights from justice are particularly enjoyable and there's an excellent musical score from Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer. The sequels took things somewhat off course, he said, extending the metaphor beyond its breaking point, but the original is still a first-rate ride. (4/5)

We have National Lampoon's Animal House (1978, ITV1, 1978) to blame for American Pie, Porky's and all the other puerile, gross-out comedies to blemish the screen over the past 30 years. But on its own terms it's pretty good, with John Belushi a bundle of maniacal energy to rival Harpo Marx whether he's destroying a folkie's guitar, spitting potato at fellow diners ("I'm a zit – geddit?") or urinating on some partygoers' shoes. His rousing speech near the close is a minor comic classic ("Over? OVER? Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour? Hell, no!" "Germans?" "Forget it, he's rolling."), and one of several decent sketches in this disjointed but fitfully entertaining campus comedy. Tim Matheson, Tom Hulce (later Mozart in the hugely popular Amadeus) and Karen Allen are among the supporting players. (3/5)

The Beatles' Help! (1965, BBC2, 10.45pm) is a good album – including 'You've Got to Hide Your Love Away' (and 'Yesterday') – but a wretched film, with the freshness of A Hard Day's Night replaced by gimmickry and an "all sans the sink" approach that betrays a sense of desperation. The story, such as it is, has cultist Leo McKern trying to capture Ringo, so he can kill him and steal his magic ring (yes, I know). This is showing as part of Beatles' Night, which itself is part of Beatles' Week. Just so you know. (1/5)

Over on BBC4, there's a chance to see Culloden (1966, BBC4, 10.30pm), a docudrama about the 1746 Battle of Culloden from Peter Watkins, the director of the staggering atomic age eye-opener, The War Game. No review, I'm afraid, as I haven't seen it, but it must be worth a look.

Clashing with that is The Greatest (1977, ITV4, 10.35pm), an embarrassingly superficial retelling of Muhammad Ali's life, with the great man playing himself. It's a curio, but nothing more, with wooden acting, a simplified, uninsightful narrative and a lead who's 15 years too old to play his young self. He's an extraordinary man, with an incredible story, but that doesn't make this movie any less terrible. Why not rent When We Were Kings (see SAT) instead? (1/5)

For those staying up late (or the few lucky souls with a Betamax or similar recording device), Swingers (1996, Film4, 1.20am SUN) is something of a treat. It's a flawed but memorable look at the lives of L.A. singletons, with a rich sense of place and a slew of great scene-setting songs on the soundtrack. Jon Favreau, who wrote the script, plays a struggling stand-up comedian newly relocated from New York, who's broken up with his girlfriend after six years. Vince Vaughn, in a star-making turn, is his hip mentor, who assures him that he's "money" (this means "cool") as the pair tour the nightspots. There are missteps, including a frankly dire self-referential sequence where the film prefigures its homages to Scorsese and Tarantino by having its characters discuss the pair (and their camera movements), Vaughn's artificial, QT-inspired anecdote about auditioning for a TV part, and Favreau channelling Woody Allen a little too often, but they're far outweighed by the movie's strengths – Favreau's ear for dialogue, Vaughn's excellent performance and a heap of laugh-out-loud moments (not least the inspired NHL '94 scene). This is singular, atmospheric and very nearly great. (4/5)

Over on Sky is a first screening for The Dark Knight (2008, Sky Premiere, 8pm), perhaps the most overpraised movie of this, or any other, decade. Except Ben-Hur, in the latter case, obviously. Actually, critics have been clamouring to hail it as a Heat-like epic - but it's obviously not that bad (arf). Here's the review I wrote upon release. Seeing as I haven't seen the movie since, I hope it will do: "In 2005, Christopher Nolan's complex, fascinating Batman Begins breathed new life into DC Comics' masked superhero, offering two parts introspection and myth-making to each dose of frenetic action. An explosion-heavy final third ended on the promise of a sequel, and here it is, with Batman (Christian Bale) facing off against face-painted adversary The Joker, played with grim relish by Heath Ledger. Also along for the ride are whiter-than-white District Attorney Aaron Eckhart, who's dating Batman's old flame Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhall), and a gallery of familiar faces from the first film, headed by Gary Oldman, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. Dispensing with the villain's backstory in favour of non-stop thrills, Nolan begins The Dark Knight with a bank robbery and throws in car chases, kidnappings and boats stuffed with bombs, delivering a furiously-paced actioner that's loaded with twists. But while it's exciting, persuasive popcorn fodder, the film's philosophical musings are less intriguing and sure-footed than first time around, while the dreamlike imagery that gave Batman Begins much of its slow-building power is conspicuously absent. It's difficult to quibble with two-and-a-half hours of solid entertainment, especially when Bale and Ledger are so very good, but this feels like a missed opportunity, especially when the film resorts to waving guns at children in order to engage its audience." (3/5)


SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 6

"Somebody shhhhtop me!" If those words send a cold chill down your spine, don't worry – you're not alone. The Mask (1994, Five, 8pm), while possessing some eye-popping (arf) special effects, is actually a bit rubbish. Jim Carrey plays a quiet bank clerk who sticks an age-old mask on his face and finds that it turns him into a lime green sociopath. This was Cameron Diaz's big break. The camera actually appears to be salivating over her at one point. (2/5)

A Man For All Seasons (1966, Five, 11.25am) is the second best movie ever made about a saint battling with a king over his religious beliefs (Becket, since you ask). Paul Scofield is nothing short of brilliant as Sir Thomas More, who clashes with Henry VIII (Robert Shaw, in little more than a cameo) over the creation of the Church of England. No dry history lesson this, but a compelling human drama loaded with import. Robert Bolt adapted from his own play, regarded by lantern-jawed Charlton Heston (who knew a thing or two – and apparently that was all – about drama) as the best ever written. Your director is Hollywood moralist Fred Zinnemann (From Here to Eternity, The Search) and the supporting cast has top British talent in Wendy Hiller, Leo McKern and John Hurt. (5/5)

FILM OF THE WEEK - 1
For a man who'd spent much of his career neck-deep in degradation, The Straight Story (1999, Film4, 6.50pm) looked distressingly like David Lynch's dive for the mainstream. But from a slightly unpromising premise – a based-on-a-true-story tale of one Iowa pensioner's 317-mile lawnmower ride – came Lynch's masterpiece, a story of pride, humility and old age that calls to mind Ben Johnson's line in The Last Picture Show: "Bein' a decrepit old bag of bones, that's what's ridiculous – gettin' old." Stunt-man-turned-character-actor Richard Farnsworth plays Alvin Straight, forced back onto the road (on a lawnmower, admittedly) by his estranged brother's stroke. Exuding strength and dignity, Straight has a hard-won wisdom tempered by the vulnerability of his advanced years, and the guilt of the WWII survivor. It's a masterful characterisation that straddles era and genre. The "unfinished business" of the '40's Westerns that saw Farnsworth thrown from stagecoaches and buried in the dirt is sublimely subverted. Here the struggle is not in the reclamation of pride, but in the swallowing of it. "My brother and I said some unforgivable things the last time we met," he says, "but I'm tryin' to put that behind me." A flawed man, riddled with guilt, it's fitting that when Alvin's journey reaches it close, it's with Paris, Texas's Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) that he surveys the heavens. At odds with the bulk of Lynch's work, The Straight Story celebrates the decency – rather than the depravity – at the heart of the ordinary man. And in Farnworth's central showcase, it boasts perhaps the most remarkable, revelatory performance of recent years. (5/5)

This Is Spinal Tap (1984, ITV4, 0.10am MON) is a mock-rockumentary chronicling the tumultuous career of the (fictional) eponymous heavy metal group, "now residing in the 'Where Are They Now?' file". The script is a work of brilliance, but this one reads better than it plays, with countless great jokes mangled in the delivery. It's still pretty good, with some inspired visual gags (the bit with the pods, the Stonehenge sequence, the band getting lost on the way to the stage) and a fair few verbal gems surviving the scrappy treatment - "None more black" being my favourite. (3/5)

Also on this evening is United 93 (2006, ITV1, 10.15pm), Paul Greengrass' treatment of the titular flight, one of four hijacked on September 11, 2001. Again, apologies that I haven't seen it (and that I have seen The Mask, if not since I was 15).


MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6

FILM OF THE WEEK - 2
Here Comes Mr Jordan (1941, BBC2, 11am) is a simply wonderful Hollywood fantasy, remade in 1978 as Heaven Can Wait, with Warren Beatty. Robert Montgomery plays a boxer who's sent to heaven ahead of time by erring angel Edward Everett Horton. Returning to earth temporarily in the body of a heartless industrialist, Montgomery falls for the man's latest victim Evelyn Keyes, whilst Horton and his celestial boss Claude Rains scramble to find a permanent solution. Imaginative plotting (including a perfect, really unusual ending), excellent direction and lovely performances across the board make this one of the most satisfying movie experiences you can have. And you can't say much better than that. (5/5)

Match Point (2005, BBC1, 11.05pm) was hailed upon release as a major return to form for Woody Allen, but there are two problems with the theory: 1) He'd only made one weak-ish film, Hollywood Ending; 2) His follow-up, Anything Else, was much better than both that, and this. Match Point is a London-set movie with the trappings of a romantic comedy (or a travelogue), but the plot of a noir, and the script of a borderline genius on the skids. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, who's allegedly Irish but usually sounds Welsh, plays an English tennis pro who gets in tight with posho Emily Mortimer, then falls – in a big way – for flirtatious actress Scarlett Johansson (Scarlett Johansson, an actress? Please...). Well he's just going to have to kill someone. Rhys-Meyers is very good, giving the movie what power it has, but Allen's dialogue is atypically weak, and he doesn't seem to understand London (me neither, but then I'm not setting my films there). The director is also hampered by his latest blind spot, namely that he hasn't noticed Johansson is rubbish. And that bit with the tie is just silly. (2/5), I'd say.

The Innocents (1961, Film4, 0.35am TUE) is a classic chiller - one of my favourites. Deborah Kerr plays a governess who may just be going mad in an apparently haunted mansion. Heightened performances, peerlessly eerie direction and one hell of a theme song make this a must. Great reveal, too. (5/5)


For TUE to FRI picks, please click on the link below right.