The week's best films


Saturday September 18

Under Capricorn (Alfred Hitchcock, 1949)
1.35pm, BBC2

One of Hitchcock's early works, a romantic drama set in 1830s Sydney. Conceived especially for Ingrid Bergman, in her Gaslight guise, she is married to wealthy former convict Joseph Cotten, and intimidated and slowly poisoned by evil housekeeper Margaret Leighton.

Paint Your Wagon (Joshua Logan, 1969)
2.55pm, Five

Musical western about the rise and fall of a mining town, where hard-hitting buddies Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood agree to share their woman (Jean Seberg). Some violence is done to Lerner and Loewe's songs - notably Clint's I Talk To The Trees - but there's a strong gold-rush plot and marvellous Marvin following his Wandrin' Star.

Black Narcissus (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
3.30pm, BBC2


Carry On Matron (Gerald Thomas, 1972)
4.35pm, C4

The Carry On team are back in hospital for the fourth time, and still managing to raise laughs with terminally ill jokes about bedpans, contraception and the eternal battle of wills between well-starched nursing staff and men in stripey pyjamas.

James And The Giant Peach (Henry Selick, 1996)
5.45pm, Five

It is a peach too, with Selick giving free rein to a typically macabre and marvellous Roald Dahl fantasy. It starts in "real life" with little James (Paul Terry) given a bag of something magic by old Pete Postlethwaite; soon he's tipped into an animated world - a weird mix of stop-motion and computer generated effects. Top class Disney.

Along Came A Spider (Lee Tamahori, 2001)
9pm, C4

Morgan Freeman reprises his character from Kiss The Girls (and, bar the name, pretty much every role he's played since Seven) as detecto-shrink Alex Cross, on the trail of yet another psychopath who has kidnapped a senator's daughter. It's efficiently done, with Tamahori hitting all the requisite suspense buttons. But with Freeman exuding wisdom and dignity while pretty secret service agent Monica Potter looks on admiringly, you can't help feeling you've seen it all before.

Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (Mike Mitchell, 1999)
11.30pm, ITV1

This silly comedy about a fishtank cleaner turned ladies' escort makes the Farrelly brothers look subtle. Rob Schneider stars as Deuce, who looks after a gigolo's aquarium and Malibu flat while he's away: but a domestic disaster leaves him looking for quick cash. TJ the pimp (Eddie Griffin) hatch the answer: he should become a "man-whore". There are funny moments, but the succession of supposedly comic dates with women missing limbs, a woman with huge feet, a blind woman and a Tourette's sufferer are pretty dispiriting.

Truly, Madly, Deeply (Anthony Minghella, 1991)
12.15am, C4

This was seen as the British version of Ghost, the 1990 Hollywood tale about a man returning after death to comfort his grieving girlfriend. Minghella's film is less sentimental, more emotionally true, and funnier. He's helped by fine acting - Juliet Stevenson as the bereaved Nina makes you feel her pain in all its choking, runny-nosed misery, while Alan Rickman does a very funny ghostly turn as Jamie, invading her flat with a bunch of fellow late-night ghouls. Tears and laughter, all at once: clever stuff.

Sunday September 19

Three Amigos (John Landis, 1986)
1.30pm, BBC1

Slapstick western spoof about a less-than-magnificent three. Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short play silent-screen cowboy stars who trot off happily to perform at a Mexican village and discover they have been hired to deal in lead rather than blanks - tackling Alfonso Arau and his fellow bandits.

The Devil's Brigade (Andrew V McLaglen, 1968)
1.45pm, Five

William Holden stars as a tough second world war officer welding a bunch of US army cooler kings and crack Canadian soldiers into an unconventional but supremely effective fighting force. We follow the selection, the gruelling training, and the rip-roaring battlefield action. Does this remind you of anything? Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen was a big hit the year before ...

The Hot Rock (Peter Yates, 1972)
4.10pm, Five

Inventive, funny, spoof-thriller with Robert Redford and George Segal as outlaw brothers-in-law. The two crooks steal a fabulous diamond from the Brooklyn Museum, mislay it, and cut comic capers trying to retrieve it. Yates paces the fast-moving thrills with precision.

Dr Dolittle 2 (Steve Carr, 2001)
6.20pm, Five

Eddie Murphy returns as the vet who can talk to the animals. He and lawyer wife Kristen Wilson are fighting to save a wilderness area from developers, which mainly involves him becoming a sex counsellor for Archie, the nervous circus bear (voiced by Steve Zahn). Murphy's a lot funnier in the Nutty Professor films, but small children will enjoy it.

Something To Talk About (Lasse Hallstrom, 1995)
8pm, Five

A mellow, even anodyne, account of a woman's fight to assert herself. The woman is Julia Roberts, a mum and manager of the family's successful stables, and when she finds her husband, good ol' Dennis Quaid, has been cheating on her she heads home to parents Robert Duvall and Gena Rowlands. There's a corny showjumping subplot and most of the sporadic fun comes from Kyra Sedgwick as Roberts' sparky sister.

My Cousin Vinny (Jonathan Lynn, 1992)
10.35pm, C4

Undemanding courtroom comedy with Joe Pesci playing a more lovable rogue than his usual demon mobsters. He is Vinny, a novice New York lawyer riding to the rescue of cousin Ralph Macchio and his pal Mitchell Whitfield, innocents charged with a liquor store murder down in steamy Alabama. Marisa Tomei won a best supporting actress Oscar as Pesci's snappy, argumentative girl.

Monday September 20

The Patriot (Roland Emmerich, 2000)
9pm, Five

Here's Mel "Braveheart" Gibson taking on the evil English again; this time he's a hero of the French and Indian wars trying to live peacefully in South Carolina in 1776 but dragged into the struggle for independence after his son (Heath Ledger) enlists. Some awesome battles, but it's at heart a simplistic stars and stripes-waver.

Last Resort (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2000)
11.20pm, BBC2

Director Pawlikowski's documentary background shows through in this finely observed tale about the plight of a Russian asylum-seeker in Britain: it's a fictional case, but feels entirely authentic. Dina Korzun's Tanya and her son Artyom (Artyom Strelnikov) arrive at Stansted airport from Moscow and are whisked off to a seaside resort called Stonehaven to live on vouchers and be abused by officials and internet pornographers alike. An angry, compelling and touching film.

Evita (Alan Parker, 1996)
12.20am, BBC1

If you discount the pounding monotony of the Lloyd Webber/ Rice songs then this life of Eva Peron as rock-shlock opera has some magnificent touches. Madonna is a charismatic Evita, first lady of 1940s Argentina: sparky, passionate, committed, and a hell of a singer; Jonathan Pryce is impressive as her husband, the president, and Antonio Banderas an intriguing narrator.

Tuesday September 21

Stargate (Roland Emmerich, 1994)
10.45pm, BBC1

Like his Independence Day, Emmerich's Stargate is a story of plucky earthlings battling hostile aliens, with the accent on special effects rather than any guiding intelligence. James Spader is a slightly unworldly Egyptologist who opens a "stargate" into a distant galaxy, stepping through with Colonel Kurt Russell and his starship troopers.

I Went Down (Paddy Breathnach, 1997)
11.20pm, BBC2

This lively adventure is set in an Ireland where the blarney rolls in waves over a traditional crime-thriller set-up. Brendan Geeson and Peter McDonald are sent by a Dublin gangster to hunt down the man who apparently stole 25 grand from him: it's a picaresque journey through glorious rural Ireland, packed with incident, funny and surprisingly moving.

Wednesday September 22

The Gift Horse (Compton Bennett, 1952)
1.25pm, C4

The gift horse is the Ballantrae, one of a batch of leaky old destroyers acquired by Britain at the start of the war. For Captain Trevor Howard, reinstated after court martial, it's a chance to prove himself, and the old tug doesn't let him down.

The Wedding Singer (Frank Coraci, 1998)
7.25pm, BBC1

It's set in the 1980s, but Coraci's sweetly old-fashioned romantic comedy hails from a more distant past. Since the music on show offers the decade's finest - from Culture Club to Kajagoogoo - it's wise to stick with the plot and the engaging performances: Adam Sandler's wedding singer and Drew Barrymore's waitress, as a pair having to lose unworthy partners before finding each other.

The Pelican Brief (Alan J Pakula, 1993)
9pm, Five

Glossy, plot-heavy thriller. Downside is Julia Roberts, none too convincing as a brilliant law student whose conspiracy-theorising on the murders of top judges proves correct. Denzel Washington as the gutsy hack who is her only ally is much more credible.

Final Destination (James Wong, 2000)
10.35pm, BBC1

This jolly, gory horror film pits a traditional bunch of teenagers against the ultimate serial slasher: the grim reaper himself. Devon Sawa plays 17-year-old Alex, who along with his high school chums misses the flight to Paris. When the plane explodes, they think they've cheated death, but it seems it's Death who feels cheated, and comes to collect them.

My Son The Fanatic (Udayan Prasad, 1997)
11.20pm, BBC2

Scripted by Hanif Kureishi from his own story, this is a touching and insightful account of a Pakistani cab-driver struggling for acceptance in northern England. Om Puri is pretty wonderful as Parvez, his ambitions bringing him into conflict with his fundamentalist teenage son. Politically astute and intelligent.

Thursday September 23

Perfect Friday (Peter Hall, 1970)
12.20am, BBC1

A light and sexy caper movie. It stars Stanley Baker in a worm-that-turns role as a dull bank clerk who hatches a daring plan to rob his own bank, with sexy Ursula Andress and her languid aristocratic hubby David Warner for accomplices. Neat, efficient and stylish.

Friday September 24

Robin And Marian (Richard Lester, 1976)
1.15pm, C4

Lester, maker of the chevaliers-rampant Three Musketeers and Four Musketeers, is in more wistful, elegiac mood in this account of the Robin Hood legend. Sean Connery's weary Robin returns from the crusades to confront Robert Shaw's sheriff of Nottingham once more, but despite their heroic final duel, it's Connery's scenes with Audrey Hepburn as a middle-aged Marion that make the magic; Nicol Williamson, too, is a touchingly faithful Little John.

The Grissom Gang (Robert Aldrich, 1971)
1.05am, BBC1

Gruelling thriller about a young heiress kidnapped by a violent, amoral gang in Kansas City, 1931. Kim Darby is the unfortunate woman - though there are no innocents in this cynical tale - while Irene Dailey's Ma Grissom leads the gang, with psychotic son Scott Wilson. A remake of a poor British version of James Hadley Chase's No Orchids For Miss Blandish, it was attacked as debased and depraved by the critics.