Also
showing: Dawn of the Dead (00:45, BBC1, Wednesday) George A Romero’s zombie
masterpiece. Gosford
Park (22:40, ITV, Friday)
Robert Altman does Downton Abbey. The Disappearance of Alice Creed (00:30, BBC1, Tonight) Feisty Gemma
Arterton turns the tables on her kidnappers in an effective Brit thriller. No Country for Old Men (00:15, Channel 4, Sunday) Javier Bardem
gives good sociopath in the Coen brothers’ Oscar-winning drama.
CABLE &
SATELLITE: 12 Years a Slave may have won the Oscars but for me Shame (23:00,
Film4, Thursday) remains director Steve McQueen’s best film to date. Michael
Fassbender is New Yorker Brandon – 30-something, successful and addicted to
sex. His seedy life of porn and prostitutes is turned upside down when Carey
Mulligan (Sissy, his fragile sibling) moves in with him as she tries to launch
a singing career. This is a desolate and actually quite upsetting drama – it’s
clear something has gone terribly wrong for Brandon and Sissy early on in their
lives and that it continues to exact a terrible price from them both. Fassbender
is terrific and McQueen offers no easy answers to the pair’s torment.
Also
showing: The Devil’s Advocate (22:00, 5USA, Tuesday) Al Pacino is Satan
(especially after doing those terrible ads for Sky Broadband a while back). Se7en
(23:05, Sky Select, Tuesday) I don’t like that Bradley Pitts anyway… too much
acting. The Breakfast Club (00:05, ITV3, Thursday) John Hughes’ quintessential ’80s
teen drama.
VOD: Magic
in the Moonlight (Virgin Movies, Film4OD, EE, TalkTalk etc) isn’t one of Woody Allen’s best and something of a
disappointment after 2013’s magnificent Blue Jasmine. But it does boast fine
performances from Colin Firth, as an insufferable stage magician, and Emma
Stone, as the psychic whose “supernatural gift” he is attempting to debunk. The
dialogue is uneven – almost sparkling one minute, plain clunky the next – while
the idea of a romance between Firth (54) and Stone (26) is, to put it politely,
a little icky. However, as you'd expect from late-period Woody, the film does
have just enough charm and chutzpah to get away with even its most egregious
shortcomings.
Also
showing: Calvary (Netflix) Brendan Gleeson is on top form as a doomed priest
in this fine black comedy. Palo Alto (Virgin Movies, Film4OD, EE, TalkTalk etc) Gia Coppola (granddaughter of
Francis Ford Coppola) directs a slow-moving but effective teen drama starring
James Franco and Emma Roberts. Still Life (Curzon Home Cinema) This sentimental
drama sees the excellent Eddie Marsan’s lonely civil servant tracking down
relatives of the recently deceased.
Please note: Films starting after midnight are always considered part of the previous day's schedule, e.g. Wake Wood starts at 00:45 - technically Sunday morning - but is still part of Saturday's listings.
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