TV MOVIE PICKS (UK) Monday, February 2 - Sunday, February 8

TERRESTRIAL: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Wednesday, 23:45, BBC1) is a bit of a mouthful for those of us who prefer brevity in our movie titles (what’s wrong with Hop or Rope?). Reporter John Cusack stumbles into a murder mystery in the Deep South (that’s Savannah, Georgia, not Brighton and Hove) when Kevin Spacey shoots dead Jude Law, his gay lover. Spacey is his usual suave and compelling self but Clint Eastwood’s movie is lit up more by its ambience and incidental characters than anything else. Barney’s Version (Wednesday, 01:20, Channel 4) is one of those comedies keen to invite admiring adjectives like “witty and wise” but ends up being schmaltzy and irritating instead. However, none of that should detract from Paul Giamatti’s immense performance as the titular character; an unlikeable, boozy git who the actor somehow manages to make you root for. It's Bond in space as Roger Moore fights Jaws, Hugo Drax and a terrible script in the somehow-still-charming Moonraker (Sunday, 16:15, ITV). Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) remains one of my favourite 007 character names... 

CABLE & SATELLITE: Talking of Bond, Matthew Vaughan’s Kingsman: The Secret Service is in cinemas now (see last Friday's review) so Film4 have dusted off his first feature, Layer Cake (Tuesday, 23:35). Daniel Craig is a cocaine-dealing wrong ’un on the verge of early retirement in an effective and stylish “one last job” crime thriller. Elsewhere, Trance (Thursday, 6pm, Sky Select) is a tricksy heist-capade from Danny Boyle that is never quite as clever as it thinks it is. A fine turn from Rosario Dawson and some genuinely unexpected plot twists make it worth a look though. Somewhat better is This Is England (Friday, 21:00, Film4), Shane Meadows’ ’80s-set drama about a troubled, fatherless boy (Thomas Turgoose) who finds love and acceptance amongst a gang of older skinheads. The only thing better than the performances (Stephen Graham, Joe Gilgun and Vicky McClure all in early roles) is the soundtrack. Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (Tuesday, 22:00, ITV4) isn’t a patch on Holy Grail or Life of Brian but still boasts Mr Creosote and the Crimson Permanent Assurance.

VOD: Two of my favourite films from last year make their View on Demand debut this week. Gone Girl (Sky Store, BT TV, Virgin Movies) is David Fincher’s absorbing adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s best-selling novel of the same name. Ben Affleck becomes the police and media’s No.1 suspect when his wife – played with brio by Oscar-nominated Rosamund Pike – disappears. What starts as an above-average thriller gets better as it goes along, and the last half-hour is genuinely bat-shit bonkers. Equally demented is David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars (Sky Store, BT TV, Virgin Movies), a black-hearted Hollywood satire that takes no prisoners. Julianne Moore is the main attraction here – her washed-up soap actress, Havana Segrand, being one of 2014’s finest screen monsters. I’ve also heard good things about director Robin Campillo’s Eastern Boys (Sky Store, BT TV, Virgin Movies), a Paris-set drama that is part tender love story/part brutal home invasion thriller. It’s a fairly slow week on the Netflix front but from Sunday they do have Zero Dark Thirty, in which Jessica Chastain leads the hunt for Osama bin Laden after he turns down her Facebook friend request. The cad.

The best of 2014 part one

Welcome to my film blog. We'll kick off with a list of my favourite 25 films of 2014 so you can see the kind of stuff I like and then decide whether checking out "As human as the rest of us..." is going to be for you. Feel free to comment on my choices - whether you agree with them or not.

I've seen a lot of films this year - everything from arse-witted CGI tosh I, Frankenstein to bleak German religious drama, Stations of the Cross. To qualify, films had to have been released in the UK between January 1 and December 31 2014. That excludes the likes of Whiplash, Birdman and Foxcatcher, which are already out in the US but yet to surface here, and Snowpiercer which STILL hasn’t been released in UK cinemas (it would have been #8 on my list if it had).

Here are numbers 25 to 16...

25. The Lunchbox (Director: Ritesh Batra)
A gentle romantic comedy from India that also acts as a rumination on mortality and grief. The performances are terrific, the script sharp and tender. Best avoid the inevitable Hollywood remake.

24. A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn)
Stark, brooding spy thriller starring the late Philip Seymour Hoffman as a lugubrious German spook hunting potential terrorists in Hamburg. There are missteps – Rachel McAdams’ clumsily written immigration lawyer for one – but the quality of the story and acting easily outweigh them.

23. The Babadook (Jennifer Kent)
I hate most modern horror (lazy, clumsy, unimaginative, not scary) so this frightener from Australia was a pleasant surprise. Essie Davis is superb as a frazzled, grieving mum, Noah Wiseman only slightly less perfect as her disturbed young son.

22. Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallée)
Triumph of the human spirit theme – check. Big-name actor physically transforming for role – check (x2). Subject matter involving a disability or illness – check. DBC was the very definition of Oscar bait (it won the two male actor prizes, plus best make-up) but still impressed. Matthew McConaughey’s was a career-best performance… for about five minutes until Rust Cohle and True Detective came along.

21. Locke (Steven Knight)
A Welshman sits alone in a car for 90 minutes jabbering increasingly frantically into a mobile phone as his world implodes around him. It's hardly an elevator pitch up there with Alien’s ‘Jaws in space’, is it? Still, what Locke lacks in spectacle and action, it more than makes up for in Tom Hardy’s assured, sympathetic performance. Utterly gripping.

20. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
An amazing story brought to powerful, harrowing life by a fine script and uniformly superb performances from an excellent cast. I was pleased it did so well at the Oscars (winning three awards including Best Picture) but still think Shame is McQueen’s best film.

19. The Imitation Game (Morten Tyldum)

This biopic of WWII hero and genius Alan Turing wasn’t perfect (it seemed terrified of exploring its subject’s homosexuality for a start) but Benedict Cumberbatch was a perfect blend of infuriating intellect and vulnerability in the lead role. A phenomenal performance.

18. Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg)
The Great Man’s scalpel-sharp, dark-hearted takedown of Hollywood pulled no punches - there appeared to be genuine malice in the satire, while bitter, washed-up actress Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) is a monster to give even Brundlefly nightmares.

17. Gone Girl (David Fincher)
Gloriously bonkers pulp thriller the highlight of which is Rosamund Pike’s turn as the missing-presumed-murdered gone girl of the title. A twisty, turny delight that made me laugh more than it was probably intended to.

16. The Golden Dream (Diego Quemada-Díez)
Bleak but brilliant story of three Guatemalan teenagers trying to enter the US as undocumented migrants. Based on interviews director Quemada-Diez conducted with some 600 people over six years, it broke my bloody heart.

Come back later in the week for numbers 15 to 6...