Home Comforts: The best films on TV, DVD, Blu-ray and VOD (Monday November 9 - Sunday November 15)

A dozen essential films to check out in the next seven days on a variety of formats...

1. Inherent Vice 
(from Friday, 11:30 and 22:00, Sky Movies Premiere)
Vague and sprawling, Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s similarly opaque novel features Joaquin Phoenix at the top of his game as a pot-head private investigator. Perhaps a difficult film to truly love but it is nevertheless enormous fun.

2. I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka 
(DVD and Blu-ray)
Before he went mad and directed the likes of Little Man and White Chicks, Keenen Ivory Wayans made and starred in this laugh-out-loud blaxploitation parody. Wayans is Jack Spade, a former soldier who returns to the hood to investigate the death of his brother from a gold chain overdose.

3. Dreamcatcher - Surviving Chicago's Streets 
(tonight, 22:00, BBC4)

Kim Longinotto’s film focuses on former teenage prostitute Brenda Myers-Powell and her organisation, the Dreamcatcher Foundation, which offers help and support to women still working Chicago's streets. A harrowing but uplifting piece of work. Read more here

4. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover 
(tonight, 01:30, Film4)
Peter Greenaway's blackest of black comedies sees Michael Gambon's ghastly crime boss come a cropper when he discovers that his wife (Helen Mirren) is conducting a torrid affair right under his nose at the restaurant he has recently bought. Jean-Paul Gaultier provides the costumes, Michael Nyman the score.

5. The French Connection
(Netflix UK, from Wednesday)

William Friedkin's classic cop thriller sees Gene Hackman (as the iconic Popeye Doyle) and Roy Scheider on the trail of the French drugs kingpin (Fernando Rey) who supplies New York with most of its heroin. Worth seeing for the famous high-speed car chase sequence alone.

6. Cabaret 

(Wednesday, 23:35, BBC1)

Set in 1930s Berlin, this multiple Oscar-winning adaptation of the Broadway musical stars Liza Minelli as flamboyant American singer Sally Bowles. Her love life is complicated and her performances light up the stage at the Bohemian Kit Kat Klub. But bad times are afoot in Germany as the country begins its inexorable slide into fascism.

7. The Mission
(Tuesday, 23:55, BBC1)

Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro play 18th Century Jesuits battling to save their South American mission from Portuguese slavers in a powerful drama. Roland Joffé directs but Wayne Hussey is conspicuous by his absence.

8. Spy
(VOD, DVD and Blu-ray)
Paul Feig directs Melissa McCarthy for a third time and whilst this breathlessly amusing secret agent caper isn't quite as much fun as Bridesmaids or The Heat, there is still plenty to enjoy. Jason Statham sends himself up a treat as tough guy Rick Ford. Full review here 

9. Cosmopolis
(Sunday, 23:05, BBC2)

Robert Pattinson is the young, self-made billionaire being driven across New York to get a haircut blissfully unaware his life of indulgence and luxury is about to fall apart around his ears. David Cronenberg directs, Juliette Binoche and Paul Giamatti co-star.

10. Song of the Sea
(VOD, DVD and Blu-ray)

Sumptuous, hand-drawn Irish animation that takes inspiration from the country's myths and legends, specifically the Selkies who can live in the sea as seals or on dry land as humans.

If Pixar's Inside Out is the year's best animated film, this runs a close second. Brendan Gleeson and Fionnula Flanagan star.

11. Ex Machina
(from Friday, 14:00 and 20:00, Sky Movies Premiere)
Alex Garland's directorial debut is a terrific three-hander that starts off as an engaging bit of AI-themed sci-fi exploring ideas of consciousness, humanity and attraction, but ends up as an out-and-out thriller. Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander star.

12. The Crying Game
(Tuesday, 21:00, TCM)
Neil Jordan's haunting IRA drama featuring Stephen Rea, Forest Whitaker and Jaye Davidson. Is there anyone alive who doesn't know the brilliant twist? 

And one to avoid...

The Voices 

(Netflix UK, from Sunday)

Witless black 'comedy' starring the wretched Ryan Reynolds as a seemingly ordinary guy urged to commit murders by his evil pet cat. I just hope co-stars Gemma Arterton and Anna Kendrick were well paid...

My top 20 movies of the year... so far (part #1)

Blimey, those six months just sped by, didn't they? And with them lots of very, very good films. I don't know whether we've had a stone-cold classic yet but with the likes of Todd Haynes' Carol, Michael Fassbender starring in Macbeth, and Crimson Peak from Guillermo del Toro scheduled for later in the year, there's still plenty to look forward to in 2015. Of all the films I've seen there is only one I can honestly say I hated – American Sniper – but that was more about its lousy politics than Clint Eastwood's skill as a director or the merits of Bradley Cooper as an actor. 

Anyway, the rules here are simple: all films under consideration had to have had a UK cinema release between January 1 and June 30 2015 (to prevent moans of 'But surely that was out last year', I've even included each film's official UK release date, courtesy of launchingfilms.com). No straight to Netflix/Amazon Prime or straight to DVD/Blu-ray movies were considered (sorry, Starry Eyes). 

Not being a professional critic, there are dozens of films I've yet to catch up on that have been released in the last six months (The Falling, White God, and Slow West to name but three) but of those I've seen – 59 as of this morning – these will be my 20 21 favourites. Let's start with numbers 20-11, shall we?

=20. Selma
(Director: Ava DuVernay UK release date: February 6)
The fact David Oyelowo wasn't nominated for an Oscar for his astonishing portrayal of Martin Luther King still sticks in the craw. The rest of this civil rights drama doesn't quite hit the heights of the British actor's performance but is powerful, heartfelt stuff nevertheless.

=20. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
(Director: Roy Andersson UK release date: April 24)
Bizarre comedy following the antics of two dour salesmen as they attempt to flog a range of hopeless novelty items. There isn't a coherent plot as such, just a string of loosely connected sketches each commenting on some aspect of human existence. Gloriously odd.

19. Blind
(Director: Eskil Vogt UK release date: March 27)
Fantasy and reality merge in this extraordinary Swedish film from a first-time writer/director about a young blind woman struggling to come to terms with isolation and paranoia. Boasts a great central performance from Ellen Dorrit Petersen (below)

18. Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
(Director: David Zellner UK release date: February 20)
Terrific but elliptical drama charting a young Japanese woman’s quest to find the briefcase full of cash buried by Steve Buscemi’s character in the movie Fargo. Is the titular Kumiko mentally ill or merely so alienated from modern life that taking refuge in fantasy is her only option? 

17. Inherent Vice
(Director: Paul Thomas Anderson UK release date: January 30)
Vague and sprawling, this adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s similarly opaque novel features Joaquin Phoenix at the top of his game. Perhaps a difficult film to truly love but it is nevertheless enormous fun.

16. Jauja
(Director: Lisandro Alonso UK release date: April 10)
A weird and woozy ‘western’ set in the wilds of 19th Century Patagonia and starring Viggo Mortensen (below) as a Danish engineer on a quest to find his missing daughter. I’d be surprised if I saw a more visually stunning movie all year.

15. Wild
(Director: Jean-Marc Vallée UK release date: January 16)
Reese Witherspoon is terrific as an emotionally shattered young woman hiking a thousand miles up America's west coast in a bid to come to terms with her mother's death and the downward spiral it has plunged her into.

14. Foxcatcher
(Director: Bennett Miller UK release date: January 9)
Haunting adaptation of a true story featuring superb performances from a strong cast. Steve Carell is creepiness personified as John E du Pont, the unstable multi-millionaire who founds a wrestling academy to train US Olympic hopefuls. Suffice to say, it doesn’t end well...

13. Wild Tales
(Director: Damián Szifrón UK release date: March 27)
Argentine portmanteau featuring six stories about rage and vengeance. The final sequence centring on the meltdown of a couple’s relationship at their wedding (below) is a tour de force of bleak humour and brutal emotion.

12. The Duke of Burgundy
(Director: Peter Strickland UK release date: February 20)
BDSM and lepidoptery (the study of butterflies and moths) make strange but beguiling bedfellows in this eccentric and gorgeous lesbian relationship drama. Not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.

11. Mad Max: Fury Road 
(Director: George Miller UK release date: May 15)
Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy, pictured at the top of the page) returns to the post-apocalyptic Aussie badlands in a movie for which the term high-octane was surely invented. Charlize Theron’s badass Imperator Furiosa steals the film out from under him though.

Numbers 10-1 coming later in the week...

TV Movie Picks (UK): Monday, June 8 - Sunday, June 14

VIEW ON DEMAND (VOD): Having watched the trailer for Inherent Vice (Various Streaming Services), you might have been somewhat taken aback by the film itself. For what seemed a laugh-a-minute madcap comedy full of pratfalls in the highlights package was a woozy, sprawling, slow-burning, pot-head noir in Paul Thomas Anderson's finished picture. This seemed to infuriate some punters who took to Twitter to report they'd left halfway through a movie they'd found "interminable" and "pretentious". However, like all of Anderson's films, it improves on a second or third viewing, even though the plot itself remains somewhat hard to precisely pin down. Set in Los Angeles, in 1970, Joaquin Phoenix is Larry "Doc" Sportello, a private investigator tasked by old flame Shasta (Katherine Waterston) to help foil a plot to have her current lover - a real-estate bigwig named Mickey Wolfmann - committed to a mental institution. Things grow more complicated when Wolfmann and Shasta disappear and Sportello once again becomes the target of an old nemesis: LAPD Detective Christian F "Bigfoot" Bjornsen (played with bullying zeal by Josh Brolin). It seems simple but trust me when I say it isn't. This being based on a Thomas Pynchon novel, there are all kinds of tangents and detours to explore before the film reaches any kind of resolution. Just let yourself go with it, though, and there's lots to admire, particularly the performances of a terrific cast, Anderson's gimlet eye for period detail, and a downbeat death-of-the-sixties vibe.

Five more...
Jauja (vss) Gorgeous-looking, hallucinatory "western" set in 19th Century Argentina about a Danish army captain (Viggo Mortensen) searching for his missing teenage daughter. One of those films that leaves an indelible impression on you (full review by me here).
Kajaki (vss) Gripping war thriller about a group of Paras becoming trapped in a mine field whilst on patrol in Afghanistan.
Kingsman: The Secret Service (vss) Uproariously entertaining spy flick, that celebrates and satirises all things Bond. Colin Firth is superb as the super-suave secret agent training a new recruit.
Tusk (vss) Kevin Smith's bizarre horror/comedy has to be seen to be believed. Enormous fun featuring Johnny Depp in one of the oddest cameos you'll ever see.
The Wizard of Oz (Amazon Prime, from Thursday) It's all about feminism, atheism and, um, American Monetary Policy, apparently.

CABLE & SATELLITE: Aubrey Plaza (Life After Beth, Parks & Recreation) is such an accomplished comic actor that she almost made Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever worth a look. In oddball indie comedy Safety Not Guaranteed (22:45, Tuesday, Film4) she turns the snark down a bit as Darius Britt, an intern at a Seattle magazine investigating a strange classified ad, which reads: "WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED". Smelling a potentially interesting story, Darius - along with two colleagues from the magazine - embarks on a road trip to find the man who placed the ad. They quickly realise it isn't a joke or a scam, and that paranoid supermarket worker Kenneth (Mark Duplass) is deadly serious - he genuinely believes he has built a time machine and plans to use it to visit the past to save the life of an old girlfriend. Director Colin Trevorrow's debut film (his follow-up is an obscure little project called Jurassic World) is a clever romcom spin on Back to the Future and it is not only very funny but utterly charming too. 

Five more...
Race with the Devil (01:50, Tonight, Film4) A family camper van holiday goes tits up when Peter Fonda and Warren Oates fall foul of a satanic cult. Same thing happened to me in Cromer a couple of years back.

The Cruel Sea (16:20, Wednesday, Film4) Jack Hawkins and Donald Sinden star in a gripping WWII drama about soldiers aboard a British convoy escort ship.

As Above So Below (09:45 and 22:00, Friday, Sky Movies Premiere) Found-footage horror set in the Paris catacombs.

4.3.2.1 (22:55, Friday, Film4) Emma Roberts and Tamsin Egerton star in writer/co-director Noel Clarke's likeable and breathless female-centric crime drama.

Money Train (23:10, Friday, TCM) Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes are New York cops plotting to rob the titular train in this slight but fun buddy comedy/drama.

TERRESTRIAL: Whatever happened to Paul Verhoeven, the talented and subversive Dutch director who bestrode '80s and early-'90s cinema like a colossus with films such as Robocop, Basic Instinct, and Total Recall (22:40, Friday, ITV)? I'd got it into my head he'd been laughed out of Hollywood following the critical mauling meted out to 1995's kitsch and seedy Showgirls but that turned out to be a false memory (rather fitting as we shall see). In fact, the filmmaker was back on top form just two years later with the underrated sci-fi satire Starship Troopers, and directed Kevin Bacon in the big-budget Hollow Man at the turn of the century. But maybe 20 years in La La Land were enough as Verhoeven returned to his native Holland soon after, from where he gave us 2006's Black Book. He's 76 now and further films seem increasingly unlikely but Total Recall remains a beautifully-realised and hugely-imaginative slice of SF. Based on the Philip K Dick short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, it stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Douglas Quaid, a man travelling to Mars to lead a revolt against a corrupt regime – or, thanks to false, implanted memories – he could be dreaming the whole thing. It's certainly one of the very best Dick adaptations and the jaw-dropping special effects – courtesy of Rob Bottin and his team – deservedly won an Oscar. I still haven't seen 2012's remake/reimagining/reboot (or whatever the hell it was) and have no plans to do so. 

Five more...
Carry on Screaming! (23:40, Tonight, ITV) Fenella Fielding and Kenneth Williams are on top form in this inventive and amusing horror-flavoured outing from 1966. Frying tonight!

Reign of Fire (23:20, Tuesday,  BBC1) Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey battle dragons in this future-set fantasy.

In Our Name (23:00, Friday, BBC2) The excellent Joanne Froggatt is a British soldier haunted by the death of an Iraqi child in a powerful drama.

Rebecca (14:40, Saturday, BBC2) Alfred Hitchcock directs and Laurence Olivier stars in this creepily atmospheric adaptation of Daphne de Maurier's novel. 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (19:00, Saturday, ITV) First part of Peter Jackson's interminable - but sporadically enjoyable - adaptation of JRR Tolkien's novel.

Please note: Films starting after midnight are always considered part of the previous day's schedule, e.g. Race with the Devil begins at 01:50 - technically Tuesday morning - but is still part of Monday's listings. All times in 24-hour clock.