TV Movie Picks (UK): Monday, June 1 - Sunday, June 7

VIEW ON DEMAND (VOD): Most reviewers will this week be extolling the virtues of Whiplash which makes its debut on DVD, Blu-ray and VOD today. And they’ll be quite right to do so because Damien Chazelle’s film is superb and easily one of my favourites of 2015 so far. But, if you’ve already seen Whiplash or are more interested in discovering a hidden gem, I’m going to recommend you watch Obvious Child (Netflix, from today) instead. In this most unusual of romcoms, Jenny Slate plays Donna Stern, a young stand-up comedian whose edgy material mostly involves her sex life and her Jewish faith. She’s fearless and talented, but Donna’s life is turned upside down when she loses her job at a local book store, her boyfriend absconds with her best friend, and she gets knocked up by a guy she barely knows (The Office’s Jake Lacy). It’s hugely refreshing to see a film which deals with the subject of unwanted pregnancy without recourse to melodrama or cloying sentiment while Slate’s terrifically funny as Stern (especially the scene, when, at her lowest ebb, she suffers a spectacular on-stage meltdown). Donna’s a loveable walking disaster whose difficult transition to adulthood makes for painful – but entirely relatable – viewing. The script is fresh, funny and packed with decent one-liners, making first-time writer/director Gillian Robespierre clearly one to watch. Fans of Woody Allen and Noah Baumbach, this is definitely for you.

Five more...
Whiplash (Various Streaming Services) Monstrous music teacher JK Simmons pushes Miles Teller to the edge in a powerful drama. Who knew jazz drumming could be so brutal?
Shaun the Sheep - The Movie (VSS) Laugh-packed animation from the ever-dependable Aardman in which the titular TV star heads for the big city to find the missing Farmer.
Ex Machina (VSS) Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson and Alicia Vikander star in Alex Garland’s A.I.-based thriller.
Lost River (VSS) Ryan Gosling’s nightmarish modern fairy tale was panned by critics on its cinema release but it’s substantially better than you’ll have heard.
Beetlejuice (Amazon Prime Video, from Thursday) Before he was Birdman or Batman, Michael Keaton was “bio-exorcist” Beetlejuice in Tim Burton’s outlandish dark comedy. Brilliant.

TERRESTRIAL: Is everyone out of the country this week and not bothered telling me? I only ask as, movie-wise, the five main channels are offering very slim pickings indeed. Tropic Thunder (23:20, Saturday, BBC1) probably isn’t the best of the bunch but it is certainly the most fun. An impressive A-list cast – including Ben Stiller (who also directs), Jack Black, Tom Cruise, and Robert Downey Jr – star in a deft spin on John Landis’ 1986 comedy ¡Three Amigos! In Landis’ film three unemployed actors (Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short) are invited to a Mexican village to reprise their most famous characters – a trio of ridiculous cowboy heroes who dress like a Mariachi band. But when they turn up in Mexico, the Amigos realise they have been mistaken for real-life do-gooders and now must fight ruthless local bandit El Guapo. Tropic Thunder sees Stiller, Black, Downey Jr and Brandon T Jackson (as rapper-turned-actor Alpa Chino) dropped into the middle of the Vietnam jungle whilst making the titular movie only to fall foul of the Flaming Dragon, a cutthroat gang of heroin smugglers. Of course, the clueless actors dismiss the very real danger they are in, assuming it is all part of the film’s “guerrilla” shooting style. Downey Jr steals the show as absurd Aussie method-actor Kirk Lazarus, lampooning himself as well as Daniel Day Lewis and Russell Crowe along the way. The film itself walks a clever line between being potentially offensive (Downey Jr appears in blackface and coins the much-quoted phrase, “Never go full retard”) and satirising an industry that encourages pampered actors and their monstrous self-regard. There are lots of very good jokes and some spot-on jabs at the war movie genre, while Nick Nolte and Steve Coogan provide game support.

Five more...
White Oleander (23:35, Tuesday, BBC1) Melodrama in which a young teenager (Drag Me To Hell's Alison Lohman) bounces between foster homes after her free-spirited mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) goes to prison for murder.
Infamous (23:50, Friday, BBC2) The other film about Truman Capote (following 2005's Capote starring Philip Seymour Hoffman) sees Toby Jones stepping into the acclaimed writer’s skin.
The Man Who Knew Too Much (11:20, Saturday, BBC2) The Beeb’s fine Alfred Hitchcock season continues with James Stewart and Doris Day as a holidaying couple caught up in an assassination plot.
My Week with Marilyn (22:30, Saturday, BBC2) Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) clash on the set of 1957's The Prince and the Showgirl in a charming drama elevated by two fine performances.
A Single Man (23:00, Sunday, BBC2) Gloomy - but finely acted - '60s-set suicide drama starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore.

CABLE & SATELLITE: On the 40th anniversary of Jaws, it seems appropriate to recommend a sea-based thriller such as Adrift (23:10, Friday, Film4), albeit one with a distinct lack of sharks. No, the villain of the piece here isn’t a vengeful great white nicknamed Bruce but simple human negligence. And it’s utterly fatal. A group of friends (including Susan May Pratt as aquaphobe Amy) go for a weekend yacht cruise and, weighing anchor, contentedly splash about in the beautiful waters off Mexico. Unfortunately, with everyone in the sea and miles from dry land, it soon becomes apparent they can’t get back aboard the yacht – nobody thought to pull down the embarkation ladder. In short, they’re stranded and Amy’s helpless baby Sarah is still aboard on her own. It’s a fiendishly simple premise but one that director Hans Horn milks for all its worth. First of all, the friends try to calmly and rationally think their way out of trouble but, as the day draws on, and every attempt to escape their watery prison fails, panic sets in and the bodies start piling up. Their desperation is palpable. Adrift (titled Open Water 2 in some countries to cash in on the earlier film’s success even though they aren’t linked) is an extremely effective but sadly underrated thriller that is more than worth 95 minutes of your time.

Five more...
Scars of Dracula (21:00, Tuesday, Horror Channel) Hammer horror starring Christopher Lee as the blood-sucking Count (that’s Count – with an o!).
An Education (21:00, Wednesday, BBC4) Coming-of-age drama set in ’60s London – Carey Mulligan is the teenage ingenue seduced by a shady older man (Peter Sarsgaard).
The Pianist (00:10, Friday, ITV3) Roman Polanski-directed WWII drama with Adrien Brody as a Polish-Jewish musician struggling to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto.
Before Sunrise/Before Sunset (from 20:00, Tuesday, Sky Select) The first two films, back-to-back, in Richard Linklater’s fine relationship trilogy, starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke.
Be Kind Rewind (21:45, Friday, Sky Select) Jack Black and Mos Def star in Michel Gondry’s charmingly eccentric video store comedy.

Please note: Films starting after midnight are always considered part of the previous day's schedule, e.g. The Pianist begins at 00:10 - technically Saturday morning - but is still part of Friday's listings. All times in 24-hour clock.

Shorts

Sadly, I simply don’t have time to write lengthy reviews of every new film I see, so here’s a catch-up on some of the other stuff I’ve enjoyed most in the last few weeks…

In cinemas

Still Alice

Director: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland

Starring: Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart

Running time: 101 mins

Moore (as Alice) is every bit as fantastic as you'll have heard but I’ve been surprised by how sniffy some critics have been about the rest of the film. Following the Oscar winner’s language professor as she fights a losing battle against early onset Alzheimer’s, it is certainly a simple, subtle, perhaps even low-key affair, but is far removed from some of the “TV movie” jibes I’ve seen. For a start, all the performances are good, particularly Stewart as Lydia, Moore’s wannabe actress daughter, and Baldwin as husband John, a character who becomes less and less sympathetic as Alice’s condition worsens. It’s a work that eschews melodrama or directorial/screenplay pyrotechnics in an attempt to properly, soberly show us the affect of a terrible disease on both its sufferer and their family. And it does so very effectively indeed.

Rating: WWW

Chappie

Director: Neil Blomkamp

Starring: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser

Running time: 120 mins

“Short Circuit meets Robocop” seems to have become Chappie’s unofficial tagline although it’s probably an accurate one. In a future Johannesburg, policing has been turned over to robotic "Scouts" but when the architect of the project (Patel) manages to make one of them – Chappie – fully sentient trouble soon comes a knocking as the AI is kidnapped by a gang and forced to commit criminal acts. Blomkamp can always be relied upon to give good dystopia and this, his third feature, is a thrill-a-minute joyride not a million miles off the quality of District 9. Copley doing the motion-capture thing as Chappie is meant to be the star of the show but I enjoyed  South African rap group Die Antwoord (Ninja and Visser) just as much. The pair play members of the kidnap gang (also called Ninja and Yolandi) and over the course of the film bring both intensity and sensitivity to the roles. One criticism? Sigourney Weaver is sorely underused.

Rating: WWW

On VOD and DVD

Obvious Child

Director: Gillian Robespierre
Starring: Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffman

Running time: 84 mins

Slate plays Donna Stern, a scatological young Jewish comedian whose life is turned upside down when her boyfriend absconds with her best friend, and she gets knocked up by a guy she barely knows (Lacy). It’s hugely refreshing to see a film which deals with the subject of unwanted pregnancy without recourse to melodrama or cloying sentiment while Slate’s terrifically funny as Stern. She’s a loveable walking disaster whose difficult transition to adulthood makes for painful – but entirely relatable – viewing. The script is fresh, funny and packed with decent one-liners; first-time writer/director Robespierre is clearly one to watch.

Rating: WWWW

Coherence

Director: James Ward Byrkit 

Starring: Emily Baldoni, Maury Sterling, Nicholas Brendon

Running time: 89 mins

Made for a reported $50,000, Coherence is a clever bit of sci-fi set, for the most part, in a single Los Angeles home. Eight fractious friends have gathered for a dinner party on the night a comet passes overhead but the cosmic fireworks somehow bend reality, and the film suddenly becomes an intriguing mash-up of Sliding Doors (referenced in the script) and Another Earth. We’re talking alternate realities and writer/director Byrkit has great fun with the idea that there might be more than one of us out there – like us but not us in important, perhaps troubling, ways. It reminded me a little of Primer, another film that serves up a single thought (time travel is possible) and then just pushes it and pushes it to see how crazy things can get. If there’s a problem it’s that Coherence’s characters aren’t nearly engaging enough but you’d have to be a contender for curmudgeon of the year to let that spoil what is an intriguing and thought-provoking piece of work.

Rating: WWW

The Skeleton Twins

Director: Craig Johnson
Starring: Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Luke Wilson

Running time: 93 mins

This bleak comedy/drama stars former Saturday Night Live pair Wiig and Hader as the titular siblings. Maggie and Milo are two lost souls, left bereft and suicidal after their father jumped off a bridge when they were only teens. It’s a gloomy, autumnal film at times but one leavened with sharp wit and enjoyable character moments. The leads are both excellent as is Wilson as Lance, Wiig’s dull but thoroughly decent husband. Writers Craig Johnson (who also directed) and Mark Heyman deserve great credit for their ability to mine laughs from such difficult subject matter.

Rating: WWW

Ratings

WWWW = Wonderful

WWW = Worthy

WW = Watchable

W = Woeful