Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

[jlnight]

The Lost Continent (1951), Sat 7th Oct, Talking Pictures.
The Great Van Robbery, Sat 7th Oct, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 12th Oct.
Onegin, Sat 7th Oct, London Live. Or...
Play Dirty, Sat 7th Oct, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 19th Oct.

The Bank Shot, Sun 8th Oct, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 17th Oct.
Sherlock Holmes: Pursuit to Algiers, Sun 8th Oct, Sky Arts.
Licorice Pizza, Sun 8th Oct, BBC2.

Martin's Day (1985), Mon 9th Oct, London Live.
The Cat Burglar (1961), Mon 9th Oct, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 16th Oct.

Seven Doors to Death, Tue 10th Oct, Talking Pictures.

Yellow Sky + Johnny Ringo, Wed 11th Oct, Talking Pictures. (Saddle Up)
Land (2021), Wed 11th Oct, Film4.
Songs My Brothers Taught Me, late Wed 11th Oct, Film4.

Cheer Boys Cheer, Thu 12th Oct, Talking Pictures. (Melvyn's Talking Pictures)
The Quest (1996), Thu 12th Oct, Legend.

Battle of the Rails (La Bataille du rail), Fri 13th Oct, Talking Pictures.
Whitney: Can I Be Me, Fri 13th Oct, London Live. (been on BBC2)
Christine (1983) + Pin (1988), Fri 13th Oct, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club) Or...
Five Corners, Fri 13th Oct, London Live.



Clockwork Mice was another no-show, with Bob Clark's Dead of Night (Deathdream) replacing it! Daniel (1983) also didn't turn up, The L-Shaped Room in its place.

[colinr0380]

Apparently the BBC is going to be showing the first season of a recent TV adaptation of Interview With The Vampire upcoming for Halloween month. With Eric Bogosian playing the current times interviewer character that Christian Slater played in the movie!

[colinr0380]

And this TV movie has just concluded on Channel 5 but is worth catching whenever it is repeated again: Framed By My Sister (aka Triple Threat on imdb) which is an Asylum film directed by the guy who did all the Sharknado films and starring Scout Taylor-Compton (who played Laurie Strode in the two Rob Zombie Halloween remake films, as well as appearing in one of Takashi Shimizu's non-Grudge related films,
Flight 7500. Dark and moody interpretation of classic song ahoy!) doing Bette Davis and Jeremy Irons one better by playing the roles of all three triplets, where the one who was left out in the cold returns to steal the identity of one and frame the other for murder!

Most of the scenes are inevitably played out one-on-one through body doubles and over the shoulder shots, but it still gets amusingly logistically complicated during the final 'hide and seek through the old family home' section!

EDIT (Wednesday 4th): Also I noted something that is not related to Framed By My Sister but to the two TV premieres this week: The Man With My Husband's Face shown on Monday and Look Who's Stalking ( ) showing right at this moment. Those films were made this year and both have a really strange look about them. It is difficult to describe but its kind of similar to that HDR 60 fps smooth Hobbit film style that gives everything a strangely 'natural looking' feel, even whilst the film plots are doing the usual thing! That's a new and rather jarring development. Is this the new equivalent of 'Shot on Video' look (Shot on DV?) that will define TV movies from this point onward?

[colinr0380]

Lots of things on TV next week. jlnight has noted the big one, with the premiere of Paul Thomas Anderson's film Licorice Pizza on BBC2 at 10:30 p.m. on Sunday 8th.

Tons of horror films too: Slice is on Film4 at 11:20 p.m. on Saturday 7th. That's followed by Bad Hair at 1:50 a.m. over on Channel 4 (which seems similar to the Stacy Keach starring "Hair" segment of John Carpenter's Body Bags! Or Sion Sono's horror Exte: Hair Extensions!)

That's all leading to the premiere of Candyman (2020) on BBC3 at 10 p.m. on Sunday 8th and repeated in a double bill with Get Out from 9:30 p.m. on Friday 13th (Get Out is also shown un-DOG-tagged on BBC1 at 10:40 p.m. on Wednesday 11th).

BBC4's Storyville documentary of the week is Made of Steel at 10 p.m. on Tuesday 10th, which is about wheelchair rugby final between England and France.

Film4 has a big night on Wednesday 11th with premieres of Land at 9 p.m. (the trailer for which reminds me a bit of Wild or Into The Wild, although with what appears to be a more interesting looking and current en vogue prepper/survivalist vibe than the 'urbanite hiking across/into the landscape to find oneself' aspect. It also somewhat inevitably makes me think of that video game Firewatch too) and the pre-The Rider and Nomadland film by Chloé Zhao, Songs My Brother Taught Me at 12:35 a.m.

BBC2 has a couple of notable TV series starting up: the food series Eva Longoria: Searching For Mexico starts at 7:20 p.m. on Sunday 8th (which seems to be tied together with the Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy series. Its executive produced by Tucci) and the first part of the Interview With The Vampire TV series at 9 p.m. on Thursday 12th, and finally Film4 premieres the erotic thriller Heatwave at 1:35 a.m. in the early hours of Saturday 14th.
___
Repeat-wise, Wang Xiaoshauai's So Long, My Son is showing on BBC2 at 1 a.m. in the early hours of Sunday 8th (first time un-DOG-tagged). Don't Look Now is showing on BBC2 at 11:15 p.m. on Monday 9th and repeated on BBC4 at 10:10 p.m. on Thursday 12th (that showing is followed by a repeat of the Scene by Scene episode that was dedicated to Donald Sutherland at Midnight), and the Otto Preminger film The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell is on Film4 at 2:50 p.m. on Thursday 12th.

Also, the second part of the 1965 War of the Roses series is showing on BBC4 at 12:25 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 9th. I am liking this trend of BBC4 devoting its entire Sunday evening schedule (eight and a half hours next Sunday) to Shakespeare! Even if the majority of the programming is of modern adaptations that leave me rather cold (plus the 1989 Branagh adaptation of Henry V is showing on BBC2 at 1:15 p.m. on Saturday 7th and then repeated on BBC4 at 8 p.m. on Thursday 12th, just before Don't Look Now)

[colinr0380]

Film4 have trailed that their horror film season for Halloween is going to include the premieres of Titane, Censor and Boys From County Hell.

[jlnight]

Terror By Night, Sat 14th Oct, Sky Arts. (been on TPTV)
Hurt By Paradise (2019), Sat 14th Oct, London Live.

The Fabulous Dorseys, Sun 15th Oct, Talking Pictures.
Us (2019), Sun 15th Oct, BBC2.
Little Richard: I Am Everything, Sun 15th Oct, Channel 4.

Summer of Soul (2021), Mon 16th Oct, Channel 4.

13 Rue Madeleine, Tue 17th Oct, Film4.
Playing Away, late Tue 17th Oct, Film4. (on before)

The Undefeated (1969) + Johnny Ringo, Wed 18th Oct, Talking Pictures. (Saddle Up)
Midsommar, Wed 18th Oct, Film4.

Trade Winds, Thu 19th Oct, Talking Pictures. (Melvyn's Talking Pictures)

The Divide (2015), Fri 20th Oct, London Live.
The Shape Of Things To Come, Fri 20th Oct, London Live. (been on Legend) Or...
Stepfather III + Night of the Creeps, Fri 20th Oct, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club) (Creeps on Legend/Film4 before)


The Reckoning (Coogan as Savile) starts on Mon 9th Oct on BBC1. What they hope to achieve by dramatising Savile's crimes is anyone's guess. I suspect it will be unsatisfying on various levels.

[colinr0380]

The Reckoning (Coogan as Savile) starts on Mon 9th Oct on BBC1. What they hope to achieve by dramatising Savile's crimes is anyone's guess. I suspect it will be unsatisfying on various levels.

I did catch a bit of the first episode and its main purpose mostly seemed to me to be about retrospective damage control for those who enabled Saville to a certain extent, presented under the veil of giving the victims a voice: the mother having pre-premonitions of the upcoming abuse by going to a Catholic priest to confess that she hated her son (so, she's off the hook); the interview for a job at the BBC having the one woman there being vocal about if it were her choice they would "not touch him with a six foot bargepole", but of course being overruled by the Men; and the big one being how Saville inveigled his way into volunteering at a local hospital, with a lot of handwringing from the local hospital manager about his concerns and even confronting Saville after seemingly his first act of abuse on a patient.

I suppose there is the need for dramatic foreshadowing, but that itself implies a level of awareness in those figures that comes to feel less successful as a mea culpa and more that if they were that on the ball and immediately concerned to the point of confrontation, then why did they let things carry on for decades? Maybe that's the ultimate question in this case (the insulating power of fame to abuse in plain sight?), but given that we have not really left the 60s by the end of the first episode there is still a long time left to run for those various Managers to have kept schtum. I am much more sympathetic to the sketched in individual girls who we see being dismissed or running off traumatised, because it is sadly all too easy to understand how specific civilians in the situation would be ignored, have their protests hand waved away, or even be threatened for speaking up (just look at the decades long Rotherham scandal), but trying to suggest that some BBC staff and hospital managers were just trying their best but were fruitless in their protests because of implied inherent sexism or that they were just not powerful enough? You'll forgive me if I don't feel much sympathy for their performative ex post facto handwringing.

But I was also prepared for that to inevitably be the case in a series broadcast on the BBC and which would be so micromanaged in its production because it would be under such intense scrutiny in the press and from representatives of the still existing organisations and charities that failed their duty of care. I doubt that we are going to be coming away from this series with more than the idea that the evil mastermind (twisted by being a loner with mummy issues) managed to dupe these nice but dim (at worst) organisations mostly headed by the ultimate monster - white men - for decades, probably with a bit of a shrug about how the people in the past could have allowed this to happen, and the promise that such a thing will never happen again in our newly enlightened times. Until the next big scandal breaks (and presumably this whole series has been difficult to schedule what with both the Letby trial and the Russell Brand thing going on over the last couple of months).

I did spend most of that first episode wondering what Coogan could have achieved if this had been done in collaboration with Chris Morris!

[colinr0380]

Lots of stuff again next week with a mix of music documentaries and horror films. Boys From County Hell (NSFW) is on Film4 at 11:15 p.m. on Saturday 14th. The two big premieres of the week are US (dark 'n' moody version of a classic song ahoy!) on BBC2 at 9 p.m. on Sunday 15th (in a double bill followd by the original version of The Omen at 10:50 p.m.); and the film that definitely proves that Sweden is not quite as happy and carefree as Bergman made it out to be, Midsommar on Film4 at 10:55 p.m. on Wednesday 18th (Hereditary is repeated on Film4 the next evening at 10:50 p.m.)

The evening of Sunday 15th is the most packed one of the week, with the premiere of US clashing up against the most exciting repeat of the week with the 1972 version of The Merchant of Venice starring Maggie Smith and Frank Finlay, showing at 9:45 p.m. on BBC4, which is followed by the final Richard III-focused part of the 1965 War of the Roses cycle at Midnight (BBC2 is also showing the Laurence Olivier Richard III film at 12 noon on Sunday afternoon as well)

Also on Sunday 15th Channel 4 is showing Little Richard: I Am Everything at 11 p.m., and then on Monday 16th Channel 4 also shows Summer of Soul at 10 p.m.

On Wednesday 18th, BBC4's archive TV strand shows Peter Kosminsky's two part 1999 Bosnian war drama Warriors from 10:25 p.m., with a 25 minute introduction from Damien Lewis, Matthew Macfadyen and Kosminski at 10 p.m. This, along with The Merchant of Venice, may be unfortunately thematically timed given the current war going on so I would not be at all surprised to see them pulled from the schedule at short notice.

The latest series of Rick & Morty is turning up on E4 in the 1:15 a.m. slot early Friday mornings from this week and from next week is joined by Adult Swim's My Adventures With Superman series following at 1:45 a.m. on Friday 18th.
___

Repeat-wise, along with Richard III and The Omen which both get repeated in a double feature(?) on BBC4 from 8 p.m. on Thursday 19th, BBC2 is showing The Shining at 11 p.m. on Friday 20th and the Halloween remake-remake (i.e. the 2018 one) is on BBC1 at 10:40 p.m. on Wednesday 18th.

And The Red Shoes is on BBC2 at 1 p.m. on Saturday 14th.

[GaryC]

Battle of the Rails (La Bataille du rail), Fri 13th Oct, Talking Pictures.

This was the first TV showing since 1960, when I'm reliably informed the BBC had it as an unscheduled addition to mark the state visit of President de Gaulle to the UK. The BBC had previously shown it, scheduled, in 1948 and 1951.

A prizewinner at the very first Cannes in 1947, this was a film I certainly knew about but last night's broadcast might well have been the first opportunity I've ever had to see it, given that it's never been on VHS or disc in the UK, unless it was shown at the National Film Theatre/BFI Southbank since I started going in the mid-1980s.

I've recorded it but not watched it yet. Interestingly enough, there was no Talking Pictures TV certificate/content advisory at the start, presumably this being a rare feature film which gets TPTV's equivalent of a U! (It had an A certificate in cinemas in 1947.)

[jlnight]

Battle Beyond the Sun (1962), Sat 21st Oct, Talking Pictures.
Firewalker (1986), Sat 21st Oct, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 1st Nov. Or...
Amerika Square (2016), Sat 21st Oct, London Live.
The Gravedigger's Wife (2021), late Sat 21st Oct, Channel 4.

The Conqueror (1956), Mon 23rd Oct, Legend.
The Deep Blue Sea (2011), Mon 23rd Oct, Film4.

A Private Enterprise (1974), Wed 25th Oct, London Live. (last on C4 in 1989)
City of Bad Men + Johhny Ringo, Wed 25th Oct, Talking Pictures. (Saddle Up)
Titane, Wed 25th Oct, Film4. Or...
Wisconsin Death Trip, Wed 25th Oct, BBC4.
The House of Mirth, late Wed 25th Oct, Film4.

The Gang's All Here (1939), Thu 26th Oct, Talking Pictures. (Melvyn's Talking Pictures)
Censor, Thu 26th Oct, Film4.

The Believers (1987) + The Deep, Fri 27th Oct, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club) Or...
The Animals Film, Fri 27th Oct, London Live. (last on C4 in 1991)



Thanks for the info on La Bataille du Rail. It contains mild swearing so would probably be a PG. It reminds me that Mark Cousins mentions the film in his Moviedrome intro to Plein Soleil.

[GaryC]

The Deep Blue Sea (2011), Mon 23rd Oct, Film4.
The House of Mirth, late Wed 25th Oct, Film4.

Looks like Film 4 are getting in their Terence Davies tributes. Hopefully they might show The Neon Bible again (last shown February last year) as I'm having my own Davies retrospective and that's the one feature I can't source - not on disc nor streaming in the UK.

[colinr0380]

Lots of stuff next week. Channel 4 has two premieres on Saturday 21st. The first is the film in which Toni Collette plays another of her harried mother roles (after Krampus and Hereditary et al) in the most terrifyingly hostile environment she has yet faced: South Wales! That's Dream Horse at 9:25 p.m. (let's hope the horse doesn't lose its head Hereditary-to-Godfather style! Or maybe it does and becomes a ghost Sixth Sense-style?). That's followed by a repeat of Collateral, and then that's followed by the other premiere, of The Gravedigger's Wife at 1:45 a.m.

It is lucky that Collateral splits those films up, since that allows time to switch over to Film4 for the premiere of Crawlspace at Midnight.

Or we can forsake those films for the Legend channel on Saturday evening, which is showing the western Forsaken at 9 p.m., with Donald and Kiefer Sutherland playing together. I forgot to mention its premiere this week but Forsaken is followed by a quick repeat showing of another western, with the Ethan Hawke-starring film In A Valley of Violence at 10:55 p.m., the rare non-horror film directed by Ti West!

BBC4's Storyville slot is showing the first two episodes (of four) of the Dutch documentary The Hidden Children of Ruinerwold Farm from 10 p.m. on Tuesday 24th. That's about the family where a father had kept nine children isolated from the world and has interviews with four of the adult children who had left. I can only find some interviews with the filmmaker in Dutch about the series so far.

Lock up your sons/daughters, hide the hot wax and shammy leathers and throw away the car keys, for then we come to the film of the week with Titane on Film4 at 10:50 p.m. on Wednesday 25th. That's followed by Censor at 10:50 p.m. on Thursday 26th.
___
Repeat-wise, the big one may be in the BBC's ongoing Shakespeare season, which is showing the Marlon Brando version of Julius Caesar on BBC2 at 12 noon on Sunday 22nd, repeated on BBC4 at 8 p.m. on Thursday 26th. I think that is the film's first showing on UK television since 1999!

The weirdest bit of scheduling of the week is also in the Shakespeare season, as BBC4 shows a 40 minute documentary about the making of Kenneth Branagh's 1996 four hour long film version of Hamlet at 1 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 23rd. Which is strange because the BBC have never aired the film as yet! That film has screened only the once so far on UK television, on Channel 4 back on the 5th January 2003 (strangely at about exactly the same 1 a.m. timeslot in the early hours of a Sunday evening-Monday morning as this documentary is! Maybe that's the only place schedulers deem it being able to fit?).

Great to see BBC4 repeating Wisconsin Death Trip for the first time in decades at 11:40 p.m. on Wednesday 25th. That may be key to understanding James Marsh's dark approach to Americana and/or strange weirdly dreamlike figures with skewed idiosyncratic takes on the world that turns up in his later films like The King or Man on Wire (even The Theory of Everything)

Film4 is showing the Georgian film And Then We Danced at 1:40 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 23rd. As noted above Film4 is showing repeats of The Deep Blue Sea at 11:40 p.m. on Monday 23rd and The House of Mirth at 1:10 a.m. on Thursday 26th in tribute to Terence Davies.

The Jason Statham starring Wild Card has moved across from Channel 5 to Film4 and airing at 9 p.m. on Thursday 26th, which means that this will be its first showing un-DOG-tagged. This is another version of the novel on which the Burt Reynolds film Heat was based (that 80s version adapted by for the screen by William Goldman) and may be my favourite Statham-starring film because of giving him a bit more of a complex dramatic character to play (especially in that gambling scene at the end) than he usually has to handle.

And also appearing for the first time on Film4 is First Knight at 6:55 p.m. on Friday 27th, which I have not seen in decades but the trailer reminds me of it being a kind of mash-up of en vogue 90s historical epic trends, being a bit Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, a lot Braveheart and with a dusting of Last of the Mohicans over its Arthurian legend tale. It's kind of a melange in that sense and one of the two big Hollywood of films from 1995 (the other was that remake of Billy Wilder's 50s film Sabrina) that was trying to make Julia Ormond a star (though I like her taciturn character in Smilla's Sense of Snow from a couple of years later the best). I also remember my A level History teacher at the time who was very into those kinds of dress up historical re-enactment hobbies saying that his group of players had been recruited into the crowd scenes for the film, to cheer on Richard Gere as he processioned past! Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to recognise him in a crowd after 25 years though! (Not compared to the way I can definitely pick out one of my classmates from my Library Management university course who got a side job as an extra during one Summer holiday - shamelessly stealing focus in her one scene by ensuring that she kept purposefully walking past the camera holding 'important documents' - in the Pete Postlethwaite crime drama TV movie Butterfly Collectors!)

And I should note that after years of starting the Christmas TV movie deluge from the 1st November, Channel 5 have pushed it a week earlier (rather undermining Halloween/Bonfire Night in the process to get to the 'biggie'), so the relentless bauble filled holiday season begins on Saturday 21st October with the first two Christmas films, four films on Sunday 22nd (7 hours worth!) and then there is at least one film a day the rest of the week. No premieres as yet, and my guess is that perhaps it is because they have built up a back catalogue of a decade's worth of these films that they have to start showing repeats of the older films at this early stage before all the new films turn up closer to December.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I'm certain that First Knight is the film Coogan/Brydon have in mind when they do the Richard Gere 'stare into the distance and smile at a remembered memory' impression (one of Brydon's first ever roles was in this film). Is colin also suggesting that the Baby of Macon wouldn't have made Julia Ormond a star????

[colinr0380]

Well, as much as I like The Baby of Macon (and Ormond's other early work, particularly as the drug-addicted daughter in the original mini-series of Traffik and with Tim Roth in Captives), a Peter Greenaway film in which her character is 'punished' by being assaulted by a queue of dozens of men might not be quite the same thing as the 1995 push to Hollywood leading lady status of Sabrina or First Knight! That 1995 flurry of roles probably more began in earnest following her role in the Brad Pitt film Legends of the Fall the year before.

(It seems that the male equivalent to Julia Ormond getting the Hollywood push to major roles in 1995 is probably Chris O'Donnell, who turned up in Circle of Friends, co-starring with Drew Barrymore in Mad Love and Batman Forever in that year and then never entirely caught on, for whatever reason)

[jlnight]

Attack from Space (1965), Sat 28th Oct, Talking Pictures.
Sleepers (1996), Sat 28th Oct, Legend. Or...
Keep The Aspidistra Flying, Sat 28th Oct, London Live.

The Long Day Closes, Sun 29th Oct, Film4.

The Neon Bible, late Mon 30th Oct, Film4. (on before, Chattanooga Choo Choo an' all!)

Abilene Town + Johnny Ringo, Wed 1st Nov, Talking Pictures. (Saddle Up)
Outland, Wed 1st Nov, 5Action.

Sally in Our Alley, Thu 2nd Nov, Talking Pictures. (Melvyn's Talking Pictures)
Macbeth (1948), Thu 2nd Nov, BBC4.

The Eyes of Laura Mars + Mansion of the Doomed (1976), Fri 3rd Nov, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club) Or...
Mean Streets, Fri 3rd Nov, Film4.

[colinr0380]

Lots of interesting stuff next week. BBC1 has its fourth premiere of the year and is getting into Halloween mood with Escape Room at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday 28th. Which somehow despite liking Cube and the Saw films, I have missed on seeing until now! (Dark 'n' moody version of a classic tune ahoy!)

Channel 4 is showing the Norwegian/Swedish/Danish film with Stellan Skarsgård Hope at 1 a.m. in the early hours of Tuesday 31st. And The Nest is showing on BBC2 at 11 p.m. on Friday 3rd, which is the next film from Sean Durkin, who previously directed Martha Marcy May Marlene.

And the Christmas TV movies are ramping up on Channel 5 already as after this week of all repeats to ease us in, next week there is a repeat paired with a premiere on every weekday. The most notably adorable of which is ex-Superman Brandon Routh appearing in The Nine Kittens of Christmas at 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday 31st! And I'm bracing myself for A Very Merry British Christmas (aka Jolly Good Christmas) at 3:15 p.m. on Friday 3rd, which is written by Ron Oliver, who began his career writing slasher films Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II and wrote and directed Prom Night III: The Last Kiss!

But its all still far, far too early to be doing this! Where all all the psychotic and paranoid stalker thriller films about spurned girlfriends/boyfriends/children/spouses/nurses/grandmas to tie in with the spooky season?

__

Lots of notable repeats as well. The Vincente Minelli film starring Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall Designing Woman is on BBC2 at 1:20 p.m. on Saturday 28th. Jonathan Glazer's Under The Skin is showing on Film4 at 1:40 a.m. in the early hours of Sunday 29th in the appropriately liminal period when the clocks go back an hour.

BBC4's Shakespeare season on Sunday nights devotes itself to two productions from that 1978-1985 complete BBC Shakespeare cycle of plays with the excellent 1978 version of As You Like It showing at 9 p.m., which is preceded by a 15 minute new introduction by Helen Mirren from 8:45 p.m. That's from very early in this series, when they were still experimenting with doing the productions outdoors and 'on location' in real castles and woodland settings before later plays became more notably abstract and played up the artificial quality more and so looks quite a bit different from the later productions. This one and Henry VIII are the big 'outside broadcast' examples, and whilst Henry VIII plays up the 'shot inside actual castles' aspect, As You Like It is more doing the 'out in the woods' thing and that makes it especially interesting to compare to similar but really abstract woodland scenes in the much later in the cycle adaptations of Two Gentleman of Verona or Much Ado About Nothing! It also has a great cast along with Mirren including the late Angharad Rees (probably best known for her starring role in Hammer's Hands of the Ripper, which was part of that cycle they had of having women in the monstrous lead roles).

Hopefully in that 15 minute interview they might get into Mirren's other role in that BBC Shakespeare series, as Imogen in the 1982 adaptation of Cymbeline.

Following that at 11:30 p.m. is another production from that BBC Shakespeare cycle, with the 1983 version of Macbeth with Nicol Williamson and Jane Lapotaire. I'm afraid that I was not a big fan of this one (it may be my least favourite production of that entire series, though I still have to get to the last couple in that enormous DVD box set), but thankfully as jlnight has noted BBC4 is also showing the 1948 Orson Welles adaptation of Macbeth at 11:20 p.m. on Thursday 2nd, which is much better.

Also on BBC4 on Thursday 2nd and still Shakespeare related is a showing of Kenneth Branagh's All Is True film at 9:15 p.m., preceded with a new interview with Ian McKellen at 9 p.m. And BBC1 gets in on the action with a showing of Shakespeare In Love at 10:40 p.m. on Wednesday 1st.

The new Interview With A Vampire series comes to an end with a double bill on BBC2 from 9 p.m. on Thursday 2nd, but also notable is that at 11:15 p.m. there is a rare 50 minute 1993 interview with Anne Rice (so from around the period that the film was being made) which is an early "Late Show" art strand piece directed by Anand Tucker before he went on to direct Hilary & Jackie, Shopgirl and The Critic!

As jlnight has noted, the Terence Davies tributes on Film4 continue with The Long Day Closes at 11:40 p.m. on Sunday 29th and The Neon Bible at 1:40 a.m. in the early hours of Tuesday 31st.

Darren Aronosfky's mother! is showing at 1:40 a.m. on Halloween night (or rather the early hours of Wednesday 1st November). Paul Verhoeven's Black Book is showing at 1 a.m. in the early hours of Thursday 2nd, and as jlnight has noted the big repeat of the week is the first showing of Scorsese's Mean Streets in a long while at 11:10 p.m. on Film4 on Friday 3rd (though this screening is only really going to serve as my reminder to pre-order the upcoming Criterion disc!), which is followed by a repeat showing of Warren Beatty's film Rules Don't Apply at 1:25 a.m.

[jlnight]

Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, Sat 4th Nov, Talking Pictures. Also Fri 10th Nov.
Everything: The Real Thing Story, Sat 4th Nov, London Live. (been on BBC4)
A Kiss Before Dying (1956), Sat 4th Nov, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 16th Nov. (been on London Live)
Gaia, late Sat 4th Nov, Film4.

Paths of Glory, Sun 5th Nov, Great Action.
A Child is Waiting, Sun 5th Nov, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 9th Nov. (been on London Live)
Khamosh Pani, late Sun 5th Nov, Film4.

The Blazing Caravan (Scotland Yard short), Mon 6th Nov, London Live.
The Road To Kuthriyar (2021), late Mon 6th Nov, Channel 4.

Hit The Road (2021), Tue 7th Nov, Film4.
Body of Water (2020), late Tue 7th Nov, BBC2.
Dostojee (2021), late Tue 7th Nov, Channel 4.

Bandido (1956) + Johnny Ringo, Wed 8th Nov, Talking Pictures. (Saddle Up)

Rich and Strange (1931), Thu 9th Nov, Talking Pictures. (Melvyn's Talking Pictures)

Willard + Sisters (1972), Fri 10th Nov, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club) Or...
A Kiss Before Dying (1991), Fri 10th Nov, Legend. Or...
Pan's Labyrinth, Fri 10th Nov, BBC2. Or...
A Foreign Field (BBC TVM), Fri 10th Nov, London Live.


TWO kisses before dying? I'm not sure that would help!

[colinr0380]

Next week is packed full of things, and lots of stuff from around the world too. I did actually catch Escape Room last Saturday and was quite impressed. It sort of played out like a much less gore-focused version of the Saw films, where even when the deadly situations work there has usually been an actual puzzle to solve and escape to aim for, at least for the first three quarters of the action! Even the opening 'death' scene gets recontextualised into just being hideously wounding instead! Which was merciful, I guess? So it was more of a mainstream thriller film, a bit more like Cube than Saw, especially when you get into the interpersonal dynamics ending up with people turning on each other, but with an interesting message different from Cube's (where that seemed about how everyone should have been able to work together but couldn't with one part removed), into being about how you work together and lose a member at each stage (usually in a rigged manner where the person who dies has to be crossing the ice, or left entirely on the other side of the room from the exit after the floor falls away, leaving a chasm behind) before the 'winner' is found. So 'playing the game' and doing what those in charge want involves necessary and inescapable sacrifice, and the only choice that may be able to divert that is to just opt out of the system altogether. Which is an interestingly politically tinged manouevre! (Or they were just influenced by Portal!)

So that is kind of how you would expect a big Hollywood studio to tackle the concept of torture traps for a wider PG-13 audience. But that's not entirely a bad thing, because they appear to have captured the key aspects of what makes these types of stories entertaining and instead of the gore you get the spectacle ramped up instead. Plus I experienced a real moment of serendipity to the 'being experimented on by the elites through the internet' explanation coming straight after revising the Gengoroh Tagame work, as Arena and especially the Standing Ovations story are working in exactly the same territory. Plus I liked the way that the film "Saw VII"'s itself from a series of locked rooms and private acts into becoming a massive international cabal at its climax! Which made me want to see the sequel, and luckily enough Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is showing on BBC1 at 11:45 p.m. on Saturday 4th. (EDIT post-film: Wow, they really wanted Zoey to experience their plane-crash themed escape room, didn't they! To an amusingly pushy extent!)
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That's the big film of the week but there is so much more going on. Luckily not clashing with Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is the premiere on Film4 in the early hours of Sunday 5th, of South African horror film Gaia at 1:30 a.m.

The Pakistani film Khamosh Pani (aka Silent Waters) is on Film4 at 1:50 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 6th (that has been shown by Channel 4 twice previously but not for at least a decade). That kicks off Channel 4's annual Indian film season too with the Tamil language film The Road to Kythriyar showing at 1:50 a.m. on Tuesday 7th; and the Bengali language Dostojee at 2:15 a.m. on Wednesday 8th.

How about Vince Vaughan as a teenage girl? That's the body-swap horror version of Face/Off film Freaky on Film4 at 9 p.m. on Monday 6th. Body of Water is on BBC2 at 12:15 a.m. on Wednesday 8th, unfortunately clashing with the most exciting film of the week, Film4's premiere of Iranian film Hit The Road, the first film by Panah Panahi, son of Jafar Panahi.

Plus BBC2 is jumping on the Channel 5 bandwagon (who have three premieres next week) and getting in on the Christmas TV movie game far too early as well, by premiering A Lot Like Christmas at 10 a.m. on Saturday 4th November. That's November!!
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Repeat-wise the continuity announcer dropped the factoid during the introduction to the Helen Mirren interview about As You Like It last weekend that this whole Shakespeare season is tying in with the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio. Tons of Shakespeare spread throughout the week (including BBC1 again getting in on the act with Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet showing at 10:40 p.m. on Tuesday 7th), but the big night as usual is Sunday on BBC4, with the 5th November beginning at 7 p.m. with a half hour interview with Judi Dench discussing her Shakespeare roles. There's a 2021 version of Hamlet from Bristol Old Vic theatre at 8:15 p.m., but that's all leading up to a new interview with actor Steven Berkoff at 10:45 p.m., introducing the 1964 Hamlet at Elsinore with Christopher Plummer in the title role (and Michael Caine as Horatio!) at 11 p.m.

On Wednesday 8th BBC4 has a new interview with Richard Eyre at 10:30 p.m., introducing the 2018 version of King Lear he directed, which stars Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson (by the way I finally watched The Remains of the Day recently and was rather amused at the implication in the film that being cornered by a randy Emma Thompson was the equivalent of the pre-WWII German delegates eyeing and pricing up the stately home for goods to plunder! Both displaying uncouth, too forward and modern attitudes towards the respective rather naive gentlemen of the house)

Kes is showing on Film4 at 1:20 a.m. on Wednesday 8th (just after Hit The Road), and Hilary and Jackie is on Film4 at 1:25 a.m. on Friday 10th. Pan's Labyrinth is on BBC2 at 11 p.m. on Friday 10th.

Plus Film4 is showing It's A Wonderful Life at 3:45 p.m. on Friday 10th November. That's November!!!

Phew!

[jlnight]

Starsky and Hutch (2004), Sat 11th Nov, 5Star.
Desert Sands (1955), Sat 11th Nov, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 13th Nov.
Black Box (2020), Sat 11th Nov, BBC4. Or...
Blade: Trinity, Sat 11th Nov, 5Action. Or...
A Prayer for the Dying, Sat 11th Nov, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 15th Nov.
Johnny Handsome, Sat 11th Nov, Legend. (Walter Hill)

Extreme Prejudice, late Sun 12th Nov, Legend. (Walter Hill)

The Falcon and the Snowman, Mon 13th Nov, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 20th Nov.
Utama (2022), late Mon 13th Nov, Film4.
The Driver, late Mon 13th Nov, London Live. (Walter Hill)

Red Dawn (1984), Tue 14th Nov, Great Action.
Shankar's Fairies, late Tue 14th Nov, Channel 4.

Belle of the Yukon + Johnny Ringo, Wed 15th Nov, Talking Pictures. (Saddle Up)
Wings over the World (short), Wed 15th Nov, Talking Pictures.
Drive My Car (2021), Wed 15th Nov, Film4.

Blossom Time (1934), Thu 16th Nov, Talking Pictures. (Melvyn's Talking Pictures)
The Big Man (1991), Thu 16th Nov, Film4.
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, late Thu 16th Nov, Film4.

Bindle (1966), Fri 17th Nov, Talking Pictures.
Ben (1972) + The Ninth Configuration, Fri 17th Nov, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club)
Beyond the Universe, late Fri 17th Nov, Talking Pictures.


Both versions of A Kiss Before Dying clash on Thu 16th Nov, the one on TPTV starting first.
EDIT: Black Box now appears to be the French/Belgian film from 2021 instead of the US film from 2020. Damn you, advanced listings.

[colinr0380]

Excellent stuff next week, and again lots from all around the world. jlnight has noted most of them but I'll add trailers. In between world television series on Saturday nights on BBC4, they are showing the French-Belgian film Black Box at 9 p.m. on Saturday 11th, which I desperately hope (but in my heart know is not happening, because of seemingly living through a period in which only desperately, stoically literal, films get produced) is a modern day remake of Millennium.

Later in that same evening at 11:50 p.m. BBC2 shows Let It Snow, which is not the 1999, 2013, or 2019 TV movies with the same title, but rather a flashback to a couple of months ago when Ukrainian films were all the rage, with the 2020 snowboarding serial killer(?) horror film. (That's followed at 1:15 a.m. by a repeat of Franciois Ozon's By The Grace of God, which is fast becoming his most screened film on UK television)

Film4 are showing Bolivian film Utama at 1:50 a.m. in the early hours of Tuesday 14th (which seems to have the weirdest version of the 2001-theme scoring its trailer). The Indian film season on Channel 4 continues with Shankar's Fairies at 2:35 a.m. in the early hours of Wednesday 15th, which (since there is only a contextless clip from the film available on YouTube and no trailer) is apparently about "the friendship between a senior police officer's daughter and a family servant from the local village" from the write up in the RadioTimes.

Then of course the big news of the week is that Film4 devotes the next two evenings to showing Ryusuke Hamaguchi films, with Drive My Car showing at 10:50 p.m. on Wednesday 15th. Even better is a showing of the earlier Hamaguchi film Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy at 1:10 a.m. in the early hours of Friday 17th, which has not received a disc release in the UK at all. (Let's see if Film4 has the courage to show the five hour Happy Hour in the future!)

And then BBC3 finishes off the week of premieres with Words On Bathroom Walls at 9 p.m. on Friday 17th.
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Repeat-wise there is a lot too. The original Planet of the Apes is showing on BBC2 at 2:50 p.m. on Saturday 11th (un-DOG-tagged), repeated on BBC4 (DOG-tagged) at 8 p.m. on Thursday 16th (the BBC4 showing is followed by a "Talking Pictures" collection of interviews from the archives with Charlton Heston at 9:50 p.m.). All The President's Men is showing on BBC2 at 11 p.m. on Sunday 12th, repeated on BBC4 at 10:30 p.m. on Thursday 16th (again that BBC4 showing is followed by a "Talking Pictures" episode collating Robert Redford interviews at 12:45 a.m.)

The Conversation is showing on BBC2 at 11:15 p.m. on Monday 13th. And The Dirty Dozen appears to have transferred across from ITV4 to Channel 5 now, and is showing at 10 p.m. on Friday 17th.

There is a timely showing of the 1998 documentary series The 50 Years War: Israel and the Arabs on BBC4 on Monday 13th with the first three episodes (of a total of six) showing from 10:45 p.m., which is preceded by a fifteen minute introduction from the director of the series, Norma Percy, at 10:30 p.m. (Percy was just coming fresh off producing the seminal 1996 "Death of Yugoslavia" series before the Israel series)

Also after repeating Wisconsin Death Trip a couple of weeks ago, there is another old "Arena" programme showing on BBC4 with a rare showing of the 1981 film about Edward Hopper at 11:25 p.m. on Sunday 12th.

There seems to be a Liam Neeson-themed season occurring on Film4 in the 9 p.m. slot of the second half of next week with the usual suspects of Taken on Wednesday evening and Darkman on Friday evening, but as jlnight has noted the real rarity of the week is The Big Man (aka Crossing The Line) from 1990, showing at 9 p.m. on Thursday 16th. The RadioTimes really seems to hate this film, giving it a disdainful one star "Poor" rating and calling it "ham-fisted" (though wouldn't having ham fists be an asset for a boxer? ) but its got quite a cast including Ian Bannen, a cocaine-addled Billy Connolly, a many years pre-Four Weddings stardom Hugh Grant (though post-his role in Ken Russell's Lair of the White Worm!), and the feature film debuts of both Peter Mullan (even pre-his appearance in Ken Loach's Riff-Raff it seems) and Douglas Henshall! That linked trailer shows that the film just had a Blu-ray release in the UK a few months back, which may have prompted this television screening turning up.

[jlnight]

Zontar: The Thing from Venus, Sat 18th Nov, Talking Pictures.
The People That Time Forgot, Sat 18th Nov, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 20th Nov.
Malice (1993), Sat 18th Nov, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 22nd Nov. Or...
Sneakers, Sat 18th Nov, Legend. Or...
Two Left Feet (1963), Sat 18th Nov, London Live.
Meander (2020), Sat 18th Nov, Film4.

Race for the Yankee Zephyr, Sun 19th Nov, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 21st Nov.
Castaway (1986), Sun 19th Nov, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 23rd Nov.
Ladies Only (2021), late Sun 19th Nov, Channel 4.

Trespass, Mon 20th Nov, Legend. (ex-Moviedrome)

Beautiful Beings (2022), late Tue 21st Nov, Film4.

Jet Pilot (1957), Wed 22nd Nov, Legend. (on Freeview before) Or...
Cannon for Cordoba + Johnny Ringo, Wed 22nd Nov, Talking Pictures. (Saddle Up)
Emuthi Puthi, late Wed 22nd Nov, Channel 4.

Keep Your Seats, Please!, Thu 23rd Nov, Talking Pictures. (Melvyn's Talking Pictures)
Final Cut (2022), Thu 23rd Nov, BBC4. Or...
A Bullet Is Waiting (1954), Thu 23rd Nov, Great Action.
Revenge (1971), late Thu 23rd Nov, Legend. Or...
Petite Maman, late Thu 23rd Nov, Film4.

Barb Wire (1996), Fri 24th Nov, Legend.


The True Glory and London Can Take It appeared unbilled on London Live on Friday night. Dukes of Hazzard replaced Starsky and Hutch.

Beware: Beautiful Beings has a compulsory BBFC cut for an indecent image of a child, a rarity nowadays... haven't we done this before?

[colinr0380]

Let me guess before looking: is it French? (EDIT: Ah, it seems to be Icelandic. Oh well, svo-svo, I guess). Film4 seems to be picking up on the "Vinegar Syndrome Partner Label" trend, with recent screenings of After Blue and this film (both released by Altered Innocence in the US) and Falcon Lake (released on the Yellow Veil label)

Trespass is interesting - its the urban set Walter Hill written and directed (i.e. from the creator of The Warriors) semi-remake of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I transcribed the Mark Cousins Moviedrome intro in this post. Along with previously writing and directing The Warriors he also did 48 Hrs (shown last Friday on Channel 4), and post-Trespass did another remake of a classic film with the Yojimbo-transposed-to-Prohibition America era Last Man Standing.

Speaking of weird remakes, of course Barb Wire is notoriously a post-apocalyptic remake of Casablanca!

[colinr0380]

Tons of stuff next week. Film4 has the French take on the Cube/Saw/Escape Room-style trap room horror subgenre with Meander at 11:10 p.m. on Saturday 18th (although just judging from that trailer it looks suspiciously as if it might be edging into territory similar to Shinya Tsukamoto's Haze).

Channel 4's Indian film season continues with very tonally clashing duo of documentary Ladies Only at 1:50 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 20th and Emuthi Puthi (A Very Fishy Trip) at 2 a.m. in the early hours of Thursday 23rd.

The apparently BBFC-edited Icelandic drama Beautiful Beings is on Film4 at 1:40 a.m. in the early hours of Wednesday 22nd. The Mads Mikkelsen Danish drama Riders of Justice is on Film4 at 9 p.m. on Wednesday 22nd. And of course the big news of the week is Celine Sciamma's Petite Maman getting its first television screening on Film4 at 12:55 a.m. in the early hours of Friday 24th (followed by a repeat screening of Quentin Dupieux's Deerskin at 2:20 a.m.).

And the big night of the week for BBC4 is on Thursday 23rd with a weird tribute to Doctor Who at 7:30 p.m. that has taken a seven part black-and-white William Hartnell-starring story from 1963 (only the second story of the show, and the first to feature the Daleks) and presents a version that has been condensed down to 75 minutes, colourised and given an "enhanced soundrack", whatever that means. Later that same evening even more chopping and changing occurs with Michael Hazanavicius' rather unnecessary seeming French remake of the Japanese zombie film One Cut Of The Dead with Coupez! (aka Final Cut) showing at 10 p.m., which forms the first part of an extremely tonally-whiplashing double bill with the 1939 Bette Davis film Dark Victory following at 11:55 p.m.!
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Repeat-wise not too much. Dark Victory and Now,Voyager show in a double bill on BBC2 from 12:45 p.m. on the afternoon of Sunday 19th. The last great Tim Burton film, Sleepy Hollow, is on Channel 4 at 12:10 a.m. in the early hours of Saturday 25th, which clashes with Channel 5 screening the Clint Eastwood western Hang 'em High at 11 p.m. Also on Friday 24th, Film4 is showing Kind Hearts and Coronets at 4:30 p.m.

[domino harvey]

As a blast from the past, I was reading an old issue of Sight and Sound and learned Hiroshima mon amour caused quite a scandal by being aired (albeit dubbed) on British TV when it was also playing theatrically in theatres. The producer of the film sold the rights to the BBC, causing the theatrical distributor to institute a policy of not carrying any films from producers who sold their films to TV

In the same article I learned that (subtitled) airings of Ashes and Diamonds and Bicycle Thieves in the early 60s were enormous hits, and as a result three times as many people living in Britain at the time having seen De Sica’s film than had seen South Pacific

[GaryC]

As a blast from the past, I was reading an old issue of Sight and Sound and learned Hiroshima mon amour caused quite a scandal by being aired (albeit dubbed) on British TV when it was also playing theatrically in theatres. The producer of the film sold the rights to the BBC, causing the theatrical distributor to institute a policy of not carrying any films from producers who sold their films to TV

In the same article I learned that (subtitled) airings of Ashes and Diamonds and Bicycle Thieves in the early 60s were enormous hits, and as a result three times as many people living in Britain at the time having seen De Sica’s film than had seen South Pacific

That Hiroshima screening was by the looks of it on 1 February 1961, when it seems to have been in cinemas for a year, so that would figure. According to BBC Genome, Ashes and Diamonds was 25 January 1963 and again on 26 August 1964 and Bicycle Thieves was 8 February 1963 and 2 October 1964, all showings subtitled. Bicycle Thieves had had a previous showing on 5 March 1957, but it doesn't say whether subtitled or dubbed.

I once started a Facebook thread asking for examples of films shown on television before their cinema releases, or showing on the box while still in cinemas. They are mostly foreign-language/arthouse films which would have had limited cinema releases, but they included The Marquise of O, Akenfield, Man of Iron, Kaos, Stavisky, Looks and Smiles and the documentary Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? which had its world premiere on BBC2. Also the Australian documentary The Back of Beyond, shown for Empire Day in 1954 nine days after it premiered in Australia and before it played the Edinburgh and Venice film festivals.