Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

[colinr0380]

The BBC have also trailed the upcoming 'archive television' series to be shown on BBC4 over the next few months:

Eskimo Day (1996) (directed by Piers Haggard (Blood on Satan's Claw, Venom), written by Jack Rosenthal and starring Maureen Lipman, Tom Wilkinson and featuring the last screen appearance of Alec Guinness)
She's Been Away (1991) (directed by Peter Hall, written by Stephen Poliakoff and starring Peggy Ashcroft)
Lucky Sunil (1988) (directed by Michael Caton-Jones and written by Andrew Davies)
An Englishman Abroad (1983) (directed by John Schlesinger and starring Alan Bates)
Pat & Margaret (1994) (starring Victoria Wood, Julie Walters and Celia Imrie)
The Hope and the Glory (1984)
The Long Roads (1993)
Food For Ravens (1997) (starring Brian Cox and Sinead Cusack)
Kisses At Fifty (1973) (a Play For Today, directed by Michael Apted and written by Colin Welland)

and...

Baal (1982) (directed by Alan Clarke and starring David Bowie)

[colinr0380]

The big film is the mandatory Ukrainian-Crimean film of the week Homeward on BBC4 at 9 p.m. on Saturday 6th.

I am assuming that there are a whole lot of specific cultural issues that have probably gone way over my head so take the following with a pinch of salt, but I found the film interesting if frustrating. I know that its main characters are going through quite a lot in terms of an estranged father and son traveling to Crimea to bury their son/older brother who was killed during conflict, but it is one of those films where there is no particularly sympathetic main character. The father is stoic to the point of brutality (one of his first acts is to accuse his son's girlfriend of stealing him away to a university life and then locking her in a room and dragging his son out of the house when she insists on going with them to the funeral) and the younger son, whilst probably being the main audience identification figure is on a journey from intellectual distance from conflict and violence (studying to become a Journalist, of all things! That doesn't endear him to his dad either!) and naivete towards duplicity and danger (which results in the pair being robbed when he gets taken in by a local girl splashing around in a muddy lake in her bikini) to reconciling during the journey with his father and eventually becoming complicit with him during the trials they face in getting the body they want to properly bury across borders.

But that developing relationship over the course of the film is a kind of problematic one where the father doesn't really shift in his gruff attitude at all but its more about the 'soft' son having to prove his masculinity to his father once all the women have been sidelined, perhaps most obviously on show in the excruciatingly detailed and drawn out scene of the son being taught how to knife fight by dad in preparation for attacking the guys who stole their stuff, which is kind of working as a handy 'how to' guide for the audience too (leg first, to cripple; then shoulder, to prevent a counterblow; then knife the forehead so the blood coming down blinds the attacker) that I am not sure was entirely necessary to deal with in such a fetishistically detailed manner, although it is kind of the turning point for the son to 'redeem' himself in his father's eyes and put away childish things (like having shelves full of books, getting his head turned by girls and being tempted into playing about with 'friends' rather than staying focused on the job at hand). Which made me think that mid-section of the pair trying to get the stolen items back was a bit like Bicycle Thieves, except bloodier!

A lot of the situations felt rather standard as well: the father having a terminal disease he had not told the son about and which gets 'shockingly' revealed to be more than just a cough at the halfway mark; the border crossing to Crimea being stymied by officious guards (which involves a frankly suicidally stupid situation involving arguing with the authorities until the father is arrested, the son committing arson, the father beating a guard over the head and then both going on a high speed night time chase from the cops); and a moment of parting between father and son as the father has to finish what he started and cross the border in a row boat, telling his son to stay behind before after a long moment's pause the son makes the inevitable choice to take the plunge (literally) to swim out to the boat and definitively join his father again until the very bitter end.

But... (and this is just my speculation, but which I am guessing may have been the aspect that got it into the running for the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes in 2019) it does have an excellent final shot that kind of makes the whole film work:

Spoiler

of the ailing father and the son dragging the wrapped body across a desolate sandy beach (much like Django used to drag his coffin behind him in the spaghetti westerns!), with the father falling behind whilst the son takes the entire burden of dragging onto his shoulders and presses forward, both repeating the mantra his father taught to him together until the father's voice becomes fainter and then disappears entirely. The son pauses for a long moment and then in grief looks behind him at which point the film suddenly cuts to black and the end credits.

After all of the obvious moments leading up to this scene, that final one really worked, especially with the quite unexpected sudden elevation of what had been up to that point a rather grounded drama into pure metaphorically abstract terms, as that beach becomes the entire world. There never being a literal final resting place to reach, but instead it becomes about the younger generation being yoked down into taking on the almost unbearable weight of being the sole inheritors of a legacy of those who came before them (even if it was one which they may have been trying to escape from) as they have to keep relentlessly traveling forward through time until the point when they will be unable to go any further themselves.

However it does feel like quite a long slog to get to that final scene that makes the whole film worthwhile. Although I suppose that may be the entire point which works in the film's favour too!

[jlnight]

San Ferry Ann, Sat 13th May, Talking Pictures. Also Sun 28th May. (last on in 1990)
Stop Me Before I Kill! (The Full Treatment), Sat 13th May, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 18th May.
Sweet As You Are (BBC Screen Two), Sat 13th May, London Live. Or...
Minor Premise, Sat 13th May, Film4.

Old Mother Riley's Jungle Treasure, Sun 14th May, Talking Pictures.
A Night in Casablanca, Sun 14th May, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 17th May.
Bait (1954), Sun 14th May, Talking Pictures.
The Mauritanian, Sun 14th May, BBC2.

The Weak and the Wicked, Mon 15th May, London Live.
The Stones and Brian Jones (Broomfield), Mon 15th May, BBC2.

Jungleland, Tue 16th May, Film4.

Five Golden Dragons, Wed 17th May, Legend.
Pat and Margaret (BBC TVM), Wed 17th May, BBC4.

Vita & Virginia, Thu 18th May, London Live.

[colinr0380]

I did like that Film4''s Electronic Programme Guide content warning for Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey this evening warned of "Hellish scenes that may not be cool for kids"

[colinr0380]

Lots of strange things going on next week. The most notable film of the weekend seems like a mash up of Primer and Identity in Minor Premise on Film4 at 11:15 p.m. on Saturday 13th. There is a bit of an unfortunate clash on Sunday 14th as BBC4's screening of a 2021 version of Macbeth with Saoirse Ronan as Lady Macbeth at 8 p.m. overlaps with the premiere of the Kevin Macdonald film about Guantanamo Bay The Mauriantian at 10 p.m. on BBC2 (I like that the trailer seemingly consciously plays into the Silence of the Lambs vibes!)

Nick Broomfield's documentary The Stones and Brian Jones is on BBC2 at 9 p.m. on Monday 15th. Broomfield has an amusingly combative associated interview with the RadioTimes in which he lauds the BBC and Channel 4 whilst calling the streamers a "bunch of pussies" who wouldn't have allowed him to make such a film without clearing it all with the other band members first, and also explains his reasoning behind the talking heads:

Then you're interviewing a lot of people who are in their late 70s. Some of them are well preserved but if they went to town back in the day they generally don't look great. You meet them and you think, 'What happened to them?' I found I had to take everybody out visually and just use their words. Otherwise people wouldn't be listening to what they're saying so much as thinking, 'What happened to this guy?'.

Another unfortunate clash occurs on Tuesday 16th as Film4's premiere of Jungleland at 9 p.m. goes up against BBC4's Storyville documentary of the week, the Israeli film In The Name of the Father at 10 p.m. (which only premiered on Israeli television in March).

Another clash on Wednesday 17th as BBC4 devotes an entire evening to Victoria Wood from 8 p.m. through to 1 a.m., with the centrepiece being a repeat of the 1994 TV film Pat and Margaret at 10:10 p.m., preceded by a ten minute reminiscence from fellow actor Duncan Preston (It's also an interesting precursor to Victoria Wood's later Dinnerladies series in some ways too. Plus it gives Thora Hird one of her best lines ever: "Not on the eiderdown!"). In a complete contrast from 9 p.m. BBC2 is showing the first two of four episodes of 11 Minutes: America's Deadliest Mass Shooting (those are getting repeated at 11:30 p.m. on Friday 19th)

And in a rare premiere for the channel, BBC3 is showing the New Zealand film (that, yes, is inevitably associated with Taika Waititi in some fashion) Baby Done at 9 p.m. on Friday 19th.

Plus over on Radio 4 Tom Hanks is reading from his debut novel The Making Of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece in the 10:45 p.m. "Book at Bedtime" slot every night from Monday to Friday!
_____

Repeat-wise the big one is Arnaud Desplechin's My Golden Days showing on Film4 at 1 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 15th. BBC2 is showing the Juliette Binoche film Who You Think I Am again at 2 a.m. on Sunday 14th and Barking Dogs Never Bite is showing again on Film4 at 1:30 a.m. in the early hours of Friday 19th.

Plus all the broadcasters seemed to have collectively agreed to relentlessly push Denzel Washington during next week. Film4 have the more interesting films with both Flight (showing Friday 12th and Wednesday 17th, both times at 9 p.m.) and The Book of Eli (Saturday 13th and Thursday 18th, again both times at 9 p.m.) showing for the first time in over four years (Flight for the first time since it was premiered on Channel 5 back in 2017), but there is also the Magnificent Seven remake on Channel 5 at 10:30 p.m. on Saturday 13th, and even Channel 4 is getting in on the game, albeit showing Roman J Israel, Esq.at 2:15 a.m. on Friday 19th in a sign language version!

[jlnight]

Tomorrow (1972), Sat 20th May, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 24th May. Or...
The Absence of War (BBC Screen Two), Sat 20th May, London Live.
The New Kids, Sat 20th May, Talking Pictures. Also late Mon 29th May.

Fanny (1961), Mon 22nd May, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 31st May. (been on London Live)
Do the Right Thing, Mon 22nd May, BBC2.

Barry & Joan (2022), Wed 24th May, London Live. Or...
Lucky Sunil (BBC TVM), Wed 24th May, BBC4.

Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle, late Thu 25th May, Film4.

[colinr0380]

One fun thing from The Stones and Brian Jones documentary last night is that it interviews Volker Schlöndorff and devotes a fair amount of time to talking about Schlöndorff's second feature (after Young Törless), 1967's A Degree of Murder, which was scored by Brian Jones and featured his then girlfriend Anita Pallenberg in her first film role. Albeit it talks less about the film but more about the context around the Jones and Pallenberg relationship going on behind the scenes.

[colinr0380]

Interesting next week. jlnight has noted the most important premiere of the week with Onoda: 10,000 Nights In The Jungle on Film4 at 12:35 a.m. in the early hours of Friday 26th.

BBC2 is showing the Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth drama Supernova at 10 p.m. on Sunday 21st. BBC4's Storyville series is continuing with Inside Kabul at 10 p.m. on Tuesday 23rd, which appears to be this series of French television shorts cut together into a half hour piece.

And BBC4 is back to the World Television series with the start of the Norwegian series Afterglow at 9 p.m. on Saturday 20th. Oh and the "Legend" (formerly Horror) digital channel is showing the Luke Goss and Val Kilmer thriller Paydirt at 9 p.m. on Saturday 20th.
____
Repeat-wise, Francois Ozon's By The Grace Of God is repeated on BBC2 at 1 a.m. in the early hours of Sunday 21st (the first time on an un-DOG-tagged channel), Andrey Zvyaginstsev's Loveless is showing on Film4 at 1:15 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 22nd, Lucky Sunil is showing in BBC4's Archive Television strand at 10 p.m. on Wednesday 24th, and on Thursday 25th there is a half hour interview with Whoopi Goldberg at 9 p.m. on BBC4 followed by the seemingly bi-monthly repeat of The Color Purple at 9:30 p.m. (when is Jumpin' Jack Flash going to appear on television again, that's what I want to know! [-( Although the Whoopi Goldberg film that has seemed to fall into even more obscurity is that attempt to make her an action hero in the late 1980s with Burglar, from the director of the first Police Academy film!)

[jlnight]

Year of the Gun, Sat 27th May, Legend. Or...
Falstaff: Chimes At Midnight, Sat 27th May, Talking Pictures. Also Fri 2nd Jun. Or...
The Outsiders, Sat 27th May, London Live. (been on TPTV)

Lover Come Back, Sun 28th May, BBC2.
The Groundstar Conspiracy, Sun 28th May, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 1st Jun. Or...
Let Him Have It, Sun 28th May, London Live.

Hasty Heart, Mon 29th May, London Live.
Let Him Go (2020), Mon 29th May, Film4. Or...
Trapped (Doberman Patrol), Mon 29th May, Talking Pictures. Also late Sat 10th Jun.

Denmark (2019), Tue 30th May, BBC2.

Buck and the Preacher, Thu 1st Jun, Great Action.
The Worst Person in the World + Thelma, Thu 1st Jun, Film4.


The episode of Inside No.9 that had Robin Askwith in unfortunately failed to turn up (just like a bus). It was replaced with a 'Lee Mack quiz show'...

[colinr0380]

I’m afraid that I am mixed to slightly negative on Supernova (which would occupy the perfect 2 1/2 to 3 star rating placement on Letterboxed, when I get around to updating my profile again). The performances by Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth are excellent as the central couple but the drama felt rather off the mark, unfortunately. This is a story about a gay couple who travel around the Lake District and meet some family members as part of a working holiday to allow Tusker to write another novel and Sam to test the waters for making a comeback as a pianist with a concert performance scheduled. However it is more about Tusker’s ailing health from encroaching dementia and Sam’s refusal to accept the reality of that, with the trip being used by Tusker as a goodbye not just to friends and family (in the central party scene) but to Sam himself.

We see an early sequence of Tusker just wandering off from a service station, suggesting both that his dementia is getting really bad, that Sam cannot manage it by himself and then to play into the scene at the old family home (which itself is about to be sold, in another rather too on the nose “You have to let go” moment) where he tries to downplay Tusker’s condition and his ability to cope until the bitter end to his sister. The turning point in the drama, and the thing that I would take the most issue with, is the scene where Sam goes out into their RV during the party and ends up going through Tusker’s belongings, finding not just his novel (which is Colin Firth’s best acting moment in this, and the best depiction of dementia the film has to offer, of the emotion of seeing Tusker’s handwriting go from structured and coherent paragraphs to sentences, fragments and scrawls, to a couple of frustratedly ripped out pages and then more than half of the notebook left blank) but also his attempts at writing a suicide note before finding a dictation tape instead and the vial of drugs he is going to use.

That prompts the last act of the film as after the party Tusker and Sam go on to a rented house and instead of trying to enjoy their last moments together in an idyllic landscape (as Tusker had planned out), Sam instead confronts Tusker with the tape and his plans to do it whilst Sam is playing during his concert (to prevent any repercussions on Sam over having assisted him to die by giving him an ‘alibi’) and refuses to brook the notion of letting him do such a thing. Then there is a long, excruciating, dramatic scene of Tusker’s stoic refusal to budge on his plan against Sam wanting him to accompany him on every step, and refusing to let Tusker go on his own terms.

I should say again that I do not have any issues with the performances in this scene, but more that the opportunity for something so much subtler and devastating in its emotional affect was foregone for big moments of emotion. Maybe my disappointment with this turn comes not from the turn itself (although rifling through someone’s things, even a loved ones, is a kind of betrayal of trust on a fundamental level that the film never seems to have recognised, or if it does considers it as an irrelevance) but from how the consequences of that turn are handled. There is the potential for a Kore-eda style handling of this where Sam now knows the outline of Tusker’s plan for suicide and then the final section of the film in the cottage is about him dealing with his feelings internally. Maybe Sam trying not to bring the subject up but his behaviours clueing Tusker in that his plans have been rumbled and then they reveal their knowledge to each other in a lower key, but more emotionally touching, manner. Then it could have been about the moments, the gestures, the meanings expressed in a touch where instead of either Sam or Tusker taking control of the entire situation away from the other one and leaving them without any agency and bitter about how it ended, they could have shared (even play-acted, in a Wong Kar-wai manner) their final moments together in a less combative manner.

Instead the character acts in a surly matter until they are alone then even ends up bullying Tusker with his own notebook and tape recording, laying his knowledge of the situation bare and raw, before trying to pretend the matter is closed. Until Tusker has to be the immovable object to his overwhelming force.

In some ways, this is not a film about dementia, or even assisted suicide. It is about control in relationships and what happens when the ways in which two people in a relationship want to approach a situation differs significantly. The problem I have with this film is that I feel that there is obviously a correct way to approach this particular situation, which is that you have to respect the wishes of the dying person as taking primacy in this situation, even over one’s own grief and desperate wish not to lose them: if they do not want to have carers, or to sell their home to move somewhere more ‘suitable’ to their needs, even if at the ultimate extreme they wish to end their life, that should be respected. Conversely of course if they want to do the opposite of all those things, that should be facilitated too. The problem with dementia, as I unfortunately know all too well from personal experience with my father, is that at a certain point that person is not able to articulate their wishes for themselves, which leads to other vested interests stepping in on their behalf. I could see Tusker in this story, especially as a writer used to being able to articulate himself, seeing that loss of control as the ultimate horror. Perhaps the devolving writing in the notebook therefore should not be seen as the ‘first sign of trouble’ but the final, ultimate sign that Tusker needed to start planning for the end and their final trip.

So unfortunately we have to have a big dramatic confrontationally blazing series of uncomfortably angry scenes of a couple tearing each other apart rather than a more lowkey one full of unstated implications which I would have much preferred (I guess the filmmakers were taking more after Cassavetes than Kore-eda!) until after a long dark night of the soul involving introspective star gazing Sam comes more around to Tusker’s perspective.

As with Homeward a couple of weeks ago, Supernova does have an excellent final scene that feels to have been the entire reason for it to have been made:

Spoiler

In which Tusker wakes in the morning to the sound of Sam playing his composition that he will perform at the concert, comes downstairs and they embrace in an agonisingly slow fade to black before we cut to Sam performing the piece on stage, whilst Tusker is left to do what he feels he needs to do.

But, again as with Homeward, I am not entirely sure that an excellent final scene which finally proves the filmmakers actually can have a delicate touch full of implied meanings when they want to can entirely justify having to wade through some of the more standard tropes and manufactured drama that has preceded it.

However I really do not want to be too harsh on the film for not being what I wanted it to be (although what it is is probably most succinctly and brutally described as Love Is Strange meets The Leisure Seeker with a metaphor from a Moby song). It is worth watching for the performances and the beautiful Lake District scenery. Although that does lead to some of the most amusingly unrealistic moments that underline how even this relatively harrowing drama is taking place in an idealised ‘film world’, as at no point during many of the shots of the RV driving down the extremely narrow country roads do they ever meet any vehicle coming the other way and then have to awkwardly drive on a verge or back up to a passing place to get around them! It does help to emphasise how the drama is solipsistically narrowed down onto these two characters with outside of one or two occasions (the central party scene being the big one) there being nobody else in the world to distract them from their issues with each other (or uncharitably it is a view of the North of England from filmmakers who don’t go there much unless they have to: the North here is used as the beautiful but wild and rugged ‘dark place’ where people have to inescapably deal with these troubling issues as compared to Sam desperately trying to persuade Tusker that they will be able to go back to France or Italy soon, as in the good old days. And this 2020 released film was presumably made pre-lockdown!), but believe me when I say that you ain’t gonna find many empty to the horizon country roads like that round those parts these days!

[colinr0380]

Relatively quite on the third Bank Holiday of the month, although there are a few items of note. BBC4 is showing the English National Opera production of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Yeoman of the Guard (with the period updated to the Coronation in 1953) at 8 p.m. on Sunday 28th.

On Bank Holiday Monday itself Film4 is showing Let Him Go at 9 p.m., with Kevin Costner and Diane Lane re-teaming as spouses after their Ma & Pa Kent in Man of Steel. On Tuesday 30th, BBC2 is showing Denmark (now, to me the really transgressive thing if in that situation would not be to do something as dull and unimaginative as robbing a bank, but instead to travel to Denmark in order to take an unauthorised nude bathe in the infamous Zentropa swimming pool, which I am sure would be more likely to result in a swift arrest!)

The Worst Person In The World is showing on Film4 at 10:50 p.m. on Thursday 1st, followed by a repeat of Joachim Trier's previous film Thelma at 1:25 a.m.

However television is where things are most exciting next week as University Challenge reaches its grand final on Monday 29th at 8:30 p.m., with it being the last episode hosted by Jeremy Paxman, who has been hosting the show since 1994. And the most exciting development of the week is that Shane Meadows is back with a new series that is going into period drama and folk horror territory with The Gallows Pole: This Valley Will Rise, the first episode of three showing on BBC2 at 9 p.m. on Wednesday 31st.

___
Repeat-wise, BBC4's archive television strand is showing 1993 drama The Long Roads at 10 p.m. on Wednesday 31st, which seems as if it may be a bit Tokyo Story-influenced! (Also if the BBC are taking suggestions The Clothes In The Wardrobe, which comes next in that trailer package, looks very interesting!)

[jlnight]

GI Blues + Blue Hawaii, Sat 3rd Jun, BBC2. (GI Blues last on TPTV)
Picnic at Hanging Rock, Sat 3rd Jun, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 5th Jun. (been on Film4)
Purple Rain, late Sat 3rd Jun, BBC2. (been on Freeview)

The House That Dripped Blood, Sun 4th Jun, Legend. Or...
All The Beauty and the Bloodshed, Sun 4th Jun, BBC2. Or...
Citizen Ashe, Sun 4th Jun, BBC4.
The Driver, Sun 4th Jun, London Live. (also on Legend)

Spaced Out, Mon 5th Jun, London Live. (on before in 2017)

Jory, Wed 7th Jun, Legend. Or...
Scott of the Antarctic, Wed 7th Jun, Talking Pictures.
Kisses at Fifty (Play for Today), Wed 7th Jun, BBC4.

Wings Over Africa, Thu 8th Jun, Talking Pictures.
Second Spring (2018), Thu 8th Jun, Film4.

After Miss Julie (BBC TVM), Fri 9th Jun, London Live. Or...
The Roads Not Taken, Fri 9th Jun, BBC2.

[colinr0380]

Lots of new things showing next week, although it all seems rather grim and depressing content-wise! Film4 is showing another one of the great number of Slender Man-a-like horror films (that actually came out the same year as the official Slender Man film) The Empty Man at 11:15 p.m. on Saturday 3rd. Which is perhaps most notable because it is directed by David Prior, who directed the behind the scenes documentaries on the DVDs for a number of David Fincher's films (Panic Room, Zodiac, Benjamin Button and Dragon Tattoo) as well as the making of feature documentary for the 1986 version of The Fly and Peter Weir's Master and Commander on their respective DVD editions. So it appears that this is his first fiction feature.

On Sunday 4th at 10 p.m. BBC2 is showing the Laura Poitras documentary All The Beauty And The Bloodshead. The dementia drama Second Spring is showing on Film4 at 11:10 p.m. on Thursday 8th. And on BBC2 at 11 p.m. on Friday 9th there is the Sally Potter film The Roads Not Taken.

And BBC2 are doing a Prince night on Saturday 3rd with a 2011 "A Purple Reign" documentary at 9:10 p.m. and the premiere of the 1985 concert film Prince and the Revolution: Live at 10:55 p.m. followed by a repeat of Purple Rain at 12:15 a.m., which is the first time it has been shown on UK television since a screening on Channel 5 in 2017! It was also amusing to note from the cast list that the actress Olga Karlatos is in there as "Mother", who is perhaps most famous for her role in Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesh-Eaters, where her eye has an unfortunate encounter with an enormous splinter of wood! And the same year she appeared in Purple Rain she starred in Fulci's Flashdance-meets-slasher film Murder-Rock: Dancing Death (NSFW)!

____
Repeat-wise BBC2 has a musical day all around on Saturday 3rd with a double bill of Elvis Presley films directed by Norman Taurog, with GI Blues at 1 p.m. followed by Blue Hawaii at 2:45 p.m.

Paul Dano's film Wildlife is showing on BBC2 at 12:25 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 5th. And as jlnight has noted BBC4's archive television series is showing Michael Apted's 1973 Play For Today film Kisses at Fifty at 10 p.m. on Wednesday 7th, just after the second episode of Shane Meadows' The Gallows Pole finishes over on BBC2!

[colinr0380]

I had to laugh a little at how the continuity announcer somewhat awkwardly introduced the second of the Elvis Presley films on BBC2 yesterday afternoon:

Now on BBC2: that voice; those moves; those eyes... with discriminatory content. Enjoy Blue Hawaii!

[jlnight]

Face of a Fugitive, Sat 10th Jun, Great Action.
Law of Tehran, Sat 10th Jun, BBC4.

These Thousand Hills, Sun 11th Jun, Talking Pictures.
Cracks, Sun 11th Jun, London Live. Or...
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, Sun 11th Jun, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 14th Jun.

The Treasure of San Teresa, Wed 14th Jun, Talking Pictures.
Orca (1977), Wed 14th Jun, Legend.

Zodiac, Thu 15th Jun, Quest.
Anais In Love, Thu 15th Jun, Film4.


Trapped (1973) was a no-show. That's TV (Freeview 65) on the other hand showed, at extremely short notice, Barry McKenzie Holds His Own. The first film, Adventures Of..., was also shown and has been on other channels (Channel 4, BBC4, London Live), but the sequel appears not to have ever turned up on TV.

The version of Picnic at Hanging Rock that was on TPTV last night clocked in at around 102 minutes, with the adverts cut out. With the "director's cut" being timed at 107 mins, this must be it, allowing for PAL speed up.

[colinr0380]

Rather quiet next week. Lots of TV movie premieres on Channel 5 though!

BBC4 is showing Law of Tehran at 9 p.m. on Saturday 10th. And as jlnight has also noted Film4 are showing Anaïs In Love at 11:20 p.m. on Thursday 15th.

And in BBC4's Friday music strand all three parts of the They All Came Out To Montreux documentary are showing in a row from 10:15 p.m. on Friday 16th, preceded at 9 p.m. by a 1976 Nina Simone concert from the jazz festival.
___

Repeat-wise there is a surprisingly rare showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on BBC2 at 10 p.m. on Sunday 11th, The French Connection is showing on BBC2 at 11 p.m. on Friday 16th and Ingrid Goes West turns up tucked away on the 5Star digital channel at 12:15 a.m. in the early hours of Saturday 17th.

[GaryC]

The French Connection is showing on BBC2 at 11 p.m. on Friday 16th

There are reports that the Criterion Channel are showing a censored version of this, cutting about 52 seconds of dialogue to remove Popeye Doyle using the N-word. Whether the censorship has been done by Criterion or Disney, no one knows as yet. I doubt the BBC would cut the film - they'd most likely put a "discriminatory language" flag on it - but who knows what version they've been supplied with?

Talking Pictures TV have shown the film a few times, but I haven't watched it there, so don't know if they've shown it uncut or not.

[colinr0380]

The BBC seems to be doing a William Friedkin season at the moment with The Exorcist scheduled to play this coming Friday evening on BBC1 and The French Connection scheduled for next Friday on BBC2. It is probably pushing it too much to expect things to progress from there to Sorceror (which more commonly turns up on Film4), Jade (my personal favourite Friedkin film! It's no Basic Instinct or The Last Seduction - the two films it is desperately trying to cash in on - but is still goofily entertaining!) or Bug.

And I may be alone in thinking that Friedkin's other horror film, the much maligned The Guardian, is actually better than the Exorcist! (Although not as good as The Exorcist III!) Or at least as silly as the Exorcist is in its premise of a devil nanny feeding babies to trees. So I would love to see that turn up on television again some time.

[jlnight]

Valley of the Dragons, Sat 17th Jun, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 19th Jun.
Tender Mercies, Sat 17th Jun, London Live. (on TPTV before) Or...
Town on Trial, Sat 17th Jun, Talking Pictures. (on before)
Blackbird (2019), Sat 17th Jun, Channel 4. Or...
No Looking Back (2021), Sat 17th Jun, Film4.

Swan Song (Todd Stephens), late Sun 18th Jun, Channel 4.

The Killing of Two Lovers, Mon 19th Jun, Film4.

Limbo (2020), Tue 20th Jun, Film4.

She's Been Away (Screen One), Wed 21st Jun, BBC4.

Blow, Thu 22nd Jun, Quest.
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, late Thu 22nd Jun, Film4. (on before)

[colinr0380]

You know, trying to make sense of the intricacies of the Channel 5 afternoon TV movie roster can sometimes feel like trying to figure out one of those convoluted sudoku puzzles (with just as much of a sense of being left with a feeling of wondering if the effort put in to understand the situation was particularly worth all of the energy expended on working out where it all went off the rails), and I do wonder if some of the last minute shifting around of films in the schedules is done with the intention of some kind of strange attempt at providing the listless weekday afternoon TV movie viewer with some brainteasers to keep them alert and stave off the ravages of dementia for one more day (or alternatively to artificially simulate the sense of encroaching dementia through utter confusion). The afternoon TV movie premiere this afternoon was going to be of a 2020 film called "Obsession: Escaping My Ex" which appears to be this film on imdb. Which seems straightforward enough, although it was already a strange film to have scheduled, being the second film in the "Obsession" trilogy starring Celeste Desjardins.

But the film that actually aired this afternoon was an entirely different TV movie from 2022 titled "The Secret Lives of Housewives" which I had to track down through the cast list, because searching for the rather generic title on imbd keeps relentlessly insisting with maddeningly confident certainty and refusal to brook any dissent from its findings that it must be an alternative title for the Desperate Housewives TV series. On actually finding the film I was looking for it turns out to be actually quite a good film, seemingly being a Lifetime Movie-slick take on Chabrol's The Unfaithful Wife (where to keep things relatively chaste the wife just flirts with a guy before having second thoughts/cold feet rather than has a full on secret affair and allows her best friend and neighbour the opportunity of getting ravished by him instead whilst she looks on from the sidelines), except with the twist that (major spoiler):

Spoiler

instead of the lover being murdered by the husband, instead it is the teenage son of the family who kills the man threatening to tear the family apart, with the ending of the family going to discover the corpse buried in the local woods and then collectively deciding to cover it back over again and proceed on with their lives as normal.

Plus I do love this early exchange between mum and kid on the way to drop him off at his friend's house:

"The classes are boring. The teachers are boring. The students are broken up into stupid little cliques just like those stupid 80s movies you love"
"I have tolerated a lot of teenage angst but I will not have you badmouthing my taste in classic cinema!"

But I do wish that Channel 5 would stick to a more fixed schedule better rather than chopping and changing things around at a moment's notice. After all, there will be no official note now of this film ever having aired on UK television, as all of the listing magazines have an entirely different film in their publications! I know it is probably absurd to care about this kind of thing, but if I don't care about upholding this dreadfully important entry into the historical record for posterity who will? ( ). Anyway, all of this investigative work has given me a bit of headache now (now I know how Vivica A. Fox must feel!), and I probably need to go and have a lie down!

[colinr0380]

Quite a lot of films that I had not really been too aware of turn up next week. One of late director Roger Michell's last films Blackbird is showing on Channel 4 at 10:15 p.m. on Saturday 17th (which I would love to imagine subverts its assisted suicide theme by having Susan Sarandon do a 1940s Boris Karloff manoeuvre of inviting her family to gather together only to kill them all off first in one final, glorious banquet! But which is more likely not going to be anything quite so grand guignol!), which unfortunately clashes with the most interesting looking film of the week premiereing on the un-DOG-tagged Film4, of the Russian film No Looking Back at 11:20 p.m., which is the next film by the director who made Why Don't You Just Die?, which Arrow released a few years back.

Earlier in the evening of Saturday 17th, Film4 are showing the Dave Bautista family comedy My Spy at 7 p.m. (all of these tough undercover guys being incongruously paired up with precocious kids is showing that Kindergarten Cop still has a lot to answer for in setting some kind of template!)

The film along with No Looking Back that I am most looking forward to next week is Swan Song, which is finally giving Udo Kier another leading role, doing a Liam Neeson as someone who has been out of the game being lured back to complete one last job due to his very particular set of skills. For some reason it has been inexplicably tucked away at 1 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 19th by Channel 4, and not only that but they are showing live football earlier that evening so the RadioTimes has a disclaimer that everything following that in the schedule that evening can also be postponed or cancelled. (EDIT: Shockingly despite the football overrunning, the film aired according to schedule!)

Next, Film4 is showing the (ex-)relationship drama The Killing of Two Lovers at 10:55 p.m. on Monday 19th. The film that is getting all the trailer hype on Film4 at the moment is Syrian refugee in Scotland drama Limbo showing at 9 p.m. on Tuesday 20th (in an apt double bill with Local Hero showing at 6:30 p.m. just beforehand!)

The most leftfield (and wordiest!) title of the week is on BBC2 at 11:45 p.m. on Wednesday 21st: Hero: Inspired by the Extraordinary Life & Times of Mr. Ulric Cross.

Plus Channel 5 premieres four more TV movies during the weekday afternoons, the latest series of Robot Chicken is showing at 1-2 a.m. on early Friday mornings on the E4 channel, and Channel 4 have a series starring Christian Slater and Alec Baldwin called Dr.Death beginning at 10 p.m. on Tuesday 20th.
___
Repeat-wise, BBC4's archive television strand continues with the Peggy Ashcroft starring 1989 film She's Been Away at 10:10 p.m. on Wednesday 21st, preceded by a new ten minute introduction by writer Stephen Poliakoff.

Film4 is showing Fantastic Mr Fox at 4:50 p.m. on Wednesday 21st, to mark Asteroid City coming to UK cinemas. As jlnight has noted Film4 has a rare showing of Julien Temple's 2006 film Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten at 1:15 a.m. in the early hours of Friday 23rd; and BBC4 has Iron Maiden concert documentary Scream For Me Sarajevo at 12:30 a.m. in the early hours of Saturday 24th.

Plus, whilst it turns up a lot on the 5 Star digital channels, Ridley Scott's operatically grand guignol bookend to a week begun by Blackbird, Hannibal, is getting a rare primetime slot, showing on Channel 5 at 10 p.m. on Friday 23rd.

[jlnight]

The Sword of Monte Cristo, Sat 24th Jun, Talking Pictures.
The Long Hot Summer, Sat 24th Jun, BBC2. Or...
Wichita (1955), Sat 24th Jun, Quest.
Raw Deal (1948), Sat 24th Jun, Talking Pictures. Also late Thu 29th Jun.
Mars Attacks!, Sat 24th Jun, Quest. (on Freeview before)

Biggles: Adventure in Time, Sun 25th Jun, London Live. (on Freeview before)
Wicked As They Come, Sun 25th Jun, Talking Pictures. Also late Sat 1st July.

Of Human Bondage (1934), Mon 26th Jun, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 5th July.
The Young Don't Cry, Mon 26th Jun, Talking Pictures. Also late Sat 8th July.
The Novice (2021), Mon 26th Jun, Film4.

The Trial of Madame X, Tue 27th Jun, Talking Pictures.

Eskimo Day (Screen One), Wed 28th Jun, BBC4.

The Promise (1952), Thu 29th Jun, Talking Pictures.
The Fugitive (1993), Thu 29th Jun, Quest. (been on ITV4) Or...
Stonewall (1995), Thu 29th Jun, BBC4.


French Connection on BBC2 definitely had the racial slur intact (saw it on the subtitles). They showed Do The Right Thing the other week and that was full of racial slurs!

[colinr0380]

Very quiet next week. The only premiere is rowing drama The Novice showing on Film4 at 11:20 p.m. on Monday 26th (which seems a bit like True Blue meets The Social Network. It is almost as if you cannot tackle the subject of competitive rowing without having to deal with the cutthroat world of privilege surrounding and enabling it as well)
___
In terms of repeats, the most notable one is Stonewall showing on BBC4 at 10:25 p.m. on Thursday 29th. Which isn't the Roland Emmerich film from 2015 but the 1995 film. This is actually tying in somewhat with BBC4's archive television strand because the director Nigel Finch also directed the 1991 BBC TV movie The Lost Language of Cranes that was repeated on BBC4 a couple of weeks back (as well as acted as an executive producer for the BBC on the Paris Is Burning documentary). The RadioTimes is saying that this showing of Stonewall is its television premiere but it actually showed a single time back in BBC2's "Screen Two" season on 17th May 1997, though this is the film's first screening since then so it has not re-shown on UK television in over 26 years. This was the director's first theatrical film (with supporting roles by Luis Guzmán and Isiah Washington the same year he was in Spike Lee's Clockers and in Dead Presidents) although unfortunately his last as Nigel Finch died from AIDS the same year it was released.

And as jlnight has noted, BBC4's regular archive television strand on Wednesday night at 10 p.m. is showing Jack Rosenthal's 1996 drama Eskimo Day starring his wife Maureen Lipman along with Tom Wilkinson, James Fleet and the last screen appearance of Alec Guinness.

Beyond that the Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward film The Long, Hot Summer is showing on BBC2 at 1:15 p.m. on Saturday 24th (I'm looking forward to all the fussin' and feudin' going on in that one from the trailer! Although I have my doubts that this will be "Orson Welles in his greatest role"! But it does apparently have Lee Remick playing an "End User Licence Agreement", which may be a euphemism for something licentious); the Michael Mann version of The Last of the Mohicans is getting a screening on Channel 5 at 3:45 p.m. on Saturday 24th; Film4 is showing Robert Rodriguez's English-language remake of El Mariachi (although its also a kind of sequel too), Desperado at 10:55 p.m. on Saturday 24th; and there is a rare repeat of Shane Meadows' Once Upon A Time In The Midlands on Film4 at 1:50 a.m. in the early hours of Saturday 1st July.

[jlnight]

The Dark Horse (2014), Fri 30th Jun, London Live.
David Bowie: Love You Till Tuesday (short), late Fri 30th Jun, Sky Arts.

The Savage Guns, Sat 1st July, Quest.
Underworld USA, Sat 1st July, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 3rd July.

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon, Sun 2nd July, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 5th July.
The Ghoul (1933), Sun 2nd July, Legend. (been on London Live and TPTV)

Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, Mon 3rd July, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 11th July.
Playground (2021), late Mon 3rd July, Film4.

Food for Ravens (BBC TVM), Wed 5th July, BBC4.

Two Graves (2018), Fri 7th July, London Live.
Scream and Scream Again, Fri 7th July, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club repeat)
The Velvet Trap (1966), late Fri 7th July, Talking Pictures.


The Iceman Cometh (1973) had a surprise showing on London Live on Thursday. It was long. Will have to catch it if it comes on again as it definitely was not scheduled in the advanced listings.

[colinr0380]

Another quiet week with just two premieres occurring. The first is Maleficent: Mistress of Evil on BBC1 at 6:10 p.m. on Sunday 2nd July (which is the first film premiere on the channel this year, as well as making Joachim Rønning the director to beat for number of films premiered on UK television so far this year in combination with the earlier showing of Bandidas in January), and at the opposite end of the spectrum as jlnight has noted Film4 is showing Belgian drama Playground at 2:20 a.m. in the early hours of Tuesday 4th. Which ironically has a 15 certificate from the BBFC despite being about issues seemingly most pertinent to pre-teens!

Shockingly, there is actually an ITV series that looks of interest too. Of course it has to be a crime drama and looks painfully generic content-wise from its trailers (plus they do spell "Mesmerising" wrong in that trailer, with an American "zee", so that also has me worried!) but Irvine Welsh's Crime is the first television TV series from that writer, and does star Dougray Scott, so those are notable aspects at least. The first (of six) episodes is showing on ITV1 at 10 p.m. on Saturday 1st July.
___
Repeat-wise, as jlnight has noted the BBC4 archive television repeat is the 1997 (not 2008, as suggested by the RadioTimes) drama about the man who founded the NHS, Food For Ravens, starring Brian Cox and Sinead Cusack. It is directed and written by Trevor Griffiths, who is perhaps best known for co-writing Reds with Warren Beatty, in case you were not already aware of what the politics of this one will be! That is showing at 10 p.m. on Wednesday 5th.

The French film Amanda is showing on Film4 at 1:35 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 3rd; the Mike Leigh film Career Girls is showing on Film4 at 2:15 a.m. in the early hours of Wednesday 5th; the Egyptian film Clash is showing on Film4 at 2 a.m. in the early hours of Friday 7th; and BBC1 is showing Thelma & Louise at 10:40 p.m. on Friday 7th.