Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

[jlnight]

The Gun Hawk (1963), Sat 8th July, Quest. Or...
Pirates of Malaysia (1964), Sat 8th July, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 13th July.
Break (2020), Sat 8th July, London Live. (features Liang Wenbo cameo!)
The Bedroom Window, Sat 8th July, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 13th July.

Road to Bali, Sun 9th July, Talking Pictures.
Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, Sun 9th July, Talking Pictures.
A Quiet Place Part II, Sun 9th July, Channel 4. Or...
Son Of Frankenstein (1939), Sun 9th July, Legend.

Bullet Scars, Mon 10th July, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 20th July.

Mad Dogs (2002), Wed 12th July, London Live. Or...
An Englishman Abroad (BBC TVM), Wed 12th July, BBC4.
The Rink (Chaplin short), late Wed 12th July, Talking Pictures.

Happening (2021), Thu 13th July, Film4.


Didn't Stonewall get a VHS release on Tartan, just like La Madre Muerta? Those Tartan releases had the distinctive sleeves so you could spot them a mile off, a bit like Artificial Eye!

[Dr Amicus]

Didn't Stonewall get a VHS release on Tartan, just like La Madre Muerta? Those Tartan releases had the distinctive sleeves so you could spot them a mile off, a bit like Artificial Eye!

Yes it did - I had it! It was an exclusive, Virgin I think but might have been WH Smith.

I saw this first of all at the London Film Festival when it was introduced by the writer, Rikke Beadle-Blair. He claimed he was going out on a date afterwards (he was certainly, ahem, dressed to impress iirc) and got suitably wolf whistled by the audience. It's a film I've always really liked and have been hopeful for a UK DVD or Blu-Ray release for years.

[colinr0380]

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.

Whilst the first episode of this pretty much is a standard issue ITV crime drama (although there are hints of parallels to that film Filth, with its police officer threatening to go off the rails) there was one blackly comically horrific moment in there, of the police breaking into the house of a drug-addled man who has been so out of it that not only has his cat died of starvation, but the corpse has been lying unnoticed behind the sofa for so long it is maggot-ridden as well! That's one scene that probably only Irvine Welsh would be allowed to get away with in a primetime drama series!

[colinr0380]

Quite eclectic next week. The big film of the week as jlnight has noted is Channel 4 showing A Quiet Place Part II (aka "Noisy Men Ruin Everything") at 9 p.m. on Sunday 9th. That clashes against ITV beginning another notable series, with Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce starring in the Kim Philby spy biopic A Spy Among Friends. The first episode (of six) is showing from 9 p.m. on ITV1 on Sunday 9th.

The most frustrating night of the week for clashes is Wednesday 12th, when BBC2 premieres Nowhere Special at 11:15 p.m. which overlaps with the final five minutes of Silk Road, showing at 9 p.m. on Film4. Both of those clash against BBC4 doing an Alan Bennett evening with a repeat of his 1983 film An Englishman Abroad about the life of spy Guy Burgess (making for a neat companion to A Spy Among Friends!), starring Alan Bennett and directed by John Schlesinger. That has a new 10 minute introduction by Bennett from 10 p.m. and is followed at 11:15 p.m. by another Alan Bennett piece, 1988's Dinner At Noon.

The rest of the week belongs to Film4 with premieres of 2018 French abortion drama Happening at 11:40 p.m. on Thursday 13th (from the writer-director who is apparently helming an upcoming new version of Emmanuelle!); and horror film Significant Other at Midnight on Friday 14th (which looks a bit Antichrist-y).
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Repeat-wise, apart from the Alan Bennett material noted above, the other notable repeat is the Daniel Craig film from 2000 Some Voices, showing at 1:35 a.m. in the early hours of Friday 14th (following the premiere of Happening). That's directed by Simon Cellan Jones quite soon after he helmed the majority of the episodes of that BBC Our Friends In The North series.

[jlnight]

Beat the Devil, Fri 14th July, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 19th July. (on Freeview before)
Way Upstream (BBC TVM), Fri 14th July, London Live.

Charro!, Sat 15th July, Quest.
At War with the Army, Sat 15th July, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 18th July.
Following, Sat 15th July, Sky Arts. Or...
The Onion Field, Sat 15th July, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 17th July.
Possessor, Sat 15th July, Film4. Or...
Deathsport, late Sat 15th July, Talking Pictures. Also late Mon 17th July.

Sweet Charity, Sun 16th July, BBC2. (been on Great Movies)
Treasure Island (1972), Sun 16th July, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 20th July.
The Invisible Man Returns (1940), Sun 16th July, Legend.

The Hope and the Glory (BBC TVM), Wed 19th July, BBC4.

Maverick, Thu 20th July, Quest.

Imprisoned (AKA Night Walk), Fri 21st July, London Live.

[colinr0380]

Rather quiet next week with the only notable premiere being, as jlnight has noted, the screening of the Brandon Cronenberg film Possessor on Film4 at 11:20 p.m. on Saturday 15th, amusingly sandwiched in between repeats of Michael Mann's contract killer film Collateral at 9 p.m. and the 1995 Ghost In The Shell film following at 1:25 a.m. (and this is also probably tying in with the release of the director's latest film Infinity Pool on disc in the UK this week)
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jlnight has also noted the most interesting repeat of the week, with Shirley MacLaine taking on the title role in Bob Fosse's Sweet Charity, showing un-DOG-tagged on BBC2 at 1:35 p.m. on Sunday 16th, and then DOG-tagged at 9 p.m. on BBC4 on Thursday 20th followed by a compilation of BBC interviews with the actress from the archives at 11:25 p.m.

BBC4's archive television strand gets to 1984 drama The Hope and the Glory at 10 p.m. on Wednesday 19th. Which interestingly is based on a play by Caryl Phillips, who wrote that 1987 Norman Beaton-starring cricketing film Playing Away for Channel 4 films that had a rare repeat on Film4 a couple of years ago. And The Hope and the Glory stars Rudolph Walker, who may be better known as one of the members of the supporting cast in the Ben Elton written-Rowan Atkinson starring police station sitcom series The Thin Blue Line from the mid 90s!

However the rarest repeat that I am most curious about is tucked away at 12:45 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 17th on ITV4, as one of the more, um, un-PC Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder team ups, See No Evil, Hear No Evil gets a screening for the first time in years. I remember back in the day my father (ironically a big fan of Richard Pryor's stand up and the previous films Silver Streak and Stir Crazy) renting this film out on VHS and getting rather tired of the bitchy odd couple banter between Pryor and Wilder here, and what he felt was the unnecessary swearing, but then really enjoying the edited for that content TV version when ITV first showed the film in the early 90s which removed a lot of the swearing out to let it play at 8 p.m. I am presuming that given the gap since ITV last screened the film and its late night timeslot that this screening will be of the the unexpurgated 15-rated theatrical version of the film.

[colinr0380]

On going through the RadioTimes in more detail there is one other premiere taking place next week in addition to Possessor: tucked away on the "Great Romance" digital channel at 8 p.m. on Thursday 20th is the eye-rollingly titled TV movie As Gouda As It Gets. I normally would not lower myself to such an easy joke (as long as you do not look at any of my other posts 8-[ ) that it looks a bit cheesy from its trailer, but since the film itself names one of its main characters "Brie" and uses that for a punchline at the end of the trailer, they will probably not mind!

What have we done to Canada to deserve two such highly disturbing pieces of cinema within a single week?

[jlnight]

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), Sat 22nd July, Sky Arts. Or...
The Longhorn, Sat 22nd July, Quest.
One-Eyed Jacks, Sat 22nd July, 5Action. (ex-Moviedrome)
Harrison's Flowers, Sat 22nd July, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 24th July.

Jour De Fete, Sun 23rd July, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 26th July.
The Mummy's Tomb (1942), Sun 23rd July, Legend. Or...
Mountains of the Moon, Sun 23rd July, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 26th July.

Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon (1967), Wed 26th July, Legend. Or...
High Rise Donkey, Wed 26th July, London Live. (on before)
Baal (BBC), Wed 26th July, BBC4. (preceded by Cracked Actor and Zoe Wanamaker intro)

Another Round, Thu 27th July, Film4. Or...
Wyatt Earp (1994), Thu 27th July, Quest.

The Informers (1963), Fri 28th July, London Live. (been on TPTV)
Race with the Devil, Fri 28th July, Film4. (on before)


It appears See No Evil, Hear No Evil features man-of-the-moment Kevin Spacey. I'm kind of hoping that when he was in the dock last week he was in Keyser Soze mode, improvising his testimony with whatever came into view!

[thirtyframesasecond]

I know Spacey was in a film recently that was directed by Franco Nero, but an even weirder piece of casting from last year:

In 2022, Spacey was cast as the late Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman in the political drama Once Upon a Time in Croatia, directed by Jakov Sedlar.

[colinr0380]

It seems to be a Kevin Spacey week on the television, as BBC2 are repeating Duncan Jones' Moon this evening too.

[colinr0380]

Really interesting stuff next week, both for repeats and new films. In terms of premieres, Film4 is showing Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin at 11:15 p.m. on Saturday 22nd (with this and Significant Other Film4 is getting a lot of recent Paramount+ horror films on its schedule at the moment), and as jlnight has noted the big film of the week is Film4 showing the Thomas Vinterberg film Another Round at 9 p.m. on Thursday 27th.

In terms of TV series, I did not mention it last week because Channel 5 has a habit of only showing the first episode of a lot of these series but since episode 2 is showing on the 28th it is worth noting that Channel 5 is very belatedly showing the first season of the Kevin Costner-starring Yellowstone series at 9 p.m. each Friday from the 21st. Unfortunately episode 2 on the 28th is going up against strong competition from BBC2 at 9 p.m. the same evening, as it shows the first two (of four) episodes of the Reframed: Marilyn Monroe documentary narrated by Jessica Chastain.
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The big news of the week though, as noted by jlnight, is BBC4's archive television strand doing David Bowie on Wednesday 26th, with a repeat of the 1974 Omnibus documentary Cracked Actor at 10 p.m. (which is famously the documentary that Nicolas Roeg watched that convinced him that Bowie would be perfect casting in The Man Who Fell To Earth, particularly those back of the limousine shots), a ten minute interview with Zoe Wanamaker about her experiences with Bowie whilst working on Bertolt Brecht adaptation Baal at 10:55 p.m. and then Alan Clarke's 1982 film at 11:05 p.m.

Film-repeat-wise, Xavier Dolan's It's Only The End Of The World is showing at 2 a.m. in the early hours of Wednesday 26th. As jlnight has noted the amusing 70s paranoia proto-yuppies-versus-Stanists film Race With The Devil is on Film4 at 11:25 p.m. on Friday 28th (followed in a thematic double bill by Rosemary's Baby at 1:10 a.m.!)

The most pleasant surprise of the week however is that BBC4 is repeating the 1973 series The Ascent of Man with the first two episodes showing from 9:20 p.m. on Sunday 23rd. This and the other big BBC 'personal view of history' series of the period, Civilsation both received elaborate special edition DVDs in the mid-2000s. Although I treasure even more the original hardback tie in book of The Ascent of Man from its first run that I inherited from my parents and have on the shelf next to the DVDs! It was one of those books on the bookshelf that I always loved leafing through as a kid.

[colinr0380]

I quite liked Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, which is very much the "Outlast II" of its series, with its nightvision sequences of crawling through tunnels and barns whilst trying unsuccessfully to stealth past lanky and grabby monsters, along with a heavy religious ritual element combined with mysteriously turning off and on at will weather events. Probably the most interesting thing to mention is that there is an amusingly brief nod to the 'filmed during Covid' trend of the time, with everybody masked up whilst at the Airport and getting the luggage into the van before immediately taking their masks off once in the enclosed space of the van itself! With the driver saying its OK since "he's had Covid five times already!", and that aspect is never brought up again. I guess that's one of those things that has to be acknowledged and then breezed past similar to the "That's strange; there's no cell phone reception" aspect that horror films had to pay lip service to for decades once the mobile phone was invented. But it did just end up making me curious in general about how the Amish community was affected by Covid in reality, or even if they were due to their relatively isolated nature.

Plus if it were not already obvious that this particular entry was both indebted to video games and very much up to date with the current zeitgeist of the times, there is a neat coda involving a perspective jump into footage shot from the perspective of a responding police officer's bodycam footage.

[jlnight]

Rider on a Dead Horse, Sat 29th July, Quest.
Carry on Spying, Sat 29th July, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 3rd Aug. Or...
Greed (2020), Sat 29th July, Channel 4. Or...
The Quick and the Dead (1995), Sat 29th July, Great Action.
After Blue (2021), late Sat 29th July, Film4.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), Sun 30th July, Sky Arts. (been on other channels) Or...
The Stranger Left No Card (short), Sun 30th July, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 31st July.
Double Team (1997), Sun 30th July, Great Action.

Cinebox Memories: Eden Kane - Sounds Funny To Me (short), Tue 1st Aug, Talking Pictures.

The Lone Ranger (1956), Wed 2nd Aug, Legend.
Cinebox Memories: Russ Sainty - Go Away Little Girl (short), Wed 2nd Aug, Talking Pictures.

Unforgiven (1992), Thu 3rd Aug, Quest.

The Triple Cross, Fri 4th Aug, London Live.

Spacey played a villain with an English accent in See No Evil, Hear No Evil. The warning signs were already there! Also not quite sure what an edited-for-TV version of the film would look like. Loads of dubbing for sure!

[colinr0380]

Quite interesting next week. Channel 4 is showing the latest Michael WInterbottom and Steve Coogan team-up film Greed at 10:30 p.m. on Saturday 29th, amusingly the same week that BBC4 devotes its 'archive television' night to the late Martin Amis with a screening of both parts of the 2010 Nick Frost starring Money at 10:15 p.m. on Wednesday 2nd August preceded by an interview with novelist William Boyd about Amis at 10 p.m. and followed at 12:15 a.m. with an interview with Amis himself, also from 2010.

The big movie of the week however as noted by jlnight is the gender-fluid and inevitably French sci-fi extravaganza After Blue at 12:45 a.m. in the early hours of Sunday 30th. This is part of Film4's current sci-fi season and is preceded by a very rare screening of Event Horizon at 10:55 p.m., which has not aired on a main television channel in years, usually turning up tucked away on the 5Star digital channel. Speaking of the 5Star channel, that is where the only other film premiere of the week occurs, with the belated first showing of the 2014 Nicolas Cage revenge film Rage at 11:10 p.m. on Sunday 30th. Which is from the same year Cage was in both the Left Behind feature and that ill-fated Paul Schrader Dying of the Light film. Although it was nice to note both Danny Glover and Peter Stormare amongst the supporting cast, so it may be worth looking into.

The other notable event of the week is BBC4 beginning to screen the Netflix-produced Israeli true crime documentary series Shadow of Truth with the first two (of five total) episodes showing from 10 p.m. on Monday 31st.
___

Repeat-wise, there is lots of stuff. BBC2 is showing Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (at 1:25 p.m.) the original 1945 Brief Encounter (at 5:25 p.m.) and Portrait of a Lady On Fire (at 1:25 a.m. in a French counter-programming move to contrast against After Blue!) peppered throughout Saturday 29th. Memento is on BBC2 at 11 p.m. on Sunday 30th (just after the fourth episode of the Guy Pearce starring A Spy Among Friends series ends over on ITV1), and BBC4 are repeating the Trials of Oppenheimer documentary at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday 1st, for reasons that are probably obvious! Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood is showing on Film4 at 9 p.m. on Wednesday 2nd, again for probably obvious reasons.

Molly's Game is on BBC2 at 11:15 p.m. on Tuesday 1st. Rita, Sue and Bob Too is showing on Film4 at 2 a.m. in the early hours of Wednesday 2nd (in an amusingly contrasting second half of a double bill with Four Weddings and a Funeral!). Schindler's List is on BBC1 at 10:40 p.m. on Thursday 3rd, and Ready Player One is on BBC1 at 10:40 p.m. on Friday 4th.

[colinr0380]

I spoke too soon about the lack of premieres next week as tucked away on the "Legend" (formerly "Horror") channel at 9 p.m. on Saturday 29th is a 2022 remake of The Most Dangerous Game! Which does not look too promising from the trailer but is pretty star-studded, with Tom Berenger, Bruce Dern, Judd Nelson and Casper Van Dien taking on the Leslie Banks Count Zaroff 'crazy European hunter' role!

Is The Most Dangerous Game one of the most remade movies? It surely has to be in the running for that honour.

[jlnight]

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), Sat 5th Aug, Sky Arts.
Ride the High Country, Sat 5th Aug, Quest. (been on other channels)
Spontaneous (2020), Sat 5th Aug, Film4.

Pillow Talk, Sun 6th Aug, BBC2.

Lost in the Stars (1974), Mon 7th Aug, London Live.

The Lone Ranger and The Lost City of Gold (1958), Wed 9th Aug, Legend.
C'mon C'mon, Wed 9th Aug, Film4. Or...
Hi Mom!, Wed 9th Aug, Talking Pictures. Also late Sat 19th Aug.
Fragments of Paradise (2022), late Wed 9th Aug, Film4.

The Shop at Sly Corner, Thu 10th Aug, London Live.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Thu 10th Aug, Quest.


Result for Spacey as he 'verbal kinted' his way to a not guilty verdict on all charges! The comeback is on!

[colinr0380]

I would guess we are still a way off from The Usual Suspects ever appearing on UK television again though! *wink*
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I still need to re-watch and wrap my head around After Blue after collapsing into unconsciousness at 2:30 a.m. with more than an hour of the film left to go. An extremely striking piece of work though, sort of Guy Maddin-esque in its revelling in the artificial soundstage quality of it all but perhaps with Maddin’s silent film proclivities replaced with Barbarella or Mario Bava-style pastel colours; Lynch’s Dune-style densely weird reams of arcane lore expressed through set and character design; and all related through an Element of Crime-style disconnected interview with the main character looking back on the present from a distant future. Plus it could almost be a lost Jean Rollin sci-fi film with its beaches, vampiric couplings, skimpy nightwear and ladies furiously alternating back and forth between declaring their fear and hatred for each other before then just as passionately making out!

Plus I like the Meiko Kaji Stray Cat Rock-styled all black garbed Women’s Guild! And that the antagonist is a kind of genie/witch who is (Wishmaster-like) granting the forbidden desires of the main character who rescued her from the sand but in the most dastardly ways! (i.e. for example by immediately killing the main characters other friends because they were teasing her, and maybe by happily frolicking naked in the surf they were raising certain feelings that the protagonist did not wish to acknowledge. So in “Kate Bush’s” interpretation, they all simply had to die!). The actress playing that character has that amazingly gaunt face that kept making me wonder if there was an intentional comparison to the main villain from Jean Brismee’s The Devil’s Nightmare going on. They could almost be twins!
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I did re-watch Event Horizon again just before After Blue. I still find it a lovably dumb B-movie, and particularly like Sam Neill’s performance and especially that fantastically techno-gothic cathedral set design.

But what really struck me this time is just how many moments from Alien that got ‘borrowed’ for this film! There’s the sitting around the dinner table scene just post-hypersleep. The scene of a person crawling around the cramped service ducts whilst another person waits outside (though I love the lime green circuit board set design of that scene). The science officer who ‘goes crazy’ and likes the monsters so much that he is willing to betray the other members of the crew to ensure it is protected. There is a decompression scene of characters being blown out into space. A scene of people nervously trying to transport important canisters from one part of the ship to the other, which leads to them being isolated and eventually getting killed. There is even a direct lift of the ‘person’s fingers and then head appearing from the bottom of the screen as they climb up a ladder to the next deck, all the whilst nervously looking out for monsters’ moment!

There is also a ‘lets slow things down, sit around and ponder the situation’ scene similar to the one between Ripley and Dallas, only it does not work quite as well in Event Horizon since I do not really feel that the characters get built up enough to really register as being able to relate to each other character to character in that manner. Maybe that is because there are a lot more characters here than in Alien for them all to feel fleshed out beyond their specific plot functions, or maybe it is that ‘human emotion’ gets rather diluted down into each of the characters having a single specific ‘traumatic memory’ that the ship then plays upon, Solaris-style as part of the plot. It seems particularly apparent with some of the issues with Joely Richardson’s character, who is obviously in the Ripley-styled female flight engineer role and who, probably because of that, is backgrounded for a lot of the time, to the extent that its like “and I’m here too!” when she suddenly appears again in the final scenes! I guess that the filmmakers realised that they could not perhaps be so obvious as to make her into a full-blooded Ripley figure (maybe that would have been a step too far, after all of the other borrowings!), so she is pretty much sidelined for Laurence Fishburne to do all of the heroic stuff instead. As he should, since he is the Captain of the ship after all!

Although that suggests that in horror stories either the Captain has to be the first to die so as to force the remaining members of the crew to have to step up (as in those recent The Terror and The North Water TV series); or else if they stick around beyond about the first third of the film they have to remain there and become the hero at the end too!
___

Also, speaking of unacknowledged influences and just because I recently keep catching the John Huston 1982 version of Annie on Film4 at the moment which has brought it to mind, has anyone else noticed that Stuart Little recycled that film’s plot?

[colinr0380]

Next week is relatively quiet with a few really big standouts. Before I start though I wanted to mention that BBC4 did a really great tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em show yesterday evening, the centrepiece of which was a new half hour interview with Michele Dotrice and Michael Crawford, followed by the first episode of the first series from 1973, and the 1977 "To Be Perfectly Frank" documentary. Those are all getting repeated again on BBC4 on Saturday 5th with the addition of an archive Michael Parkinson interview with Crawford from 11:15 p.m. that evening. And then next Tuesday at 8:30 is the second episode of the first series, so it looks like they will be running through that entire run.

I think that the thing that I most like about Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em (aside of course from the ever escalating in danger stunts which both look back to Buster Keaton and forward to Tom Cruise) is that Frank Spencer is the charmingly naive figure wandering through the world whilst all of the 'normal' people that he meets (and inevitably infuriates into insanity!) are already brittle and on edge figures driven that way by the stresses of their roles in society!
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Anyway on to the premieres of the week. Film4 is showing explosive teen drama Spontaneous at 11 p.m. on Saturday 5th. The big night of the week is on Wednesday 9th when Film4 premieres Mike Mills' C'mon, C'mon at 11:10 p.m., immediately followed by the documentary about Jonas Mekas, Fragments of Paradise at 1:25 a.m.

The other big news of the week is that in addition to BBC4 showing Pillow Talk at 9 p.m. on Thursday 10th, as noted by jlnight, that is preceded by a showing of the 1989 interview between Christopher Frayling and Doris Day "I Don't Even Like Apple Pie..." at 8 p.m. (if you cannot wait here it is! :-$ )

And BBC4's archive television strand is showing a 2003 modern updating of The Canterbury Tales with the Wife of Bath episode starring Julie Walters and Bill Nighy at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday 9th, followed by a 2015 discussion between Walters and Richard E. Grant at 11:30 p.m.

[colinr0380]

I really liked Spontaneous, which feels like Assassination Nation meets Cherry Falls for the pandemic generation. The main difference is that It is less aggressive tonally than Assassination Nation, but the events within it hurt more because its happening to nicer seeming characters, if that is a good distinction to make. And instead of the anger being directed to certain groups in society the fear is more nebulous and unfightable, and the hostility towards what is tearing the norms of society apart (climaxing in a matching "f-you" call to arms speech at the end) more directed at the cruel ironies of existence in general than towards other specific groups of people, although both speeches are about the fundamental right to be right here, right now, at this moment, without feeling guilt or shame for your mere presence and simply still being alive and kicking.

Although having said that, it is also dealing with really current (to the point of being more cutting edge than even the aspects that Assassination Nation was touching upon) topics that may be hitting on raw nerves too much, and may be why I had not heard anything about the film until this point. There is the generational suspicion element of it perhaps just being this year's crop of teens who are randomly exploding into gory sprays of blood, suggesting there is something wrong with a whole group of kids that has made them 'irredeemable' or 'unsalvageable' from society's point of view, so they have to be isolated and studied. There's the idea of the disillusionment with parents (though the parents are caring here, as opposed to Assassination Nation already beginning completely cynical about the notions of any adult form of authority as being of any use at all), as it becomes obvious that nobody from the older generation knows what to do in this situation, or can save you (from yourself?), but just have to watch on impotently, occasionally welcoming back home and being glad to see you again until you inevitably have to leave for pastures new.

The cynicism here is less directed to parents (though we do have to get the scene of our main character on a drunken bender 'acting out' and ranting at her parents. Though within the context of the film that seems an entirely sensible thing to do, and the parents seem to understand that behaviour the same way), but to the 'authorities', herding the group of kids around and isolating them from the rest of society so that when they 'pop' they will do so within safe confines and only traumatise each other rather than any innocent bystanders. And there is a healthy dose of cynicism to the work on the 'cure' for the random exploding virus, which as with the parents and teachers only shows that the scientists have no real idea of what they are doing and are just trying out different cocktails of drugs, confidently announcing that they have solved the situation and then end up having to go back to the gore-splattered drawing board once another dozen kids randomly and inexplicably die. Eventually they come to the solution being a cocktail of sedative-style pills that has to be taken for the rest of your life to 'protect' you from the possibility of randomly exploding, and our main character's cynicism is mostly directed towards that aspect of things more than anything else. Of being 'managed' and 'tamed' for society's benefit more than hers, along with a really great moment of calling out "Big Pharma" for just permanently medicating people for the rest of their lives for their benefit more than the patient's. Once the film does its tonal shift in the second half into something much more serious minded (or arguably brain damaged! ), the main character just opts out of the control of others, on all levels. Part suicidal gesture towards living under constant terror, and part an understandable "f-you" at people trying to take away her right to be able to live her life to the fullest before she dies like everyone else inevitably will, from something or other. She might 'pop' today, or live 'till 73, but why live every moment waiting with baited breath for that death, just because it makes others feel better that they have your situation under control? So that may be why this film is a bit too relevant!

There's an obvious puberty metaphor going on too, although thankfully the filmmakers seems to recognise that kids having random changes happening to their bodies that they cannot control is already an obvious and blunt metaphor in itself so it does not need to be focused on too much beyond just presenting this situation as happening entirely within a generation of kids of a particular age. It gets really well at that idea that for every generation that change feels like its only happening to them, and their classmates around them, and nobody else can relate. There's a fantastic moment at the end where, after leaving her parents for the final time, the character has a school bus of young kids pull up next to her full of kids making faces out of the window. Which underlines that she is the 'young adult' trapped between the kids and the grown ups, and they'll never be able to understand each other. Or at least cannot understand until they move into the next generation themselves, by which time the people previously there will have themselves moved on, and so on. You're always an embodiment of a particular "Generation", and made somewhat solipsistic by that definition giving you specific issues that you need to work through. The traumas of what happened to that specific generation can come to define them (at least to onlookers from outside), whether it be going off to war (we do get a teacher talking to the class about being able to relate to their situation as this was not the first time he saw a person explode in front of him, because of seeing someone step on a landmine during an overseas tour of duty) or suffering a spate of school shootings, or random deaths from a inexplicable disease, that tie the 'survivors' of that time together no matter how old you get.

The Cherry Falls aspect came to mind because at least in the first half of the film this all plays out a bit like a slasher film, where you have a group of isolated teens and they just randomly get picked off one by one for no rhyme or reason, which results in the main character and her boyfriend ramping up the speed of their relationship to reach their loss of virginity to each other sooner rather than later. Which was probably for the best because in a twist (though only a Jagged Edge level of unexpected twist), during the biggest scene of explosive carnage (which rather daringly is filmed like a school shooting rampage scene, as hordes of kids desperately flee through the corridors of their school, except there is nowhere to escape to, and nobody to escape from) she loses her boyfriend as despite escaping the school, he still explodes, sending a fragment of bone into the heroine's skull and it is implied causing her brain damage.

The tone of the film shifts significantly after that for its final hour as things go from Assassination Nation-style flippant (where instead of being violently prejudiced as in that film, the football jocks during an on stage eulogy can celebrate their recently exploded bro for his courage in having come out to them) to extremely dour, as finally the random nature of death has claimed a victim who was too close to home. That gets the film into notions of survivor's guilt and PTSD of the main character wondering if she herself was the cause for the deaths by being in proximity to all those who exploded. We see people around her trying to move on with their lives and keep the societal rituals ticking over with the most sparsely populated graduation dance I have seen! Notions of opting out from the world are there, not suicidally but just recognising that nobody else in the world beyond has the answers either, so why not stop the drugs they are forcing on you to keep you sedated and unproblematic to the general population, go out there and see if there is a possible life that you can make for yourself, as in that beautiful "f-you" speech of the main character thinking of future prospects, future lovers, future children, but always with a fragment of her first boyfriend carried inside her too.

[jlnight]

Gunsmoke in Tucson, Sat 12th Aug, Quest.
Boy In The Corner (2022), Sat 12th Aug, London Live.
Austin Powers in Goldmember, Sat 12th Aug, Quest.

The Creature Walks Among Us, Sun 13th Aug, Legend. Or...
Ammonite, Sun 13th Aug, BBC2.

The Piano, Mon 14th Aug, BBC2.
Bread and Roses, late Mon 14th Aug, Film4. (preceded by Kes)

Cinebox Memories: Shane Fenton and Dion (shorts), Tue 15th Aug, Talking Pictures.
The Missing Scientists (1955), very late Tue 15th Aug, Talking Pictures.

Murder at the Windmill, Wed 16th Aug, Talking Pictures.
A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Wed 16th Aug, London Live. Or...
Rear Window (the Christopher Reeve one), Wed 16th Aug, Legend.
Bulldog Drummond's Revenge, Wed 16th Aug, Talking Pictures.

The Prestige, Thu 17th Aug, Quest.

[colinr0380]

Very quiet next week. Aside from a couple of Channel 5 TV movies the only premiere of the week is Ammonite on BBC2 at 10 p.m. on Sunday 13th. Which I have avoided until now since at first glance it just seems like Portrait of a Lady On Fire with painting swapped out for rocks, and without those pesky subtitles. Although these films did achieve the impossible and became responsible for inspiring one of the few funny recent SNL sketches.
___

Repeat-wise, to tie in with all the steamy period drama BBC2 are showing The Piano at 11:15 p.m. on Monday 14th for its first screening on UK television since 2013. There are few other notable repeats. Scorsese's 1991 version of Cape Fear is showing on BBC1 at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday 13th and then on BBC4 on Thursday 17th there is a double bill of The Deer Hunter at 9 p.m. followed by Cape Fear again at 12:25 a.m. As jlnight has noted, Film4 has a Ken Loach double bill on Monday 14th with Kes at 11:20 p.m. followed by Bread and Roses at 1:35 a.m.

Film4 seem to have purloined Steel Magnolias from the 5Star digital channel and are showing that at 6:40 p.m. on Monday 14th. The Others is getting a couple of showings on BBC3, at 10 p.m. on Tuesday 15th and again at 10 p.m. on Friday 18th. And Heat is on BBC1 at 10:40 p.m. on Friday 18th.

But most interesting are the archive television repeats of the week. BBC4 is showing the first two parts (of seven total) of the 1980 Oppenheimer series starring Sam Waterston from 10:40 p.m. on Saturday 12th (with a score by the late Carl Davis. Radio 3 also has an hour long episode of their "Sound of Cinema" programme devoted to the work of Davis at 3 p.m. on Saturday 12th). And on Wednesday 16th BBC4 has an "Ancient Rome" night with the first two parts (of eight total) of a History Channel series Colosseum. Which looks OK enough, but that's followed by a 15 minute interview with Derek Jacobi introducing a repeat run-through of I, Claudius with the first three (of twelve total) episodes following on from 10:50 p.m. until 2:10 a.m. So those two series look to be occupying the 'archive television' slot for at least the next couple of Wednesdays.

[jlnight]

The Incredible Petrified World, Sat 19th Aug, Talking Pictures.
Sherlock Holmes in Washington, Sat 19th Aug, Sky Arts. Or...
Gold Fever (1952), Sat 19th Aug, Quest.
Between Two Women (2000), Sat 19th Aug, London Live.
To Live and Die in L.A., Sat 19th Aug, Film4.

The Power of the Dog, Sun 20th Aug, BBC2.
The Naked Road (1959), late Sun 20th Aug, Talking Pictures.

Gagarine, late Mon 21st Aug, Channel 4.

Bulldog Drummond Escapes (1937), Wed 23rd Aug, Talking Pictures.
Alone (2020), Wed 23rd Aug, Film4.

Listen (2020), Fri 25th Aug, London Live.

[colinr0380]

I suppose the upcoming premiere of The Power of the Dog explains The Piano getting its first showing in a decade. And nice to see To Live and Die In L.A. hitting Film4, presumably as a tribute to William Friedkin - it is that film's second showing this year but I think the last time it was shown before that on UK television was a Channel 4 screening in 2001! (That is still more recent than Jade, The Guardian or Cruising though!)

[colinr0380]

Lots of strange and esoteric things going on next week, which again is a great example of why linear television schedules are still so important, because a lot of the films showing are not really things that I would have actively searched or purchased myself due to not being particularly interested in the subject matter, not previously having been aware of their existence, or even just feeling morally conflicted about associating with them as a viewer (Danny Trejo of course being the singular exception to all of this!). But since they are being broadcast whether I like it or not, I may as well see what they are all about!

The big premiere of the week is Disney's 2020 live action version of Mulan showing on BBC1 at 6:40 p.m. on Saturday 19th. This is the film that became highly controversial, less for anything in the film itself (though this is arguably the beginning of the “Girl Boss” phase of Disney, where the female characters have to be presented as powerful and flawless from the get-go to push particular political agendas, to the apparently ruinous detriment of narrative coherence and the concept of characters having arcs as a whole. Although Mulan is probably the one film where this is an understandable approach. Although it apparently has had its storyline changed from being about family to be more about protecting the Emperor, which sounds a bit of a "Zhang Yimou's Hero" move), but more for events swirling around its making. The controversy was partly because it was notoriously partly filmed in the Xinjiang province (with a message of thanks for the support to the provincial governors in the end credits), which is where the Chinese government have sequestered the Uyghur Muslim minority population into internment camps. And partly because the lead actress came out on social media in favour of the Chinese state cracking down on the Hong Kong protestors.

So that is the main reason why I have been avoiding this film like the plague, and certainly would never have paid for it either on disc or through something like Disney+. Although since now it has (somewhat inadvisably) appeared on the main national BBC1 channel at primetime on a Saturday evening, it is certainly getting the push over here as well. I suppose one bright spot is that it will be the only way to see Gong Li and Jet Li on that channel and in that kind of timeslot! Though I would have dearly wished it had been for Raise The Red Lantern or one of the Once Upon A Time In China films instead.

The other big premiere of the week, as jlnight has noted, is Jane Campion's film The Power of the Dog showing on BBC2 at 10 p.m. on Sunday 20th. The foreign language premiere of the week is Gagarine showing on Channel 4 (so unfortunately DOG-tagged) at 2:20 a.m. in the early hours of Tuesday 22nd. The rather standard looking terrorisation thriller Alone is showing on Film4 at 11 p.m. on Wednesday 23rd. And BBC4's Storyville season is showing 8 Bar: The Evolution of Grime at 10 p.m. on Tuesday 22nd (which is beginning to look rather charmingly safe now in the age of Drill music that is explicitly gang activity centred)

Although the most interesting premiere of the week is tucked away on the "Pick" channel (which is Sky's one concession to Freeview satellite viewers), with Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo showing at 9 p.m. on Sunday 20th. They had better get into the subject of his Old El Paso adverts!

[jlnight]

Sherlock Holmes Faces Death, Sat 26th Aug, Sky Arts.
Apache War Smoke, Sat 26th Aug, Quest.
Death of a Son (Screen Two), Sat 26th Aug, London Live.
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, late Sat 26th Aug, Quest.

Meet John Doe (1941), Sun 27th Aug, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 31st Aug.
Made for Each Other (1939), Sun 27th Aug, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 29th Aug.
Benedetta, Sun 27th Aug, Film4.
Candyman, late Sun 27th Aug, Film4. (on before, see below)

The Man with the Golden Arm, Mon 28th Aug, Talking Pictures.

The 14, Tue 29th Aug, London Live. (been on TPTV)

Bulldog Drummond's Peril, Wed 30th Aug, Talking Pictures.

The Happy Valley (BBC TVM), Fri 1st Sept, London Live. Or...
The Legend of The Seven Golden Vampires + Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, Fri 1st Sept, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club returns)


The Scene By Scene episode with Rod Steiger and Mark Cousins is repeated on Thu 31st Aug, after a screening of In the Heat of the Night on BBC4.