Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

[colinr0380]

Well The Southern Star, just finished on Legend Xtra, was much more of a broad comedy than the trailer had led me to expect! Despite coming years before Bunuel's The Phantom of Liberty and its own final shot of a quizzical ostrich to close out proceedings, The Southern Star is kind of the equivalent of the Matrix Reloaded of exponentially expanding ostrich finales, as it ends with a whole flock (herd? panoply?) of ostrii rampaging across the plains and outrunning those chasing on both horseback and in motorcars!

[colinr0380]

An astonishing amount of premieres over the Bank Holiday weekend, with no less than five on Saturday 23rd alone. jlnight has noted BBC4's premiere of Iranian film My Favourite Cake at 9 p.m., which is in a three way clash with the first showings of Black Adam at 10:30 p.m. on ITV1 and The Equalizer 3 at 9 p.m. on Channel 4. Earlier in the evening Channel 4 is showing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem at 4:40 p.m., and as jlnight has noted, the most intriguing film of the week is Film4 showing South Korean horror film Sleep at 11:40 p.m.

Another clash occurs on Monday 25th with Arthur The King on BBC1 at 11 p.m., whilst BBC2 Blumes Into You with Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret at 10 p.m. As jlnight has noted earlier on Bank Holiday Monday Film4 is showing the premiere of Robot Dreams at 4:30 p.m.

And at 9 p.m. on Thursday 28th Film4 embraces the "Yookay" aesthetic with Sumotherhood, teaming Ed Sheeran and Jeremy Corbyn together in a film for the first time.
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Repeat-wise, BBC4's dance season continues to deliver with a showing of the 1953 broadcast of the ballet Les Sylphides at 11 p.m. on Sunday 24th followed at 11:35 p.m. by a 1974 Omnibus episode in which Lindsay Anderson talks to Rudolf Nureyev.

Earlier that evening BBC4 is doing a tribute to the late Stanley Baxter with his 1962 film Crooks Anonymous at 7:30 p.m. followed by a showing of the Being Stanley Baxter documentary at 9 p.m.

"Legend Xtra"-wise in their Sunday night classic slot they are continuing the Orson Welles theme with 1972's Treasure Island at 9 p.m. with Welles as Long John Silver and is a strange UK/French/Italian/German/Spanish co-production that according to imdb is apparently co-directed by John Hough (who would go on to The Legend of Hell House the next year), Antonio Marghereti and Andrea Bianchi (who directed Strip Nude For Your Killer in 1975!)

That is followed at 11 p.m. by Edge of the World, which is a take on the character in Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim. So that's the most interesting double bill of the week.

Though the one screening on Legend Xtra next week that I particularly want to highlight is a showing of the sci-fi film Pandorum at 11 p.m. on Wednesday 27th, which I think is very underrated (particularly by the RadioTimes, which gives it a one star "Poor" rating!), because it starts out as a really claustrophobic film full of pitch black darkness and tight crawlspaces and (spoiler) moves from a more intense sci-fi horror vein to something much, much bigger by the end. It has been a while since I last watched it, but I do have it on Blu-ray and most remember the way that the film steadily expands its scope and re-frames the relationships between its small cast of characters on the ship felt very impressively done. It is from one of the German producers behind the Paul WS Anderson Resident Evil films, and it kind of takes the same amnesia formula of the first of those films as a jumping off point for something a little bit darker than those films, and weirdly despite being made years before Ridley Scott did his Alien prequel films sort of anticipates the direction of how I would have imagined any sequel to Alien: Covenant to have gone in! Its really a film about the terror of the unknown, facing up to that fear and somehow overcoming it.

That was directed by Christian Alvart and came after 2005's Antibodies, which has Norman Reedus in a small role despite it being in German(!), and the Renee Zellwegger horror Case 39. It looks as if since Pandorum that Alvart has stayed mainly in German film, although there is apparently a London set series coming called Embassy which features JK Simmons and Anna Kendrick in it!

[colinr0380]

Incidentally I had not heard of My Favourite Cake before this upcoming screening, so the Radio Times has added some helpful extra context:

It's impossible to overstate the courage of Iranian film-makers Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha. Having already been threatened with legal action for criticising their country's death penalty in Ballad of a White Cow (2020), the married duo tackled the status of women in this 2024 drama which sees widowed septuagenarian Mahin (Lily Farhadpour) invite cabby Faramarz (Esmaeel Mehrabi) on a date.

The authorities objected to Farhadpour being filmed without a hijab and drinking wine with a man who wasn't her husband, and the co-directors received travel bans that prevented them picking up two prizes at the Berlin Film Festival. But they smuggled out a message to be read on stage, explaining the need "to cross all of the restrictive red lines, and accept the consequences of our choice to paint a real picture of Iranian women" and produce "a film made in praise of life".

[colinr0380]

Channel 4 have done a late schedule change and to tie in with some football related thing going on in the news at the moment have replaced the repeat of Dante's Peak that was going to follow the premiere of The Equalizer 3 tonight at 11:10 p.m. with a repeat of the original 1996 version of Fever Pitch (not the 2005 Farrelly Brothers remake that replaced football with baseball and Colin Firth with Jimmy Fallon).

[colinr0380]

Well, I never would have expected My Favourite Cake to reach a dark conclusion like something out of a Robert Aldrich film! That's just what you have to do in order to keep your private world under wraps, I suppose!

Spoiler

If the filmmakers had really wanted to go full Aldrich, rather than staying in the gentle bittersweet romantic-drama register they were more obviously intending for, they would just have need to retitle this Aldrich-style to something like "Mary, Mary, How Does Your Garden Grow?" and have a knife next to a ruined wedding cake in the marketing to (over)push the comparison!

[jlnight]

Robinson Crusoe (1974 Play of the Month), Sat 30th May, Talking Pictures. (FULL VERSION!)
The Young Americans (1993), Sat 30th May, Legend. Or...
Ghost Trail (2024), Sat 30th May, BBC4.

The Yards, Sun 31st May, Legend.

The Gun and the Pulpit (1974 TVM), Mon 1st Jun, Talking Pictures.
The Belle of Kent (Baim short), Mon 1st Jun, Talking Pictures.
Wife Swappers (1965?), Mon 1st Jun, Together TV.

Mad Mel and Mister Gibson (2021), Tue 2nd Jun, Talking Pictures.

None But the Tortoise (1966 short), Wed 3rd Jun, Talking Pictures.
Rescue Dawn, Wed 3rd Jun, Film4.

The Lion in Winter, Thu 4th Jun, Sky Arts.

Bring Them Down (2024), Fri 5th Jun, BBC2.



Citizen Bruce: The American Pal was a no-show, replaced by Mickey Rourke: Just Like a Man.

[colinr0380]

Relatively quiet next week. The premieres of the week are French-Syrian film Ghost Trail on BBC4 at 9 p.m. on Saturday 30th; Australian sci-fi Monolith on Film4 at 9 p.m. on Monday 1st; and Irish drama Bring Them Down on BBC2 at 11 p.m. on Friday 5th.

Though the big news of the week is the Ken Burns documentary on Muhammad Ali showing the first four (of eight total) episodes in one block on BBC4 from 10 p.m. on Tuesday 2nd.
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Repeat-wise, Film4 is showing Vinyan at 1:15 a.m. in the early hours of Sunday 31st. Which is kind of Don't Look Now meets Hearts of Darkness through a female perspective.

Film4's afternoon films adds Cecil B DeMille's Reap The Wild Wind to the schedule at 3:50 p.m. on Monday 1st, repeated on Friday 5th at 11 a.m.

"Legend Xtra"-wise, their classic Sunday night film is Marlon Brando in The Appaloosa at 9 p.m.

And BBC4 has an interesting curio pulled from their archives at 10 p.m. on Wednesday 3rd with the 1966 documentary about the building of the first thermonuclear weapon, Too Near The Sun.

[jlnight]

Uncommon Valor (1983), Sat 6th Jun, Legend. Or...
Vermiglio (2024), Sat 6th Jun, BBC4.

A Passage to India, Sun 7th Jun, Great TV.
Small, Slow But Steady, late Sun 7th Jun, Film4. (on before)

Cartoons and Cartoonists (1956 Baim short), Mon 8th Jun, Talking Pictures.
All Of Us Strangers (2023), Mon 8th Jun, Channel 4.

Nicole Kidman: Eyes Wide Open (2023), Tue 9th Jun, Talking Pictures.

Lancashire Luck (1937), Wed 10th Jun, Talking Pictures.

Red Sundown (1956), Thu 11th Jun, 5Action.

Operation Bottleneck (1961), late Fri 12th Jun, Talking Pictures.



Wife Swappers replaced by Girls Come First.
Once Upon A Time in America had most of the scene in the back of the chauffeur-driven car cut on Legend.

[colinr0380]

Lots of things next week. jlnight has noted the two most important premieres of the week with Italian film Vermiglio showing on BBC4 at 9:20 p.m. on Saturday 6th; and Andrew Haigh's latest All Of Us Strangers on Channel 4 at 10 p.m. on Monday 8th.

Additionally, the football film with Bill Nighy The Beautiful Game is on Channel 4 at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday 7th; and ITV1 has a belated television premiere of Guy Ritchie's 2020 film The Gentlemen at 10:45 p.m., also on Sunday 7th.

And the final four parts of the Ken Burns Muhammad Ali series shows from 10 p.m. on Tuesday 9th.
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Repeat-wise, BBC4 have picked up Ken Loach's The Old Oak after it was premiered a few months back on Film4 and are showing a repeat of it on Wednesday 10th at 10:20 p.m., preceded by a new 15 minute interview with Loach at 10:05 p.m.; and followed after at 12:10 a.m. by an older interview with Loach on Up The Junction, followed by Up The Junction itself at 12:25 a.m.; and another general interview with Loach at 1:35 a.m.

Film4 are showing a double bill of D-Day, the Sixth of June and The Longest Day from 11 a.m. (ending at 5 p.m.!) on Saturday 6th. As jlnight has noted, there is a repeat of the Japanese boxing film Small, Slow But Steady on Film4 at 1:45 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 8th. The 1986 The Mission is showing on Film4 at 1:25 a.m. in the early hours of Tuesday 9th. And 2001's The Warrior is showing on Film4 at 2:20 a.m. in the early hours of Saturday 13th

"Legend Xtra"-wise, Internal Affairs is showing at 9 p.m. on Saturday 6th; and Joseph Losey's Time Without Pity is showing at 5 p.m. on Thursday 11th.

[colinr0380]

The big event of the week though is BBC4 doing a tribute to Moviedrome on Thursday 10th July. The films being shown are nothing too exciting, just the original Wicker Man and Don't Look Now again, but they are going to be shown with their original Moviedrome introductions for the first time since their original broadcast. jlnight brought this up to me a few days ago that there is a BFI Southbank season of Moviedrome films with their original introductions showing throughout July and August, so this must be the BBC's contribution to tie in with that season. The 1988 Alex Cox introduction to The Wicker Man was the very first Moviedrome introduction, showing the director's cut version of the film on television for the first time, and that is followed at the other end of the series by Mark Cousins' 2000 introduction to Don't Look Now, during his 'white void' period (which was the one that was providing the initial suggestion that the BBC were giving up on Moviedrome by having Cousins do all of his links in a studio rather than in evocative locations as had previously characterised the series. The other sign that the BBC were giving up on the series was also that the final series was the one in which they did not show the best available versions of the films they screened - most notably in Cousins talking up a half hour longer 'director's cut' version of Luc Besson's Leon, and then we got the theatrical version, pan-and-scanned to add to the indignity! And Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx was also shown pan-and-scanned and dubbed into English. Although to balance it out even in that final year there were screenings of Clubbed To Death and the surprisingly little shown since Jack Nicholson and Michael Caine team up Blood & Wine to savour).

Amusingly, as Cox says in his introduction, The Wicker Man was cut down on its original theatrical release to act as the second half of a double bill with... Don't Look Now. So in addition to the Moviedrome tribute, the BBC have cheekily recreated the theatrical release of the films here!

Here's the BFI discussion about Moviedrome with Nick Freand Jones and Alex Cox.

The clips mentioned that get cut out of the discussion, in order that they get mentioned:
the Film Club introduction to The Long Goodbye by Cox
Barry Norman on RoboCop
Moviedrome: Sunset Boulevard
Moviedrome: The Terminator (interestingly the film was not shown for the first time uncut on UK television until a few years after that, in Robert McKee's Filmworks series in 1993!) - Also if they wanted examples of Cox being a bit disgusted by modern cinema violence, the two big ones that come to mind are the Moviedrome introduction to Darkman and the Forbidden Weekend intro to Bad Taste
(NB: re: Samira Ahmed's mention of the controversy about it, The Last Temptation of Christ was shown in Channel 4's "Century of Cinema" season in 1995)
Moviedrome: 200 Motels
Moviedrome: Assault on Precinct 13
(The mention of the locations and having a 'San Francisco season' is presumably the one where they did the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers on location at the Transamerica Pyramid. And the 'Hungary season' is presumably Cox's final one in 1994 with titles like Contempt and Apartment Zero - love the slightly bored hairdresser looking on in that intro!)
Moviedrome trailer from 1997 introducing Mark Cousins
Moviedrome: Exotica
Kennedy Night: The Parallax View

The BFI have just uploaded the just under 50 minute documentary Moviedrome: Welcome To The Cult, which presumably was made in tandem with last year's film season.

(We may need to move the Moviedrome-focused posts from this thread to a dedicated Moviedrome one in General Film Discussion, if possible)