Titus pre-amble

Hello, and welcome to Films on Friday, the movie guide that's stayed up until 11.17pm typing this rubbish. I'm Rick and for the next 197 seconds I'll be your host (don't try and play innocent with me, I've seen the web stats).

This week's column whizzes through the week's listings like a sleepy journalist whizzing through the week's listings. Every so often I'm going to nudge you in the midriff and mutter "watch this", so if you're not comfortable with that, I suggest you leave. But take all my patronising, ill-informed advice, and by this time next week you'll have seen Richard Widmark and Michael Douglas on the warpath, David Niven experiencing curiously uninvolving martial strife and Spencer Tracy karate-chopping Ernest Borgnine, like, really hard.

As well as the usual Films on TV guide, there's our regular DVD of the Week feature, and a selection of your cleverest letters. Over the next months or so I also hope to bring you a couple of exciting features, including a lost (and now found) interview with Tom Courtenay that I did as a teenager. The general upheaval of the period meant I only sold a handful of copies of that particular fanzine, so I'm happy to be able to bring the Q&A to a (slightly) larger audience now.

I'll tell you what, I'll have a sleep now, and when I wake up I'll stick this on the web so you can read it. Deal? OK.

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From the Mailbag

Some new faces getting in touch this week, including directorscut on the subject of Bruce Lee's finest movie. "Way of the Dragon gets my vote as Lee's best completed film. He was leagues ahead of (Fist of Fury director) Lo Wei when it came to shooting fight scenes." One can only wonder how marvellous Lee's Game of Death might have been, had Lee not died and the remaining footage been crowbarred into a lousy sub-Bond tale featuring Dean Jagger as a goldfish murderer, and a Lee double who wears enormous specs that make him look like a fly.

Rinc was one of several people to inexplicably leap to the defence of Grease. "It's a good bit of fluff with some good songs," he says, before acknowledging that the theme of the film is a touch off. "You're right, the moral of 'If you want to find love you must change who you are' is maybe one of the worst morals in any film anywhere. Sandy has to change herself completely, becoming the antithesis of what she was, just to win the heart of Danny - who didn't share the same level of commitment to change himself for her. Nice." Quite.

Regular correspondent demoncleaner is back too, sharing more big thoughts and long words, to my general bemusement. "I saw something recently that made me chuckle," he begins. "It was a review in Sight & Sound that described Grease as a 'gothic statement on nostalgia with its nightmarishly overaged teens trapped in a fake 1950s time warp'." Also cheering him this week is the scheduling of yet more Powell and Pressburger films: "I'm delighted that there's P&P on during the week. Since The Red Shoes (which screened on August 1), I've been cheerfully immersing more and more into their lush and verdant worlds. I watched Blimp on Sunday and it truly is blinding."

Many thanks for all the comments, please continue to get in touch any way you know how - the email is rick.burin@ypn.co.uk.

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Films on TV - your guide to the week ahead
Sep 19 tp 25


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19

Following last week's screening of The Man From Laramie, there's more Jimmy Stewart/Anthony Mann Western goodness in the form of The Naked Spur (1953, Five, 4.35pm), the pick of the pair's excursions in the genre. Stewart, turning his popular persona on its head (though obviously it's a bit more complicated than that), plays a brooding bounty hunter trying to track down smart, charming, psychotic Robert Ryan. There weren't many actors who could hold their ground against Ryan, but Stewart was one of them - and as Ryan's killer preys on the avarice of the bounty hunter and his comrades, a formidable acting tussle begins. Though it lacks the sweep of Mann's later Westerns - an impression given by his stunning use of widescreen in Laramie et al as the format grew in popularity - it's full of great dialogue, and the story really grips. There's a really poor special effect near the close that slightly mars the climax, but it's an all-time classic Western. The director's Man of the West, with Gary Cooper, is better still. (5/5)

That looks a better bet than Home Alone (1990, Five, 5.40pm), unless you can't get through the afternoon without seeing a kid torture some robbers. Macauley Culkin is the one-man army slaying the civil liberties of Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci as they try to raid his house. Kids might like it - the excessive violence didn't put me off as a kid (and I was banned from watching anything other than Us and PGs) - but seen today it's more than a little alarming. (2/5)

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001, C4, 7pm) is a powerful, emotionally satisfying first entry in Peter Jackson's staggeringly ambitious trilogy. Elijah Wood (in a superb, unheralded performance) is Frodo Baggins, charged with destroying an all-powerful ring that corrupts all it touches. Accompanied by fellow hobbits Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, he sets off for Mount Doom, as a ragtag alliance of elves, wizards and trolls seek to clear his path. A perfect marriage of character drama and spectacle, with wonderful music, cinematography and performances. The only disappointment is that the theatrical cut - as opposed to the extended version available on DVD - leaves some telling sequences on the cutting room floor. It's still a complete triumph. (5/5)

What's the biggest Oscar travesty on record? Well, as a disagreeable sort, I can generally find something to moan about in every category every year... but how about Rocky (1976, Virgin 1, 9pm) winning Best Picture over Network? In the mawkish corner we have Sly Stallone's populist monument to cheese - an uplifting but slapdash yarn that's pretty much sunk by one-dimensional playing. And in the satirical corner, weighing in at 121 acid-tongued, spine-tingling minutes, is Paddy Chayefsky's assault on television, with William Holden acting all-comers out of the cinema and up the street. Rocky: (2/5) (Network: 5/5, but it's not on this week.)

Carlito's Way (1993, ITV1, 0.25am) is a bruising crime melodrama that's a cut above the bulk of director Brian De Palma's other work. Al Pacino stars as a Puerto-Rican hood who wants to keep his nose clean - and get out of New York. Sean Penn is his crooked lawyer, John Leguizamo his titular nemesis and Penelope Ann Miller his girl. The film isn't perfect, with an episodic structure and some thin characters, but Pacino's punchy turn gives it a compelling centre and there's an agreeable undercurrent of strangled desperation flowing alongside all that blood. The climactic sucker punch is nicked from the '30s classic Le quai des brumes, and works well. (3/5)

And, yes, Casino Royale (2006, ITV1, 9.15pm) is on, which I haven't seen. Sorry.


SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20

So I let you down with Casino Royale (I have seen the pitiful original), but I can tell you about Goldfinger (1964, ITV1, 4.20pm) if you like. You've already seen that one? Well then you'll know it's a diverting, memorable entry in the Bond canon that falls short of greatness since it's just so thoroughly silly. It isn't? Oh. Sean Connery is yer man, of course, sent to thwart the despicable ambitions of the title character, a gold magnate who's about to knock over Fort Knox. There he tangles with Goldfinger's pilot Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) and enjoyable henchman Odd Job (Harold Sakata), even getting to engage in a little bit of emoting. I don't really "get" Bond (sorry, it must be some kind of character defect), but this is among the best of the 11 I've seen, so fans should have a field day. (3/5)

*MINOR SPOILERS*
How about watching Back to the Future (1985, Five, 4.55pm) instead? It's a genre-fusing time capsule, mixing many of the best elements of '80s moviemaking with some of the more notorious facets of the contemporary society. Sci-fi heroes are usually concerned with saving the world. Marty McFly? Well he's going back in time to save himself. And if he can get a 4x4 out of it, that'd be pretty neat too. What a massive yuppie. It's extraordinary, then, that the film is so incredibly likeable - and entertaining. Fresh-faced Michael J. Fox is Marty, crashlanding in 1955 and accidentally rewriting history. Enlisting wild-eyed Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), he tries to reunite his school-age parents. If he fails, he'll never be born - and unfortunately his mum's got the hots for him. A classic of its type, with at least two moments that can cause the most restrained sorts to punch the air: McFly's skateboard-assisted escape from the school bully and his 'Johnny B. Goode' routine. If you're thinking it might all look a bit naff nowadays, don't worry. Great, great, great. (5/5)

Bedazzled (1967, BBC2, 11.40pm) has a firm cult following, being perhaps the best of Peter Cook's wildly erratic celluloid outings. He plays the devil (or "George Spiggott" as he tends to introduce himself), who gives put-upon short order cook Dudley Moore seven wishes - based on the seven deadly sins - in exchange for his soul. This '60s spin on the Faust legend is flashy, entertaining and sometimes fantastically funny, but it's hamstrung by the wish-fulfilment sketches, which vary greatly in quality. Still, while it can't compete with the remnants of Not Only, But Also, it's worth catching for Cook's turn (he's an erudite, mischievous devil) and some inspired gags that run from the satirical to the absurd. Raquel Welch has an eye-catching bit as Lust. (4/5), just about.

In America (2002, Film4, 11.15pm) is a lovely little film, tinged with magic, about an Irish family who relocate to the US and try to build a new life. Samantha Morton is - as always -phenomenally good playing the mother, with child actors Sarah and Emma Bolger equally fine as her children, aged 11 and six. There's occasional heavy-handedness, and a couple of subplots that really belong in a different film, but it's a film with a feel that's all its own, along with an interesting visual sense. The fairground sequence is immensely moving. (4/5)


MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21

RESOLUTELY NOT THE FILM OF THE WEEK
It's a real challenge to review Spiceworld: The Movie (1997, Sky Family, 11.30pm), as we're not supposed to swear on the website. Still, I'm going to give it a go. Perhaps the most superfluous movie ever commissioned, the Spice Girls' first, and mercifully last, feature dribbled onto the big screen in 1997. Twelve years on (or eight, actually, as I've avoided its meritricious clutches since 2001), Spiceworld exists as neither a capturing of the zeitgeist, nor a couple of hours of daft fun. Rather, it's a vile experiment in self-promotion and spurious personal philosophy, wrapped up in a big, bright, stupid bundle, with a heap of lousy songs tossed onto the pile. Presumably seeking to recreate the carefree atmosphere of seminal band flick, A Hard Day's Night, the director (whose name I can't be bothered to find out) hangs a series of terminally unfunny sketches upon a narrative that seems to have nipped out for a lobotomy. Chuck plenty of money (and a modicum of talent) at a film, and you expect a little of it to stick. Spice World is a movie made of teflon. Joining the five talent vacuums as they whine about their lives are such shameless folk as Richard Briers, Alan Cumming, Richard E. Grant and Hugh Laurie. If watching The Wages of Fear is to experience the feeling that there is a screw in one's stomach being continually tightened, and LeRoy's Little Women akin to having Chuck Norris tug relentlessly at your tear-ducts, then Spiceworld is like being kneed in the face for two hours. And then pushed in the sea. (1/5) - can we give 0s?

I don't really like Bond, but I really don't like Carry On. Carry on Up the Khyber (1968, Film4, 5.10pm) is usually held up as the best of the bunch, and does have a couple of strong moments, particularly the ode to British stoicism that sees a colonial dinner party continue, even as the building is under siege - and the roof is falling on Joan Sims. But it's inescapably rubbish for the bulk of its duration, with almost all the jokes being about pants. (1/5)

Richard Widmark arrived in movies as a giggling psycho, shoving a woman in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs in the patchy Kiss of Death (1947, Sky Classics, 3.30am TUE). Unfortunately his dynamic turn, heralding the birth of a formidable new screen bad guy, isn't enough to make up for the film's slightly muted feel. Perhaps it's Victor Mature's fault: cast as an ex-con trying to go straight (and to stay out of Widmark's way), he seems to have strained his rather underdeveloped acting muscles. Whatever, it's difficult to engage with the central character, and the Ben Hecht/Charles Lederer script lacks their usual pizzazz, despite some effective set-pieces. Nor does this look enough like a noir - considering that director Henry Hathaway helmed The Dark Corner, cinematographer Norbert Brodine shot a handful of shadowy delights, that's a letdown. Still, the location shooting is interesting, the title is great and it's always nice to see Brian Donlevy. (3/5)


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