SEVEN FILMS TO SEE THIS WEEK
The Lebanese Rocket Society Sunday, 5.30pm, Sundance Channel
The 1960s were dominated by the competing US/Soviet efforts to send a rocket into space, but it’s a little known fact that the Middle East’s very first rocket was launched by members of Beirut’s Haigazian College Rocket Society in April 1961, three months before the Israeli government managed to launch the region’s first state-sponsored effort. Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s film talks to some of the people behind the achievement, asks where they are now and, more importantly, why their work seems to have been all but forgotten.
America’s Sweethearts Monday, 3.30pm, Star Movies
Silly, but strangely entertaining, this rom-com stars Catherine Zeta Jones and John Cusack as a warring Hollywood power couple who are required to keep their imminent divorce a secret and smile for the cameras to publicise one last movie. Julia Roberts is Kiki, the put-upon sister and personal assistant to Zeta Jones’ Godzilla-like diva Gwen Harrison, and puts the cat among the pigeons when her feelings for her sister’s estranged husband become more than platonic.
Ali’s Wedding Tuesday, streaming on Netflix
Jeffrey Walker’s touchingly comic look at the life of Australia’s Iraqi refugee community sees our hero Ali (Osamah Sami) caught in a clash of cultures with his deeply conservative parents when he falls for a Lebanese girl from the community mosque his father preaches at. For good measure, Ali is also pretending to attend medical school – despite having failed the entrance exam – to try and live up to his parents’ high expectations. Writer and star Sami said of the film “[it’s] history making, the first Muslim rom-com, so it’s going to hopefully pave the way for many other similar stories, not just from the Muslim community but from other communities and minorities in our society.”
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Wednesday, 3am, Paramount Movie Channel
The titular heroes get their very own movie having appeared as supporting characters in many of Kevin Smith’s earlier films
including Clerks, Mall Rats and Chasing Amy. Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes’ chilled slackers are forced to leave their perennial post outside the Quick Stop convenience store in New Jersey and head to Hollywood to put a stop to a film adaptation of their lives. To be fair, Jay and Silent Bob… isn’t the greatest film in Smith’s View Askewniverse, but it’s still typically crude, humorous fare, and offers a rare opportunity to see Mark Hamill wielding a lightsabre as the fictional movie’s villain.
Blade Runner 2049 Thursday, 11pm, OSN Movies First HD
Denis Villeneuve returns to Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic three decades later, both in real time and movie time, with Harrison Ford reprising his role as blade runner (someone who hunts non-human “replicants”) Rick Deckard, with Ryan Gosling joining as a new young blade runner searching for the truth. Like the original, Blade
Runner 2049 failed to perform at the box office on its initial release, but that doesn’t stop either film from being a classic of the genre. Eight Oscar nominations, including wins for cinematography and visual effects, suggest this could follow in its predecessor’s footsteps as a future classic.
Gone Girl Friday, 10.55pm, OSN Movies HD
Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike star in David Fincher’s tale of dysfunctional couple Nick and Amy. When Amy suddenly disappears, Nick becomes the prime suspect, but things are a lot more complicated than they first seem. The film was critically lauded on its release, with Pike in particular winning plaudits, including a full house of Oscar, Golden Globe and Bafta nominations for Best Actress. Fincher’s directing and Gillian Flynn’s screenplay, based on her own novel, weren’t short of award nods either.
Elian Saturday, 9.30am and 7.30pm, Sundance Channel
Irish documentary makers Tim Golden and Ross McDonnell tell the story of Elian Gonzalez, a fiveyear-old Cuban boy who became an unwitting pawn in the US’s ongoing cold war with the neighbouring island of Cuba when his mother drowned while trying to reach America. Gonzalez was picked up by US immigration, who placed him with relatives in Miami. The authorities in the States wanted to give the child asylum, prompting a long legal tug-of-war with his father back in Cuba. Elian would eventually return to the Caribbean island, where he became a national hero and struck a friendship with president Fidel Castro as he grew up.