Film choice

Taps (1981) SKY CINEMA TOM CRUISE, 5.45PM ★★★

Director Harold Becker spotted Tom Cruise’s potential early on. By the second day of filming here, Becker promoted Cruise to play the film’s third lead, the gung-ho lieutenant of Timothy Hutton’s maverick lead recruit at a 140-year-old military academy which is faced with demolition by real estate developers. This gripping siege drama also stars Sean Penn, Ronny Cox, Evan Handler and George C Scott.

Green Street (2005) ITV4, 11.10PM ★★

This football hooligan drama never quite kicks off. Elijah Wood plays American journalism student Matt Buckner, who finds himself in the violent “Green Street Elite”. Wood’s character is an outsider in their thuggish world, which ought to make this an interesting take on hooliganism. But the plot never quite propels the characters to interesting enough places. Pacific Rim’s Charlie Hunnam also stars.

The Witches of Eastwick (1987) GOLD, 11.30PM ★★★

It is remarkable that director George Miller’s daft, unfettered romp of a film works at all. But, thanks to Jack Nicholson’s delicious overacting as Daryl Van Horne, a manic gentleman who closely resembles the devil, and the three gorgeous, single small-town friends, Alexandra (Cher), Jane (Susan Sarandon) and Sukie (Michelle Pfeiffer), who vie for his debased attentions, it somehow does.