Film choice

Moonstruck (1987) SONY MOVIE CHANNEL, 3.55PM ★★★★

Cher won an Academy Award for her role in this working-class romantic comedy. She plays Loretta, a 37-year-old Italian-american widow who agrees to marry a man she doesn’t love (Danny Aiello), only to fall for his wayward brother (Nicolas Cage). It’s an ebullient, witty film with charming performances – particularly from Olympia Dukakis (who also won an Oscar) as Loretta’s no-nonsense mother.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Collector’s Edition (1977) SKY CINEMA GREATS, 5.40PM ★★★★★

Steven Spielberg directs this epic, ground-breaking adventure about a disparate group of people who are drawn to make contact with aliens. Richard Dreyfuss gives a memorable performance as a father who finds himself sculpting shaving foam, or mashed potato at dinner, into the shape of the mountain where the UFO will land. The film is at its sharpest before Roy’s craziness is vindicated.

Shallow Hal (2001) FILM4, 6.40PM ★★★

The Farrelly brothers, kings of gross-out humour, try to give this so-so comedy a heart-warming moral. Hal (Jack Black) judges women by their appearance until he’s hypnotised into only seeing their “inner beauty”, so that Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit) looks like Gwyneth Paltrow. It sounds soppy but really it’s just a sly way of allowing the Farrellys to make gleefully un-pc fat jokes at Rosemary’s expense.