Film choice

Prometheus (2012) E4, 9.00PM ★★★★

 Ridley Scott finds ways to push a genre into queasy new places with this majestic, slime-splattered, blood-spurting science-fiction adventure – a prequel to his 1979 Alien. After discovering cave paintings which point to a location in space, archaeologists Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Holloway (Logan Marshall-green) lead a mission to discover our ancestors. Michael Fassbender co-stars as an enigmatic android.

Legally Blonde (2001) 5STAR, 11.00PM ★★★★

 This was the moment that Reese Witherspoon entered global consciousness, and no amount of Oscar-winning turns will separate her from ditsy blonde sorority girl Elle Woods. Of course, Elle isn’t really ditsy, she turns out to be a legal eagle, which is the whole point of Australian director Robert Luketic’s first film: the revelatory observation that blondes can also have brains. The dialogue is fabulously sharp-edged.

Boy (2010) FILM4, 11.20PM ★★★★

 New Zealand’s Taika Waititi has just directed Hollywood blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok, but this tender coming-ofage comedy was the indie debut that cemented his reputation for being a smart and funny talent. Set in 1984, it follows Boy (James Rolleston), an 11-year-old dreamer in a deprived rural community who worships his criminal father (Waititi) and imagines that he is a close relation of his other hero, Michael Jackson.