Film choice

Our Kind of Traitor (2016) FILM4, 9.00PM ★★

 Ewan Mcgregor stars in this so-so John le Carré adaptation as poetry lecturer Perry Makepeace, who becomes embroiled in negotiations to bring Dima (Stellan Skarsgård), a well-connected Russian oligarch, into the fold of British intelligence. Skarsgård is the standout here, charging into his role with pungency, playing Dima as a bedraggled beast of Moscow’s criminal underworld.

The Shining (1980) TCM, 9.00PM ★★★★★

 Set in a deserted hotel that’s in the care of writer Jack (Jack Nicholson) and his family for the winter, Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant psycho-horror, based on the novel by Stephen King, is subtly unsettling. But it’s stuffed, too, with unforgettable nerve-jangling shocks, including the moment when the crazed Jack smashes his way through a door with an axe as his wife (Shelley Duvall) cowers in the corner.

Teen Wolf (1985) 5STAR, 12.10AM ★★★

 Critics howled at this preposterous teenage comedy but audiences loved it, perhaps because it came out shortly after its star Michael J Fox’s finest hour: Back to the Future. The plot – in which Fox’s likeable nerd morphs into a basketball-playing werewolf – is almost as unlikely as the fact that he still looked fresh out of the 11th grade at the ripe old age of 25. An unparalleled analysis of puberty and adolescence.