TV FILMS OF THE WEEK
JOHNNY ENGLISH Sunday, Channel 5, 1.55pm
Not the most sophisticated spy spoof but one with an engaging silliness. When an attack on a funeral wipes out all MI7’s spies, backroom bungler English is dispatched into the field. His first mission – to recover the Crown Jewels. Rowan Atkinson (right) stars.
TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY Monday, ITV4, 9pm
Yes, Arnie is back but this time he’s a goodie sent from 2029 to protect future resistance leader John Connor, currently a truculent LA teenager. The problem is that Arnie’s only a T800 model, while the new terminator sent back to kill John is a T1000, liquid steel and all. Relentlessly pursued fun.
SPY Tuesday, Film 4, 9pm
Eventually, the combination of Melissa McCarthy and Bridesmaids director Paul Feig proves irresistible with McCarthy playing analyst-turned-agent Susan Cooper, sent to track down a dangerous arms dealer. Allison Janney, Jason Statham and Rose Byrne offer outstanding comic support.
MYSTIC PIZZA Tuesday, 5 Star, 11pm
Jojo and sisters Kat and Daisy are teenage girls working in a pizza parlour in Mystic, Connecticut. Waiting for adult life, they all have dreams, they all have slightly unsatisfactory love lives. But maybe pizza will help… Annabeth Gish, Lili Taylor and a 20-yearold Julia Roberts star.
VICTORIA & ABDUL Wednesday, BBC4, 9pm
First there was John Brown, then the supposedly prim and proper Queen Victoria – again beautifully played by Judi Dench – has her head turned by a charming new visitor from India, Abdul Karim. Her
courtiers and children are not amused.
THE END OF THE AFFAIR Thursday, Sony Movies Classic, 2.55pm
Remade in 1999, this is the 1955 original with Van Johnson as writer Maurice Bendrix and Deborah Kerr (below with Peter Cushing) as the married woman he falls for in dangerous wartime London. Adapted from the Graham Greene novel.
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN Thursday, BBC4, 9pm
Mischievously scheduled for the same week as the US presidential inauguration, this is the Oscar-winning story of the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon. Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman are the Washington Post reporters
who break the story.
THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT Friday, Film 4, 11.10pm
Michael Cimino, director of The Deer Hunter and the financially disastrous Heaven’s Gate, is in more familiar territory with Clint Eastwood as a bank robber who resolves to get the old gang back together.