The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
This week’s top movies
SATURDAY SUPER 8
Channel 4, 9pm
From Star Wars: The Force Awakens director JJ Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg, Super 8 is a rollicking adventure set in 1970s rural America that pays homage to ET: The Extra-Terrestrial with echoes of The Goonies. In the sleepy industrial town of Lillian, Ohio, teenager Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) is struggling to come to terms with the death of his mother. The youngster invests his time in making a low-budget zombie film with friends, but just as the camera starts rolling on a nighttime sequence, the youngsters witness a truck drive on to the railway tracks and derail an oncoming freight train. As they make a hasty escape, the trespassing teens are oblivious to a monstrous creature crawling free from the twisted wreckage.
SUNDAY THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE
BBC2, 11.25pm
Shy and reserved Latif Yahia (Dominic Cooper) is the spitting image of Saddam Hussein’s son, Uday (Cooper again), who believes that he can do and say what he wants by virtue of being the eldest child of the dictator. Uday makes Latif an offer he cannot refuse: pose as a doppelganger at public appearances or sign the death warrants of his entire family. Forced to imitate Uday’s oafish behaviour and mannerisms in the media spotlight, Latif is drawn into the inner circle of the Iraqi president and his advisers, where he falls under the spell of Sarrab (Ludivine Sagnier), Uday’s favourite mistress. Based on Yahia’s fascinating memoir, this is a chilling portrait of a psychopath let loose on his own people.
MONDAY DRIVE ANGRY
Channel 5, 11.05pm
Milton (Nicolas Cage) is condemned to purgatory, from where he must watch in agony as his beloved daughter falls into the clutches of demonic cult leader Jonah King (Billy Burke). She is murdered for her baby girl as part of a satanic ritual and Milton breaks out of the underworld, determined to save his granddaughter. He heads for a diner where he rescues waitress Piper (Amber Heard) from a beating at the hands of her boyfriend and she joins him on a quest to track down Jonah. Meanwhile, the Devil dispatches one of his minions, The Accountant (William Fichtner), to hunt down Milton and return him to the inferno. Drive Angry is an outlandish revenge thriller, which keeps the adrenaline pumping with a volatile cocktail of gun fights, sex, car chases and foul-mouthed one-liners.
TUESDAY BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOUR
Film4, 11.35pm
Winner of the coveted Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, Abdellatif Kechiche’s achingly beautiful love story traces the ebb and flow of emotions between two students with very different outlooks on life in the northern French city of Lille. Adele (Adele Exarchopoulos) is 17 years old and believes her future lies in teaching. She sleeps with classmate Samir (Salim Kechiouche) but isn’t fully satisfied. Her best friend Valentin (Sandor Funtek) takes her to a gay bar, where Adele feels a stirring when she catches the eye of a blue-haired free spirit called Emma (Lea Seydoux), who studies art at a nearby college. Emma kindles a passionate romance with Adele that turns the teenager’s life upside down, forcing her to question her sexuality.
WEDNESDAY DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK
Channel 4, 1.30am
Nine-year-old Sally Hurst (Bailee Madison) is sent to live with her architect father Alex (Guy Pearce) and his girlfriend, interior decorator Kim (Katie Holmes), at the Gothic mansion they are restoring. Despite the grim warnings of caretaker Mr Harris (Jack Thompson), who knows all about the goblin-like creatures in the basement, the Hursts foolishly continue with the renovations, thereby unleashing the pint-sized horrors upon poor Sally. At first, Alex ignores his child’s pleas, but when the menace intensifies, Sally finds an unlikely ally in her stepmother-to-be. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a slick remake of a 1973 telefilm, which film-maker Guillermo del Toro and co-writer Matthew Robbins have re-fashioned as a striking directorial debut for comic book artist Troy Nixey.
THURSDAY GOOD KILL
Film4, 9pm
In the Nevada desert, commanding officer Jack Johns (Bruce Greenwood) welcomes new recruits to his outfit of Air Force drone pilots. Major Tom Egan (Ethan Hawke) is one of the few men at the base who has actually taken to the skies and hankers for a return to the cockpit rather than sitting in an air-conditioned crate, staring at the enemy through a lens. The arrival of a new co-pilot, Vera Suarez (Zoe Kravitz), has a profound impact on Tom as he wrestles with his conscience and the repercussions of his actions. Good Kill is a clinical thriller, which considers how the moral fabric of combat has been warped by conducting war with joysticks, using soldiers who have been recruited at video-gaming conferences and have never experienced active duty.
FRIDAY THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
Film4, 1.20am
This atmospheric tale of growing pains in small town America follows three teenagers living in an impoverished Texan backwater during the 1950s. When a tragedy strikes their community, they face a tough decision: do they try to make their lives in the town count for something, or leave their home for good to chase their fortunes elsewhere? The acclaimed drama is heavily influenced by European cinema and really put director Peter Bogdanovich on the map – he followed it with What’s Up, Doc? and Paper Moon. It didn’t hurt the careers of the young stars Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd and Timothy Bottoms either, although it was grown-ups Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson who walked off with the Best Supporting Actor and Actress Oscars. A belated sequel, Texasville, was released in 1990.