Film Planner
Big movies on the small screen
Saturday February 9 ★★★★ Jane Eyre (1943) 2.00pm BBC Two
It’s a big help for Joan Fontaine in playing the heroine of Charlotte Brontë’s gothic novel that she is scorched by a scenerychewing Mr Rochester in the formidable shape of Orson Welles. The supporting cast includes Margaret O’Brien, Agnes Moorhead and Sara Allgood.
★★★★ Unbroken (2014) 9.00pm RTÉ 2
The Coens penned the screenplay and Angelina Jolie got behind the camera for this true story of Olympian turned POW Louis Zamporelli (Jack O’Connell) who suffered greatly at the hands of his Japanese captors during WWII. Domhnall Gleeson co-stars.
★★★★ The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) 12.25am RTÉ One
A whimsical story revolving around the mittel-European hotel of the title, Wes Anderson’s film is style personified (take a bow, Dublin graphic designer Annie Atkins). The ensemble includes Anderson regulars Bill Murray and Edward Norton, plus Ralph Fiennes and Saoirse Ronan.
Sunday February 10 ★★★★ The Man Who Would be King (1975) 1.55pm BBC Two
Based on Kipling’s exceedingly good yarn about two English soldiers mistaken for gods in India, this frontier drama was originally going to be made with Bogie and Gable; eventually Michael Caine and Sean Connery answered John Huston’s call.
★★★★ Finding Nemo (2003) 4.20pm ITV2
Pixar hit another home run with this delightful tale about a nervous clownfish, Marlin (Albert Brooks), who travels the oceans in search of his young son, Nemo. Along the way, Marlin encounters a forgetful blue tang (Ellen DeGeneres) and a vegetarian shark (Barry Humphries).
★★★★ Notes on a Scandal (2006) 12.05am BBC One
Zoe Heller’s powerful novel about the relationship between a bitter old teacher and a young teacher on the block. Judi Dench is the lonely teacher, retiring to her life of books and cats, who forms an unlikely friendship with a free-spirited young teacher (Cate Blanchett).
Monday February 11 ★★★ Oblivion (2013) 6.35pm Film 4
To be honest, this dystopian sci-fi drama offers more style than substance, but Tom Cruise scores well as the putative saviour of mankind. Olga Kurylenko and Morgan Freeman co-star in Joseph Kosinski’s big budget yarn that takes place on an Earth ravaged by alien wars.
★★★ Spider-Man (2002) 9.00pm Sky One
There have been so many Spider-Man movies, it’s hard to keep track. Here, Tobey Maguire makes his debut in the spandex and his goofy charm is well suited to the role. This is the one with the famous upside-down kiss with Kirsten Dunst.
★★★★ 28 Days Later (2002) 9.30pm TG4
Cillian Murphy takes the lead in Danny Boyle’s zombie flick. Set in a London where a virus has destroyed most of the population, the film finds Cillian leading a handful or survivors (including Brendan Gleeson) to the relative safety of Christopher Eccleston’s military compound.
Tuesday February 12 ★★★ Against The Wind (1948) 5.25pm TCM
Charles Crichton’s gritty spy thriller stars Robert Beatty, Simone Signoret, part of a diverse group of saboteurs parachuted into Belgium in 1943 to rescue a key man from the Nazis. It’s always interesting to watch a WWII movie made so soon after the conflict.
★★★ Gallipoli (1981) 6.45pm Film 4
A perfect moment to revisit arguably Mel Gibson’s finest performance of his career in the role of a young Aussie sprinter who joins the ANZACs for the Dardanelles campaign and gets a ringside seat to one of history’s horror shows.
★★★★ The Green Mile (1999) 9.00pm More 4
Set in the Deep South of the 1930s, this compelling Stephen King yarn stars Tom Hanks as a humane prison guard on death row whose outlook on his job is turned upside down by the arrival of a massive but gentle prisoner, played by Michael Clarke Duncan.
Wednesday February 13 ★★★★ In the Line of Fire (1993) 9.00pm Alibi
Wolfgang Petersen’s cracking thriller has Clint Eastwood in top form as an ageing secret agent who nds himself tormented by nasty nemesis, John Malkovich. Malkovich was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Oscar for his performance, but lost out to Tommy Lee Jones on both counts.
★★★★ Eagle Eye (2008) 12.10pm BBC One
DJ Caruso directs this Hitchcockian thriller in which Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan co-star as strangers thrown together by chance (and a mysterious phone call) into a situation fraught with peril. Rosario Dawson and Billy Bob Thornton co-star.
★★★★ The Tree of Life (2011) 1.45am Channel 4
Terrence Malick’s existential tone poem doesn’t lend itself to easy synopsis but Brad Pitt summed it up well when he declared that the lm “tells a micro story of a small town Texas family and juxtaposes it with the macro of the birth of the cosmos”. Jessica Chastain and Sean Penn co-star.
Thursday February 14 ★★★ Righteous Kill (2007) 9.00pm Virgin Media One
This police procedural drama about two veteran cops teaming up to track down a serial killer in New York would be a fairly routine a air were it not for the fact that the hard-boiled cops in question are played by Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Those guys in tandem make this one worth the watch.
★★ Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) 9.00pm ITV2
A critic-proof book that became a criticproof lm, Fifty Shades was never going to frighten the horses. Nor trouble award voters. What it did for sales of furry handcu s and cable ties was quite another matter.
★★★★ Ex Machina (2014) 11.25pm Film 4
In Alex Garland’s ne sci- drama, geeky coder Domhnall Gleeson is summoned to apply the Turing Test (for sentient intelligence) to wealthy Oscar Isaac’s latest creation, a female android with the face of Alicia Vikander.
Friday February 15 ★★★ The Bodyguard (1992) 10.30pm RTÉ 2
This romantic drama about the relationship between a diva and her minder was almost made in the 1970s with Steve McQueen and Diana Ross. Instead it became a global hit in the 1990s, thanks to Whitney Houston, Kevin Costner and that song.
★★★★ Nightcrawler (2014) 11.05pm BBC Two
Had the central character in Dan Gilroy’s dark drama been around in the 1970s, he would have been a taxi driver in a Martin Scorsese movie. Here Jake Gyllenhaal discovers there’s money to be made in LA, recording accidents and then selling the footage to news channels.
★★★★ Serpico (1973) 1.10am Sky Cinema Thriller
Sydney Lumet’s powerful drama is based on the true story of a New York cop who was pilloried by his peers for exposing widespread corruption on the force. Al Pacino chews the scenery in the lead role, aided by Arthur Ornitz’s claustrophobic cinematography.