How the stars are born
IT’S the Oscars on Sunday night, so what better way to whet our appetites, should they need whetting, than with MARK KERMODE’S OSCAR WINNERS: A SECRETS OF CINEMA SPECIAL (BBC4, 9pm). Following on from his Secrets Of Cinema non-specials, it’s a look at what makes certain movies stand out from the crowd, giving them the edge when these awards are handed out.
Kermode (right) does this in two ways. (Well, he’s got a full hour to play with, so why not?).
First, he singles out some of the genres that have traditionally played well with the Academy, such as musicals, tales of fights against injustice and films reminding us that war really isn’t very nice. Then within each of these categories he digs a little deeper, to analyse why specific movies have tapped into something a bit special.
More often than not there’s a winning formula that’s been recycled over and over, a prime example being A Star Is Born, of which there have been no fewer than four versions.
The first (which wasn’t actually a musical, focusing instead on the acting world) came out in 1937, with remakes following in 1954, 1976 and, of course, 2018, and while each has obviously been very much of its time, there’s been a reliable consistency to the central story.
Hence, as Kermode points out: “It’s been a magnet for nominations in every one of its incarnations.”
Elsewhere tonight, BACK IN TIME FOR SCHOOL (BBC2, 8pm) reaches the 1990s, the decade of Britpop, Spice Girls, Game Boys, New Labour and that World Cup tournament where Gazza sobbed and England very nearly reached the final… but, erm, didn’t.
It also includes a guest appearance from Jet, one of the stars of ITV’s hit 90s’ series Gladiators. She’s come to take a PE lesson.
Jet talks to the kids about the importance of health and fitness, and asks them what qualities they imagine a gladiator would require. “Energy?” suggests one lad.
“Energy! Brilliant!” Jet tells him. “And how do you get good energy?” “Junk food,” he replies.
Back in the classroom, the pupils also get their first experience of the internet, in those days via the primitive dial-up technology that meant downloading a movie took precisely the same amount of time as writing, casting and shooting it.
To be fair to them, these kids do appreciate how much more sophisticated things have become for their generation.
“People, like, in the 90s,” says one, “would have seen what we have now and been, like, wow, that’s from, like, space or something.”
Of course, by far the biggest change in that decade was that EMMERDALE had dropped the word “Farm” from its title. Fans of the ITV soap were understandably anxious about it severing its agricultural roots. And yet they needn’t have been.
Fast forward nearly 30 years, and what do we have in tonight’s double bill (ITV, 7pm, 8.30pm)? Rhona the vet getting ploughed down by a tractor. It’s somehow rather comforting. Maybe not for Rhona, admittedly.