The Herald - The Herald Magazine
PICK OF TV MOVIES
SATURDAY
Men in Black: International (2019) (C4, 8.30pm) Premiere
First they teamed up in the Marvel movie Thor: Ragnarok. Now, Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson – Thor and Valkyrie respectively from that movie – have stepped into the shoes of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones for this latest entry in the MIB franchise. And like the sequels before it, it’s good, clean fun, even if you can’t help but think you’ve seen it all before. Big guns, shape-shifting aliens, fast futuristic vehicles, etc... Thompson is the innocent who, after a close encounter of the third kind, becomes the newest recruit to the top-secret organisation. The newly christened Agent M is shown the ropes by experienced Agent H (Hemsworth), before they set out in search of a weapon of mass destruction hidden somewhere on Earth. But then the Men in Black realise there is a mole in their midst and do not know who they can trust.
Blue Story (2019) (BBC3, 10pm)
Best friends Marco (Micheal Ward) and Timmy (Stephen Odubala) attend the same school in Peckham, southeast London, where they share a close-knit circle of friends. Unlike the rest of the posse, Timmy lives in neighbouring Deptford and postcode wars between rival gangs in the two boroughs dictate that he should consider Marco his enemy. The teenagers refuse to allow this fierce animosity to weaken their fraternal bond and they playfully trade barbs as Timmy pines for feisty classmate
Leah (Karla Simone Spence). Alas, one of Timmy’s friends from home, Killy, attacks Marco and inflames tensions between the two tribes. Blue Story is an urgent cautionary tale, which feeds on the energy and passion of writer-director Andrew ‘Rapman’ Onwubolu.
SUNDAY
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) (C5, 3.20pm)
Evelyn (Judi Dench) is coming to terms with the recent loss of her husband in this charming comedy drama, which proved to be a surprise box-office smash. She abandons Britain for the balmier climes of Jaipur and a retirement home called The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. En route, Evelyn meets other retirees all bound for this “luxury development for residents in their golden years”: cantankerous wheelchair user Muriel (Maggie Smith), waspish snob Jean (Penelope Wilton) and her longsuffering husband Douglas (Bill Nighy); retired judge Graham (Tom Wilkinson); ladies’ man Norman (Ronald Pickup); and spinster Madge (Celia Imrie). When the travellers arrive at their destination, they discover a building in disrepair and an inexperienced manager, Sonny (Dev Patel), struggling to keep the creditors off his back.
The Nice Guys (2016) (Film4, 9pm)
Hired heavy Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is paid by a young woman called Amelia Kuttner (Margaret Qualley) to scare off the low-rent private detective Holland March (Ryan Gosling) who has been asking about her around town. The first meeting of these two men ends in bloodshed and broken bones, but Jackson and Holland reluctantly agree to work together when Amelia subsequently vanishes without trace. Unfortunately, a hitman called John Boy is also on her trail. The Nice Guys is an enjoyable missing person’s caper set in sexually liberated 1977 Los Angeles. Crowe and Gosling relish the to and fro of writer-director Shane Black’s snappy dialogue as they gleefully contend with fashions of the era.
MONDAY
Red Joan (2018) (BBC2, 11.15pm)
Softly spoken librarian Joan Stanley (Dame Judi Dench) is charged with 27 counts of breaking the Official Secrets Act. As detectives attempt to extract a confession, Joan drifts into a fugue state of fractured reminiscence, flashing back to 1938 when she studied natural sciences at Cambridge. Naive, bookish Joan (now played by Sophie Cookson) is befriended by glamorous German Jewish student Sonya (Tereza Srbova), who introduces the shy fresher to her politically outspoken cousin, Leo. He implores Joan to share intelligence with the KGB when she begins top-secret work on Britain’s atomic bomb programme during the
Second World War. Red Joan is a tangled tale of wartime espionage, which rations substance over period style, although Dench is a great as always.
TUESDAY
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) (Film4, 1.25pm)
Newly qualified lawyer Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) attempts to bring order to the Western town of Shinbone, but gunslinger Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) isn’t about to be won over by his fancy, booklearned ways. Rancher Tom
Doniphon (John Wayne) tells Stoddard more brutal methods are needed if he wants to bring the criminal to justice and win the respect of the locals. Director John Ford and Wayne made some of the greatest Westerns of all time, and this relatively late entry in their filmography is one of the best. As well as being gripping, it has a real elegiac feel. It also gave us one of the genre’s most quoted lines: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
WEDNESDAY Dangerous Liaisons (1988) (BBC2, 11.15pm)
Stephen Frears’ powerful adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos novel about sexual double dealing in 18th-century France stars John Malkovich and Glenn Close as the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, two manipulative, bored aristocrats whose idea of fun is destroying the reputations of others. Malkovich is very believable as a schemer but perhaps slightly less convincing as an irresistible seducer. However, there are fine performances from Close and Michelle Pfeiffer, who is all repressed passion as their innocent prey. Watch out as well for an eye-catching role for a teenage Uma Thurman and an early appearance by Keanu Reeves.
THURSDAY
Fort Apache (1948) (BBC4, 8pm)
Cavalry man and Civil War veteran Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda) is posted to a remote Arizona desert outpost, much to his dismay. His attitude doesn’t endear him to his men, and he also falls foul of a tribe of Apaches. Despite training back east and having little first-hand knowledge of the locals, he overrules his experienced men at every turn in his bid for glory, leading ultimately to disaster. One of John Ford’s finest Westerns – and that’s saying something – Fort Apache features an on-form Fonda opposite John Wayne at his most sympathetic. There’s also a role for former child star Shirley Temple, just two years before she announced she was retiring from acting at the grand old age of 22.
Murder on the Orient Express (2017) (Film4, 9pm)
The little grey cells of moustachioed sleuth Hercule Poirot – and cinema audiences unfamiliar with Agatha Christie’s fiendish 1934 novel – are rigorously tested in Kenneth Branagh’s handsome reimagining of the snowbound murder mystery. Poirot (Branagh) finds himself on the Orient Express in a cabin next to slippery gangster Samuel Ratchett (Johnny Depp), who offers to pay the Belgian to ensure his safety. The detective declines, but then a murderer strikes. Suspects include widow Caroline Hubbard (Michelle Pfeiffer), Princess Natalia Dragomiroff (Dame Judi Dench) and her maid Hildegarde Schmidt (Olivia Colman).
FRIDAY
Step Brothers (2008) (Film4, 9pm) Brennan (Will Ferrell) is 40 going on 14. He still lives at home with his mother Nancy and openly nurtures resentment towards his boorish younger brother Derek, who has a career, a family and a home of his own. During a medical convention, Nancy meets a man who has his own adult son at home – Dale (John C Reilly) – and the lonely parents embark on a whirlwind romance. Wedding bells peal and Nancy moves in with her new husband with disgruntled Brennan in tow. Step-sibling resentment quickly boils over, but Dale and Brennan unexpectedly discover common ground: favourite dinosaurs and their shared hatred of Derek. The humour won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but the rapport between Ferrell and Reilly powers the film.
The Tunnel (2019) (Film4, 11pm)
Widowed snow plough driver and emergency first responder Stein (Thorbjorn Harr) looks forward to spending Christmas with his teenage daughter Elise. When a tearful Elise discovers his new girlfriend is coming to dinner too, she boards the next express bus to Oslo to spend Yuletide with her grandmother. The bus zooms into the Storfjell tunnel shortly after a petrol tanker truck thunders into the east entrance and collides with a wall. An explosion fills the tunnel with poisonous smoke. Stein and his colleagues race to the scene, unaware that Elise’s life hangs in the balance. Inspired by real events in Norway.