TV FILMS OF THE WEEK
ABOUT TIME Sunday, Channel 5, 4.35pm
Richard Curtis writes and directs and is very much on familiar ground with Domhnall Gleeson playing the nice, nervous, British upper middle-class boy and Rachel McAdams the quietly beautiful American no Curtis film can be without. But he definitely hasn’t done time-travel before or pulled off a better ending.
THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US Monday, Film 4, 9pm
With a big storm a-comin’ and all flights cancelled, would you really charter a tiny little plane flown by an ageing Vietnam veteran who’s clearly not in the best of health? For Kate Winslet, playing a journalist with a wedding to get to, and Idris Elba, a doctor with an emergency operation to carry out, the answer is yes.
LAYER CAKE Tuesday, Sony Movies, 11.25pm
Matthew Vaughn makes his directorial debut here with the help of a pre-Bond Daniel Craig, who plays a cocaine dealer whose plans for early retirement are about to be placed on hold. His boss wants him to find a missing girl.
THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE Wednesday, Film 4, 6.50pm
Nigel Hawthorne (left) stars as King George III, whose descent into madness threatened to plunge Britain into a constitutional crisis. Helen Mirren plays the supportive Queen Charlotte and Rupert Everett the scheming Prince of Wales. Alan Bennett adapts from his own stage play.
THE IMITATION GAME Wednesday, More4, 9pm
Nominated for eight Oscars, this is one of the best British films of the past decade, with Benedict Cumberbatch on outstanding form as Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician who led the efforts to crack the Nazis’ Enigma code at Bletchley Park. Turing, however, was a man with a secret…
STARGATE Thursday, Film 4, 9pm
Yes, like so many science-fiction films from the 1980s and 1990s, the visual effects have dated, but this is still serious fantasy fun as a portal to an alien world is discovered and an Egyptologist – James Spader – and a tough Colonel – Kurt Russell – prepare to discover what’s on the other side.
JUST MERCY Friday, Sky Cinema Premiere, 8pm
Bryan Stevenson, the black American civil rights lawyer, is not well known in this country but his story is an important one. Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx lead the classy cast.