Films on TV - Jun 27 to Jul 3

WILL Smith, Robert De Niro and the return of Superman, in the film guide that has never seen a twist coming.

Hello and welcome to Films on TV, where your vote counts. Graham Chalmers, our chief sub and the Keeper of the Key to the Gates of Gig Scene, has suggested I change the name of the column to 'Burin on the Box'. Despite my protestations that this new moniker doesn't mention films at all, he's adamant. And he looks cleverer than me.

Other ideas hatched inside my tiny mind include 'Burin in the Box' - which sounds a little restrictive - 'Burin in the Bix' (the entire thing is written as I eat a box of 24 Weetabix) and 'Burin on the Blocks', which I'd pen whilst preparing to run the 100m. 'An Idiot's Guide to the Week's Films' has a certain ring to it too, though it isn't clear whether I'm insulting myself or you. I think it's me, but I'm too stupid to know for sure.

I did toy with the possibility of calling the guide 'Films on Friday' for a while ("Nice alliteration", "Thanks"), but given its staggering appeal to people of all ages, races and creeds on each and every day of the week, that seemed a bit closed-minded. If it sounds like I'm taking this too seriously, then that's because - you guessed it - I'm an idiot.

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Launched in last week's runaway hit column (four Harrogatonions and a nice couple from Ripon can't be wrong), the "inappropriate adjectives" game drew a full seven responses, all of them from me. So here's the definitive list.

Boy-next-door Peter Lorre

Gorgeous Red Skelton

Subtle Mickey Rooney

Refined Jean Harlow

Girly Spencer Tracy

Clean-cut Mickey Rourke

Talented Michael Madsen

Your submissions are still welcome at rick.burin@ypn.co.uk. There's a slight change to the rules though, because no-one got involved this week. If you do want to send in your suggestions, you have to write them on the wall of your house in eight foot letters, take a photo and then email the pic with a facsimile of your birth certificate to your son (if you don't have a son, a daughter will do. If you don't have either a son or a daughter, any pet or parent is fine), who should then print it out and post it to us at the usual address.

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This is our last column before the summer hols. We return on Friday, July 17.

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Imagine a guide to the week's films featuring Franchot Tone and Eli Wallach? Imagine no longer...

SATURDAY, JUNE 27

The best bits of Explorers (1985, E4, 10.35am) seem to have been created by accident, en route to the most poorly conceived comedy sequences ever burped onto a cinema screen. Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix are gawky small-town kids who develop a space craft. The first half is a real treat, positively stuffed with wonder and charm. Then the wheels fly off, and it turns out that it was just a ruse to get them – and us – into space, so as to introduce us to annoying prosthetic aliens obsessed with old American sitcoms. What?! If they wanted to peddle that particular strain of idiocy, why bother getting our hopes up? The film is just about worth it for those enchanting opening reels, but it remains one of the most frustrating movies I've ever seen. Incidentally, this one doesn't have a proper ending, because the makers ran out of money, so Hawke and Phoenix just fly around a bit, then the credits roll. (3/5)

Lethal Weapon 3 (1992, ITV1, 10.15pm) really shouldn't work. It's no surprise then that it doesn't. Even given my weakness for buddy movies than no-one else seems to like (Stakeout, Running Scared, Rush Hour – look, I'm sorry), this series is pretty thin, with stale characterisations, duff jokes and by-the-numbers action sequences. There's nothing terribly offensive about the film, and I've sat through all of them once, but there's a better film over on BBC1. I think this is the one when the bomb goes off while Danny Glover is on the toilet. (2/5)

Enemy of the State (1998, BBC1, 10.35pm) is a fine surveillance thriller, something like a popcorn update of Coppola's '74 film The Conversation, and with that film's star (Gene Hackman) in a key supporting role. Will Smith plays a lawyer who runs afoul of government officer Jon Voight and finds his life under threat. As shadowy agents draw near, surveillance expert Hackman rides to the rescue. There are occasional lapses in credibility, but this exciting, emotionally compelling movie is still one of the best blockbusters of its decade. (4/5)

... and clashing with those two is The Last Detail (1973, Five USA, 11.10pm), an excellent counterculture drama scripted by Robert Towne (Chinatown) and helmed by director – and editor supreme – Hal Ashby (Being There). Jack Nicholson is the cocky, foul-mouthed sailor charged with bringing in kleptomaniac youngster Randy Quaid. Regarding it as a bum rap, Nicholson and comrade Otis Young resolve to give Quaid a good time on his way to prison. Everything about this anti-establishment state-of-the-nation drama is first-rate, from Towne's foul-mouthed dialogue to the searing performances. Nicholson's star burned brightly before he traded in his talent for celebrity and identikit mugging. He's at his considerable best here. (5/5)

And over on satellite there's an opportunity to see an oft-overlooked gem from Hollywood's Golden Age. Playing like a cleaned-up retread of the notorious Jean Harlow vehicle Red-Headed Woman (which was released before the censorship restrictions of 1934), in which she slept her way to the top, The Girl From Missouri (1934, TCM, 9.25am) features Harlow as a girl who wants to snare a millionaire the right way – if only people would believe her. Franchot Tone is the man she loves, crusty old Lionel Barrymore the magnate she'll settle for, and the brilliant sardonic comedienne Patsy Kelly plays her man-crazy sidekick, gobbling up the majority of the best lines. Among Kelly's conquests is the popular character actor and former wrestler Nat Pendleton, probably best known as the inspector in The Thin Man. While the movie can't quite maintain the momentum of the first half hour, with too much talkiness centred on the minutiae of '30s social rules and an excess of "down time" (i.e. gloominess before the inevitable happy ending), it's still a great deal of fun, with a typically fine MGM cast. And Harlow, who died tragically three years later, and Tone are a great match. For another fine film featuring the pair, check out Bombshell. (4/5)

SUNDAY, JUNE 28

"Doo doo, krish, doo doo… doo doo doo doo doo doo…" I've put the soundtrack of Chariots of Fire (1981, Film4, 4.50pm) on to inspire me. This atmospheric account of two British sprinters confronting their personal demons at the 1924 Olympics is one of the key homegrown films of its period, and often bracketed with other so-called 'white flannel' dramas – ITV's Brideshead Revisited (still the finest thing to grace a screen of any size) and The Jewel in the Crown. Ben Cross plays Harold Abrahams, a Jewish Oxbridge student, with Ian Charleson as Eric Liddell, his great rival and a devout Scottish Protestant from a missionary family. A fine evocation of the period, a multi-layered script and some exhilarating race scenes are undermined only by a certain inability to flesh out supporting characters and develop interesting subplots. I'm sure I just wish it was 11 hours long like Brideshead. Vangelis' famous score is, of course, a major plus. Why not rent Riefenstahl's Olympia and Charlie Chan at the Olympics (the greatest B movie of all time, of course) and make an Olympics-themed day of it? (4/5)

In a shameless attempt to appease the Coen Bros fans outraged by the "dissing" (I believe this is a term used by youngsters to mean 'criticism') of O Brother Where Are Thou two weeks back, I'm encouraging all-comers to check out the Coens' second finest work: Miller's Crossing (1990, Film4, 11.15pm). Gabriel Byrne is a gangster whose singular code of ethics cause him no shortage of trouble in this stylised, compelling crime picture. This is a great story filled with unforgettable moments – Byrne being terrorised by a roomful of hoods, Albert Finney's revenge on his would-be murderers (to the strains of Danny Boy), gangsters who are flummoxed by a child's prank and the image of John Turturro on his knees in the woods, pleading for his life. Unusual, funny and wonderful to look at, it's just a notch below Blood Simple. in the rundown of the writer-directors' best work. (5/5)

MONDAY, JUNE 29

I haven't seen Very Important Person (1961, C4, 1.35pm) but it looks fun. Cinema's finest blowhard, James Robertson Justice, plays a pompous scientist whose fellow PoWs are keen to see the back of him. So they help him hatch an escape plan.

A 'Cockney' kid with a cut glass accent and a subplot about wrestling can't sink A Kid for Two Farthings (Film4, 12.35pm), which has perhaps the best premise I've ever come across. A downtrodden kid wishes for a unicorn, then stumbles across a goat with a single, twisted horn. Never quite as transcendent as one would hope, but pretty good. David Kossoff steals the show as a kind-hearted tailor. (3/5)

The Departed (2006, Film4, 9pm), showing as part of a crime movies series on the channel, is worth a look, though I'm baffled by those holding it up as an all-time classic thriller. It's enjoyable but a little shallow, with nothing to justify its epic running time except a succession of diverting twists and turns. Leonardo Di Caprio plays a police mole who's in tight with gangsters; Matt Damon a closet hood rising fast through the police ranks. They circle one another endlessly, their superiors each looking to catch the spy. The leads are ideally cast and there's decent support from Martin Sheen, but it's Mark Wahlberg who strolls off with the film, playing Sheen's sarcastic, combustible right-hand man. Jack Nicholson – officially not good on screen since 1975 – fails to puncture this reviewer's preconceptions. If you enjoy The Departed, it's worth keeping an eye out for its inspiration, the Hong Kong actioner Infernal Affairs. (3/5)

Amongst today's offerings on satellite is How to Steal a Million (1966, Sky Classics, 6.45pm), one of a string of delightful '60s crime-comedies featuring sharp-suited men, pencil-skirted women and a plethora of flashy visuals – Charade, Gambit and Arabesque being among the others. Here Peter O'Toole is a debonair burglar who teams with the daughter (Audrey Hepburn) of a brilliant art forger to attempt an elaborate heist. Charles Boyer (himself an outrageously suave leading man, in the 1930s), Eli Wallach and Hugh Griffith head a stellar supporting cast. (4/5)

For TUE to FRI films, please click on the link below right.TUESDAY, JUNE 30

FILM OF THE WEEK

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, BBC1, 11.30pm) - Three former child prodigies destroyed by lost love look to rebuild their lives in the shadow of their feckless father (Gene Hackman), who's pretending he's dying of cancer.That's the left-field set-up for this peerless comedy from writer-director Wes Anderson, the creative force behind most of the best films of the last 15 years – namely Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited. Luke Wilson plays a former tennis pro whose career capitulated when the love of his life, step-sister and playwright Gwyneth Paltrow married someone else. Their sibling, maths genius Ben Stiller, is mourning the death of his wife, whilst holding absurd, impromptu safety drills with his two identically-dressed offspring. So when father Royal Tenenbaum (Hackman) invites the family to share his final days, there's the chance of a new beginning. Or for old wounds to be opened, new rifts created and everything to end in a heap of steaming rubble. The cast of brilliantly-drawn eccentrics include domineering mother Anjelica Huston, morose psychiatrist Bill Murray and next-door-neighbour Eli Cross, a writer of western novels who's hooked on prescription drugs. As with all Anderson's films, Tenenbaums strikes a perfect balance between offbeat comedy, rank contrariness and sentimental drama, complete with impeccable production design and superb use of music. This one utilises Simon and Garfunkel's 'Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard' to excellent effect. (5/5)

The first hour of The Jerk (1979, ITV4, 10.20pm) is utterly exceptional, as Steve Martin races through a series of pitch-perfect comedy set-pieces that expertly mix slapstick and verbal humour to garner maximum belly laughs. That's followed by a terrible spoof of martial arts movies, and director Carl Reiner's risible cross-eyed cameo, and it all rather peters out. It's still well worth seeing for the collection of comic highs crowded into the first 60, including the star's encounter with a homicidal maniac and his attempt to articulate the passing of time. "I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days..." (4/5)

Road to Perdition (2002, Film4, 9pm) has to be the worst of the Hope and Crosby comedies, with Hope badly miscast as a crime lord and Crosby not even allowed to si- Oh, is it not them? Oh I see. Apparently, Road to Perdition was director Sam Mendes' follow-up to American Beauty. It says here that it's a good-looking but slightly underwhelming gangster tale adapted from a graphic novel and told through the eyes of a young boy. The child idolises his Dad (Tom Hanks), who's a mob hitman. When Hanks crosses his boss – and father figure – Paul Newman, the two have to take it on the lam, criss-crossing through Depression-era America with a killer (Jude Law) on their trail. Or so I'm told. Conrad L. Hall's ravishing cinematography and the excellent recreation of the period are big plusses, but a bit more work on the script might have given the stars something better to work with. Hanks and Newman are still good. (3/5)

For a look at how it should be done, check out Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America (1984, Film4, 11.15pm), a gangster epic of rare power and eloquence. Robert De Niro is Noodles, an aged hoodlum who returns to the haunts of his youth on New York's Lower East Side – and recalls his life. It's a shocking, sumptuously photographed crime drama that ruminates on love, death and the impermanence of memory, whilst punctuating its story with bursts of graphic violence, including two sickening rape scenes. This one possesses the feverish, time-shifting delirium you'd expect from a film framed as an opium dream, with vivid imagery and one of the greatest musical scores ever composed (from Ennio Morricone). There's plenty of plot, and very good it is too, but it's the vignettes I enjoyed the most – each one allowed to play out in full. My favourite sees a boy buy a cream cake to trade for his virginity. As he's waiting outside, he eats just a little, then a little more, and then the lot. Then he shrugs to himself and walks off. (5/5)

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966, Five, 9pm) is the best of Leone's "Dollars" trilogy, though I'm not sure that's saying too much (everybody else on planet Earth seems to be in disagreement, however, so you might want to check the others out too). The story, presented with a sweep if not a complexity befitting its three-hour running time, concerns three gunmen hunting a stash of buried treasure. Whilst not technically a "good" man, Clint is the best of a bad bunch, with the heinousness and repulsiveness of both Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef – as the bad and the ugly, respectively – leading the makers of the trailer to mix them up. Really this is one big Mexican stand-off, as the characters bully, barter and form uneasy alliances in their lust for gold. Leone's attempts to inject some welcome humanism into the series come off as half-baked and pretentious, but at least it's a riotous ride with a mightily satisfying climax. I'll probably be tuning in, as I haven't seen it for a good five years. Let's see if I agree with the 20-year-old me. (4/5)

Superman Returns (2005, BBC3, 9pm) has but a single flaw: that annoying thing where Clark Kent bumbles around the newsroom raising his eyebrows every time someone mentions Superman and spilling coffee all over his shoes. Other than that, it's bloody great. I've been resistant to the recent crop of comic book adaptations – the excellent Batman Begins aside. I was dumbstruck by the banality of Spiderman, then disappointed by the messy, interminable Dark Knight. I finally caught Superman Returns a couple of months back on the recommendation of a friend, and was thoroughly entranced by it. Brandon Routh is ideal as Supes, obliterating memories of Christopher Reeve's lacklustre showings, as he battles Lex Luthor (a flamboyant, dome-paletted Kevin Spacey) for the future of the planet. Kate Bosworth, who I hadn't seen before, is an excellent Lois Lane, and there's an admirable complexity to the human relationships. Added to which, the action sequences are absolutely sensational. The film made me cry, too, which doesn't happen very often. Twice a day at most. (5/5)

My threshold for gross-out comedies is admittedly pretty low, but Van Wilder: Party Liaison (2002, E4, 9pm) struck me as being particularly abysmal. (1/5)

THURSDAY, JULY 2

Witness for the Prosecution (1957, C4, 1.10pm) isn't one of Billy Wilder's greatest works – for this reviewer at least it lacks the emotional pull required – but it's formidably entertaining. Tyrone Power (looking almost unrecognisable some 15 years after his matinee idol peak) is up on a murder charge, being defended by eccentric barrister Charles Laughton. Marlene Dietrich is Power's vengeful wife, while Elsa Lanchester (formerly the Bride of Frankenstein) provides an affecting characterisation at Laughton's chiding nurse. This is a gripping courtroom drama, laced with Wilder's acidic dialogue and loaded with revelations. Give it a go. (4/5)

Hitch (2005, Five USA, 9pm) looked fairly appealing on release, with star Will Smith talking it up endlessly during an extensive publicity campaign. He really did make it sound like a decent watch, so he must be a good actor. Or perhaps he genuinely believed it was good. Anyway, it's not. Smith plays a lifestyle coach who helps Kevin James snare the woman of his dreams, only for he and his protg to discover that (excuse me while I stifle a yawn) it's better to just be yourself and yadda yadda yadda. Smith is as appealing as ever in a role that requires an agreeable lack of vanity, but Eva Mendes is thoroughly dislikeable as his leading lady, and the by-the-numbers plotting is pretty wearying. As mindless escapism, it's passable, with a smattering of good gags, but you could spend your time watching a romantic comedy that's not only much better, but also more entertaining. Why not rent It Happened One Night, Libeled Lady, His Girl Friday or Metropolitan? Or just get an early night. (2/5)

FRIDAY, JULY 3

The Black Swan (1942, C4, 1.45pm) has been staring at me from a shelf for nigh on three years – I really should give it a watch one of these days. It's a swashbuckler starring Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara, with a gallery of fine character actors in support, including cinema's finest cad and the voice of Shere Khan in Disney's Jungle Book George Sanders, Laird Cregar, Anthony Quinn, George Zucco (perhaps the scariest of all the period's specialist baddies) and the wonderful Thomas Mitchell.

Man of the West (1958, More4, 11.15am) - Anthony Mann's complex, bitter, resolutely left field Western stars Gary Cooper as a reformed gunslinger. Lacking the character's conventional goodness, he's a prototype Clint-in-Unforgiven: scared of what he once was; scared he'll become it once more. Travelling to recruit a schoolteacher for his small town, he's thrown off-course by a botched hold-up on the train. With a hobbling card cheat and a world-bitten prostitute for company, he searches for shelter, coming across his old gang, led by ailing, psychotic, alcoholic gunman Lee J. Cobb. Cobb's theatrical pyrotechnics are unusually effective – complementing Cooper's delicious underplaying – and the bizarre pay-offs are like nothing else in Western history. A deadly game of striptease, a perverse brawl in a field and a shoot-out for non-existent gold in a border ghost town are among the film's gutting, audacious stop-offs, and the finale is just superb. This is one of the most singular, fascinating views of life and humanity you'll ever see, with a wealth of idiosyncratic, iconic imagery. (5/5)

On Golden Pond (1981, Film4, 2.45pm) is a pair of sensational performances in search of a great film. Henry Fonda plays a retired academic unable to come to terms with old age. Katharine Hepburn is his sympathetic wife, and the only person who understands him. When their grandson comes to stay at their lakefront home, Fonda softens and finally comes of old age with good grace. The two Golden Age titans produce awe-inspiring characterisations that rank with their greatest work (The Grapes of Wrath and The Ox-Bow Incident for Fonda, Little Women and Stage Door for Hepburn, in this reviewer's opinion), it's just a shame the script is somewhat thin and unambitious. Fonda's real life daughter Jane plays his offspring here, but registers zero in a poorly-written part. She said later the on-screen relationship mirrored her own experiences. On Golden Pond is well worth catching, thanks to the twin masterclasses in screen acting, but if you wind up feeling a smidgen disappointed, don't be surprised. (4/5)

Thanks for reading. I'll be back on July 17 with more of the same.

For our DVD of the Week, click on the link below right.DVD of the Week

# 7 – The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992)

You probably know the twist, but don't let that put you off. After all, the big reveal is at the midway point – there are plenty of surprises still to come. I just thought we'd get that out of the way.

From the opening blast of Percy Sledge's 'When A Man Loves a Woman' – the camera panning round to reveal a funfair in full swing – The Crying Game does things differently. It's a film with an other-worldly atmosphere, where frequent jolts in mood and tempo make perfect sense and love transcends all.

It's filled with characters who are troubled, duplicitous and constantly playing games. But for a film that constantly yanks at the rug beneath our feet, it never feels gimmicky or shallow, with twists for twists' sake.

Stephen Rea is an IRA activist who helps kidnap British soldier Forest Whitaker (judging from his accent, if he is from London, he went there from Johannesburg). Forced to babysit his adversary in a woodland hideout, Rea strikes up an unlikely friendship with the talkative quarry.

The Crying Game is a consistently excellent film with a singular atmosphere that makes every sequence something special, but these early scenes are particularly powerful. Rea's dishevelled gunman displays a tenderness and humanism that's unexpected and heart-rending, whether chiding himself ("I'm not good for much", he says resignedly at one point) or quoting verse to the man he's been chosen to kill ("When I was a child, I thought as a child...")

Later, he travels to London to seek out Whitaker's lover (Jaye Davidson), a cabaret singer with a secret. With the change in location comes a shift in tone, as action sequences and comic interludes are thrown into the mix, but that's great too. One memorably pithy exchange between Rea and his boss sticks in the mind. "She's not a tart," Rea says angrily. "No, I suppose she's a lady," his effete manager barks back.

The film is uncategorisable and all the better for it: a glossily-shot masterpiece that bucks convention at every turn. And in Stephen Rea's subtle turn it possesses arguably the best performance of the '90s. Davidson and Miranda Richardson (as Rea's former lover) are also strong, while Neil Jordan excels not only as a director, but also as a writer of dialogue. All that and a cover of the '60s theme song by Boy George over the end credits.

It's so much more than just a fantastic twist.

The DVD has a commentary, deleted scenes and insightful featurettes, and some copies come with a nice cardboard slipcase.

DVD of the Week archive

#1 - Let's Get Lost (Bruce Weber, 1988)

#2 - Charley Varrick (Don Siegel, 1973)

#3 - The Black Cat (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1934)

#4 - The Raven (Lew Landers, 1935)

#5 - The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1943)

#6 - Written and Directed by Preston Sturges (Preston Sturges, 1940-44)

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