Films This week’s
SUNDAY 4 August MON 5 Aug TUES 6 Aug
About a Boy
ITV 1.30pm - 3.30pm ★★★★
COMEDY DRAMA Hugh
Grant is wonderful as a materialistic,
womanising bachelor who gets mixed
up with a dysfunctional 12-year-old
(Nicholas Hoult, excellent) whose
single mother (Toni Collette) has just
tried to commit suicide. Interestingly,
Brad Pitt turned down the lead
because he felt it was implausible that
someone so handsome would need to
pretend to be a single dad to meet
women! Dirs: Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz 2002, 12, 120min
SEX ) VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE!Oklahoma!
BBC2 1.45pm - 4.00pm ★★★★
MUSICAL One of Hollywood’s
most enjoyable musicals, this boasts
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s best
score, from the breeziness of Kansas
City through the brashness of All ’Er
Nuthin’ to the dreamy lilt of Surrey
with the Fringe on Top. Gordon
MacRae and Shirley Jones are great
and the handling is joyously fresh.
With Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’
and the title number too, this is
terrific. Dir: Fred Zinnemann 1955, U, 135min
SEX ) VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE )Dirty Dancing
Channel 5 4.00pm - 6.05pm ★★★
ROMANTIC DRAMA
Something of a surprise smash hit in
the late 1980s, this stars Jennifer Grey
as an ugly duckling holidaying with
her parents in the Catskill mountains
and who enjoys a romance with resort
dance instructor Patrick Swayze. Yet
despite the film’s success, it took 15
years before a belated sequel arrived
on the scene. For all that, the film has
stood the test of time and is still very
entertaining. Dir: Emile Ardolino 1987, 12, 125min
SEX! VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE!The Dressmaker
C4 11.00pm - 1.15am ★★★★
● See Our Picks of the Week, p28BEST OF THE REST
Freeheld
AMC 12noon - 2.00pm ★★★
Satellite DRAMAThis
bittersweet fact-based drama starring
Julianne Moore and Ellen Page
chronicles a landmark equal rights
battle from recent US history – the
struggle of a terminally ill New Jersey
cop (Moore) against a bigoted
establishment to have her pension
paid to her female partner (Page).
The storytelling is a tad conventional
but the performances are terrific.
Dir: Peter Sollett 2015, 12, 120min
SEX ) VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE!Bring It On
Comedy Central
1.00pm - 3.00pm ★★★★
Satellite COMEDY On the eve
of a national championship, Kirsten
Dunst’s cheerleader realises all her
team’s routines have been stolen from
another squad and they will have to
start again. Having spent its first half
poking fun at the bitchiness of the
cheerleading process, the film then
makes a case for the skill, dedic ation
and enthusiasm of its young
performers. Dir: Peyton Reed 2000, 12, 120min
SEX ) VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE!Chronicle
Film 4 7.20pm - 9.00pm ★★★★
SCI-FITeens Dane DeHaan, Alex
Russell and Michael B Jordan gain
telekinetic powers after a brush with a
presumably extraterrestrial object. At
first, they have fun documenting their
pranks on video, using mind control to
lift cheerleaders’ skirts with a leaf
blower, for example, or moving a car
across a parking lot. But things get out
of hand when DeHaan begins to cause
actual harm. Inventive and, even with
sci-fi elements, grounded in reality.
Dir: Josh Trank 2012, 15, 100min
SEX ) VIOLENCE @ LANGUAGE!Double Daddy
Channel 5 2.15pm - 4.00pm ★★
THRILLER The serious subject
of teenage pregnancy gets a rather
tawdry TV thriller treatment here
when students Mollee Gray and
Brittany Curran end up fighting
over Cameron Palatas, who has
fathered both their babies. The
title’s the best element of this.
Dir: Lee Friedlander 2015, 12, 105min
SEX ) VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE )BEST OF THE REST
The Others
AMC 3.00pm - 5.00pm ★★★★
Satellite CHILLERThe brittle
acting style of Nicole Kidman is
perfectly suited to this wonderful,
old-fashioned ghost story. She plays
the neurotic mother of two sickly
children – they have a fatal allergy to
daylight – who slowly comes to
realise that they might not be alone
with the creepy servants (including
Eric Sykes) in their perpetually dark
mansion. Dir: Alejandro Amenábar 2001, 12, 120min
SEX ) VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE )Alone in Berlin
Film 4 9.00pm - 11.05pm ★★★
● See Our Picks of the Week, p28Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye
Horror Channel
10.55pm - 12.50am ★★★
CHILLERThis fantasy from
Stephen King’s brain is on the light-
hearted side and rather fun. A nine-
year-old Drew Barrymore is likeable
as a girl whose telepathic call for help
alerts a stray cat that she’s in danger.
She causes it to use up quite a
percentage of its nine lives, with the
pièce de résistance coming as the cat
does battle with an evil troll
threatening to steal Drew’s breath
away. Dir: Lewis Teague 1984, 15, 115min
SEX! VIOLENCE @ LANGUAGE @A Surrogate’s Nightmare
Channel 5 2.15pm - 4.00pm ★★
THRILLER A wild and wacky
thriller that throws in so many red
herrings, it must think it’s at a fish
market. Emily Tennant becomes a
surrogate mum for barren sister
Poppy Montgomery, but then family
secrets, stalkers, jealousy and
incomprehensible plot-twists appear
from nowhere... Dir: Vic Sarin 2017, 12, 105min
SEX ) VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE )BEST OF THE REST
Step Brothers
Comedy Central
10.00pm - 12midnight ★★★★
Satellite COMEDYWill Ferrell
teams up with John C Reilly for a
totally stupid, very rude, shockingly
non-PC, but utterly compelling and
hilarious comedy about two selfish,
immature grown men who suddenly
find that they are stepbrothers. Both
in their 40s and both still living at
home, the trouble begins when their
single parents (Mary Steenburgen
and Richard Jenkins) move in
together, meaning the ‘boys’ have to
share a room. Dir: Adam McKay 2008, 15, 120min
SEX @ VIOLENCE @ LANGUAGE @Son of a Gun
5Spike 11.10pm - 1.20am ★★★
CRIME THRILLER
Switching between gritty prison
drama, hard-boiled gangster thriller
and crafty heist caper, this Australian
crime movie stars Brenton Thwaites
as a 19-year-old convict taken under
the wing of Ewan McGregor’s
ruthless career criminal, who
embroils him in a bold jailbreak and
an even bolder gold-bullion robbery.
Alicia Vikander also stars as the
disaffected girlfriend of a powerful
gangster in this solidly entertaining
crime film. Dir: Julius Avery 2013, 15, 130min
SEX @ VIOLENCE @ LANGUAGE £Nicholas Hoult, Toni
Collette and Hugh
Grant in About a BoyEwan McGregor
in Son of a GunNicole Kidman
in The Others30 TV TIMES