Films This week’s fi
SUNDAY28 July MON29 July TUES30 July
The Third Man
BBC2 12.40pm - 2.20pm HHHHH
● See Our Picks of the Week, p28Death Becomes Her
ITV 1.25pm - 3.15pm HHHH
COMEDY⊲ Meryl Streep and
Goldie Hawn are hilarious as the
rivals in love and life fighting over
plastic surgeon Bruce Willis. Then,
mystery woman Isabella Rossellini
offers Streep a potion of eternal youth- although this has a worrying
downside... A triumph of state-of-the-
art effects (for the time) over a daft,
but always entertaining plot, this is
great fun. Dir: Robert Zemeckis 1992, PG, 110min
SEX ) VIOLENCE! LANGUAGE )
Star Wars: Episode VI –
Return of the Jedi
ITV 3.45pm - 6.15pm HHH
SCI-FI ADVENTURE⊲ The
final instalment of the original Star
Wa rs trilogy and creator George
Lucas was already starting to run out
of steam. The plot simply rehashes
A New Hope and far too much time
is given over to the cuddly wuddly
Ewoks. There are a few great
sequences, but overall the film is a
disappointing follow-up to the
magnificent The Empire Strikes Back.
Dir: Richard Marquand 1983, U, 150min
SEX ) VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE )Transformers:
Dark of the Moon
C4 11.00pm - 1.45am HH
SCI-FI ACTION⊲ The third in
this blockbuster series is everything
you would expect – and more. The
explosions are bigger, the special effects
more spectacular, and Shia LaBeouf
even more irritating. Once again,
Earth’s fate hangs in the balance as the
good Autobots and evil Decepticons
slug it out, reducing most of Chicago
to rubble. Dir: Michael Bay 2011, 12, 165min
SEX ) VIOLENCE! LANGUAGE!BEST OF THE REST
Toot s i e
Sony Movie Channel
12.20pm - 2.30pm HHHH
COMEDY⊲Star Dustin Hoffman
and director Sydney Pollack were
reputedly at each others’ throats
throughout much of the shooting of
this classic cross-dressing comedy. To
their credit, none of this animosity
tainted the movie, which remains both
a whip smart satire of soap operas as
well as a delightful romcom. Bill
Murray steals the movie as Hoffman’s
laconic buddy. Dir: Sydney Pollack 1982, 15, 130min
SEX! VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE @The Halfway House
Talking Pictures
7.00pm - 9.00pm HHHH
MYSTERY⊲There’s something
amiss at a remote inn in Wales during
World War Two and it doesn’t take
the plot long to come to the boil.
Cleverly worked out, this has an
unsettling ambience and eerie
performances from real-life father
and daughter Mervyn and Glynis
Johns as the hoteliers. It’s a strongly
atmospheric ghost story from Ealing
Studios. Dir: Basil Dearden 1944, PG, 120min
SEX ) VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE )Gosford Park
Paramount
9.00pm - 11.45pm HHHH
PERIOD DRAMA⊲Guests
converge on an English country house
in 1932, but become suspects in a
murder case. Director Robert Altman
partly sends up the Agatha Christie
style of whodunit, but this wonderful
drama is more interested in the
relationships between guests and
servants. Among the starry cast are
Kristin Scott Thomas, Clive Owen,
Stephen Fry, Maggie Smith and Helen
Mirren. Dir: Robert Altman 2001, 15, 165min
SEX! VIOLENCE! LANGUAGE @Stalked By My Ex
Channel 5 2.15pm - 4.00pm H
THRILLER⊲ The title says it all,
as Tamara Braun learns her abusive
ex-husband Yves Bright is due to be
released from clink after a 10-year
stretch, so ups and leaves her home
with her unwilling teen daughter
Brytnee Ratledge. But Bright is soon
on their trail, in this dull, exploitative
drama. Dir: Danny J Boyle 2017, PG, 105min
SEX ) VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE )BEST OF THE REST
The Shallows
Film4 9.00pm - 10.45pm HHHH
THRILLER⊲Tapping into the
primal terrors that lurk beneath the
water’s surface, this pits Blake Lively’s
lone American surfer Nancy against
a great white shark in a desperate
battle for survival off a remote
Mexican beach. Her first bloody
encounter with the shark leaves her
stranded on a tiny rock, 200 yards
from the beach. Her attacker lies
between her and the shore, and high
tide is coming. How can she survive?
Dir: Jaume Collet-Serra 2016, 15, 105min
SEX ) VIOLENCE @ LANGUAGE!The Disappearance
of Alice Creed
Horror Channel
10.55pm - 12.55pm HHH
THRILLER⊲Martin Compston
and Eddie Marsan play ex-cons who
kidnap a millionaire’s daughter
(Gemma Arterton), aiming to bag a
hefty ransom. This twisty British
crime thriller mostly takes place in
the sealed-tight flat where the pair
hold their victim, but there is plenty
of suspense and thrills from this
claustrophobic set-up, and Marsan
and Compston exploit the
ambiguous tensions in their
relationship. Dir: J Blakeson 2009, 18, 120min
SEX £ VIOLENCE £ LANGUAGE £Dying for a Baby
Channel 5 2.15pm - 4.00pm HH
PREMIERE THRILLER⊲
Wildly unhinged Sarah Minnich
can’t have children, so decides to plot
to take the as yet unborn baby from
Christa B Allen. Why? Because
Minnich and Allen were involved in
a traffic accident some years earlier.
Oh, yes, this all makes perfect sense...
Dir: Lauro David Chartrand-DelValle 2019, PG, 105min
SEX ) VIOLENCE ) LANGUAGE )London Heist
Channel 5 11.05pm - 1.00am HH
CRIME THRILLER⊲Second-
string cinematic hard man Craig
Fairbrass plays yet another East End
gangster in this all-too routine
British crime thriller, which sprays
around as many swear words as it
does bullets. He’s a career bank
robber looking to avenge the murder
of his father (a similarly typecast
Steven Berkoff ) and recover the
stolen loot from his latest heist. One
that’s only for die-hard fans of the
genre. Dir: Mark McQueen 2016, 15, 115min
SEX @ VIOLENCE £ LANGUAGE £BEST OF THE REST
The Crazies
Syfy 10.00pm - 12.10am HHHH
SatelliteHORROR⊲This
spectacular remake of George A
Romero’s 1973 cult horror thriller
sees the inhabitants of an American
small town turn murderously insane.
Sheriff Timothy Olyphant tries to
work out what’s happening but,
when martial law is declared and the
army steps in, he and a band of
heavily armed survivors fight back.
The script manages the dialogue,
shocks and scares persuasively and
it’s put across with fine acting by
Olyphant, and Radha Mitchell, as his
pregnant doctor wife. Polished, edge-
of-seat stuff. Dir: Breck Eisner 2010, 15, 130min
SEX ) VIOLENCE £ LANGUAGE @Blake Lively in
The ShallowsTimothy Olyphant
in The CraziesOptimus Prime in
Transformers:
Dark of the Moon30 TV TIMES