TV Films
TV Films
by Matt Nippert
SATURDAY MAY 31
Jurassic Park III (TV3, 7.30pm). Sam Neill returns to Jurassic Park island as Dr Alan Grant, but is he too late? Has the franchise become deservedly extinct? Steven Spielberg seems to think so. As the creator of this series, he has handed over directing duties to Joe Johnston (previous credit: Jumanji). While the effects remain consistently good, introducing new beasties such as the spinosaurus and pteranodons, the dialogue is not worthy of man or beast. Sample, Neill: “No force on Earth or Heaven will get me back on that island!” Less a movie than a dream probe launched into the subconscious of every closet palaeontologist. (2001) 3
North Country (TV1, 8.30pm). A film about the US’s first major sexual harassment lawsuit, brought against a mining company in Minnesota. It’s better than it sounds, coming off as a more gritty, less cleavaged Erin Brockovich. Local director Niki Caro (Whale Rider) does well with a challenging production that features Charlize Theron as a rare female miner, to whom the guys down the hole respond with barely distinguishable lust and loathing. Woody Harrelson, as a lawyer, helps out in court. (2005) 8
Sorority Boys (TV2, 8.35pm). A no-brow cross-dressing university comedy, where three members of the male Kappa Omicron Kappa fraternity are forced to switch genders and join the Delta Omicron Gamma sorority. When a punchline involves stupification and sodomy, you know you’ve hit rock bottom. (2002) 1
Van Helsing (TV3, 9.30pm). Frankenstein uproots -himself from the words of Mary -Shelley, travels to Transylvania, and hooks up with Count Dracula, Mr Hyde and a werewolf. Only Hugh Jackman – as the titled character – can stop them. He’s issued with all sorts of Q-ish goodies from the Vatican weapons closet: rapid-fire crossbow, holy water canisters, etc. This is almost a Christian-ish James Bond, but the end result doesn’t get close to heaven. This is a monster mash that is less than the sum of its many parts. (2004) 4
The Horse Whisperer (TV2 12.30am). Robert Redford directs and plays the lead in a storybook romance based on a novel by Nicholas Evans. Avoiding soap, Redford adheres to the Montana landscape and makes a beautiful fist of film-making. A little girl is injured and her New York magazine editor mother (Kristen Scott Thomas) ups sticks to the countryside and meets the honest – and thankfully restrained – Redford the cowboy. The romance between Thomas and Redford is understated, adult even. Sam Neill rounds out the cast, and as an added bonus, the 14-year-old is played by the then little-known Scarlett Johansson. (1998) 7
SUNDAY JUNE 1
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (TV2, 7.00pm). Kids get stuck in a closet and imagine a magical kingdom. No, not a camp fable about homophobia, but rather the first in what will inevitably be many adaptations of CS Lewis’ Narnia series. Kiwi Andrew Adamson (of various Shrek fame) directs four polite English kids – the Pevensies – in a tale loosely drawn from the New Testament. Young Edmund is tempted by a devilishly icy Tilda Swinton and eats not an apple, but Turkish Delight. Liam Neeson voices not God, but a CGI-ed lion called Aslan. Despite Lewis having hobnobbed with JRR Tolkien at Oxford, this is no Lord of the Rings. Not quite the mass-conversion epic many were hoping for or fearing, but quality fantasy nonetheless. (2005) 7
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (C4, 8.30pm). Geezers and gangsters frolic in the London underworld. This brash first feature from Guy Ritchie, a veteran of music videos and commercials, features such lovable characters as Barry the Baptist and Hatchet Harry. Ritchie cast his amateur actor friends, a posse of genuine gangsters – including a former bare-knuckle boxing champion – and, in a breakout performance, football hard man Vinnie Jones, who plays a debt collector. (A classic Jones line, after unspeakable violence: “It’s been emotional.”) The sparking dialogue and the acrobatic, intersecting plot are worthy of a cockney Pulp Fiction. (Fun fact: comparisons with this film and Tarantino helped propel Ritchie into the arms of Madonna.) (1999) 10
Hannibal Rising (Sky Movies, 8.30pm). The last drop of blood is wrung from the Hannibal Lecter series. Here, his back-story is laid out and, apparently, cannibalism is a result of traumatic childhood events. Unfortunately, neither Aaron Thomas nor Gaspard Ulliel, who play the young killer, are a young Anthony Hopkins. (2007) 3
The Village (TV2, 10.00pm). When will the novelty of the gimmick-ending wear off? Not yet, it seems, as M Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense) sketches life in a blissful -agrarian commune before throwing eight-foot-tall monsters into the woods. The Village Voice, searching for meaning, wrote this was a “non-horror film abstracted into a straight-faced parable about fearful conservatism and, gulp, the essential goodness of religious ties”. Die-hard fans of Shyamalan will probably be the only ones paying to see the upcoming The Happening – the antagonists there are immobile plants. (2004) 3
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