TV films
Including Mommie Dearest and Old School
by Fiona Rae
SATURDAY MARCH 13
The Living Daylights (TV1, 8.30pm). Daniel Craig wasn’t the first serious real-world Bond: Timothy Dalton in the first of his two Bond flicks barely cracks a smile – and without that cheeky nod to the camera, what have you got? Just another action film with some decent stunts, but a mediocre villain (Joe Don Baker) and an undistinguished Bond girl (Maryam d’Abo). (1987) 6
The Skeleton Key (TV3, 8.30pm). Kate Hudson is not her usual sunny self in this psychological horror set in the deepest bayou and full of more logic holes than it is frights. She’s a nurse who gets a new job in a creepy mansion looking after John Hurt – but has he really had a stroke, or is it something to do with his wife, Gena Rowlands, and her hoodoo (not voodoo) hooey? British director Iain Softley (the brilliant Backbeat) is a very careful film-maker, but here he may have sacrificed atmosphere for consistency. Phooey. (2005) 6
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (MGM, 8.30pm). Compared with Tony Scott’s recent remake, it’s interesting to see just how little action there is in this, er, action movie. One car crash is about it; the rest mostly takes place on a hijacked subway train and in the subway control centre, where Walter Matthau negotiates with the crims. Fun fact: the gang’s use of code names – Messrs Blue, Green, Grey and Brown – inspired Quentin Tarantino for his breakthrough film Reservoir Dogs. (1974) 7
Deep Blue Sea (TV2, 9.30pm). An actioner that doesn’t take itself too seriously, or, as Entertainment Weekly put it, is “intentionally stupid”. Renny Harlin’s sharktastic thrill-ride is genre-referential and funny. At a deep-sea facility, scientists researching Alzheimer’s are making mako sharks super-intelligent. Because that doesn’t seem like a bad idea. What could go wrong? When the storm hits, everything. Fun trivia: the licence plate pulled from a shark’s mouth has the same number as the plate pulled from the shark in Jaws. (1999) 8
SUNDAY MARCH 14
Starter for 10 (TV1, 8.30pm). The Brits attempt an 80s teen movie – in 2006. But we shouldn’t mock – in the real 1980s, while the Americans were making Say Anything and Risky Business, the Brits were busy making Sid & Nancy and Withnail & I. Promoted as “the great British teen 80s movie that never was”, Starter for 10 is set at post-punk Bristol University, where working-class student James McAvoy is trying to make his father proud and dreaming of winning at University Challenge. Rebecca Hall is the telegraphed-a-mile-away love interest, while Dominic Cooper, Charles Dance and Lindsay Duncan make this an easy watch. (2006) 7
The Heartbreak Kid (TV2, 8.30pm). Elaine May and Neil Simon’s 1972 comedy was a bittersweet contemplation of how things don’t always work out the way we’d like. Putting it in the hands of the Farrelly brothers (There’s Something About Mary) is like giving a three-year-old mud pies and asking him not to make a mess. Ben Stiller is the 40-year-old who marries in haste and finds out fairly quickly – on his honeymoon – that his wife, Malin Akerman, is crazy nasty. The movie is somewhat mean-spirited towards Akerman, who suffers many humiliations before (and after) Stiller meets the real girl of his dreams, Michelle Monaghan. (2007) 4
The Running Man (C4, 8.30pm). A cross between Nineteen Eighty-Four and an Atari video game that depicts a future based on the deranged ravings of Glenn Beck. It’s a police state, all cultural activity is censored, the world government pacifies the masses with an ultra-violent reality TV show. It’s a warning from the past! Well, not really: forcing Arnold Schwarzenegger to participate in the gladiatorial show of the title is more a celebration of violence than a condemnation. The only one having any fun is Richard Dawson (Hogan’s Heroes’ Newkirk) as the sleazy host of the TV show. (1987) 5
Conversations with My Gardener (Maori, 8.30pm). Dialogue avec Mon Jardinier is a “beguiling and beautifully realised” film, said the New Zealand Herald’s Peter Calder, starring two great French actors – Daniel Auteuil and Jean-Pierre Darroussin. They play a painter and a gardener who meet again after many years and begin a conversation that, wrote Calder, effortlessly leaps “the obvious chasms of social class and life history”. Director Jean Becker, “having placed them in a ravishing rural setting, is smart enough to keep his distance and let them work”. (2007) 8
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Sky Movies, 8.30pm). If Up can movingly and memorably portray an entire lifetime of wedded bliss in just a few frames, you’d think Benjamin Button could have been a bit more economical. Nearly three hours is quite enough of Brad Pitt ageing backwards, thank you very much. No such luck for the audience, either. David Fincher’s film is a carefully constructed onion (it has layers) with some clever special effects, but the general effect is more whimsical than profound. (2008) 7
**WEDNESDAY MARCH 17
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