This Week's Essential Movies for Free T.V Guide
Check out the awesome new look of our t.v. guide. This week there's the awesome Eastwood thriller In the Line of Fire, Baz Lurhmann's epic Moulin Rouge and even the original 50's version of The Blob!
Match or Die, (also staring Catherine Deneuve and Max von Sydow) the hilarious Mike Nichols comedy remake The Birdcage (that scene where Hank Azaria - slips over in his oversized shoes is still a riot), and his pre-Hollywood 'retirement' thriller Runaway Jury. He is brilliant in all of them so check them out! The rest of the week contains such off-the-wall absorbing, hard-hitting highlights as Birthday Girl, The Grifters, Lady Vengeance, The Piano Teacher and Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda. All this alongside the very high-standard Billy Wider directed court-room drama Witness For the Prosecution - which features knock-out performances from Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich - intelligent noirish 90s thrillers White Sands and Grosse Point Blanke and classic vintage comedies Arthur, Some Like it Hot and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I am looking forward to oriental highlights Little Red Flowers and Bruce Lee martial-arts bonanza Fist of Fury plus, (being a dedicated Film Noir fanatic) the Dana Andrews crime drama Boomerang! Saturday 14.00, ITV4 MATCH OR DIE (Dick Richards, 1977) Gene Hackman plays a foreign Legion Major haunted by memories of World War I, who oversees a archaeological dig only for a battle to endue when Arab leader Ian Holm intervenes. 21.00, VIRGIN 1 THE BIRDCAGE (Mike Nichols, 1996) A remake of the original french classic LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, this time staring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as a gay cabaret couple who have to play it straight when their son introduces them to his fiancés right-wing political family. Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest also star. 21.05, C4 MOULIN ROUGE! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001) First of a double bill of films screening tonight, released in 2001 and staring Nichole Kidman. This is the highly influential post-modern musical co-staring Ewan McGregor as a poet who falls for a courtesan (Kidman) when he relocates to the seedy but glamorous titular Paris haven. With gorgeous rich visuals and set design this is a literally timeless musical what with its 1900 setting spliced to the familiar beat of 20th Century Pop songs. 22.00, BBC3 RUNAWAY JURY (Gary Fleder, 2003) Gene Hackman plays a corrupt jury consultant who attempts to manipulate a court proceeding involving a gun manufacturer. Also staring John Cusack and Dustin Hoffman who appears in a notable bathroom scene with real life former roommate Hackman. 23.20, C4 BIRTHDAY GIRL (Jez Butterworth, 2001) Nicole Kidman stars as a Russian mail-order bride who thwarts a powerful influence over a thirtysomething bank clerk. Looking forward to this. Sunday 14.40, FIM4 WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (Billy Wilder, 1957) Classic and powerful Agatha Christie courtroom mystery about a man on trial for the murder of his rich middle-aged widow. Charles Laughton is a real hoot as the famous lawyer Sir Wilfrid Robarts in another one of his flamboyant characterisations. 21.30, ITV3 ARTHUR (Steve Gordon, 1981) The late, lovable old playboy Dudley Moore coincidentally plays a lovable middle-age playboy in this indulgent classic comedy, with show-stealing cameo appearances by Sir John Gielgud playing his dutiful butler. 23.05, FILM4 THE GRIFTERS (Stephen Frears, 1990) Twisty-turvy 1990s noir crime drama featuring John Cusack and Anjelica Huston as son and estranged mother con-artists who reunite after a long-period of absence only to learn that when it comes to crime nobody, not even family can be trusted. 23.40, E4 THE NAKED GUN (David Zucker, 1988) Spoofing numerous cop shows and crime thrillers, Leslie Nielsen is Frank Drebin the clumsy cop out to stop Ricardo Montalban's drug baron in the original slap-stick comedy. 01.10, FILM4 LITTLE RED FLOWERS (Yuan Zhang, 2006) A young boy starting school for the first time struggles to fit in to a strictly regimented society in post-revolutionary China. Monday 16.45, FILM4 THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM (Michael Anderson, 1966) Alec Guinness and George Segal star in this Bond style espionage thriller that boasts some impressive scenery. 23.05, ITV1 IN THE LINE OF FIRE (Wolfgang Petersen, 1993) Clint Eastwood is the failed veteran Secret Service agent of ill-fated President John K Kennedy who attempts to thwart the whole episode from happening again when creepy John Malkovich targets the latest premier for assassination, in this gripping thriller. 23.00, FILM4 KINSEY (Bill Condon, 2004) Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson), is the pioneer novelist who's acclaimed 1948 publication "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" was the first recorded book that saw science address sexual behaviour. 23.05, FIVE FIST OF FURY (Wei Lo, 1972) Bruce Lee martial-artistry about a man seeking revenge after the killing of his teacher. Should contain some high-octane thrills. 00.45, C4 LADY VENGEANCE (Park Chan-wook's, 2005) Third of Park Chan-wook's 'revenge' trilogy takes a female slant to proceedings with equally brutal baroque results. Tuesday 18.50, FILM4 BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S (Blake Edwards, 1961) Charming comedy with Audrey Hepburn as the easy-going New York socialite Holly Golightly who sets her sights on a new neighbour who has moved into her apartment block. The groovy party scene with Hepburn unknowingly setting alight a women's hat with her elongated cigarette holder and a middle-aged women laughing then crying at herself in the mirror sets me off everytime. 23.35, BBC1- WHITE SANDS (Roger Donaldson,1992) The 1990s were a genre trend-setting time for those twisty modern noir crime thrillers as this effort further proves. A small southwestern town sheriff finds a body in the desert with a suitcase containing $500,000...and thats all you should need to know to get you properly enthused. Wednesday 23.10, FILM4 THE PIANO TEACHER (Michael Haneke, 2001) Powerful and deep emotional drama staring Isabelle Huppert as a deeply suppressed piano teacher whose masochistic yearnings erupt when she meets an impressionable young student. Thursday 13.50, C4 BOOMERANG! (Elia Kazan, 1947) Crime thriller staring Dana Andrews as a prosecutor fighting to prove the innocence of a man accused of a hideous murder. 22.00, E4 RULES OF ATTRACTION (Roger Avary, 2002) A unconventionally cast James Van Der Beek stars as Sean Bateman, the equally disturbed brother of AMERICAN PSYCHO's Patrick, who submerges himself in a privileged life of lust at Camden College. 23.10, FILM4 MELINDA AND MELINDA (Woody Allen, 2004) Posing the ultimate life seen as comic or tragic question the real question is whether Woody Allen really is back on winning form with this tragi-comedy? You decide with the freeview premiere of this critically acclaimed compendium, concerning a story centered around the same character, interpreted two different ways. 23.35, FIVE US THE BLOB (Irvin S Yeaworth Jr, 1958) "Beware of the Blob! It creeps, and leaps, and glides and slides across the floor." From that effortlessly cheesy tagline to the rather contagiously catchy Burt Bacharach opening title number, to the first appearance of the purple jello textured alien life form, this almost intentioanlly sends itself up as a parody of the 1950s monster genre, still maintaining chilly atmospheric suspense along the way. Friday 18.40, FILM4 SOME LIKE IT HOT (Billy Wilder, 1959) That classic Billy Wilder comedy featuring that brilliantly conceived final line: "Well nobody's perfect", still holds up after all these years. What starts off as a pretty violent (for the time) gangster movie, emerges as a great buddy comedy with Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis playing two musicians who disguise themselves as females in a band to hide themselves from the mob, after they witness a brutal shooting. 21.05, ITV3 THE RIGHT STUFF (Philip Kaufman, 1983) Kaufman's compelling adaptation of Tom Wolfe's factual book which covered the breaking of the sound barrier by seven fearlessly brave astronauts on America's first space program. 22.35, E4 PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES (John Hughes, 1987) This is one of the funniest mishap American comedies of all time featuring the brilliantly conceived pairing of Steve Martin and John Candy. Martin plays Neal Page a middle-aged family man who justs wants to get home for thanksgiving but his journey seems destined to failure when he meets and incidentally teams up with an overly friendly shower-ring salesman. 22.55, FILM 4 FIGHT CLUB (David Fincher, 1999) You know the drill: Edward Norton plays an angry office worker who, upon meeting an impressionable young soap salesman Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), discovers a secretive porthole to fuel his aggression through, which is the titular seedy underworld boxing club. 23.35, BBC1 GROSSE POINTE BLANK (George Armitage, 1997) Another rift on the Lee Marvin POINT BLANK title, this time featuring John Cusack as a guilt-ridden professional assassin who is sent on a mission to the Detroit suburb Grosse Pointe only for some old truths to resurface when he attends a high school reunion there.