Film and television critic Philip Wakefield assesses the best movies on offer on the box this week, for Tuesday, June 17 to Monday, June 23.
Tuesday, June 17
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
2003, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
Kate Hudson plays a women’s magazine writer whose latest assignment is to make a guy fall in love with her and then get him to dump her within 10 days of meeting her. Cue Matthew McConaughey as an ad executive who bets his boss he can make a woman fall in love with him in 10 days. Guess what? If you can’t, tune in; if you can, you’ll lose interest in 10 minutes.
Wednesday, June 18
The Big Hit
1998, AO, 8.30pm, Prime
Violence with verve sums up this over-the-top comedy/thriller about a team of hit men who are targeted by their gangland boss when they unwittingly kidnap his goddaughter while moonlighting. Mark Wahlberg plays the killer who compounds his complicated love life - he already has a fiancee and a lover - by falling for the sassy, saucy kidnappee (China Chow).
Thursday, June 19
Capote
2006, AO, 8.35pm, Sky Movies 2
On the eve of his death, Truman Capote told his biographer, “There’s the one and only TC. There’s never been anybody like me and there ain’t going to be anybody like me again.” However, the flamboyant literary icon didn’t reckon on Philip Seymour Hoffman proving otherwise, 21 years later, in this rich, troubling, complex dramatisation of how Capote researched In Cold Blood. The groundbreaking non-fiction novel about a Midwest murder made Capote “the most famous writer in the world” - but at what cost? Was Capote’s manipulation of the convicted killers as cold-blooded as their crime? And did his greatest success precipitate his prolonged decline?
Friday, June 20
Miama Vice
2006, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
Michael Mann’s re-make of his iconic cop show for the MTV crowd owes just as much to his last TV series, the darker, moodier but dead on arrival Robbery Homicide Division. Twenty years on the beat still goes on but Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) have gone so deep undercover that fans may not recognise them. Miami Vice’s drug-trade globalisation plot feels even more synthetic than the alarming pastels of the original. The result is stylish and sporadically suspenseful but with none of the Heat of Mann’s last TV re-make.
Saturday, June 21
Freaky Friday
2003, PGR, 7.30pm, TV2
Jamie Lee Curtis reverts to adolescence in this familiar but funny re-make about a mother and a daughter who switch bodies. She plays a psychologist who literally winds up in her head-banging teenager’s shoes on the eve of remarrying. Droll one-liners help to transcend the movie’s choppy, sitcom-ish plotting but it’s Curtis’ gusto and goofiness that make Freaky Friday such a laugh-out-loud delight. Lindsay Lohan co-stars.
Big Momma's House
2000, PGR, 7.30pm, TV3
Gross, imbecilic undercover farce about an FBI agent (Martin Lawrence) who, to trap a brutal bank robber, impersonates the obese grandmother of his ex-girlfriend while she’s out of town. Think Stakeout meets The Nutty Professor but with laughs a lot smaller than Momma.
Mystic River
2003, AO, 8.30pm, TV One
Director Clint Eastwood’s relocates Unforgiven’s themes of manhood, retribution and the begetting of violence to modern-day Boston, where three friends are reunited as adults because of a murder that echoes a child abduction tragedy in their youth. It suffers from contrivances and an ending too ambiguous for its own good but boasts powerhouse writing, acting and directing. Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon star.
The Big Bounce
2004, AO, 9.30pm, TV2
Get Shorty fans get shortchanged with this fatally easy-going Elmore Leonard adaptation about an outlaw surfer (Owen Wilson) who does odd jobs for a judge (Morgan Freeman) while trying to rip off a crooked real estate tycoon (Gary Sinise) with the help of his mark's mistress (Sara Foster). Initial intrigue and goodwill soon fade as the meandering con-upmanship plot becomes more laboured than it is lame. Wilson and Foster are fun but more of Willie Nelson, Harry Dean Stanton and Vinnie Jones would have been better.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
1991, AO, 9.30pm, TV3
The cyborg from Hell returns - but this time he’s sad to the bone. As the surrogate father of Sarah Connor's child - the future saviour of mankind - he's been humanised into an avenging angel with a terminal condition: a heart of gold. The cinematography and special effects are wondrous, especially the morphing, but the screenplay is routine, which is why, despite all its eye-popping, hi-tech trickery, T2 never rivals the original for suspense and excitement.
Sunday, June 22
The Brothers Grimm
2005, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
Director Terry Gilliam re-imagines 18th century academics Will and Jacob Grimm as con men who scam superstitious villagers with their tall tales - until they’re forced to take a walk on the wild side of the Enchanted Forest. Gilliam isn’t as smooth a storyteller as his mentors but his flair for atmospherically fusing fantasy with history is the stuff of fun and enthralling escapism. Matt Damon and Heath Ledger star.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
2004, AO, 11pm, TV2
A predictably hi-tech, high-fatality fantasy starring leggy chicks with awesome arsenals under siege from ravenous hordes of the living dead spawned by corporate skulduggery. Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory and Oded Fehr star.
Out of Sight
1998, AO, 11.30pm, TV3
Sexy, suspenseful, stylish Elmore Leonard adaptation that's quintessential pulp noir with smarts. George Clooney plays a charming ex-con executing another scam while trying to dodge the feisty federal marshal (Jennifer Lopez) who's been on his trail ever since they shared a close encounter of the car boot kind. Samuel L Jackson, Ving Rhames, Michael Keaton and Dennis Farina co-star; Steven Soderbergh directs.
Monday, June 23
In & Out
1997, AO. 8.30pm, Sky Movies Greats
Clumsy Kevin Kline comedy about a small-town high school teacher who, on the eve of marriage, is outed on national television. Director Frank Oz (Death at a Funeral) squanders the scenario’s rich comic potential for feeble farce and sappy morality. If not for the top cast - Bob Newhart and Tom Selleck co-star - In & Out would be an out-and-out disaster.
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