Freeview films of the day : friday 31st of January

Neil Young : Heart Of Gold (2006 99min.) [C4 1.05am &+1]

Music documentary directed by Jonathan Demme that follows singer Neil Young's two sell-out concerts at the iconic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in which he plays his album Prairie Wind in its entirety, plus some of his best-known earlier work. Joining Neil and his band on stage is country singer Emmylou Harris.

Demme directed the classic concert film Stop Making Sense for Talking Heads and that experience helps him to capture these intimate and very personal songs recorded in Nashville as Young was promoting the Prairie Wind album.

The concert is a mix of newer songs and old favourites and shows Young on fine form as he returned to the stage following treatment for a brain aneurysm.

If you like the songs of Neil Young you'll love this film, if you don't you'll hate it and if you're unaware of his work and unsure what all the fuss is about this is a terrific place to start.

Paprika (2006 86min.) [Film4 2.15am saturday &+1]

Animated sci-fi thriller. Three scientists at the Foundation for Psychiatric Research invent a device that allows them to record and watch dreams. But when a thief steals it and uses the machine to enter people's minds, the trio - along with a police inspector and a sprite called Paprika - are forced into action.

The dazzling animation and the sheer quantity of ideas on display mean that it's sometimes difficult to follow the elliptical storyline but that really doesn't matter as the images on the screen perfectly capture the hallucinatory nature of dreams.
Brilliantly directed by Satoshi Kon who chucks in dozens of pop culture references while building a slightly scary, off-kilter world for his characters to live in.

A successful attempt at making an animated film aimed squarely (and solely, it's not child friendly at all) at an adult audience.