Thursday 24 December 2015

Freeview film choices : thursday 24th of December

Horton Hears A Who! (2008 82min.) [C4 10.55am &+1]
Animated adventure based on the popular children's book, featuring the voices of Jim Carrey and Steve Carell. In the jungle of Nool, Horton the elephant hears a voice coming from a speck of dust, and puts it on a clover for safekeeping. Imagine his surprise when he discovers the speck is a world in danger, and its people, the Who, need his help.

A fair number of laugh out loud moments.


Small Soldiers (1998 105min.) [ITV1 1.45pm &+1]
Fantasy action adventure starring Kirsten Dunst, Gregory Smith and featuring the voice of Tommy Lee Jones. When an overeager toy designer installs state-of-the-art military microchips into a line of action figures, the result is a battle royal between the Commando Elite and the peaceful Gorgonites. The problem is that the battleground is the suburban household of young Alan Abernathy.

It’s A Wonderful Life (1946 125min.) [C 4 2.15pm&+1]
Frank Capra's classic fantasy drama, starring James Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore. George Bailey is a small-town businessman who believes he has been a failure. Contemplating suicide, George meets his guardian angel and discovers what life in his home town of Bedford Falls would have been like had he never lived.


The Dam Busters (1954 119min.) [C5 2.45pm &+1]
Classic wartime drama, starring Richard Todd and Michael Redgrave, about the audacious RAF mission to destroy the Ruhr dams with "bouncing" bombs designed by aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis.

The film works because it's less about heroic acts of bravery and more about the skill, ingenuity and ability of inventor Barnes Wallis (Michael Redgrave) and the team of flyers led by Guy Gibson (Richard Todd).
Add in director Michael Anderson's solid work (the flying sequences are especially well done), the fact that there's (unusually) a well written role for a woman (Ursula Jeans as Wallis' wife) and Eric Coates' stirring theme "The DamBusters March" and you have one of the definitive British films from the 1950's cycle that looked back to the events of the previous decade.

Finding Nemo (2003 96min.) [BBC1 3.50pm]

Animated comedy adventure from the creators of Toy Story, featuring the voices of Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres and Willem Dafoe. Clownfish Marlin is devastated when his only son Nemo is netted by a scuba diver on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Teaming up with friendly but forgetful blue tang Dory, Marlin leaves the safety of the reef to rescue his offspring.

Genuinely funny Pixar computer animation aimed squarely at younger viewers but with plenty of subtle in-jokes and undercurrents for the older audience.

The voice casting is inspired too, with Ellen DeGeneres, Willem Dafoe, Geoffrey Rush and Eric Bana among those contributing supplementary texture to a marvellous sensory experience.
The Australian seagulls and surfer dude turtles are wonderful creations.

Scrooge (1951 86min.) [Ch5 5.20pm &+1]
Classic British version of Charles Dickens's Christmas tale, starring Alastair Sim. On Christmas Eve, a tight-fisted businessman is visited by three ghosts who remind him of the true spirit of Christmas.

Says here they are showing the black and white original rather than the vile ‘colorised’ version which keeps popping up elsewhere. In which case it’s pretty much unmissable.

Mamma Mia! (2008 104min.) [ITV3 5.50pm &+1]
Musical romantic comedy featuring the music of Abba, and starring Meryl Streep, Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan. On an idyllic Greek island, young Sophie Sheridan prepares to marry the man of her dreams. But a problem looks set to blight the big day as the bride doesn't know who her father is. So Sophie sends out invitations to three men who might fit the bill, hoping to solve the riddle once her guests arrive.

If you approach this in the right way (slightly boozed up and with low expectations) it's stupidly dumb entertainment for a couple of hours.
There are moments of genuine hilarity : mainly based around Pierce Brosnan's foghorn bellow style singing, Colin Firth's "dancing", Muriel bringing method acting intensity to even the most straightforward of Abba's songs and Stellan Skarsgard's utter bewilderment throughout.

Emerging star Amanda Seyfried is excellent in the face of all odds.

I Robot (2004 109min.) [Film4 6.45pm &+1]
Sci-fi action thriller starring Will Smith. Chicago, 2035: in a society that has become almost entirely dependent on robots, Detective Del Spooner is called in to investigate the death of eminent scientist Dr Alfred Lanning. All the evidence points to Lanning's superadvanced robot prototype being responsible, but everybody knows that robots are programmed never to harm a human...

Enjoyable action movie that doesn't over stay its welcome and is rather well put together and acted.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993 73min.) [ITV2 7.25pm &+1]

Animated musical drama featuring the voices of Chris Sarandon and Catherine O'Hara. Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, longs to escape the routine of Halloweentown. Through a door in a tree, he stumbles upon Christmastown where he engineers the kidnapping of Santa Claus and wreaks havoc among the inhabitants.

Top quality stop-motion animation with some great songs, sets, characters and voice work. Not just for kids and goths!
Superb set of songs by Danny Elfman too.

Casino Royale (2006 138min.) [ITV 2 9.00pm &+1]
Spy adventure starring Daniel Craig in his first appearance as 007. James Bond is awarded his licence to kill and sets off in pursuit of Le Chiffre, a corrupt banker who finances terrorism. Realising that the desperate Le Chiffre needs to win big on the gaming tables of Montenegro to pay off a dangerous client, Bond formulates a plan to ruin him in a high-stakes poker game.

Desperado (1995 104min.) [MovieMix/moremovies 11.05pm &+1]
Action adventure starring Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek. Mexico: pursuing his quest to avenge the death of the woman he loved, an embittered mariachi homes in on his final target, a vicious gang boss called Bucho.

Superbly directed by Robert Rodriguez with some jaw dropping action sequences and a highly amusing turn from Steve Buscemi.

Dial M For Murder ( 1954 101min.) [BBC2 11.30pm]
Thriller starring Ray Milland and Grace Kelly. When he discovers his wealthy wife Margot is having an affair with novelist Mark Halliday, playboy Tony Wendice hatches a plot to ensure that he doesn't wind up penniless.

First in a short late night season of Hitchcock films on BBC2. One of his lesser films which the director himself didn't much are for and which he made only to fulfil his contract with Warner Brothers and was originally shot in gimmicky 3D.
However, it still has the fingerprints of a master film maker on it : Ray Milland is suitably suave and menacing and Grace Kelly gives a very fine, nuanced performance mixing together affection, suspicion and fear very neatly.

Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure (1988 86min.) [ITV1 midnight &+1]
Comedy starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. California teenagers Bill and Ted are eager to succeed in a history exam because failure will result in Ted being sent to military school and end the duo's hopes of becoming heavy metal rock stars. Then a representative from the future arrives and assists their studies by enabling them to travel back in time.

I watched this again recently and it's stood up to the passing of time quite well. Obviously some of the references are very much of the time but the charm of the two lead characters is such that it's still an enjoyable watch with plenty of laugh out loud moments.

Wild At Heart (1990 119min.) [Film4 1.15am friday &+1]

Drama starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern. After serving time for manslaughter, Sailor Ripley is reunited with his girlfriend Lula Pace Fortune and the pair drive south from North Carolina on a journey of discovery and danger.

Director David Lynch attempys to temper his trademark visual style and flair to produce a more mainstream road movie but can't help chucking in all manner of weirdness and strangeness.
Cage gives one of the best perormances of his career and Laura Dern is effective in the role of the messed-up naif caught up in the madness.

There's a really strong supporting cast including Willem Dafoe, Isabella Rossellini, Harry Dean Stanton, Crispin Glover and Lynch regulars Sherilyn Fenn & Sheryl Lee, all attempting to keep this Twin Peaks meets Bonnie And Clyde story moving along.

It's slick, silly and fun as it attempts (and sometimes fails) to ride the rail between the surreal and the exciting

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