Including Harry Brown and The Lady from Shanghai

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 19

Harry Brown (Rialto, Sky 025, 8.30pm). ’Arry Brown is one pissed-off old geezer who’s let down by the Bill when his Old China is offed by a bunch of ’ooligans. Michael Caine’s world-weary geriatric vigilante will leave you gasping but you probably won’t be surprised that dear old London town has turned into a zoo full of chavs. (2009) 7

Harry Brown

Fight Club (TV3, 8.30pm). When someone in a movie says, “I want you to hit me as hard as you can”, you’re either watching Jack Black being a sadomasochist in some nutbar dress-up comedy that should have remained unmade or you’re watching Fight Club. If it’s Fight Club, you need never watch another Brad Pitt film again. He will never be better – or cooler. David Fincher’s third feature (after Se7en and The Game) is an ugly, surprising masterpiece. I’m picking most women will understand less about men after seeing this. Men might just want to go out and punch someone. (1999) 8

We Are Marshall (TV1, 9.00pm). Yet another fact-based underdog sports team drama in the slot that TV1 has created for such things, but without Jerry Bruckheimer’s guiding hand. This team has one hell of a disability – everyone in it’s dead! Once again, we’re encouraged to feel good about the bad stuff: in 1970, the coaches and virtually the whole football team of Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, are killed in a plane crash, and it’s up to unfortunately named college president Don Dedman (David Strathairn) to find a new coach and some players who don’t suck – out of those who didn’t make the team in the first place. Bring on the dancing girls, inspirational speeches, comical uniforms and a big box of tissues. New coach and great big sticking plaster Matthew McConaughey will have you barracking all the way to the utterly predictable ending. (2006) 6

Scary Movie 2 (TV2, 9.10pm). Scary career moves for Marlon and Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, Tori Spelling and – shame on you – James Woods and Tim Curry. So dumb it hurts. (2001) 4

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Elizabeth: The Golden Age (TV3, 11.25pm). Cor! That Sir William Raleigh was a bit of all right. Well, he would have been had he really looked like Clive Owen. Basically a period soap that tosses a little bit of history into the pot and it’s a great romp, although QEI probably wasn’t quite the vamp she’s made out to be here. This is effectively the sequel to Elizabeth (1998), for which Cate Blanchett received an Oscar nomination, but if it had been called Elizabeth: The Golden Years, nobody would have gone to see it. She’s not quite in a Zimmer frame here: the story takes up when she’s in her fifties and the Spanish are about to attack. (2007) 6

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 20

Did You Hear About the Morgans? (TV2, 8.30pm). Hugh Grant hasn’t looked this embarrassed since he was caught with that prossie in Hollywood. Yet another variation on the city-folks-in-the-country theme, except this time there are two of the buggers. Should you care, the other one is Sarah Jessica Parker. (2009) 4

500 Days of Summer (TV3, 8.30pm). There are a couple of reasons this romantic comedy is different from most but I’m only going to tell you one of them: the story does not play out chronologically. Offbeat and mostly charming, partly because the usual suspects are nowhere to be seen, it stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. (2009) 7

Domestic Disturbance (Four, 8.30pm). That would be “domestic” as in “tame”, “fluffy” and “sits around doing nothing all day”. The most interesting thing about this so-called thriller is that, during filming, co-star Steve Buscemi was stabbed in a bar brawl near the film’s North Carolina set. Fortunately for him, he recovered and, perhaps even more fortunately, his character was killed off in the early stages of the film. Critically mauled, as if by a non-domestic tiger, which was bad news for stars John Travolta and Vince Vaughn. (2001) 5

The Edge of Heaven (Maori, 8.30pm). Where, exactly, heaven is in this tough, hard-hitting drama is hard to say. Writer/director Fatih Akin won the 2007 best screenplay award at Cannes for his multi-layered story about Turkish immigrants living in Germany and struggling in their home country, and there are no easy answers. (Aka Auf der Anderen Seite.) (2007) 8

Jules and Jim (Rialto, Sky 025, 8.30pm). ’Tis the season to have a season: Rialto is celebrating the films of French director François Truffaut and this is a goodie. Set between 1912 and 1933, it is about a decidedly unpointy love triangle between Catherine et les hommes of the title (played by Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner and Henri Serre), but being French, it’s all very languid and desperately short of shoot-outs (see below). A beautiful classic. (1962) 8

The Lady from Shanghai (Stratos, Freeview 21 & Sky 089, 8.30pm). Stratos’s Orson Welles season continues with this little film noir cracker set on a yacht.  Welles wrote, directed and starred, alongside wife Rita Hayworth. Said to be one of his best films, it includes the famous shoot-out in the hall of mirrors but it nearly put a bullet in Hayworth’s career because Welles made her cut off her long red hair and dye it platinum blonde. Some say it was out of spite – their marriage fell apart shortly afterwards. (1947) 8

MONDAY NOVEMBER 21

Jarhead (TV3, 8.30pm). Sam Mendes’s brutal biopic puts ex-marine Anthony Swofford’s experiences fighting in the first Gulf War right at the centre of everything. Not much different from any other picture about any other war – only the technology changes. In the end it’s about sheer survival. Jake Gyllenhaal does a good job of portraying the intellectual son from a military family, with solid backing from Peter Sarsgaard, Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper. (2005) 7

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 22

Hating Alison Ashley (Four, 8.30pm). This Aussie coming-of-age comedy has pop star Delta Goodrem as the perfect, hated girl of the title and Saskia Burmeister as the ugly duckling out of Melbourne. Watch if you want to see Craig McLachlan making a prat of himself. (2005) 6

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 25

Escape from LA (Four, 8.30pm). That Snake Plissken sure gets around … slowly. A mere 15 years after escaping from New York, he’s back escaping from LA, which, following a major earthquake is now an island inhabited by freaks. Kurt Russell, who plays Snake, says this is his favourite character. Steve Buscemi, on the other hand, only took the role of Map to the Stars Eddie to help fund his directorial debut, Trees Lounge, which, happily for him, was a pretty good movie. This one, not so much. (1996) 5