TV films guide

MIKE BASSETT: ENGLAND MANAGER (2001)

Channel 4, 9pm

Despite some rickety running jokes, Ricky Tomlinson is perfectly cast as Bassett, the affable clown who finds himself plucked from club management to lead the national side to the World Cup in Brazil. Taking thinly disguised potshots at Graham Taylor, Vinnie Jones and Gazza, Mike Bassett: England Manager is an affectionate but astutely observed behind-the-scenes spoof in the vein of This is Spinal Tap. Amanda Redman co-stars among a gallery of famous cameos, including Pelé and Keith Allen. (89min)

NÓI THE ALBINO (2003)

BBC Four, 9pm/Friday, 11.30pm

The kind of tragicomic drama that Scandinavians do better than anyone else, Nói the Albino is a bleak but often very funny tale of small-town juvenile delinquency set in the frozen backwaters of Iceland. Raised by his deranged grandmother and alcoholic father, the 17-year-old Nói (Tómas Lemarquis) is a troublemaker whose only dream of escaping his hellish existence is a budding romance with a petrol station attendant, Íris (Elín Hansdóttir). A moving and thoughtful snapshot of small-town misfits. (93min)

SWEET SIXTEEN (2002)

BBC Two, 10.30pm

One of Ken Loach’s continuing cycle of Scottish-based collaborations with the writer Paul Laverty, this heartbreaking rights-of-passage story involves unemployed Inverclyde teenagers caught in a vicious cycle of poverty, crime and violence. Martin Compston plays Liam, a 16-year-old who turns to drug dealing in an idealistic scheme to save his mother (Michelle Coulter) from her abusive boyfriend. Loach’s tough but tender screen polemic earned an 18 certificate in most British cinemas, but this was downgraded to a 15 by the local authorities in Inverclyde. (106min)

THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967)

Five, 10.50pm

A revisionist Second World War movie designed with an eye on the 1960s counter-culture, The Dirty Dozen quickly became a hard-boiled classic. Lee Marvin lends his grizzled charisma to the role of an anti-authority US officer who leads a platoon of convicted criminals on a mission behind enemy lines. Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland and Charles Bronson lead a cast of heavyweights to an explosive , gung-ho climax. (145min)

THELMA & LOUISE (1991)

ITV1, 11.30pm; except Scotland

Ridley Scott’s escapist fantasy is a life-affirming feminist road movie that became an instant hit on its release. Fleeing their boyfriends, Thelma (Geena Davis) and Louise (Susan Sarandon) are provoked into shooting a redneck rapist, then head out across the wide-open deserts of America’s southwest. The screenwriter Callie Khouri makes almost every male character a shallow stereotype, with Brad Pitt as a cowboy conman. But Scott directs with vigour and verve, while both Davis and Sarandon earned Oscar nominations for their gutsy performances. (129min)

2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY (1996)

BBC One, 11.40pm

Drawing on the styles of both Robert Altman and Quentin Tarantino, John Herzfeld explores a cross-section of intersecting LA lives in his quick-witted comic thriller. 2 Days in the Valley brings together a collection of dubious characters, including a former Olympic athlete, played by the Desperate Housewives star Teri Hatcher, a sweet-natured hitman (Danny Aiello), his sadistic partner (James Spader) and an obnoxious art dealer (Greg Cruttwell). Charlize Theron makes her first big-screen appearance in this acidic comedy of errors. (104min)

THE SPANISH PRISONER (1997)

Channel 4, 3am

Mind games and sleight of hand are recurring obsessions of David Mamet, who takes great relish in overturning our expectations in this cryptic thriller about corporate espionage. Joe (Campbell Scott) is showcasing his mysterious new money-making system to a cabal of industrialists when he becomes involved with a mysterious millionaire (Steve Martin), a professional magician (Ricky Jay) and his own enigmatic office assistant (Rebecca Pidgeon). An intriguing puzzler that questions what you think you have seen and heard at every turn. (110min)

Sunday

THE CRIMSON PIRATE (1952)

BBC Two, 12.20pm; except Scotland

One of the finest swashbuckling romps, The Crimson Pirate combines superb action sequences with a knowing sense of its own camp absurdity. Directed in blazing Technicolor by Robert Siodmak, it stars Burt Lancaster at his gymnastic peak as Captain Vallo, a pirate and freedom fighter whose plan to double- cross both sides is scuppered by romantic complications. With his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, Lancaster seizes the chance to spoof every Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Jr pirate character. Silly fun. (105min)

THE BIG COUNTRY (1958)

ITV1, 3pm; except Ulster

A mammoth western blockbuster built on an operatic scale, The Big Country spices up its quasi-Shakespearean drama about clashing generations and love rivalries with ravishing scenery and stirring music. The co-producer, Gregory Peck, plays a former sea captain who arrives in the vast expanse of the West to marry a cattle baron’s daughter (Jean Simmons), much to the envious chagrin of Charlton Heston’s ranch foreman. Co-starring an Oscar-winning Burl Ives, William Wyler’s interminable epic is never less than engrossing. (165min)

PANIC ROOM (2002)

Five, 9pm

A simple home-alone plot becomes a masterclass in nerve-jangling suspense in the hands of the director David Fincher. Standing in for an injured Nicole Kidman at late notice, Jodie Foster stars as Meg Altman, a recently divorced mother who moves into an empty Manhattan townhouse with her teenage daughter (Kristen Stewart). One night, both are besieged in their high-tech “panic room” by masked marauders led by Forest Whitaker and Jared Leto. A slight but stylish thriller. (112min)

SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME (1987)

BBC One, 11.40pm; N. Ireland, midnight

Drawing on his background in high-gloss commercials, Ridley Scott elevates a routine crime thriller with great art direction and sumptuous cinematography. Tom Berenger plays a blue-collar New York cop assigned to protect a wealthy murder witness (Mimi Rogers), sparking an illicit romance across the class divide. Both stars give fine performances, especially Rogers as the proud but powerless damsel in distress. But it is their co-star Lorraine Bracco, who went on to The Sopranos, who impresses most as Berenger’s stoical, long- suffering wife. (95min)

WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS (1956, b/w)

BBC Two, 12.20am

Twenty-five years after he helped to launch the serial killer genre with his masterful thriller M, Fritz Lang returned to similar themes in this gripping film noir. While a mother-fixated murderer prowls New York, the back-stabbing editors of a tabloid newspaper battle for control of their media empire in a cynical race to expose the killer. Co-starring Vincent Price, George Sanders, Ida Lupino and John Drew Barrymore, While the City Sleeps is hardly a Lang classic, but it is a fine example of Hollywood’s fascination with cod-Freudian psychodrama. (100min)

Monday

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE (2001)

Channel 4, 11.05pm

Michael Moore’s Oscar-winning documentary about gun control and violence in America remains his most hard-hitting and accomplished film to date. Made in the shadow of the notorious classroom massacre, but lent extra impetus by September 11 and the looming war in Iraq, Bowling for Columbine is a sprawling, harrowing work of polemical entertainment. Moore uses iconoclastic humour, cartoon sequences and confrontational journalism in an attempt to understand the darkest fears and desires of his fellow Americans. (120min)

THE CONVERSATION (1974)

BBC One, times vary

Bleak, intelligent and claustrophobic, The Conversation remains one of Francis Ford Coppola’s finest films. Gene Hackman (above) stars as Harry Caul, a paranoid surveillance expert who tries to play the Good Samaritan after hearing an incriminating snatch of bugged conversation, only for his worthy intentions to backfire. Hackman reportedly considers this his finest performance, and later paid direct homage to Caul in Tony Scott’s thriller Enemy of the State. (114min)

Tuesday

STALAG 17 (1953, b/w)

Cinema 1, 8pm

The director and star of Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder and William Holden, reunited for this black comedy set in a German PoW camp. Holden stars as Sergeant Sefton, a cynical racketeer suspected of being an informer by his fellow inmates because of his sour sense of humour. Holden tried to quit when Wilder refused to make Sefton more sympathetic, but he was forced to comply by the studio. His reward was an Oscar, while Wilder enjoyed one of the biggest hits of his career. (120min)

MISS JULIE (1999)

BBC Two, 11.50pm; N. Ireland, 12.20am

His source material may be a century old, but Mike Figgis finds contemporary echoes of class and gender war in his stripped-down version of August Strindberg’s one-act social drama. Set below stairs during a midsummer party in a Swedish country mansion, Miss Julie hinges on the simmering sexual tension between the aristocratic title character (Saffron Burrows) and her footman, Jean (Peter Mullan). Using just a single set, Figgis directs Strindberg’s chamber piece with austerity and economy, but keeps the emotional fireworks crackling. (103min)

Wednesday

THREE COLOURS: RED (1994)

Sky Cinema 1, 10.15pm

The final chapter in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours trilogy stars Irène Jacob as Valentine, a Geneva- based model who forges a fateful friendship with a middle-aged judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant). A finely crafted, open-ended story about isolated souls and crossed wires, Red is disjointed but ultimately hypnotic. In a poetic flourish, key cast members from Kieslowski’s previous instalments in the trilogy, Blue and White, are reunited in this film’s final sequence. (99min)

SCENT OF A WOMAN (1992)

ITV1, 12.05am

Finally earning Al Pacino his first Oscar for Best Actor after seven nominations, Martin Brest’s agreeable two-hander pairs the crusty old heavyweight with the fresh-faced newcomer Chris O’Donnell in a sentimental tale of wisdom passed down the generations. Pacino is positively volcanic as Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, a blind, politically incorrect chauvinist. O’Donnell picks up the reflected glory as Charlie, the prep school novice who accompanies Slade on an eventful trip to New York. (157min)

Thursday

THE OUTLAW (1943, b/w)

BBC Two, 1.05pm

See Behind the Screen.

TIME OF FAVOUR (2000)

BBC Two, 12.20am

Set in an Orthodox Jewish settlement on the West Bank, Joseph Cedar’s Time of Favour is both a love story and a critical examination of religious fundamentalism. A moderate Israeli soldier (Aki Avni) and a theological scholar (Idan Alterman) are childhood friends whose political differences are amplified by their shared affections for their rabbi’s daughter (Tinkerbell). Cedar’s dramatic intentions are commendably ambitious, even if his allegorical meanings become muddled as the story progresses. (102min)

Friday

DIE ANOTHER DAY (2002)

ITV1, 8.30pm; except Ulster

The 20th instalment in the OO7 series is a muscular affair from the Kiwi director Lee Tamahori. Pierce Brosnan’s revitalised super-agent greets the new millennium with a greatest hits package of arch references to previous films, including his co-star Halle Berry rising from the sea like Ursula Andress in Doctor No. The flimsy plot, about stolen diamonds and North Korean warlords, is clogged with brazen product placement, but Tamahori directs with style, from the harsh torture scene to the spectacular car chases. (133min)

DEAD CALM (1989)

Five, 10.05pm

Nicole Kidman was headhunted for Hollywood fame after her superb performance in Philip Noyce’s gripping psycho-thriller. Kidman and Sam Neill play a grief-stricken couple whose therapeutic voyage on the South Seas takes a dark turn when they encounter the sinister survivor of a mysterious marine accident (Billy Zane). Based on a novel by Charles Williams, Dead Calm owes a debt to Roman Polanski’s nerve-jangling 1962 debut Knife in the Water. (95min)

ROAD TRIP (2000)

BBC One, 11.05pm; Scotland, 11.40pm

The comedian Tom Green stars as the improbably named Barry Manilow in this gleefully lowbrow farce about sex-crazed American college students. After his room-mate (Breckin Meyer) unwittingly posts an incriminating video of himself to his long-term girlfriend, Barry (Green) organises a high-speed dash to intercept the package. Road Trip is juvenile nonsense, but the gross-out humour occasionally hits the mark. The director Todd Phillips previously shot an explicit documentary about fraternity houses that was banned after legal intervention by the students’ parents. (93min)

RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 (1954, b/w)

BBC Two, 12.35am

Shot inside Folsom Prison, California, using real inmates and guards as extras, Riot in Cell Block H is a solid but unsensational B-movie. Rioting prisoners hold their captors hostage in a bid to secure more humane conditions, but politicians and reporters muddy their plans. Several of the cast and crew, including Leo Gordon, had served time behind bars. Sam Peckinpah was the film’s production assistant and it was this son of a well-respected California judge whose family connections helped to secure access to Folsom. (80min)

VANISHING POINT (1971)

ITV1, 12.35am

One of a slew of counter-culture road movies released after Easy Rider, Richard Sarafian’s cult thriller stars Barry Newman as Kowalski, an emotionally scarred amphetamine addict on a reckless mission to drive a souped-up roadster from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. Egged on by a blind DJ (Cleavon Little), Kowalski leads the police across America at breakneck speed. Sarafian’s trashy art movie actually came about because of a product placement deal between 20th Century Fox and Chrysler, who wanted a promotional vehicle for their new Dodge Challenger. (106min)