Saturday January 14
Beaches
(Garry Marshall, 1988)
2.20pm, Five
The story of the 30-year friendship of two little girls who meet on the beach at Atlantic City. One is a poor little rich kid who grows into troubled Barbara Hershey; the other is just poor, and becomes exuberant singer Bette Midler. Mary Agnes Donoghue's script is smart and funny, but heads inevitably towards a heartrending finale. Too many Midler numbers, but still a very superior weepie.
The Winslow Boy
(David Mamet, 1999)
2.50pm, BBC2
Strange to see Mamet, the word-perfect recorder of scabrous street language, immersed in this Edwardian-era drama; but he makes a decent a job of Terence Rattigan's tightly buttoned play. Contained in the story of the middle-class Winslow family's fight to clear the name of their young Ronnie is a thorough dissection of British imperial values. With Jeremy Northam, Gemma Jones and Nigel Hawthorne.
Sylvia
(Christine Jeffs, 2003)
9.10pm, BBC2
Despite two admirable performances at its heart, this is a resolutely dreary account of one of the most celebrated and turbulent of doomed literary romances. Gwyneth Paltrow's Sylvia Plath contains both an engaging sparkle in the early years as a bright young American at Cambridge, and the inner vulnerability that led to her suicide in 1963; and new-Bond Daniel Craig makes a fine, brooding Ted Hughes. Yes, it's a tragic tale of a wasted talent that ended pathetically, but the film fatally loses sight of that brilliant talent - of what made Plath more than just another sad suicide.
Shaft
(John Singleton, 2000)
10.10pm, C4
A super-cool, Armani-clad Samuel L Jackson plays the nephew of 1970s black sleuth John Shaft in this slick but uninspired updating of the best of the blaxploitation movies. Jackson's Shaft is out to bring sadistic killer Christian "Batman" Bale to book for a racist murder. Lots of action, as you'd expect, and the original Shaft, Richard Roundtree, makes a guest appearance.
Pleasantville
(Gary Ross, 1998)
11pm, BBC2
1990s siblings Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) and David (Tobey Maguire) are whisked back through the television set to the nostalgic haven of a 1950s sitcom. There, life is happy, easy, but also monochrome and dull. Ross's directorial debut makes witty and affectionate fun of small-town American family life, and essays a brilliant cinematic trick, the presence of the modern teenagers gradually infecting the black-and-white TV world with colour.
Caddyshack
(Harold Ramis, 1980)
11.15pm, Five
Brash, tasteless and raucously funny National Lampoon-style attack on the golf club establishment. This is slam-it-up-the-fairway humour, rather than delicate chips-and-putts stuff, with Chevy Chase as the resident pro, Rodney Dangerfield hilarious as an excruciatingly vulgar new member, and Bill Murray almost on a par as the loopy groundsman.
Heaven's Gate
(Michael Cimino, 1980)
11.25pm, ITV1
Notoriously over-budget, and murdered by American critics who hated its morally compromised view of the American dream, Cimino's epic western has since earned fulsome praise. It is majestic visually and in scope, recounting the 1892 Johnson county wars between ranchers and settlers through the episodic adventures of a group of characters. Starring Kris Kristofferson, John Hurt, Christopher Walken and Isabelle Huppert.
The Omen
(Richard Donner, 1976)
11.50pm, BBC1
When people call young Damien a little devil, they ain't kidding. The adopted son of American ambassador Gregory Peck (Charlton Heston was first choice) and Lee Remick has an impish sense of humour - making his nanny hang herself, for instance. But then, Damien is the son of Satan. Quality horror, this; scary without overly resorting to gore, the hair-raising Ave Satani screeching away in the background and a cast - including David Warner, Billie Whitelaw, Leo McKern - that takes it seriously.
Sunday January 15
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery
(John Glen, 1992)
11.40am, BBC2
The casting of John Glen's all-at-sea story is hardly less adventurous than Columbus's voyage of discovery. Tom Selleck as King Ferdinand? Marlon Brando as Torquemada, head of the Inquisition? No wonder sultry George Corraface as the explorer went west for the new world. Wide horizons, but limited entertainment.
The 6th Day
(Roger Spottiswood, 2000)
9pm, Five
In a not-so-distant futureworld, magnate Tony Goldwyn enlists Doctor Robert Duvall to illegally clone a human. But they aren't that clever, because they replicate the wrong man: former fighter pilot Arnold Schwarzenegger. Soon he is fighting for his life and his own identity, against his doppelganger and heavies intent on covering up the mistake. Arnie may be getting a little old for this sort of thing, but it's done with a style and energy not far off his heyday-classics such as the Terminators and Total Recall.
Romeo Must Die
(Andrzej Bartkowiak, 2000)
10pm, C4
Hong Kong martial arts star Jet Li's first leading role in Hollywood is a weedy effort: a weak plot isn't necessarily disastrous in a big-fight movie, but when the action scenes fail to thrill you're in trouble. Li plays an HK cop who goes to the US to investigate the death of his brother, and is plunged into a blacks-versus-Chinese mob war. There's a touch of Romeo And Juliet in his relationship with gang boss's daughter Aaliyah, but it's not very convincing - and neither is the computer-assisted mayhem.
Unhook The Stars
(Nick Cassavetes, 1996)
12.10am, BBC2
Cassavetes, son of the great John, has mum on his side in his impressive directing and writing debut. She is Gena Rowlands, who stars as Mildred, an elderly woman whose life takes an unexpected turn when she meets drunken Monica (Marisa Tomei) and her six-year-old son JJ (Jake Lloyd). Gérard Depardieu as a big ol' Canadian trucker is a slightly peculiar presence, but it's a sensitive and moving portrait of a woman of a certain age.
Monday January 16
My Darling Clementine
(John Ford, 1946)
1.15pm, C4
The most authoritative screen account of the gunfight at the OK Corral, and the most poetic. Ford turns the historic showdown into an allegory of the civilising of the west, and every scene - the square dance at the new church, even Wyatt Earp's trip to the barber - is loaded with rich significance. Measured performances, too, from Henry Fonda as Earp and Victor Mature as Doc Holliday.
Man On The Moon
(Milos Forman, 1999)
11.35pm, BBC1
Funnyman Jim Carrey is spot-on as the enigmatic stand-up comedian Andy Kaufman (best known here as Latka in the TV show Taxi): it's a flamboyant blend of off-the-wall humour on stage and sad mixed-up human being off it. The point seems to be that no one could tell when he stopped performing, and it was hardly surprising that this self-destructive talent died young, of cancer. An intriguing biopic, efficiently handled by Forman.
Tuesday January 17
Bad Day At Black Rock
(John Sturges, 1954)
1.30pm, C4
The great Spencer Tracy plays one-armed war veteran John Macready who proves more than a handful for the racist thugs running Black Rock. Arriving as the mysterious stranger in town, like a forerunner of a Leone western hero, he uncovers the shameful lynching of a local Japanese settler and deals with the killers - led by Robert Ryan and featuring a loathsome Lee Marvin. Taut, violent and uncompromising.
Wednesday January 18
The Indian Fighter
(Andre De Toth, 1955)
1.25pm, C4
The western best remembered for Elsa Martinelli's picturesque river bathing scene, but there's rather more to it than that. Shot in handsome Cinemascope, it tells a tough and intelligent tale of a hardy wagon train scout Kirk Douglas searching for peace with the Sioux; Martinelli's Indian girl being a very good reason for his action.
Ocean's Eleven
(Steven Soderbergh, 2001)
9pm, ITV1
Soderbergh's loose remake of the Rat Pack's sublimely self-indulgent 1960 caper movie is smarter, glitzier and funnier than the original. George Clooney is ineffably sharp and suave as Danny Ocean, straight out of jail and planning to hit three LA casinos for $150m while simultaneously winning back his ex (Julia Roberts) from their humourless owner (Andy Garcia). Aided by a stellar gang - including Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Carl Reiner, Elliott Gould and Don Cheadle as the least convincing cockney ever - the result is never seriously in doubt in an effortlessly charming entertainment.
Regarding Henry
(Mike Nichols, 1991)
9pm, Five
Harrison Ford plays self-regarding city lawyer Henry Turner whose world collapses when he is shot during a robbery. The long struggle back to health causes him to think again about neglected wife (Annette Bening), daughter (Mikki Allen) and life in general. Performances are good but Nichols's antiseptic treatment misses out any real sense of pain.
At First Sight
(Irwin Winkler, 1999)
11.40pm, BBC1
Like Awakenings, this story of a courageous blind man is based on an Oliver Sacks case report. Val Kilmer stars as the laidback masseur, Mira Sorvino the go-getting businesswoman who falls for him and sets about finding a doctor to restore his sight.
Thursday January 19
The Brothers
(Gary Hardwick, 2001)
3am, C4
You get the impression that there's a better movie lurking in this patchy but enjoyable buddies-growing-up story. It concerns four black buddies who have been together since basketball-playing childhood: a doctor (Morris Chestnut) a lawyer (Bill Bellamy) an executive (Shemar Moore) and a teacher (DL Hughley). When Moore announces plans to get married, his pals are horrified, and a series of friendship-versus-romance entanglements develops, the most successful the nicely played and surprisingly complex relationship between Chestnut and a freelance photographer (Gabrielle Union).
Friday January 20
Apache
(Robert Aldrich, 1954)
1.25pm, C4
Bleak revisionist western with Burt Lancaster doing his noble savage act as Massai, an Apache who continues the fight against the white man after Geronimo's surrender. Violent and uncompromising - until the jarring conclusion in which the ruthless freedom fighter is pensioned off into happy retirement with Jean Peters because the studio insisted on a happy ending: "The whole previous two hours becomes reduced if at the end he can just walk away," snarled Aldrich.
Rumble In The Bronx
(Stanley Tong, 1995)
11.05pm, BBC1
The film that made the name of martial arts clown Jackie Chan in the US - no one seemed to mind that Vancouver, mountains and all, was so blatantly standing in for New York. Chan is a Hong Kong cop in the States for a wedding who gets involved in some heavyweight law enforcement: pulverising street gangs and mobsters with high-speed finesse in a typically frenetic adventure.
