With two films up for Best Picture and five nominated actors, Barry Norman reflected on how 2015 showed a growing British presence in Hollywood…
This article was originally published in February 2015, with the subheading: "Something’s changed in Hollywood, says Barry Norman. The Brits have at long, long last arrived." At the ceremony on 22 February, Birdman won Best Picture and Director. Eddie Redmayne was the only Brit to win in an acting category, though his film The Theory of Everything won Best Adapted Screenplay. At the 1982 Oscars ceremony Colin Welland waved aloft the award he had just won for the screenplay of Chariots of Fire and announced: “The British are coming!” This proclamation was widely regarded as the result of euphoria and thus not taken too seriously. But Welland wasn’t entirely wrong. Chariots of Fire won four Oscars, including best picture, and next year Gandhi trumped that with eight, among them best picture, best director (Richard Attenborough) and best actor (Ben Kingsley). Since then only Slumdog Millionaire in 2009 has emulated Gandhi, but even so the Brits have consistently had a significant presence at the Oscars. Acting awards have gone to such as Daniel Day-Lewis (best actor three times), Michael Caine (best supporting actor twice), Emma Thompson (uniquely a winner for both best actress and best screenplay), and the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, Kate Winslet, Jim Broadbent, Colin Firth and Tilda Swinton. In the same period four British directors and seven screenwriters have won, not to mention various awards in less glamorous but equally important technical categories. OK, so that’s roughly the record up to this year when, finally, the British can surely be said to have arrived. Two British films are among the eight nominated for best picture – The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game – and their respective male stars, Eddie Redmayne and Benedict Cumberbatch, are up for best actor. Meanwhile Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) and Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything) are nominated for best actress and Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game) for best supporting actress. Already that’s a pretty hefty non-American presence at an essentially American awards ceremony, without mentioning nominations in the technical areas. Of course, how many – if any – of them will win is another matter. Redmayne may have added the Bafta award for best actor to his Golden Globe, but the Las Vegas bookies make him second favourite for the Oscar to Michael Keaton (Birdman). Frankly, I don’t understand that. For me Keaton wasn’t even the best actor in Birdman: that was Edward Norton, who is up for best supporting player. Indeed, Keaton is no better than two British actors – David Oyelowo (Selma) and Timothy Spall (Mr Turner) – who were sadly overlooked for nominations. But then most of the nearly 7,000 Oscar voters are American and Keaton is a local boy, 63 years old, who has never won a major award, apart from a Golden Globe. So he’ll probably get the home team decision. In fact, give or take Redmayne and Keaton, what happened at the Baftas may well be repeated at the Oscars. All the other Bafta winners in the main categories are favourites to win again at the Academy Awards. But so what? It always seems to me that the Oscars are much more interesting at the nominations stage than in the final analysis. Apart from best picture, for which everyone votes, all the nominees are chosen by their peers – actors by other actors, directors by other directors and so on. If people who were probably vying with you for the same job think you did some of the best work of the year, that’s a true compliment. Just being nominated for an Oscar is a victory in itself. It’s only when it comes to picking the winners that everyone votes in every category and the whole thing becomes little better than a crapshoot. Personal likes and dislikes come into play. You might vote for someone simply because he or she was nice to you on the set. Then there’s the question of whether all the voters actually saw all the films. It’s not unknown for some, especially the elderly, to get their maids to watch them on DVD and deliver their opinions. But even if all our starry contenders come home empty-handed, the British are still a powerful influence in Hollywood. Ralph Fiennes (The Grand Budapest Hotel), Helen Mirren (The Hundred-Foot Journey), Emily Blunt (Into the Woods) and Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game) were nominated for Golden Globes. And in Selma, the story of a vital event in American history, the civil rights march led by Martin Luther King in 1965, all the main players – David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo and Tim Roth – were British. What’s more, as James Corden pointed out recently, Batman (Christian Bale), Superman (Henry Cavill) and Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) are all played by Brits. Corden himself is about to take over as host of The Late Late Show, thus adding to the list of Brits – Damian Lewis (Homeland) and Dominic West (The Wire), for instance – who have made an impact on TV over there. We may not be serial winners of Oscars, but it seems Welland was right, if not quite in the way he meant.
From the archive: Oscar you have a problem
The week of the 2016 Oscars ceremony, Barry Norman condemned the Academy's narrow-minded list of nominees…
This article was originally published in March 2016 with the subheading: "Barry Norman has covered the Oscars for 40 years – this year the Academy has got it wrong." At the ceremony on 28 February, Spotlight won Best Picture, The Revenant's Leonardo DiCaprio and Alejandro González Iñárritu won Best Actor and Director, while Room's Brie Larson, Bridge of Spies' Mark Rylance and The Danish Girl's Alicia Vikander took home prizes for Best Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress respectively. For a long time I believed the Oscars were at their best in the nominations stage, arguing that those nominations gave a pretty clear idea of how good – or bad – the cinema had been in the previous year. By contrast I thought the voting for award winners was not much better than a crapshoot, a time when friendships, enmities, rooting for the local boy or girl and other personal prejudices came strongly into play. But this time around I’m not so sure. The awards, of course, have yet to be announced but this year even the nominations are worrying, apparently giving the lie to Hollywood’s proud boast of being “colour blind” and also suggesting it’s misogynistic as well. Not only was no black performer or director deemed worthy of nomination but neither was any woman director and you have to wonder why. I’m indebted to the trade magazine Variety for the information that last year 45 films had black directors, 50 had Hispanics and more than 150 had women. Of those only the Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu (The Revenant, which won best film, best director and best actor for Leonardo DiCaprio at Bafta) was nominated. Is it possible that none of the others deserved a nomination? Women have a particular reason to wonder because let us not forget that in 80-odd years of Oscar only four women directors have ever been nominated and of them the sole winner was Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) in 2010. The most popular explanation for these oversights and anomalies is that, at the last estimate, of the 6,300 Oscar voters 94% were white and 77% male, a good many of them well into middle-age and beyond. But the film industry itself, here as well as America, is pretty much made up of such people and when casting a film they rarely seem to look far beyond their own kind. In other words, as Idris Elba has pointed out, in the UK any non-white performers and directors face a lack of opportunity and many black artists make a similar accusation about America. Incidentally, Elba (Beasts of No Nation), along with Samuel L Jackson (The Hateful Eight), is one of those with a particular cause for grievance at being overlooked this year. By all accounts others include Creed’s black star, Michael B Jordan, and black director Ryan Coogler, Sarah Gavron, director of Suffragettes, and F Gary Gray, the black director of Straight Outa Compton. From Creed the sole nominee was Sylvester Stallone (best supporting actor) and from Straight Outa Compton the only nominees were the equally white screenwriters. As for the question of lack of opportunity it’s by no means new. Back in 1956 Variety ran a series of articles asking why there were so few roles for black performers in films and the situation hasn’t got a lot better since. At the Cannes film festival in 1995 Samuel L Jackson and I were discussing The Usual Suspects and I suggested it was exactly the kind of film that would have been right for him. “Well,” he said, “my agent did enquire about that but he was told there was no role for a black actor.” Which was absurd because in that movie, as in many others, the ethnicity of the characters was quite unimportant. This is not to imply that members of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are endemically racist or misogynistic. They don’t get together to decide whom to nominate; each votes independently. But let’s face it – if you’re white you might instinctively and with no thought of racial prejudice favour a white contender. As for lack of opportunity for black actors, the writer-director Joel Coen said recently: “You don’t sit down and say, ‘I’m going to write a story that involves four black people, three Jews and a dog’ – right?” Well, no, if you’re white you probably don’t but if you’re a black writer you might. Although the comparative lack of films about black people (or come to that Jews, never mind dogs) suggests that such a writer might have difficulty finding backers. The absence of ethnic and female contenders in various categories is particularly glaring this year but there was a similar situation last time around when Selma was nominated for best picture but there were no nominations for David Oyelowo, who was superb as Martin Luther King, or the director Ava DuVernay. The American Academy is aware that it has problems. A number of people, led by Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of Will Smith, are planning to boycott the awards ceremony; Stallone also considered joining them until Coogler told him he should go. Partly in view of this the Academy’s president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, an African-American, has announced a scheme to attract a more diverse membership and restrict voting to those members who have worked in the industry in the last ten years, thus excluding the very old (and mostly very white and male) members who have been retired for decades. It might work but it will take some time to come into effect. Meanwhile we can only hope that next year the voters will approach the nominations with a more open mind.
The 1985 Academy Awards were a first for Barry Norman, who wrote this piece ahead of attending the ceremony for the first time.
This article was originally published in March 1985, with the subheading: "The 57th Academy Awards are a first for Barry Norman – he’ll be there to cheer on the British hopes." At the ceremony on 25 March, Amadeus won eight awards, including Best Picture, Actor, Director and Screenplay. British nominees David Lean, Roland Joffé, Vanessa Redgrave and Albert Finney all went home empty-handed, but Peggy Ashcroft won Best Supporting Actress for her role in A Passage to India. Oscar celebrates his 57th birthday this year, an anniversary of particular significance to me because, for the first time, I shall be present at the ceremony. Hitherto I’ve contented myself with watching it live on TV in a Hollywood hotel with a group of friends, our ribald appreciation much enhanced by hamburgers and Californian burgundy. Thus in 1978 I saw Laurence Olivier deliver a speech amazing both for its eloquence and its inscrutability of content. The next morning on television Jon Voight, voted best actor for Coming Home (wrongly in my view: Robert De Niro should have won for The Deer Hunter) could speak of little but the Great Man. "That speech of Olivier’s," he said. "Wow! Didn’t it blow your mind?" Well, yes, it did actually because, glorious though it sounded, it didn’t seem to mean anything. But then the British have a knack of impressing Oscar night with their verbals. Remember Colin Welland, brandishing his screen-writer’s award for Chariots of Fire and declaring: "The British are coming"? It seemed an empty boast then but next year Gandhi cleaned up eight Academy Awards. Last year, though we won no major trophy, our actors and actresses — among them Michael Caine, Tom Conti and Julie Walters — were lavishly nominated; and now here we are again with, for openers, 11 nominations for A Passage to India and seven for The Killing Fields. Mind you, all such prize-givings are basically daft. To compare, for instance, those two disparate British entries is akin to taking a piece of chalk in one hand and a lump of cheddar in the other and announcing that chalk is better. Perfectly true if you want to write on a blackboard but not necessarily if you’re hungry. Nevertheless, Oscar remains the most coveted award in movies. To individual winners it represents the pinnacle of success; to film companies millions of dollars at the box office. But what of this year and Britain’s prospects? Well, I doubt if we’ll enjoy a Gandhi-type bonanza, but I’ll be astonished if we come away empty-handed. With, for example, Albert Finney (Under the Volcano) up for best actor, Vanessa Redgrave (The Bostonians) for best actress, David Lean (A Passage to India) and Roland Joffé (The Killing Fields) for best director, we really should win something. Our best bets? Probably David Lean, Peter Shaffer (screenplay, Amadeus), Peggy Ashcroft (best supporting actress) and Ernest Day (cinematography) both for A Passage to India. A final thought: the only married couple to win Academy Awards for best actor and best actress were British — Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. As Michael Caine might say: "Not a lot of people know that."
Ahead of the Oscars in 1994, Barry Norman correctly predicted a night where Hollywood's top awards body finally recognised the industry's most successful director, Steven Spielberg…
This article was originally published in March 1994 with the subheading: "Spielberg's List is 12 Oscar nominations long. But will the world’s most successful film director go home empty-handed again? Barry Norman places his bets and predicts a night of glory for Spielberg’s acclaimed Holocaust drama Schindler’s List." At the ceremony on 21 March, Schindler's List won seven awards, including Best Picture, Director and Screenplay – while Tom Hanks, Holly Hunter, Tommy Lee Jones and Anna Paquin also took home Oscars in their respective categories. It’s hard to remember a time — no, it’s pretty nearly impossible to remember a time — when the outcome of Hollywood’s annual Oscar election seemed quite such a foregone conclusion as it does this year. Is there, for instance, much point in any nominated director other than Steven Spielberg even bothering to turn up for the ceremony? Could not the American Academy save a lot of time and bother by simply sending Tom Hanks the statuette for best actor through the post? Does anyone truly believe that Schindler’s List will not win the award for best picture? And if by chance it doesn’t, isn’t there a serious risk of a riot breaking out? Even now, though the odds are shortening all the time, anyone who placed bets on Spielberg, Schindler’s List, Hanks and, for best actress, Holly Hunter in The Piano, would almost certainly clean up. Of course, as we discovered in our own most recent political equivalent of Oscar night — the 1992 general election — there is always the chance of a belated groundswell in favour of other candidates, but it doesn’t seem likely. And yet if you look at the way the nominations were distributed, the results should be much less predictable than they appear. Schindler’s List has 12 nominations, The Remains of the Day and The Piano have eight each, The Fugitive, somewhat bewilderingly, has seven and such a spread would, in normal circumstances, suggest a close race. For a variety of reasons, however, no such thing is expected. That Tom Hanks is regarded as a shoo-in for best actor is largely attributable to political correctness. Hanks gives a fine performance in Philadelphia, though no better than that of his co-star Denzel Washington (who isn’t nominated) and not as good as those of Anthony Hopkins in The Remains of the Day and Daniel Day-Lewis in In the Name of the Father. What gives him the edge is that he plays a gay, Aids-afflicted lawyer in the first big budget Hollywood film to deal with that subject and the voters will wish to recognise the effort, while applauding themselves for their own social consciousness, by bestowing an award. Since neither the film nor the director, Jonathan Demme, is nominated, the most effective way to do that is to acknowledge Hanks. In the case of Schindler’s List, the widespread feeling is that a) this is an outstanding film, probably the best of those nominated, which also deals with an important subject — the Holocaust; and b) it provides the perfect opportunity to compensate America’s most successful director for the neglect he has suffered in the past. That being so, the chances are that Schindler will reap a large number of Oscars, including one for Steven Zaillian’s best adapted screenplay. Holly Hunter’s position as favourite for best actress owes something to the fact that, in The Piano, she refuses to speak and therefore, like Hanks, is in some way afflicted. Oscar voters have always had a penchant for actors playing people who are or appear to be disabled — Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda, for example, or John Mills in Ryan's Daughter and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Hunter’s strongest competition is probably represented by Debra Winger, in Shadowlands, and, again partly for reasons of political correctness — talented black performers having been so often ignored in the past — Angela Bassett, who played Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It. But that situation is odd in itself because only a few months ago Hollywood hype indicated that the popular choice for best actress was Michelle Pfeiffer in The Age of Innocence. Yet as it turned out she failed to get a nomination. Which brings me to the point that when, in retrospect, we look back on the 1994 Oscars it’s very likely that the biggest surprises will lie not in the list of winners but in the list of those who were not even regarded as contenders. Among the questions we may then ask ourselves are: why was Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence overlooked in all the four main categories (best picture, director, actor and actress); why was Anthony Hopkins chosen for The Remains of the Day and not for Shadowlands, in which he was even better and why, if Robert Altman was nominated (most deservedly) as best director, was his film Short Cuts not included among the best five pictures when it was undoubtedly a great deal better than The Fugitive, as, come to that, was Shadowlands? What we may also find ourselves reflecting upon was the way British (and Irish) hopes, so high on nomination day, were so sadly confounded on Oscar night. Ralph Fiennes (Schindler’s List) or Peter Postlethwaite (In the Name of the Father) could run Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive) close for best supporting actor and Emma Thompson (In the Name of the Father) is in with a shout for best supporting actress. But otherwise I think this will not be one of those years, so famously heralded by Colin Welland after Chariots of Fire, when "the British are coming." The British will surely come to the ceremony but I fear they will, for the most part, return empty-handed, for this has all the hallmarks of a year when Oscar celebrates America. Yet who can really tell which way the 4,600 or so voters will jump? Many years ago I went to an Oscar nomination screening at the 20th Century Fox studios in Beverly Hills. I arrived early and watched in amazement as the room slowly filled up with what appeared to be the oldest people in the world — all windswept toupees, Crimplene safari suits and gold medallions nestling in tufts of white chest hair. I’m tempted to say that the men looked no better but I imagine you’ve got the point. There was a cocktail party, followed by dinner and then the film. This, as it transpired, was the wrong order, because we were barely into reel two before half the assembled crumblies were asleep. Now, since the film was a total turkey called Lucky Lady this slumber may have been as much a form of silent criticism as the result of all the booze and food or, just as importantly, the late hour and the age of the audience, but I wouldn’t bank on it. A large proportion of Oscar voters are elderly and if the present lot follow the sleep patterns of their predecessors and tend to nod off during everything except, let us say, The Fugitive, they could still present us with some unforeseen results on the night. Personally, I don’t think it will happen. For once I believe all the oracles and soothsayers will be proved correct, though I know of one man who will not, right now, be half as confident as I am, and that is Steven Spielberg. He, I am sure, still has memories of 1985 when his film The Color Purple gained eleven nominations — and won nothing at all. The nightmares attendant upon such an experience will not be assuaged until Monday night when, as both producer and director of Schindler’s List, he holds an Oscar in each hand.
"He’s a much better actor than critics normally allow"
With The Italian Job restored and re-released in cinemas for its 55th anniversary, revisit this RT column from film critic Barry Norman in 2000, originally headlined "Praising Caine"…
Add The Italian Job to your watchlist. This piece was originally published in RT in December 2000, just after Michael Caine had been honoured with a lifetime achievement award, a second Oscar and a knighthood. I reckon that about one in seven of Michael Caine’s 100-odd films is really worth seeing. I mentioned this to him once and he took it as an acceptable average. "Nobody wants to make bad movies," he said, philosophically, "but sometimes they don’t turn out right." Against that, however, Caine’s own performances, no matter how disappointing the movie, usually do turn out right because he’s a much better actor than critics normally allow. Give or take a dodgy upper-class accent, he was excellent in Zulu, better still in Alfie and best of all in Get Carter, these being the films that, early on, earned him a cult following that continues to this day among young cinemagoers. Right there you have three very different roles, all certainly underlaid with the distinctive Caine charisma but equally all very well played. Anyone who still doubts his acting ability should watch Sleuth, a two-hander in which he held his own with Laurence Olivier, whereupon I rest my case. That he has had five Oscar nominations and won twice (for Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules) proves little — some truly lousy actors have won Oscars — except the respect which he is accorded by his peers. That I don’t think he deserved the award for The Cider House Rules is strictly a personal judgement and doesn’t alter the fact that, like his peers, I hold him in high regard. His versatility, if more examples are needed, is clear from such disparate films as The Ipcress File, The Man Who Would Be King and Educating Rita. He can, as occasion demands, be the hero, a passable light comedian or downright sleazy. And somehow even his really bad films — The Swarm, Ashanti and Jaws the Revenge spring gloriously to mind — are often bad on such a grand scale as to be rather enjoyable, partly because, as a consummate professional, he always gives his material (however unworthy of him) his best shot. Because he is so dependable and is always careful to keep his salary demands reasonable, Caine is rarely out of work, arguing that frequency of screen appearances is vitally important. His role model is Clark Gable. "I bet hardly anyone can name even ten films Gable was in," he said. "But because he made a lot of movies everyone knows who he was." During the 90s Caine had a brief crisis of confidence and made a couple of TV films to sort himself out. The therapy seems to have worked: since his return to the cinema he has made two of his most successful pictures (Little Voice and The Cider House Rules) and could be in line for another Oscar nomination with his latest effort, the costume drama Quills, wherein he plays the medical director of a mental asylum who is even more sadistic than its most notable inmate, the Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush). All of which seems to suggest that Michael Caine, 67 now, will be around for a long time yet.
Maggie Smith is the perfect bag lady in Alan Bennett’s comedic tale of human connection
The Lady in the Van ★★★ 10.45pm BBC2 on Monday 23rd December This is a true story, adapted from a play by Alan Bennett. It tells of Mary Shepherd (Maggie Smith). An eccentric old woman whose home was a dilapidated van which, in the 1970s, she parked, uninvited, in the driveway of Bennett’s London home and kept there for fifteen years. The van stank and so did she. Bennett (accurately portrayed by Alex Jennings) is obviously not pleased about this, particularly after she makes a god-awful mess in his house. But at the same time, as a writer, he can see her as source material. The story is told from Bennett’s point of view as he investigates Shepherd’s background and discovers both that she is not who she claims to be but also that in, as it were, a previous existence had a potentially glamorous but ultimately rather tragic life. Maggie Smith, as ever, is on great form.
Barry Norman's final column: a look back at the "intimate" 1958 version of Dunkirk
Legendary film critic and presenter Barry Norman sadly passed away on June 30th. In his final piece for the Radio Times, Norman revisits his father's classic war film, Dunkirk
My father, Leslie Norman, is probably best known for producing The Cruel Sea. The director, Charles Frend, delayed production on that until Dad, rather than anyone else at Ealing studios, was free to produce it with him. A nice compliment and a great film. But my father was prouder of Dunkirk, which he directed and which I believe also to be a particularly fine British war movie. Well, I would say that, wouldn’t I? But see it for yourself and I think you’ll agree. It was one of Ealing’s longest films (135 minutes) and a hugely complicated one to direct. Much of the action is set on Camber Sands, near Rye, which stood in for the Dunkirk beaches. There Dad had to deal with hundreds of extras — portraying British and French troops — being strafed and bombed by the Luftwaffe in May 1940, while they waited desperately to be evacuated to England. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug_wi4ppnnc Simultaneously there were two different, more intimate tales to be told: the first concerning a handful of British soldiers led by Corporal John Mills, who had been cut off somewhere in northern France and were making their way through enemy lines to the beaches. Meanwhile, back in England, there was another story – that of the skippers and crews of the flotilla of small boats that sailed to Dunkirk to help the Royal Navy bring the troops home. Here the main characters are a businessman, Richard Attenborough, who is doing well out of the war, and a hard-nosed journalist, Bernard Lee, who is highly critical of the way the military brass hats had allowed the impending disaster of Dunkirk to take place. OK, nowadays we tend to think of “the miracle of Dunkirk” as some sort of bizarre victory, and the fact that so many soldiers were brought home was indeed a kind of miracle. But in truth it was a considerable defeat and Dad’s film doesn’t disguise that. Certainly there is heroism here, as there was in fact, but this is not gung-ho heroism; it’s the heroism of ordinary blokes struggling to cope with an extraordinary and perilous situation. The personal stories — including Attenborough’s initial reluctance to help in the evacuation — are well told and well played, but the real power of the film lies in its depiction (extremely accurate according to survivors of the actual events) of the chaos and mayhem of the retreat towards Dunkirk and what happened on the beaches before and during the rescue. My father produced or directed a number of very good films, but Dunkirk was his most satisfying. Dunkirk (2017) is in cinemas from 21st July
Sandra Bullock is lost in space and trying to get back to Earth in this Oscar multi-bagger that'll have you on the edge of your seat
Gravity ★★★★★ Premiere 7.10-9.00pm ITV2 Biomedical engineer Dr Sandra Bullock is on her first space mission in a craft captained by veteran astronaut George Clooney. Unfortunately, their ship is destroyed by debris from a defunct satellite. Only Bullock and Clooney are left, floating about in space. What to do? Well, the International Space Station is only 900 miles away so they set out for it. But, as you can imagine, walking about in space isn’t like a stroll in the Lake District. All kinds of perils beset them, the satellite debris is everywhere, laying waste to other space stations. Clooney is soon out of action and Bullock has to struggle to find her way to salvation. The plot doesn’t really bear close examination but it’s thrillingly tense, Bullock is very good as is Clooney, while he’s on screen, and the effects are outstanding. Largely because of them, the film won seven Oscars. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Arnold travels to Mars to fight bad guys as a secret agent. Is it real? Is it a memory implant? Who cares when it's this much fun.
Total Recall ★★★★ 10.00-12.20am ITV4 This is as close as Arnold Schwarzenegger has come to real acting – still the superhero slaughtering countless people but exhibiting unusual signs of bewilderment. Mind you, bewilderment might have come naturally to him when faced with dialogue of more than a few words but, in Paul Verhoeven’s complex sci-fi epic, bewilderment is good both for character and plot. Schwarzie, a construction worker on Earth in 2084 and married to Sharon Stone, has confusing memories of another life on the now colonised Mars, where he was involved with Rachel Ticotin in a bloody civil war. But are these real memories or false ones implanted by an agency called Rekall? What is real and what is not? It’s all very violent but it does keep you watching. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Freeview film of the day: The Deer Hunter
Classic Vietnam War movie in which Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken fight for survival
The Deer Hunter ★★★★★ 11.05pm-2.40am ITV4 This Vietnam War movie featuring the famous Russian roulette scenes was the late director Michael Cimino’s finest work, made before everything went belly up with Heaven’s Gate. The protagonists are three Russian-American steelworkers from Pennsylvania — Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and John Savage. It begins cheerfully with Savage’s wedding and then moves abruptly into Vietnam where our heroes, now conscripted into the army, are captured and viciously tortured — cue the Russian roulette. At three hours the film is overlong and by no means flawless but is still a tense, moving story of survival, male bonding and the appalling, dehumanising effects of war on young men. The movie, Cimino and Walken (best supporting actor) all won Oscars. Excellent support from Meryl Streep as Walken’s girlfriend. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings
Great performances from Johnny Depp and Al Pacino draw you into this story of a cop infiltrating the New York mafia.
Donnie Brasco ★★★★ 9.00-11.40pm Sony Movie Channel This is based on the true story of an undercover FBI agent, Joseph D Pistone, who infiltrated the Bonanno Mafia family in New York purporting to be Donnie Brasco, a jewel thief. The action moves from New York to Florida and involves much skulduggery, violence and sudden death but at the heart of it is a friendship — that between Brasco (Johnny Depp) and Lefty (Al Pacino), an ageing hitman who, unaware of Brasco’s real identity, introduces him to the Mob and acts as his mentor. As his Mafia involvement increases, Donnie grows more and more like the mobsters, to the detriment of his marriage to Anne Heche. An intriguing story deftly directed by Mike Newell and splendidly acted by Pacino and Depp. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
A stylish and suave debut for Daniel Craig as the iconic 007, and a great return to form for the James Bond franchise.
Casino Royale ★★★★ 9.00-11.50pm ITV This was the best Bond film for some time. It marked the debut of Daniel Craig, himself the best 007 since Connery, and took the character back closer to Ian Fleming’s original creation. True, he doesn’t smoke, drink a lot or even have much sex. But he’s tougher, moodier, more vulnerable — especially where women are concerned — than most of his predecessors. What’s more the film refreshingly moves away from the increasing emphasis on gadgets and gimmickry that had dominated so many of the previous movies. Nor does the plot involve some arch-villain intent on world domination but instead a terrorist gang’s desperate financier (Mads Mikkelsen), who has to win a big poker game to save his life. It’s up to Bond, of course, to thwart him. There’s plenty of action and violence, naturally, and an intriguing femme fatale in the mysterious Vesper (Eva Green). Shock moment: when Bond says he doesn’t give a damn whether his martini is shaken or stirred. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Freeview film of the day: Dallas Buyers Club
Matthew McConaughey won an Oscar as Ron Woodroof, a man who begins smuggling HIV treatments into Texas after he is diagnosed with the disease.
Dallas Buyers Club ★★★★ 11.25pm-1.45am 5STAR Based on the true story of Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey), a Texas electrician who in the 1980s is told he has HIV and 30 days to live. How come? He is a bawdy, rampant heterosexual, even a touch homophobic, not at this stage a particularly nice person. How did he get HIV, then regarded as something that affected only gays? More importantly, what’s to be done? There was little treatment for HIV at that time so Ron took matters into his own hands, searching the world for alternative, even banned, therapies and smuggling them into Dallas, for his own use and also that of others similarly afflicted. Thereafter, conflict with the medical profession and government agencies was inevitable. It’s a touching, often funny story distinguished by Oscar-winning performances by McConaughey (best actor) and Jared Leto (best supporting actor) as a transgender HIV victim. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Freeview film of the day: Reservoir Dogs
Quentin Tarantino makes an impression in his directorial debut with this smart crime thriller.
Reservoir Dogs ★★★★★ 10.15pm-12.20am ITV4 Quentin Tarantino’s calling card to the movie industry must rank high among the ten best films ever made by a first time writer/director, not far below Citizen Kane. It’s the story, told before and after the event, of a diamond heist that goes badly wrong despite the protagonists, among them Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Steve Buscemi, using colours instead of names as aliases to cover their tracks. Once the raid has misfired and mayhem takes over, violence breaks out but the film is most memorable for being beautifully written and directed and very witty. If you’ve not seen it, you have a treat in store. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Freeview film of the day: Full Metal Jacket
A war movie of two halves, with the action divided between boot camp, with Lee Ermey's terrifying drill sergeant, and the battlefields of Vietnam.
Full Metal Jacket ★★★★★ 10.00-12.25am ITV4 Oliver Stone’s Platoon was the Vietnam War movie that won the Oscars, but Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, which came later, is a better film – a coolly detached observation of the effects of war on individuals. Filmed entirely in Britain, the story is told in two parts. Part one, dealing with a bunch of youthful American Marines undergoing basic training in boot camp, centres on their violent, dehumanising gunnery sergeant, Lee Ermey, a man with a genius for obscenity, and the group misfit Vincent D’Onofrio, who cracks under the strain. Then the action moves to Vietnam where attention focuses on Matthew Modine, and the rookies turned licensed killers, going into bloody action, find their most dangerous opponent is a teenage girl sniper. But this is a conflict fought on both sides mostly by kids. What Kubrick has to say about the horror of war is not new but he says it with a brilliance and artistry denied to most film-makers. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
He soars, he sneers – Robert Downey Jr is the superhero with attitude in the first of the billion-dollar Marvel franchise
Iron Man ★★★★ 8.00-10.30pm C4 Another Marvel Comics superhero brought to the screen. Still, never mind – this one is considerably better than most, thanks mainly to Robert Downey Jr, a somewhat unlikely choice to play the eponymous hero. You think of Downey not as a supercharged crime fighter but more as light relief, someone sharp, witty and sardonic. Refreshingly, he brings all those qualities to bear as Tony Stark, an amoral, playboy weapons dealer who, captured by the Taliban and told to assemble a missile for them, instead develops a metal suit of wondrous properties in which to escape and, most significantly, a conscience. Henceforth, he declares war on warmongers everywhere, starting in Afghanistan and moving to America, where the chief villain is his own weapons-dealing business partner, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), and where Stark is tended by his loving and curiously named assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). All three are excellent in Jon Favreau’s highly enjoyable, though preposterous, romp. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Freeview film of the day: Elizabeth: the Golden Age
The dramatic, if not entirely true-to-life, story of Elizabeth I's public and personal life during the invasion by the Spanish Armada sees Cate Blanchett return to the role of the eponymous Queen
Elizabeth: the Golden Age ★★★★ 11.25pm-1.25am ITV First question: Is this movie true to history? Answer: Well, no. Second question: Does it work as a film? Answer: Yes, especially if you can forgive it playing fast and loose with the facts. It’s director Shekhar Kapur’s sequel to the 1998 Elizabeth and again stars the splendid Cate Blanchett in the title role. In 1585 Spain declares war on England, where the ageing Elizabeth is being urged by Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush) to marry and thwart the ambitions of Mary, Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton). Elizabeth, however, is having it away with Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen), which came as news to me. Henceforth, we are plunged into murky Papist plots, with Eddie Redmayne assigned to assassinate the queen, the Spanish king planning to grab the English throne for his daughter and, naturally, Francis Drake defeating the Spanish Armada. Historically it’s a mess but thrilling and absorbing nevertheless, and Blanchett was deservedly rewarded with an Oscar nomination as best actress. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
JJ Abrams boldly goes back to the beginning with this slick sci-fi reboot starring Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto
Star Trek ★★★★ 8.00-10.30pm E4 This, the 11th in the series, decides to boldly go back to the past with a new young cast. Well, it had to really if the franchise were to continue — the original lot are far too old to go messing about in space, although the first Spock (Leonard Nimoy) does put in a brief appearance. The storyline here is less concerned with such things as moral issues than the earlier films and concentrates more on lots of colourful action. Basically the starship Enterprise, captained by young Jim Kirk (Chris Pine) is trying to stop an evil Romulan, Captain Nero (Eric Bana), who is going around destroying planets. The youthful Spock (Zachary Quinto), “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban), Scotty (Simon Pegg) et al are all there to help and, though they may look unfamiliar, the characterisation is neatly done and you can easily imagine them maturing into their older and, if you see what I mean, original selves. Trekkies should be well pleased. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Helen Mirren stars in this handsome drama detailing the life of Queen Elizabeth II in the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana
The Queen ★★★★★ 8.00-10.00pm ITV The death of Diana, “the people’s princess” – so dubbed by the arch-populist Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) – and throughout the land there is a bewildering, not to say alarming, outbreak of public grief. Only the Queen (Helen Mirren) doesn’t join in. She belongs to a tougher generation that keeps its emotions to itself. Besides, Diana was divorced and no longer a royal; the funeral, the Queen believes, should be a family, rather than state, affair. But the tabloid press, which has decreed that everyone’s feelings should be nakedly, wailingly on display for public consumption, decides this is not good enough and begins a sniping campaign against her. Stephen Frears’s excellent film shows how Blair, despite the opposition of other members of the Royal Family, persuades the Queen to unbend, speak favourably of Diana, attend her public funeral and thus restore herself to popular favour. Peter Morgan’s splendid screenplay is outstandingly well served by Sheen and particularly the Oscar-winning Mirren. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
It's egos at dawn as the residents of a home for retired opera singers prepare for their annual Verdi concert.
Quartet ★★★★ 10.00-11.30pm BBC2 My word, there’s life in the old dogs (if they’ll pardon the word) yet. This was adapted by 78-year-old Ronald Harwood from his own play, marked the directorial debut of 75-year-old Dustin Hoffman and featured such glorious veterans as Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay and Michael Gambon. A retirement home for old musicians is threatened with closure unless its annual concert can raise a lot of money. To ensure that, they need to reassemble the quartet that once recorded a legendary version of Rigoletto. Three of them – Courtenay, Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins – are already resident; the fourth, Smith, arrives unexpectedly, but she and Courtenay had divorced bitterly and she’s averse to singing with him again. It’s funny, beautifully played and nicely directed. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Freeview film of the day: The Railway Man
Former PoW Colin Firth is determined to face up to his past in this polished drama
The Railway Man ★★★ 9.00-11.20pm More4 American critics thought this story, based on fact, about a British army officer’s torture, suffering and later attempt to face his demons was too “understated”. Understatement, like irony, is something Americans don’t understand but this time they were right. The film is understated and all the better for it. It’s the story, told partly in flashback, of Eric Lomax (Colin Firth on fine form), who was captured by the Japanese in 1942, forced to work on the notorious Burma Railway and so savagely tortured that he is haunted by the memories for decades. In middle age he meets and marries Nicole Kidman. They’re happy enough but he is still plagued by depression and nightmares until he learns that his chief tormentor (Tanroh Ishida) is still alive, and determines to confront him and try finally to end the bitterness and hatred he feels. It’s a well-told tale that shuns gung-ho heroics and builds to a moving and perhaps unexpected dénouement. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Freeview film of the day: From Dusk till Dawn
It's a heist film. No, it's a hostage drama. No, it's a vampire horror. Okay, it's all three – in one big violent fun bundle
From Dusk till Dawn ★★★★ 10.30pm-12.45am ITV4 Now here is a true curiosity, written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez, which starts off as a hard-boiled thriller involving two killers and a family of hostages and then, even as you blink, turns into a vampire movie. The killers are George Clooney and Tarantino, the hostages Harvey Keitel and his two children. It’s when this lot escapes in a mobile home to Mexico and fetches up in a sleazy strip joint that everything changes, the original plot is cast aside and they all find themselves battling for their lives against a particularly nasty bunch of vampires. Of course, it’s nonsense but it’s fast, violent and often very funny nonsense, cleverly written and nicely played, especially by Clooney. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Freeview film of the day: The Terminator
Cyborg Arnie is back from the future to alter the course of history in James Cameron's chilling sic-fi thriller
The Terminator ★★★★★ 9.00-11.05pm Spike The ideal role for Arnold Schwarzenegger – bags of violence and fewer than 100 words of dialogue, three of which became his catchphrase: “I’ll be back.” He’s a cyborg, the Terminator sent from the future to kill Linda Hamilton, whose yet unborn son will save mankind from domination by machines like himself. Only Michael Biehn, a human also back from the future, can protect her. Splendid sci-fi this, tense, fast-moving and deftly handled by director James Cameron, hitherto known only for Piranha II: the Spawning. Schwarzie, going around ripping people’s hearts out, dominates; not as an actor, of course – he never really bothered with acting – but as the closest thing movies have ever got to a human special effect. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Steve Coogan and Judi Dench bring a bit of comedy and a bit of heartbreak to this tale of a woman looking for the child she gave up decades before
Philomena ★★★★ 9.00-10.35pm BBC2 Based on the true story of how Philomena Lee (Judi Dench) spent 50 years seeking her long-lost illegitimate son. She was 17 when she gave birth in an Irish abbey. The nuns there sold her child to an American couple for £1,000. Philomena’s search becomes more urgent when former BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) hears of it and offers to help. They reach a dead end in Ireland when they learn that the nuns had conveniently burnt all records of the transaction so they go to America to look for the boy. This is at heart a horrifying tale which, thanks to the two stars and the Oscar-nominated screenplay by Coogan and Jeff Pope, is both very moving and funny. Dench is as immaculate as ever and Coogan is excellent in a straight, dramatic role. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Ethan Hawke is the rookie cop teamed with Denzel Washington's streetwise detective who believes himself to be above the law
Training Day ★★★★ 9.00-11.25pm Dave A brutally hard-boiled crime thriller, which doesn’t have much good to say about the Los Angeles police department. Ethan Hawke is the young rookie eager to get on to the department’s vice squad. To find out whether he’s up to the job he’s sent out on a training day with veteran cop Denzel Washington, a man with highly unconventional views on police work. He believes in dispensing justice on the streets, so when he catches two men trying to rape a girl he doesn’t arrest them – he just beats them up. As the busy day progresses, Hawke learns more than he could wish to know about graft and corruption within the upper echelons of the LAPD, is told to kill someone and is around when a terrific gun battle takes place. Both stars are good, Washington particularly so as a bad guy. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Dangerous secrets are uncovered when a ghostwriter is hired by a former British prime minister to complete his memoirs.
The Ghost ★★★★ 9.00-11.40pm ITV4 Best to forget Tony and Cherie Blair while you’re watching Roman Polanski’s dark but hugely enjoyable political thriller and… no, wait. On second thoughts, keep them in mind; it adds greatly to the pleasure. Ewan McGregor plays a ghostwriter sent to America to write the memoirs of a former British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan). Brosnan, along with his formidable wife and chief political adviser (Olivia Williams), is stuck in the USA because there are moves afoot in Britain to prosecute him for war crimes to do with the rendition of terrorist suspects. McGregor is his second ghostwriter, the first one having been found drowned, which should have given the hint that this is no straightforward assignment. Nor is it. The first ghost’s unfinished manuscript is, like Brosnan himself, coolly bland and unrevealing, but as McGregor delves deeper it becomes clear that dangerous secrets lie within it. Everything boils up to an explosive climax with a nicely disguised twist in the tail. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Freeview film of the day: Hope and Glory
A bombed-out London is the perfect playground for a young boy in John Boorman's personal account of life during the Blitz
Hope and Glory ★★★★★ 6.55-9.00pm Sony Movie Channel Director John Boorman’s autobiographical film looks at the Blitz through the eyes of nine-year-old Billy (Sebastian Rice-Edwards). For adults this was a time of fear and mortal danger but not for a small boy. To Billy and his friends the bombs and shells are a glorious firework display while ruined houses are simply an adventure playground. With his father called up, Billy and his sisters (Sammi Davis, Geraldine Muir) live with their mother (Sarah Miles) in London suburbia. But then their house is burnt down and they go to stay with grandad (Ian Bannen on great form) on the Thames at Shepperton. To turn the Blitz into a joyful comedy drama is some achievement, but Boorman has managed it. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Freeview film of the day: Ice Cold in Alex
Crossing the desert is thirsty work for John Mills in the film that's more than just a beer commercial
Ice Cold in Alex ★★★★ 3.40-6.20pm Film4 Captain John Mills, Sergeant Major Harry Andrews and two nurses, Sylvia Syms and Diane Clare, flee Tobruk and the German Afrika Korps during the Second World War in an old ambulance. Their aim: to drive across the desert to the safety of British lines – no easy task because en route they meet a variety of obstacles, including a minefield and German troops, not to mention Captain Anthony Quayle, an Afrikaner with a mysterious backpack who might not be who he says he is. Good, tense stuff nicely played, especially by Mills, an alcoholic driven on by thoughts of the ice-cold lager that he knows awaits him in Alexandria. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Freeview film of the day: Saving Mr Banks
As this Hollywood fable reveals, it took Walt Disney a lot more than just a spoonful of sugar to get Mary Poppins to the screen
Saving Mr Banks ★★★★★ 8.30-10.30pm BBC1 Two stories in one here. First, the saga of Walt Disney’s (Tom Hanks) 20-year struggle to fulfil a promise to his daughters to make a film of Mary Poppins. And second, author PL Travers’s (Emma Thompson) determination to ensure that Mr Banks, head of the family to which Poppins pops in, is properly and respectfully portrayed in the movie. Because Banks was inspired by her late, beloved and alcoholic father (Colin Farrell). She has reluctantly agreed to let the film go ahead only because she is short of cash, and with equal reluctance she goes to Hollywood at Disney’s invitation to discuss the production. The story centres on the relationship between these two oddly matched characters – lovable old Uncle Walt (which I’m not sure he was) and the acerbic Travers, who is totally underwhelmed by La La Land. Fine performances by both stars. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017
Strap yourself in for a wild ride, as Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock keep the revs up on a bus primed to blow
Speed ★★★★★ 9.00-11.15pm Film4 This is certainly Keanu Reeves’s best film and possibly Sandra Bullock’s, too. Keanu is a Los Angeles bomb squad cop hunting down a disgruntled ex-cop (a gloriously creepy Dennis Hopper), who is wreaking terrible vengeance on the city. Among his many dastardly deeds, he rigs a bus with a bomb that will explode if the vehicle drops below 50mph. Bullock is the passenger who takes over the wheel when the driver is shot and must keep the speed up, not easy I can tell you in LA traffic. Happily, the resourceful Reeves gets himself aboard and, well, it’s non-stop action and nail-biting tension from the ingenious opening of hostages trapped perilously in a lift to the two high-speed chases at the end. For more of today’s free-to-air films, see our TV listings Order your copy of the Radio Times Guide to Films 2017