Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

[colinr0380]

Interesting stuff next week. As jlnight has noted the big premiere of the week (and continuing the general 'Steamy Romance' theme of the Summer, it seems) is Paul Verhoeven's Bendetta on Film4 on Sunday 27th at 11:15 p.m.

It is a rather quiet Bank Holiday weekend apart from that. However tucked away on the "Legend" (formerly "Horror") channel at 9 p.m. on Saturday 26th is the premiere of the 2015 film Last Knights, starring Clive Owen and Morgan Freeman. But which is perhaps more notable for being directed by Kazuaki Kiriya, who previously directed the hybrid virtual set designed live action/CGI animated versions of Casshern (in 2004) and Goemon (in 2009), and is perhaps most famous for the run of music videos he directed for his pop star wife at the time, Hikaru Utada, which we discussed previously at the end of this post. Perhaps inevitably given the star cast and the English language aspect, Last Knights is the first of the director's films to appear on UK television.

(And this turning up in the schedules led me to discovering that Kazuaki Kiriya had a new film released in Japan this year! Sekai no owari kara (or From The End of the World) was released in Japan in April. Stylised gunfights, epic visuals and lots of crying suggests it will be a return to the style of the first two films. Very much looking forward to seeing this one if it ever makes it to the UK!)

There is one other premiere next week (and another in Film4's current collaboration with Paramount+ to screen their films, it seems), of superhero comedy Secret Headquarters on Film4 at 7 p.m. on Wednesday 30th. By Nerve directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, which immediately made me more interested than otherwise!

Oh, and BBC4's Storyville documentary series is showing iHuman at 10 p.m. on Tuesday 29th. Plus there is a TV movie showing on Channel 5 on Tuesday 29th called "Memories of Murder", which I am more aggravated than I should be about it sharing the same title as the Bong Joon-ho film! If it is OK, I'll just refer to this by its alternate title on imdb, as Hidden Murder Island!

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Repeat-wise, there is not too much of note. For A Few Dollars More turns up on BBC2 at 10:30 p.m. on Sunday 27th, repeated at 11:30 p.m. on BBC4 on Thursday 31st. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly is on ITV4 at 10:50 p.m. on Sunday 27th (so clashing with the BBC2 screening of For A Few Dollars More!)

The Red Turtle shows up on Film4 at 12:45 p.m. on Friday 1st September.

[jlnight]

The Remarkable Riderless Runaway Tricycle (short), Sat 2nd Sept, Talking Pictures.
Sherlock Holmes and The Spider Woman, Sat 2nd Sept, Sky Arts.
Bulldog Drummond's Secret Police, Sat 2nd Sept, Talking Pictures.
The Last Escape (1970), Sat 2nd Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 7th Sept.
Peeping Tom, Sat 2nd Sept, London Live. (last on TPTV) Or...
Murphy's Law, Sat 2nd Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 6th Sept.

The Chase (1946), Sun 3rd Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Fri 8th Sept.
Elmer Gantry, Sun 3rd Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 14th Sept. (last on London Live)

Death Race 2000, Mon 4th Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Sat 16th Sept.

Atomic Submarine, Tue 5th Sept, London Live.

Stagecoach (1966) + Johnny Ringo, Wed 6th Sept, Talking Pictures. (Saddle Up)
Bulldog Drummond Comes Back, Wed 6th Sept, Talking Pictures.

The Fence (2022), Thu 7th Sept, Film4.
The Children of the Century (Les Enfants du Siecle), late Thu 7th Sept, Film4. (on C4 in 2003)

Dr. Phibes Rises Again + The Food of the Gods, Fri 8th Sept, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club)
At Twelve Midnight, late Fri 8th Sept, Talking Pictures.

[colinr0380]

Interesting stuff next week. The big premiere of the week is surprisingly on BBC1 with the first showing of the horror film Relic at 11:25 p.m. on Friday 8th. Which I was first introduced to from its Red Letter Media review (spoilers). This is the third premiere of the year so far on the main national UK channel along with Malificent: Mistress of Evil and the Mulan remake, and it is rather strange that all three films are about women being yoked down under an inescapable legacy of a generational familial burden in some form or other!

Speaking of familial legacies, the Storyville season continues with Israeli film Blue Box on BBC4 at 10 p.m. on Tuesday 5th. Which looks as if it would make a good double bill with that German film, The Nasty Girl!

The other premieres of the week are UK-centric, with what I can only presume is the prequel to Bait, with Fisherman's Friends, showing on Film4 at 9 p.m. on Wednesday 6th; and The Fence showing on Film4 at 9 p.m. on Thursday 7th.
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Repeat-wise, jnlight has noted the big one, starring two actors just before they were in Michael Haneke films with Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel starring together in Les enfants du siècle showing on Film4 at 1:15 a.m. in the early hours of Friday 8th. One of the few films by Diane Kurys to have appeared on UK television (the other being 1987's A Man In Love which showed in Channel 4's "Reel Women" season of films by female directors back in 1995, and never shown since!)

Other than that it is relatively quiet and more about films shuffling from station to station more than anything particularly new to the repeats: the BBC after finally tentatively showing Children of Men on BBC2 for the first time in years earlier this year go all out next week and show it both on BBC1 on Sunday evening (at 11:40 p.m) and on their BBC3 channel on Thursday evening (at 9 p.m.).

In keeping with the UK-centric theme of the week on Film4 there is a double bill of the two films that Paddy Considine has directed with Tyrannosaur at 11:25 p.m. on Tuesday 5th, followed by Journeyman at 1:25 a.m. And after a while on the 5Star digital channels, the 2007 remake of 3:10 To Yuma turns up on Film4 for the first time in a while at 9 p.m. on Friday 8th.

[GaryC]

Repeat-wise, jnlight has noted the big one, starring two actors just before they were in Michael Haneke films with Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel starring together in Les enfants du siècle showing on Film4 at 1:15 a.m. in the early hours of Friday 8th. One of the few films by Diane Kurys to have appeared on UK television (the other being 1987's A Man In Love which showed in Channel 4's "Reel Women" season of films by female directors back in 1995, and never shown since!)

Diabolo Menthe (aka Peppermint Soda) was shown on BBC2 in the Film International slot in 1982 and shown again in 1984 - I watched both showings.

Coup de foudre (At First Sight in the UK, Entre Nous in the USA) on the BBC2 Film Club in 1988 (double bill with Jane Campion's 2 Friends). Probably Kurys's best film, of the ones I've seen anyway.

A la folie (Six Days, Six Nights) on BBC2 in 1999 and BBC4 in 2003.

Those are just BBC showings. There may have been other showings on other channels. She's a director who has gone right out of fashion in the UK in the last twenty-five years. Les enfants du siècle came out in 1999 and since then she's made six more films, as far as I can tell none of which have been released, or possibly even shown, here.

[colinr0380]

I stand corrected GaryC. That is quite a lot of screenings!

[jlnight]

Just to complete this Kurys chat, C'est La Vie had a listing on Channel 4 in Oct 1996 and A Man in Love had a second screening in July 1997, again on Channel 4.

I've never seen a Kurys film!

[colinr0380]

That reminds me of that really early mention in the catalogue that came with Criterion's early DVD releases (around the 110 spine number range: my copy came bundled with the first 2001 DVD edition of M. Hulot's Holiday) of Cocktail Molotov as 'coming soon'. Which unfortunately for whatever reason never came to pass. It would not have surprised me if Criterion might have tried to pair it up with Peppermint Soda too, to create a characteristic for the time pair of releases.

The other film which was 'coming soon' in that catalogue but never appeared was Jean-Charles Tacchella's Cousin, Cousine (which was later remade in the US as Cousins, starring Ted Danson and directed by Joel Schumacher!). Do-des'ka-den was also announced, which did eventually appear but many years later.

[GaryC]

That reminds me of that really early mention in the catalogue that came with Criterion's early DVD releases (around the 110 spine number range: my copy came bundled with the first 2001 DVD edition of M. Hulot's Holiday) of Cocktail Molotov as 'coming soon'. Which unfortunately for whatever reason never came to pass. It would not have surprised me if Criterion might have tried to pair it up with Peppermint Soda too, to create a characteristic for the time pair of releases.

Cocktail Molotov was never released in the UK - the only one of Kurys's first eight films not to be. I'm not sure if it's even been shown here. I've been wanting to see it for years. There's a French DVD but I can't see if it's English-friendly or not.

[jlnight]

The Pearl of Death (1944), Sat 9th Sept, Sky Arts.
Oh... Rosalinda!!, Sat 9th Sept, London Live. (been on TPTV)
55 Days at Peking, Sat 9th Sept, 5Action.
The Jealous God (2005), Sat 9th Sept, London Live. Or...
Red Rock West, Sat 9th Sept, Legend. Or...
The Caller (1987), Sat 9th Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 20th Sept.

Kings Go Forth, Sun 10th Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 12th Sept.

Crime of Passion (1957), Mon 11th Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Fri 22nd Sept. (last on London Live)
Day of the Nightmare (1965), Mon 11th Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Sat 23rd Sept.

Fury at Smugglers' Bay, Tue 12th Sept, London Live.
Ping Pong (1986), late Tue 12th Sept, Film4. (on C4 in 1989)

Capricorn One, Wed 13th Sept, Legend. (last on London Live)
Forty Guns + Johnny Ringo, Wed 13th Sept, Talking Pictures. (Saddle Up)
Bulldog Drummond in Africa, Wed 13th Sept, Talking Pictures.

The Voice Within, Thu 14th Sept, Talking Pictures.

The Stepfather (1987) + Cellar Dweller, Fri 15th Sept, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club)


The LWT series The Gold Robbers is scheduled to start tomorrow on TPTV. One of the episodes is apparently directed by one Alan Clarke.

[colinr0380]

Just a few new items of interest next week. Only one premiere over the weekend with the first showing of dystopian, not at all applicable to real life, sci-fi film set in the distant future of 2024, Songbird, which for some reason (probably because of the subject matter, since even the trailer on YouTube has been helpfully contextualised. I think the de rigueur 'dark 'n' moody interpretation of a familiar song in a trailer' may be the truly infectiously toxic aspect of that video however!) has been tucked away on Channel 4 at 2:15 a.m. in the early hours of Sunday 10th.

The big clash occurs on the evening of Tuesday 12th, when the very belated premiere of 2016 film Lion shows on Film4 at 9 p.m., which runs up against BBC4's Storyville documentary of the week The Crown Shyness at 10 p.m.
__
jlnight has noted the most interesting repeat of the week with Ping Pong from 1986, showing on Film4 at 1 a.m. in the early hours of Wednesday 13th. That co-stars David Yip, who might be most familiar for playing the initial sidekick to Indiana Jones who gets killed in the nightclub at the beginning of Temple of Doom, and had his biggest role as the star of early 80s BBC series The Chinese Detective. Although to me he is even more familiar for appearing as a contestant on the wildly bizarre show The Adventure Game!

I also note that Ping Pong is directed by Po Chih-Leong - I have never seen any of their feature films before now, but that director was later involved in writing and directing the great four part 1997 documentary series Riding The Tiger for Channel 4, a kind of fly-on-the-wall series structured around the handover of Hong Kong to China. We really need an update to that series 26 years on!

Speaking of ping pong, BBC1 are showing The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert on Sunday 10th at 10:30 p.m. - my records are probably wrong, but I think the last time this showed on UK television was back in 2003! It was premiered in 1997 and shown on Channel 4 over the next few years (whilst the BBC unfortunately placed its bets on To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar!), but this looks to be the film's move to the main national BBC channel. Of course in addition to that scene and the "Now you're fucked" scene, the other classic bit is the performance of the "Save The Best For Last" number over the end credits. Which is only beaten in its iconic status by its usage in the Bisto gravy adverts from the same time!

Also The Big Country is showing on BBC2 at 12:15 p.m. on Sunday 10th, the original Evil Dead is showing on BBC2 at Midnight on Sunday 10th, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? is showing on BBC2 at 11:15 p.m. on Monday 11th, Parasite is showing on Channel 4 also at Midnight on Sunday 11th, Mike Leigh's Naked is on Film4 at 11:30 p.m. on Monday 11th and The Handmaiden is on Channel 4 at 2 a.m. on Thursday 14th.

And now that the repeats of The Ascent of Man have finished (including a nice repeat of an interview between Parkinson and Jacob Bronowski over the weekend), BBC4 are moving on to repeating Robert Hughes' 1980 series about modern art The Shock of the New with the first two episodes showing from 10:30 p.m. on Sunday 10th.

[Bigsby]

I’d just like to say a big thank you to those who keep this thread updated, I find it very helpful.

[jlnight]

You were right, Kurys really is out of fashion in the UK. Film4 replaced Les Enfants du Siecle with a screening of Colin Farrell's Total Recall!

[jlnight]

Old Mother Riley (1937), Sat 16th Sept, Talking Pictures.
The Giant Claw, Sat 16th Sept, Talking Pictures. (been on Legend) Or...
The Scarlet Claw, Sat 16th Sept, Sky Arts.
Beach Red, Sat 16th Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 19th Sept. (been on Freeview)
Gold Run (2022), Sat 16th Sept, BBC4. Or...
The Killer Is Loose, Sat 16th Sept, Talking Pictures. Also late Thu 21st Sept.

The Hoosier Schoolmaster, Sun 17th Sept, Talking Pictures.
My Man Godfrey (1936), Sun 17th Sept, Talking Pictures. (been on Film4)

Mademoiselle (1966), Mon 18th Sept, Talking Pictures.

Minari, Tue 19th Sept, Film4.

Rawhide (1951) + Johnny Ringo, Wed 20th Sept, Talking Pictures. (Saddle Up)
Bulldog Drummond's Bride, Wed 20th Sept, Talking Pictures.
The Farewell (2019), Wed 20th Sept, Film4. Or...
Mercury Rising, Wed 20th Sept, 5Action. (see also Fri, below)

Hard Luck (2006), Thu 21st Sept, Great Action.

Sea of Love, Fri 22nd Sept, Legend. Or...
Lifeforce + The Man Who Turned To Stone, Fri 22nd Sept, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club) Or...
Clockwork Mice, Fri 22nd Sept, London Live.

[colinr0380]

Well, I thought Songbird was good enough although amusingly it rather sidesteps some of the more, let's say controversy-baiting, aspects of its premise by not particularly tackling any of the issues surrounding coercive authoritarian regimes and police states, instead just taking those for a given and more boiling down (Enron-style) to there just being a few 'bad apples' within the system exploiting the pandemic for their own gains by selling fake immunity signifying bracelets. Which is bad when the baddies are doing it; and heroic when the goodies use the bangles themselves (that's where the Michael Bay influence seems to shine through by the way - its all about those ruggedly handsome blue collar workers and the girls they love just trying to make it through whilst the Man keeps dragging them apart, with the action-drama just a backdrop on which to hang scenes of star cross'd lovers kissing. Whether giant meteor, Pearl Harbor, transforming robots or a pandemic, it all amounts to much the same thing. Exemplified in this film by the lingering germ-exchanging kiss in front of the gun-toting soldiers in order to get the bangle surreptitiously transferred and save the girl from going off to the camps).

Although I get the impression that just the hint of authority figures hypocritically gaming a crisis for their own ends was probably controversial enough in the current climate to have made the production 'filmona non gratis', but really this follows the template of the Purge films almost exactly (anarchy on the streets; a home invasion of a household of one of the elite classes, though in this case a benevolent(?) home invasion) whilst being unable to go quite as anarchistically insane as that series does, due to having to keep at least one foot in some ties to reality. The most bizarre thing about the film is that it is so strange to see the equivalent of a Purge film with what amounts to a 'happy'(?), morally uncomplicated ending. Which is perhaps why it does not really end up capturing the essence of our unhappy, deeply morally complicated times!

But its good enough if seen as a Purge-lite style film. Although it also made me think it was doing a similar thing to first Human Centipede film in the sense that the audience is getting the most impact (and being goaded into celebrating/condemning the film for its mere existence with that premise) by their first encounter with the trailer, which pushes all of its juiciest issues straight up there in the marketing, which is hiding a relatively standard, even derivative, film behind its hot button veneer. That does mean that I want the escalation and Covid pandemic film equivalent of the take-no-prisoners Human Centipede 2, now!
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On to next week's schedules. Lots of foreign language premieres. BBC4 is showing Norwegian Second World War film Gold Run at 9 p.m. on Saturday 16th. Unfortunately there does not seem to be an English language trailer for that one, and no BBFC rating for the film in the RadioTimes, so this may be the film's first UK showing, leapfrogging any theatrical or home video release.

Gold Run clashes against the premiere on Film4 of the third(?!?!) in the G.I. Joe series of films, Snake Eyes also at 9 p.m. (though Snake Eyes is repeated at 9 p.m. on Friday 22nd as well) - its a very Asian-mélange themed week of films on Film4 in general as they are also showing the Korean-in-US drama Minari at 11:10 p.m. on Tuesday 19th and Chinese-American in China drama The Farewell at 9 p.m. on Wednesday 20th.

The Storyville documentary of the week appears to be Taliban Land at 10 p.m. on Tuesday 19th, though it has been re-named in the RadioTimes as "Winning Hearts and Minds", with a different co-director credited, so it may have been re-edited in the interim?

And on the freeview satellite channels the Great Movies channel is showing The Whole Truth at 9 p.m. on Sunday 17th; whilst the Legend channel is showing Legacy of Lies at 9 p.m. on Thursday 21st.

The other television event of note is on BBC4 on Sunday 17th where at 8 p.m. Christopher Eccleston does an abridged reading of A Kestrel for a Knave, followed by a documentary revisiting the locations of Kes at 9 p.m.

But bizarrely film-wise the radio is where is it at next week: at 6:45 p.m. on Sunday 17th on Radio 3 there is the programme "Forever Blue" which is a 45-minute reminiscence about Derek Jarman's Blue, with contributions from Tilda Swinton and Toyah Willcox. That is immediately followed at 7:30 p.m. by a radio adaptation of the play The Son by Florian Zellner, which was made into a film last year ("Brooding string music intensifying" indeed!).

On Radio 4 at 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday 20th Toby Jones stars in a new version of a 1952 Nigel Kneale-written ghost story "You Must Listen". The original adaptation was lost but this is being re-done from Kneale's original script for the show.

Also on Radio 4, the Melvyn Bragg hosted "In Our Time" series reaches its 1,000th episode at 9 a.m. on Thursday 21st with a 45 minute episode devoted to discussing Bragg's favourite film - The Seventh Seal!

[jlnight]

Moulin Rouge (1952), Sat 23rd Sept, BBC2.
The Aviator (1985), Sat 23rd Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 28th Sept.
The Assassination Bureau, Sat 23rd Sept, London Live. (been on TPTV) Or...
Love, Cheat and Steal, Sat 23rd Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 27th Sept.

The Shop around the Corner (1940), Sun 24th Sept, BBC2.
The Boy and the Pirates, Sun 24th Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 26th Sept.
Sherlock Holmes and the House of Fear (1945), Sun 24th Sept, Sky Arts.
The Detonator, Sun 24th Sept, Great Action. (Po-Chih Leong!)

The Moderns, Mon 25th Sept, Talking Pictures.

Beat the Devil, Tue 26th Sept, London Live. (been on TPTV)
Hamburger Hill, Tue 26th Sept, Great Action. Or...
The Killers (1964), Tue 26th Sept, Legend. (ex-Moviedrome)

The Tall Men + Johnny Ringo, Wed 27th Sept, Talking Pictures. (Saddle Up)
Arrest Bulldog Drummond, Wed 27th Sept, Talking Pictures.
The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain, late Wed 27th Sept, Film4.

Wildfire (2020), Thu 28th Sept, Film4.

Daniel (1983), Fri 29th Sept, London Live. Or...
The Revenge of Frankenstein + Fragment of Fear, Fri 29th Sept, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club)

[colinr0380]

Hamburger Hill is the great overlooked Vietnam war film, likely because 1987 was also the year of Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, so if anything was going to get pushed to the sidelines by audiences suffering from Vietnam saturation it was going to be that one. Although I am still wanting to track down and see that "Vietnam War Stories" HBO series from the same year, which was partly written by Patrick Sheane Duncan a couple of years before he wrote and directed the even more overlooked entry into the subgenre (and key early entry into the 'found footage' genre too, over a decade before The Blair Witch Project) 84 Charlie MoPic.

The Detonator, Sun 24th Sept, Great Action. (Po-Chih Leong!)

Having watched Ping Pong now, and its strangely allegorical ending, its even more bizarre to think that this director went on to a straight to video, shot in Romania action film starring Wesley Snipes! Though imdb shows that two years before that they also directed a straight to video, shot in Poland action film starring Steven Segal called Out of Reach! (Which film co-stars Matt Schulze, who had two years before that appeared in Blade II which starred....)

So that's caught my interest for the week. There is nothing too notable otherwise beyond the films jlnight has mentioned. The film premieres of the week are both on Film4 with the Frankie Faison starring The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain at 1:55 a.m. in the early hours of Thursday 28th and the Irish drama Wildfire at 11:50 p.m. also on Thursday 28th.

BBC4's world television strand starts Australian series Black Snow (dark and moody version of a familiar tune ahoy!) with the first two (of six total) episodes showing from 9 p.m. on Saturday 23rd. The Storyville series continues with Tanja: Up In Arms at 10 p.m. on Tuesday 26th, which as seems to be a regular thing with these documentaries has been title changed for its BBC showing to "Tanja: Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?", after it had already been title changed from "Tanja: Diary of a Guerrila", as shown in that linked trailer. The inability to make up their mind about what they wish to be named as seems to be the main commonality that both political documentaries and TV movies share, it seems!
____
Repeat wise, the most interesting one is a showing of Ernst Lubitsch's film The Shop Around The Corner on BBC2 at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday 24th, aka the film that was remade in the 1990s as You've Got Mail.

Seemingly to tie in with the upcoming Arrow UHD boxset, Psycho is showing on BBC2 at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday 24th (un-DOG-tagged) and again on BBC4 at 9 p.m. on Thursday 28th. The BBC4 showing is followed at 10:45 p.m. by a repeat of the 2000 episode of Mark Cousin's Scene by Scene series with Janet Leigh.

[jlnight]

The Brain from Planet Arous, Sat 30th Sept, Talking Pictures.
Reap the Wild Wind, Sat 30th Sept, Legend.
Bailout at 43,000, Sat 30th Sept, Talking Pictures.
Boiling Point (2021), Sat 30th Sept, Film4. Or...
Pulp, Sat 30th Sept, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 9th Oct.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, late Sat 30th Sept, BBC2.

The Big Boodle, Sun 1st Oct, Talking Pictures. Also Fri 6th Oct.
The Woman in Green, Sun 1st Oct, Sky Arts. (been on TPTV)
Ali & Ava + Mari, Sun 1st Oct, BBC2. Or...
Love is a Ball, Sun 1st Oct, Talking Pictures. Also Fri 6th Oct.

Duel, Mon 2nd Oct, Legend.
The Fast and the Furious (1954), Mon 2nd Oct, Talking Pictures. Also Sat 14th Oct.
Fuzz (1972), Mon 2nd Oct, Talking Pictures.

The Real Charlie Chaplin, Tue 3rd Oct, Film4.
Les Enfants du Siecle, late Tue 3rd Oct, Film4. (Kurys in fashion again!)

Take a Hard Ride (1975) + Johnny Ringo, Wed 4th Oct, Talking Pictures. (Saddle Up)

Victoria the Great, Thu 5th Oct, Talking Pictures. (Melvyn's Talking Pictures)
Under Suspicion (1992), Thu 5th Oct, Legend. (been on TPTV)
Falcon Lake, late Thu 5th Oct, Film4.

Art Ache, Fri 6th Oct, London Live. Or...
Stepfather II + 13 Ghosts, Fri 6th Oct, Talking Pictures. (Cellar Club) (13 Ghosts been on Horror)


Assassination Bureau on London Live was a no-show, replaced by Nutcracker.

Beware: Falcon Lake has a compulsory BBFC cut, to remove an indecent image of a child, a rarity nowadays.

[colinr0380]

Boiling Point (2021), Sat 30th Sept, Film4. Or...

This actually caused me a bit of confusion as I noted the 2021 feature film when it was trailed as upcoming on Film4, then turned to BBC1 to be confronted with the exact same actors and kitchen setting upcoming as a TV series in the next week or so! I know that they are starting to team up to promote their combi-streaming services but I am so used to seeing the BBC and Channel 4 as very separate entities that it still seems notable that they are 'collaborating' in this way! Although it does take me back to the 1990s when the BBC and Channel 4 teamed to air the last two Dennis Potter series; and when Channel 4 simulcast Derek Jarman's Blue in association with Radio 3 airing it in Stereo. And apparently soap operas all have been cross-collaborating for the last few years.

If that isn't confusing enough, tonight BBC1 are showing the original 20 minute short from 2019 at 10:40 p.m., also called Boiling Point, which is where this all apparently initially sprung from!

I am not particularly interested in shoutily abusive chefs and dramatic scenes in restaurants, but I suppose it shows that you should never underestimate the appeal of such things to schedulers who pack their channels full of Masterchef/Bake Off/Saturday Kitchen/Gordon Ramsey/Jamie Oliver/Heston Blooming-hell type shows! And now that we have this film along with the 1990 Takeshi Kitano film and the 1993 Wesley Snipes film, we are getting to the point where there are as starting to be as many "Boiling Point"s in cinema as there are "Leviathan"s!

Beware: Falcon Lake has a compulsory BBFC cut, to remove an indecent image of a child, a rarity nowadays.

Let me guess before looking: its a French film?

[GaryC]

Beware: Falcon Lake has a compulsory BBFC cut, to remove an indecent image of a child, a rarity nowadays.

Let me guess before looking: its a French film?

Canadian/French coproduction.

[colinr0380]

comme-ci comme-ça!

[colinr0380]

Not bad next week. Saturday 30th is quiet other than the premiere of Boiling Point at 9 p.m. on Film4 as noted above. The evening of Sunday 31st is the most packed of the week, with the first of four hour long episodes of the Boiling Point series that continues the story "eight months after old boss Andy suffered a heart attack" (Spoilers for the feature film, RadioTimes!) showing at 9 p.m. on BBC1.

BBC2 has a double bill of premieres on Sunday evening with Clio Barnard's latest film Ali & Ava showing at 10:30 p.m., followed by Mari at Midnight. Although the big news of the evening (and the entire week, really) is on BBC4 with a very rare repeat of the 1965 version of Henry VI shown as part of the "War of the Roses" series, starring David Warner and Peggy Ashcroft. That's at 10:30 p.m. in the original three hour first part, so presumably the second and third parts will follow over the next couple of weeks (and fingers crossed maybe the rest of the series!)

The evening of Tuesday 3rd has BBC4's Storyville documentary strand showing If The Streets Were On Fire at 10 p.m., which clashes up against Film4's premiere of The Real Charlie Chaplin at 10:50 p.m. (there would have been a time when that would have been a good excuse for an associated Chaplin film screening, or even season, but nothing. Though it is followed, as jlnight notes, by Film4 attempting to show Les enfants du siecle again, at 1:05 a.m.)

And then the apparently most censor-baiting film of the week is Falcon Lake showing on Film4 at 1 a.m. in the early hours of Friday 6th. Which looks a bit like Stranger By The Lake for teens from its trailer! (Or an X-rated Bridge To Terabithia! )
___
Repeat-wise Henry VI is the most notable one, though Film4 is showing the 1956 version of The Ten Commandments at 1:50 p.m. on Tuesday 6th, as well as the 1957 version of 3:10 To Yuma at 3:15 p.m. (nice timing, with a presumably intentional five minute delay!) on Thursday 5th.

The other notable event is not exactly newsworthy in itself as Alien gets shown on television all of the time. But it (as with Aliens and Alien 3) mostly screens on ITV, where it premiered all the way back in the last century. Although in recent years Alien has also been airing on Channel 4 (which premiered Alien: Resurrection back in the day) and Film4 also (which shows AvP: Alien vs Predator, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Strangely no channel seems to have yet touched Aliens vs Predator: Requiem for some inexplicable reason ). But Alien is making what I think may be its first ever screening on the BBC channels with its screening on BBC1 at 10:40 p.m. on Wednesday 4th (repeated at 10 p.m. on Friday 6th over on BBC3).

I am assuming that the BBC may be gearing up for spooky month, since The Exorcist is showing on BBC1 at the same time on Monday 2nd too.

[Mr. Deltoid]

Seeing BBC1 show The Exorcist makes me feel very old. When I was a pre-teen, longingly looking over stills of the film in various reference books, I often wondered if one day I would ever get to see this notorious - effectively banned - film. I even remember seeing in the TV listings one week that Linda Blair was being interviewed on some now forgotten, late night 'issues-based' programme on the subject of childhood-fame and its consequences, and staying-up late to watch it on the off-chance that they might show a clip from the film. They didn't, of course.
Come to think of it, the only clip of the film that I ever saw before the film's re-release is a brief snippet of the vomit scene when Tom Hanks is channel-hopping in The 'Burbs.

[colinr0380]

Poor James Ferman must be levitating above his grave.

I was first exposed to The Exorcist through the parody film Repossessed when that showed on ITV back in 1993. I kind of think its better than the film it is parodying (it certainly has better musical numbers and a biting satire of televangelists back when Jim and Tammy Fay Bakker were at their height of fame). Which was kind of brilliantly subversive in sneaking the exact same content past the UK censors! (It probably helped it wasn't a pre-teen girl in the situation, and that as far as I can recall they did not parody the crucifix scene). Plus it taught me about the hidden meanings behind surnames!

Though even The Exorcist pales in its terrifying implications to How To Get Revenge, directed by the same guy the year before Repossessed!

I even remember seeing in the TV listings one week that Linda Blair was being interviewed on some now forgotten, late night 'issues-based' programme on the subject of childhood-fame and its consequences, and staying-up late to watch it on the off-chance that they might show a clip from the film. They didn't, of course.

That reminds me of that programme shown on Channel 4 in 1996 called Didn't You Used To Be Satan? (NSFW), which basically showed all the most extreme material in clip form. (Which was very similar to how the central assault scene in Straw Dogs around the same time was getting used as a single isolated out of context clip for documentaries to talk about without mentioning that they had conveniently just shown all of the 'worst' parts!)

[colinr0380]

I was just thinking, especially in relation to the Falcon Lake issue above, that one of the films that is comparable to The Exorcist, just with Catholicism swapped out for voodoo is The Possession of Joel Delaney starring Shirley MacLaine, who apparently turned down the Ellen Burstyn part in the Exorcist to do that film instead. That film did appear on Channel 4 in 2000 and 2002 but I have a feeling is completely unbroadcastable now given that the climax involves a scene of sexual humiliation involving the possessed title character in a beach-side hut under siege by the police forcing his young nephew to strip in front of everyone.

[colinr0380]

...and the Irish drama Wildfire at 11:50 p.m. also on Thursday 28th.

Rather sad to have the continuity announcer mention at the beginning of this film that one of the lead actresses, Nika McGuigan (the daughter of boxer Barry McGuigan), had died in 2019 before Wildfire was released.