Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

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jlnight
Joined: Tue Oct 22, 2013 10:49 am

Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1151 Post by jlnight » Sat Feb 20, 2021 5:46 am

Nijinsky, Fri 26th Feb, Talking Pictures. Also Sat 6th Mar.

Go Kart Go (CFF), Sat 27th Feb, Talking Pictures. (been on London Live)

Sorry Angel, Sun 28th Feb, BBC4. Or...
Farewell, My Lovely (1975), Sun 28th Feb, Talking Pictures.
Secrets and Lies, late Sun 28th Feb, Film4.

Unsane (2018), Tue 2nd Mar, Film4.


Women Behind Bars didn't turn up. It was Jailhouse Wardress instead.
Beware My Brethren (The Fiend) pulled, replaced with Beware My Lovely instead.

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colinr0380
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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1152 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Feb 24, 2021 12:19 pm

jlnight has noted the most important films showing next week but I'll add a few trailers:

The most interesting film of the week (and due to Amanda is the second film in as many weeks starring Vincent Lacoste) is BBC4 showing the Christophe Honoré film Sorry Angel (Plaire, aimer et courir vite) showing at 10 p.m. on Sunday 28th. The other premiere of note is Steven Soderbergh's take on the women in prison film Unsane on Film4 at 9 p.m. on Tuesday 2nd.

But there are a couple of interesting TV series starting too: BBC4's 'World television' strand is starting with a double bill of the first two episodes of Finnish series Man In Room 301 which is perhaps notable for being written and produced by Kate Ashfield who is perhaps better known as an actress who was in The War Zone, played the girlfriend Liz in Shaun of the Dead and also played (though I had not realised it until just now!) the role of the therapist that Charlotte Gainsbourg talks about being contemptuous of society's rules to in Nymph()manic Volume II!

And BBC2 is showing the first two episodes of 2018 series The Terror from 9 p.m. on Wednesday 3rd (which due to Amanda is the second film in as many weeks starring Greta Scacchi!)

Repeat-wise the most rare repeats are the Alan Ladd western Red Mountain, showing on Film4 at 2.25 p.m. on Thursday 4th March; and Rory Calhoun western Apache Uprising on Film4 at 1 p.m. on Friday 5th.

jlnight
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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1153 Post by jlnight » Sat Feb 27, 2021 9:40 am

Alien Nation, Fri 5th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Sat 13th Mar.

The Monster of Highgate Ponds (CFF), Sat 6th Mar, Talking Pictures.
The Color of Money, Sat 6th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 10th Mar.
Poly Styrene - I Am a Cliche, Sat 6th Mar, Sky Arts.

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, Sun 7th Mar, Sony Movies Classic.
Raising Arizona, Sun 7th Mar, Sony Movies.
Dangerous Davies: Last Detective (TV movie), Sun 7th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 11th Mar. Or...
The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil, Sun 7th Mar, BBC4.

Detective Story, Wed 10th Mar, Film4.


The Champions starts on Sun 7th Mar, Talking Pictures.

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colinr0380
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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1154 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Mar 03, 2021 3:47 am

Very quiet next week with the only new film being the South Korean thriller The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil showing on BBC4 at 10 p.m. on Sunday 7th. Which I am probably holding out too much hope could potentially be a modern day version of M.

In terms of repeats Film4 is showing the Orson Welles film The Stranger at 2:45 p.m. on Monday 8th and 11 a.m. on Friday 12th.

Which is more than enough to save the schedules for the week really!

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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1155 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Mar 05, 2021 4:14 pm

Well Film4's screening of Apache Uprising was a bit disappointing for being a full screen pan-and-scanned version of a 2.35:1 ratio film. But if that was all they had available I suppose it was better than nothing. It was especially nice to see DeForest Kelly in a film made the year before the Star Trek TV series, playing an impetuous short-tempered hothead starting pointless bar fights; and to see Lon Chaney in a non-horror role!

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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1156 Post by jlnight » Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:12 am

Bad Dreams (1988), Fri 12th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 16 Mar.

Runaway Railway (CFF), Sat 13th Mar, Talking Pictures.
Charlie Chan at the Olympics, Sat 13th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Thu 18th Mar.
All About Eve, Sat 13th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 17th Mar. Or...
Peterloo, Sat 13th Mar, Channel 4.

I Got Life!, Sun 14th Mar, BBC4.

Elsa Fraulein SS, late Mon 15th Mar, London Live. (we'll see!)

Tracking Down Maggie, Tue 16 Mar, London Live. Or...
Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, Tue 16 Mar, BBC4.

The Canadians, Thu 18th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 22nd Mar.
Dance with a Stranger, late Thu 18th Mar, Film4.

Blade of the Immortal, Fri 19th Mar, Film4.


Interpol Calling (ITC) starts on Mon 15th Mar, Talking Pictures.

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colinr0380
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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1157 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Mar 10, 2021 12:28 pm

Really good next week. The premieres of Whiplash (at 11:20 p.m. on BBC2) and Peterloo (at 10 p.m. on Channel 4) clash together on Saturday 13th. But I am most interested in the film that clashes with both of them on Film4 at 11:20 p.m. : Feedback starring Mike Leigh actor Eddie Marsan! The other Film4 premiere of note is Takashi Miike's Blade of the Immortal at 11:25 p.m. on Friday 19th.

Before Whiplash BBC2 is also showing Billie: In Search of Billie Holiday at 9:45 p.m.

BBC4 has a lot of things: French film I Got Life! at 10 p.m. on Sunday 14th. The Storyville series continues with Garenne: Dark Secrets of a Trillion Dollar Island at 10 p.m. on Monday 15th. Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan is showing at 10 p.m. on Tuesday 16th, and My Feral Heart is showing at 9 p.m. on Thursday 18th.

Film4 have a Tiffany Haddish week with Night School at 9 p.m. on Tuesday 16th and Nobody's Fool at 11 p.m. on Thursday 18th. And Channel 5 are showing what can only be the dark and gritty ultraviolent take on The Sound of Music with The Von Trapp Family: A Life Of Music at 1:25 p.m. on Saturday 13th.

Repeat-wise jlnight has noted Dance With A Stranger (the first screening since 1995?) is showing on Film4 next week but that channel also has Misery at 9 p.m on Wednesday 17th and a very rare showing of the oiled-up Dolph Lundgren breakthrough role in Cannon Films epic Masters of the Universe: The Motion Picture at 6:50 p.m. on Tuesday 16th (the score in that trailer is getting as close to just doing the Superman theme as it possibly can without getting lawyers involved!)

A little late for the sci-fi list but it is nice to see that Film4 is showing Flight of the Navigator at 2:45 p.m. on Sunday 14th (I usually bracket it together with D.A.R.Y.L. as the other film about a boy removed from his family and experimented upon until he makes a daring escape). Which might be tying in with that Life After The Navigator documentary that follows the rough post-Navigator life story of Joey Cramer.

BBC4 is also repeating the Eric Sykes and Tommy Cooper short The Plank at 7:10 p.m. on Sunday 14th, though if you cannot wait its up here.

Image

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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1158 Post by jlnight » Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:43 am

Backfire (1987), Fri 19th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 30th Mar.

The Cat Gang (CFF), Sat 20th Mar, Talking Pictures. (been on London Live)
A Bell for Adano, Sat 20th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 23rd Mar.
Call Northside 777, Sat 20th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 22nd Mar.
Here Comes Hell, Sat 20th Mar, Film4.

The Duchess and The Dirtwater Fox, Sun 21st Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 24th Mar.

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colinr0380
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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1159 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Mar 17, 2021 6:23 pm

An interesting selection of things next week. Saturday 20th is a big night with BBC2 showing the Nick Broomfield documentary My Father and Me at 9:45 p.m., BBC4 showing the Danish film Land of Mine at 9 p.m., and Film4 showing Here Comes Hell at 11 p.m.

On Sunday 21st BBC2 is showing Netflix co-production The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind at 10 p.m., there is a rare ITV3 premiere with The More You Ignore Me at 10 p.m., and Channel 4 has probably the biggest film of the week with Matteo Garone's Dogman at 1 a.m. in the early hours of Monday 22nd.

BBC2 is showing Black Power: A British Story of Resistance at 9 p.m. on Thursday 25th, which is executive produced by Steve McQueen and directed by George Anponsah, who directed all the episodes of that Enslaved with Samuel L. Jackson series last year.

This probably speaks to my current frame of mind more than anything else, but not being able to cope with much more than the children's CBBC channel at the moment I have come across two really wonderful animated series from the Cartoon Network that appear to have been showing for a while on that channel: We Bare Bears (which occasionally has the voice of Patton Oswalt as an enormously vain superstar koala! I have also come to the conclusion that it may be intended that the competent and serious Ice Bear is who we wish we were; the shy anime and social media obsessed Panda is probably who we really are; and the goofy layabout Grizz may be how the world sees us! Together all three brothers make up one functioning unit, despite their squabbling) and the delightfully surrealistic Summer Camp Island (EDIT: By the way Summer Camp Island is written and produced by Julia Potts, who voiced Emily in the World of Tomorrow films!).

EDIT: I also noted Little Big Awesome which has the bizarre casting of "Weird Al" Yankovich playing the sun (and Aimee Mann the Moon!), which is almost as bizarre as when Toyah Wilcox narrated the Teletubbies! But as much as I like an indulgent grandma under the thumb of a group of thuggish cats, and the ever shifting approach to the medium, from animation to puppetry to live action, I am not quite as fond of this as We Bare Bears or Summer Camp Island just because in the couple of episodes that I watched there being too much of a sense of knowingness about its storylines that undercut any sweetness with irony too heavily. Its like the show knows that it has to put forward a message in an episode about thoughtfulness, taking others into consideration and making 'sincere apologies' rather than half-hearted ones, but doesn't entirely subscribe to its message wholeheartedly. Which ends up making it feel more sarcastic than sincerely touching. So maybe the "Weird Al" Yankovic casting makes sense!

And lest you think I have gone soft, and inspired by the weird (intentional?) undertones of Little Big Awesome, I did finally check out the ultra-disturbing gory take on a kids show with Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared. Which is certainly as interested in revelling in the incongrous horror in a supposedly safe setting as Happy Tree Friends was (I'm still waiting for the media backlash against these shows because they're definitely prime candidates for catching audiences unawares, particularly young kids, and scaring the crap out of them). "Now lets all agree/to never be/creative again"
Last edited by colinr0380 on Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:00 pm, edited 12 times in total.

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antnield
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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1160 Post by antnield » Thu Mar 18, 2021 4:27 am

A couple of BBC4 screenings worth noting, too:

The Mole Agent, which has just been nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, is showing on Monday at 9pm, and the 1960 episode of Face to Face with Simone Signoret is on at 11:20pm next Wednesday.

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colinr0380
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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1161 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Mar 18, 2021 5:07 am

Oh nice, I am actively avoiding The Mole Agent due to it being far too close for comfort in my current situation but I had missed seeing that the Face to Face programme was on the schedules entirely.

I also caught Feedback over the weekend. Which was rather frustrating in the way that it sets up its conflicts, as it is one of those films which keeps adding new revelations to twist the audience's sympathies from one side to the other, then back again, and then back yet again, until everyone is compromised and probably deserves some form of punishment or other.

In this case, after a brief scene in office of the boss of the radio station (played by Anthony Head) that forces a couple of bickering radio DJs to work together again after our main character Jarvis (played by Eddie Marsan) has tried to break away and do 'serious journalism', Marsan gets trapped inside his recording studio by a group of violent masked figures who force him to recite prepared statements and eventually along with his fellow DJ admit to culpability in past crimes.

From that set up we get the following twists, which I will spoiler tag:
SpoilerShow
Whilst Jarvis is portrayed as a kind of crusading shock-jock type with an abrasive approach to both co-workers, audience letters and to investigative journalism as a whole, I think that our sympathies are initially with his character (particularly because he is the prime focus of the film) as he gets rather brutally beaten (and almost has a finger cut off with scissors) by one of the more on edge masked figures. He is also worried for the fates of his two co-workers in the sound booth, Anthony and recent hire Claire, but when Anthony is thrown against the window with a knife to his throat Jarvis decides to call the bluff of the terrorisers until they kill Anthony.

So that counts against Jarvis a bit, though the intruders are still the obvious bad guys. Then his fellow DJ Andrew appears on the scene and is at first oblivious to the threat (in a scene of Jarvis being forced into having to question him about a past event in a hotel under Andrew gets upset and tries to leave, at which point he is beaten and put back in the chair), and then under duress reveals his part in the assault of a female fan and then her subsequent overdose and death. Which is what is motivating these intruders to get the truth broadcast on the radio station straight from the horse's mouth. Which perhaps makes them sympathetic, but yet they have still killed an innocent person at that stage.

But then sympathies immediately shift again as the on edge intruder bursts into the room in a range and 'Irreversible's' Andrew's head with a mallet (there is a really nice sequence here as Jarvis gets briefly knocked unconscious and gets an vision of everything being fine in the booth, with Andrew coming in seemingly unharmed and then deciding to 'have a lie down and rest' in the position of his body before we catch up to reality again)

Then Jarvis briefly turns the tables to escape and try to save Claire, but is knocked unconscious by Claire, who has been working with the intruders. We then get reveals of the two masked intruders being the dead girl's father and boyfriend (hence the boyfriend being particularly aggressive I suppose), and I think Claire may have been the girl's sister. And they all want revenge in some form for her death.

After a brief escape attempt (and the reveal of Jarvis's daughter Julia as the new person threatened with death if he does not comply) they then start to work on Jarvis for his participation in this event at the hotel a year prior, and under torture he eventually admits to dropping the girl off at the emergency department but no more than that. Which seems to satisfy the father but neither Claire nor the boyfriend buy this.

But in the end it does not matter as Jarvis jumps everyone, explodes the recording studio and kills all three of the intruders in graphic detail that I think is intentionally meant to be a fist pumping moment of bloody catharsis for just how intense and aggravating the film has been up to this point (including Irreversibling the boyfriend's head in the manner he did with Andrew), before victoriously-tenderly-creepily picking up his daughter from the floor of the booth, though once they get outside the distraught daughter shrugs him off and runs into the arms of the extremely late on the scene security guards.

Then we get the final twist in the coda, as Jarvis is back in the office of Anthony Head's company head again, being congratulated on his heroism and handling of the situation. With Jarvis making coded assurances that there is absolutely nothing remaining to tie Anthony Head's character to the events in that hotel room the year before. And Jarvis finally gets his one-man radio show again
Whilst I do not think I will ever want to put myself through this film again, and generally have an extreme aversion to films that keep morally flip-flopping the audience's sympathies towards characters as being the easiest of easy gimmicks (and a way of trying to get out of saying anything in particular. To paraphrase Mark Kermode these kind of films are often too much "We're all a bit... you know... aren't we?" about where they stand regarding their politics), I came away from this film relatively positive about it. I thought that the shifting of sympathies was cleverly done to destroy everyone's credibility, such that it becomes darkly nihilistic in attitude. Especially in the inherent hypocrisy of our main character vocalising about societal injustices yet pretty much revealing himself to be the biggest monster of them all.

I was deeply suspicious of Jarvis's character, yet the three antagonists all push their grievances so far into torture and murder that the film almost makes one celebrate their detailed demises, whatever points they may have about finding out the truth. In fact truth is the true victim of this film, twisted and broken until nothing is left. Although I did hold out hope in that final shot of Julia seemingly unexpectedly waiting for Jarvis in his office that the one 'innocent' character may be about to meet out some righteous justice of her own, unsullied by being morally compromised and having witnessed the brutality of her father firsthand.

So I would certainly approve the title Feedback as probably being the most apropos for this film in many senses (maybe "Feedback Loop"? Although that may have been rather too wordy and on the nose).

I was also particularly interested to see Richard Brake turn up here as the father. Brake was recently in Mandy (as the guy who cooks the drugs that the cult are addicted to, who appears in the 'tiger' scene near the end of that film) and on trying to place where I had seen him before that I found from imdb that he was in that Doom film from 2005 and Brian de Palma's The Black Dahlia from 2006.

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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1162 Post by jlnight » Sat Mar 20, 2021 10:31 am

Robbery Under Arms (1985), Fri 26th Mar, Sony Movies Classic.
Enemy Mine, Fri 26th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also late Sun 4th Apr.

Adventure in the Hopfields (CFF), Sat 27th Mar, Talking Pictures.
Don't Bother to Knock (1952), Sat 27th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 29th Mar.
The Occupation (My Name is Sara), Sat 27th Mar, London Live.

Dreamboat (1952), Sun 28th Mar, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 31st Mar.

Road to Perdition, Mon 29th Mar, Sony Movies.

Mary Magdalene (2018), Tue 30th Mar, Film4.

The American Friend, late Wed 31st Mar, Film4.

Four Lions, Thu 1st Apr, Film4. Or...
Two and Two Make Six (1962), Thu 1st Apr, Talking Pictures.


Dead of Night gets another outing on Sat 27th Mar, Talking Pictures.
Climax gets a very late night screening on Channel 4 (late Sat 27th Mar).

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colinr0380
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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1163 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Mar 24, 2021 6:07 am

Lot's of things next week:

- BBC4 is showing Israeli film Foxtrot at 11.40 p.m. on Saturday 27th.
- BBC1 has a 75 minute documentary about Kazuo Ishiguro at 10.30 p.m. on Sunday 28th.
- BBC4's Storyville series continues with Collective about a scandal in the Romanian healthcare system at 9 p.m. on Monday 29th (which was also Oscar nominated)
- BBC4 is also doing a couple of things under a "Lights Up" banner which "brings a series of stage dramas to radio and television", with Pale Sister at 11 p.m. on Tuesday 30th (which is: "Colm Tóibín's paly that reminagines Sophocle's Antigone from the point of view of her sister, Ismene. Directed by Trevor Nunn") and Sadie at 10.30 p.m. on Wednesday 31st (which is a "Drama by David Ireland, filmed at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast. Sadie, a sharp-tongued cleaner, relives painful and harrowing episodes in a showdown with her past")
- BBC2 is showing Keira Knightley period drama Colette at 10 p.m. on Good Friday, followed by Battlestar: Galactica - Razor at 11:45 p.m., which was the TV movie that bridged series 3 and 4 of the show. They are probably going to be showing the fourth and final series from next week.
- Film 4 has Mary Magdalene at 11.15 p.m. on Tuesday 30th (when you have Joaquin Phoenix playing Jesus you know you are going into the 'dark and gritty reimagining' territory!) and the ultra-gory horror Overlord at 10.45 p.m. on Good Friday.

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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1164 Post by jlnight » Sat Mar 27, 2021 1:46 pm

The Legacy (1978), Fri 2nd Apr, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 6th Apr.

Peril for the Guy (CFF), Sat 3rd Apr, Talking Pictures.
Lifeboat, Sat 3rd Apr, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 6th Apr.
House of Strangers, Sat 3rd Apr, Talking Pictures. Or...
Blackkklansman, Sat 3rd Apr, Channel 4.
The Return of the Living Dead (1985), Sat 3rd Apr, Film4.

The Egyptian, Sun 4th Apr, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 5th Apr.
Stiff Upper Lips, Sun 4th Apr, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 7th Apr.
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot, Sun 4th Apr, Film4.

Slaughterhouse Rulez, Mon 5th Apr, Film4.
The Lost Moment (1947), late Mon 5th Apr, Talking Pictures.

Amelia and The Angel (short), Wed 7th Apr, Talking Pictures. (been on before)
Rules Don't Apply, Wed 7th Apr, Film4.

The Elephant Man, Thu 8th Apr, BBC4.
Lady of Deceit (Born to Kill), late Thu 8th Apr, Talking Pictures.

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colinr0380
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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1165 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Mar 29, 2021 11:31 am

jlnight wrote:
Sat Mar 27, 2021 1:46 pm
The Return of the Living Dead (1985), Sat 3rd Apr, Film4.
That is exciting to hear. Has that ever been shown on UK television before?

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reaky
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Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1166 Post by reaky » Mon Mar 29, 2021 11:59 am

Ballsy to broadcast a title like Return of the Living Dead on the weekend marking the most celebrated of returns from the dead.

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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1167 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Mar 29, 2021 6:05 pm

BBC4 to become an 'archive' channel and will not be commissioning any new programming specific to its channel. Hopefully that still means that they can buy in the documentary content for the Storyville series.

But apparently BBC3 will be coming back as a television channel after five years of being internet-only. Can't wait for the new series of... well, um...? I suppose that they will probably not be recommissioning Monkey Dust or Mongrels?

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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1168 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Mar 31, 2021 9:06 am

Really good over the Easter week. jlnight has noted the important things already but I'll add trailers:

The big film of course is BlacKkKlansman on Channel 4 at 9 p.m. on Saturday 3rd, although Channel 5 runs it a close second with Patrick Stewart's most prestigious role to date in The Emoji Movie at 3:25 p.m. earlier the same day.

Apparently Return of the Living Dead (which is the best film showing next week. At the very least the most quotable one! And despite its tongue-in-cheek satirically comic tone is one of the darkest zombie films ever made in all of its implications, along with featuring some of the most nightmarish zombie creations put on film. And is probably the best veiled metaphor for interventionism only having the opposite of the desired effect by making things worse on an ever more grander scale!) has been shown on UK television before if the RadioTimes listings are to be believed but if it has, it cannot have been shown on the main terrestrial channels in the last two decades at least. That's on Film4 at 11:20 p.m. on Saturday 3rd. It seems a horror-themed weekend on Film4 with Overlord on Good Friday and the premieres of Sam Elliott-starring The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot at 11.45 p.m. on Easter Sunday before the Simon Pegg-starring Slaughterhouse Rulez at 11 p.m. on Easter Monday.

BBC2 has Judi Dench spy-drama Red Joan at 10 p.m. on Easter Sunday. And Film4 is also premiering prehistoric drama Alpha at 3 p.m. on Easter Monday, although in terms of caveman meets animal companion stories will it reach the emotional heights of that one particular episode of the Primal series? Also everyone knows that dinosaurs beat dogs as companions!

The Terror comes to an end on BBC2 at 9 p.m. on Wednesday 7th, which in its historically-set cannibalistic horror premise has been reminding me a lot of Ravenous. Albeit with a horrible beastie running about in the Arctic wilderness. Maybe Ravenous meets Frankenstein?

Then there is Warren Beatty's first directed film since 1998's Bulworth (and first acting role, playing Howard Hughes, since infamous incredibly expensive 2001 bomb Town & Country) in 2016's Rules Don't Apply on Film4 at 11:20 p.m. on Wednesday 7th.

jlnight notes The Elephant Man showing on BBC4 at 9 p.m. on Thursday 8th, and that is followed by an archive Face To Face interview from 1995 with Anthony Hopkins at 11 p.m.

And there is a new Louis Theroux episode, Shooting Joe Exotic, following up his "America's Most Dangerous Pets" episode from 2011 in the wake of Joe Exotic becoming infamous. That's on BBC2 at 9 p.m. on Easter Monday. ("I'd stumbled across his website and had been immediately taken by his flamboyant personality... and his enormous park")

In terms of other repeats Channel 5 is showing Barabbas at 1:20 p.m. on Easter Sunday (which clashes up against Richard Fleischer's earlier film, 1958's The Vikings, at the same time over on BBC2). I wonder if that will be its first showing in the 2.20:1 ratio? EDIT: It was pan and scanned.
Last edited by colinr0380 on Mon Apr 05, 2021 4:08 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1169 Post by jlnight » Sat Apr 03, 2021 4:34 am

The Red House (1947), late Fri 9th Apr, Talking Pictures.

Wings of Mystery (CFF), Sat 10th Apr, Talking Pictures.
The House on Telegraph Hill, Sat 10th Apr, Talking Pictures. Also Wed 14th Apr.
Overlord (1975), Sat 10th Apr, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 13th Apr.
Burke & Hare (1972), late Sat 10th Apr, Talking Pictures.

Toys (1992), Sun 11th Apr, Sony Movies.
Emperor of the North, Sun 11th Apr, Talking Pictures.
Brothers of the Head, late Sun 11th Apr, Film4. (been on years ago)

The House on 92nd Street, Tue 13th Apr, Talking Pictures.

All My Sons (1948), Thu 15th Apr, Sony Movies Classic. Or...
Topkapi, Thu 15th Apr, BBC4. Or...
Animals (2019), Thu 15th Apr, Film4.
The Driver, Thu 15th Apr, Talking Pictures. (been on before)


Return of the Living Dead was on the Sky Movie channels as early as 1989. The sequels also showed up on various satellite channels.

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reaky
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Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1170 Post by reaky » Sat Apr 03, 2021 5:58 am

Bit of a house season going on with TPTV in the next few weeks: House of Strangers, The Red House, House on Telegraph Hill, House on 92nd St.

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Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1171 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Apr 07, 2021 6:14 pm

Rather quiet next week. jlnight has noted the most interesting new film with Animals on Film4 at 9 p.m. on Thursday 15th. As jlnight also noted Brothers of the Head is getting repeated too, on Film4 at 2 a.m. on Monday 12th, which is its first television showing since 2013.

Other than that, and presumably to placate the growing protests besieging central London on a daily basis demanding the immediate and unconditional release of the latest James Bond film, there is the third film in the Johnny English series, Johnny English Strikes Again on Channel 4 at 7:15 p.m. on Sunday 11th. Though that series often just makes me feel old when remembering back to when the characters were originally introduced in a series of Barclaycard commercials from the early 1990s.

The film I am rather morbidly curious about however is Slender Man showing on Film4 at 11 p.m. on Saturday 10th. That's a film based on a one of the most famous early internet horror stories that made the Something Awful and then Creepypasta site famous, with attendant evocative photoshopped pictures. Then it got even more traction as first a free web game about running around some woods in the dark collecting eight pages nailed to trees and walls whilst trying to avoid the black suited and no-faced figure continually jumpscaring the player. That eventually became a full game, Slender: The Arrival, in 2013.

Then everything took a turn for the worse in 2014 after a real life attempted murder case occurred in which the two 12 year old attackers stated that they were influenced by the Slender Man stories.

There seemed to be a mini subgenre of films unofficially inspired by the Slender Man mythos in the mid 2010s, all featuring shadowy supernatural figures stalking teens around woods and houses after being conjured up by them, from The Midnight Man to what I have heard is the goofiest/most unintentionally funny take on the idea with The Bye Bye Man! But perhaps because of the real events surrounding the property (which has itself inspired a couple of documentaries) it has taken a long while for an official Slender Man movie to appear. Perhaps too long for relevance to the zeitgeist.

All of which backstory would seem to be far more interesting than anything that is contained in this 2018 film, which seems like your standard teen supernatural curse film with a heavy influence of The Ring hanging over it from that trailer. The one thing that I do know about the film (and the thing that dissuaded me from tracking it down sooner, so I am glad to see it come to television) is that apparently this film was heavily cut down (by over seven minutes) from its original version to the 93 minute version that got released, seeming down to a mix of the studio getting cold feet over both poor test screenings and the court cases from that real life event still ongoing at the time with all the negative publicity that could entail. Apparently a number of the more visceral sequences from the film were removed (including entire characters and moments that feature in that linked theatrical trailer), and that makes the film play in a much more disjointed manner than it was intended to, with supporting characters just disappearing rather than meeting sticky ends. However because of all of the surrounding controversy and editing that has gone on I am quite curious to see how Slender Man has turned out for myself!

BBC4's screening of Jules Dassin's Topkapi at 9 p.m. on Thursday 15th is then followed by an hour of selected archival interviews with Peter Ustinov from the Parkinson chat show. The other programme of interest next week is a rare repeat of the five part 1994 BBC documentary series Watergate, with the first two episodes showing on BBC4 from 9 p.m. on Wednesday 14th. Though if you cannot wait it is up here.

jlnight
Joined: Tue Oct 22, 2013 10:49 am

Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1172 Post by jlnight » Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:01 am

The Innocents, Fri 16th Apr, Talking Pictures. (been on before)

Operation Third Form (CFF), Sat 17th Apr, Talking Pictures. (been on London Live)
House of Bamboo, Sat 17th Apr, Talking Pictures. Also Tue 20th Apr.
Heaven Can Wait (1943), Sat 17th Apr, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 19th Apr.
First Man, Sat 17th Apr, Channel 4.
Charlie Says, Sat 17th Apr, Film4.

The Keys of the Kingdom, Sun 18th Apr, Talking Pictures. Also Fri 23rd Apr.

The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, Wed 21st Apr, London Live.

An Unsuitable Job For a Woman, late Thu 22nd Apr, Film4.

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1173 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Apr 11, 2021 5:13 am

Well, I quite liked Slender Man, although I also see why it was received with a general 'meh' on theatrical release. Its obviously flawed by whatever happened to it in post-production because we have a really efficient film there that looks incredibly stylish and builds up a nicely tense atmosphere... until nothing really happens. It leaves the film feeling frustratingly focused on all of the build up with only a couple of the more spooky scenes remaining as a limited kind of pay off. It probably is never going to happen but I would be really curious to see what the original film with the climactic horror sequences left in would have played like!

The other issue is probably something that could not be fixed with editing or restoring, which is that this is a film hampered by the vagueness of its titular monster. We never really get a sense of it, what it can do or what it particularly wants (other than to abduct children and drive people insane by looking at it) and because the whole film, as with Ring (and I will talk more about that in a moment!), is framed as a kind of investigation into the mystery by our four friends who carelessly conjure him up that rather makes all of their work feel rather aimless and based on conjecture for a lot of the time. Which feels appropriate to an entity created and fleshed out piecemeal through collaborative comments on an internet forum, but the Slender Man never really feels as if he has a hook to drape a motivation on to, or more importantly a sense of (albeit monstrous) code of ethics and morality that our protagonists can try to appeal to in order to escape or bargain their way out of the pact that they so carelessly made. No such thing is forthcoming, which makes spending time with our four characters doing research into what the Slender Man is (although I love that the film is so front and centre about Slender Man on the internet, to even showing the original online imagery from the forums that inspired the character!) feel rather wrongheaded and futile.

And that gets me to the Ring. This film, perhaps because there's no Slender Man mythos beyond running around dark woods to build on, and perhaps because it also used cursed media as a vessel to infect and/or cause brain damaging cancerous hallucinations (in the vein of Videodrome!), pretty much appropriates the structure of the Ring films. Particularly the US "The Ring" remake, in its information overload sequence of a barrage of creepy imagery (Yet also kind of feeling like a third year avant-garde art student's graduation project rather than a particularly raw, pulled from the etherwave static, parade of nightmare imagery). But it takes too much from that well, as in The Ring the long, evocative scenes of attempting to research into the curse feel both motivated by the main character's career as a Journalist and there for the ironic twist that understanding the backstory really means nothing in terms of placating the monster.

It also tries to do that thing that Verbinski's Ring remake did of suggesting that all of the horror is only playing out within the character's minds rather than for real. I actually think this would have been a really good aspect to have beefed up even more (and maybe it was in the apparently removed scenes of the supporting cast of friends and fellow students seeming to onlookers to be inexplicably committing suicide), because that would be getting into the central idea that gets briefly alluded to in the early scenes of the four friends getting together to look at ever more extreme content on the internet, of which the Slender Man is the one that gets them. That would really get into the sense of seeing things that can never be unseen (as one character gaggingly says whilst presumably watching the in-world equivalent of a Two Girls, One Cup video) with an internet meme created boogeyman figure literally 'getting in your head'. I mean, this had the potential to go off into truly interesting Videodrome-but-with-the-internet territory, but it hews so closely to its Ring template (to the extent of even doing the mid-film twist where our slightly more fleshed out than her friends main character really has to start fighting the Slender Man once her younger sibling conjures him up and is herself cursed) that it cannot go into strange and weird directions, even if there was potential there to have done so.

So in the end this becomes a film about watching people being tense in rooms or dark woods but since the Slender Man can be there at any time and get through any barrier (because he's already taken up residence inside your head), all of that kind of feels tension-less. It does not particularly feel a travesty of the Slender Man mythos however and there is some really nice imagery in here that feels neatly spooky (particularly the giant long legged spider Slender Man during one sequence). The library sequence is probably the most vivid one in the film as it currently stands, along with perhaps a homage to The Evil Dead in the final climax when the woods come alive.

It therefore leaves the film feeling as if it is a bit of a latecomer, US indigenous created, add-on to the J-horror remake trend of the early to mid 2000s. In those terms I had a lot of fun: its not as successful as The Ring or The Grudge, nor quite as interesting to talk about as the engagingly wrongheaded Pulse remake, even if it shares qualities with all three. But neither is it as much of a mess as the One Missed Call remake! Its somewhere in the middle of those, and similarly is also just another one of the pack of the Slender Man-a-likes of the mid 2010s rather than standing towering above them as the Big Daddy wellspring, as it really needed to in order to distinguish itself.

I would also praise the film too for featuring an entire main cast comprised of four female friends and their lightly sketched in issues over deadbeat dads and boys (and the actresses in those roles, and the girl in the role of the sister, are really good), although of course you cannot really stand a film like this (not should it be as schematically intended as such anyways) as a symbol of 'female empowerment' when it also has to be a story about four characters stupidly cursing themselves into death because they were bored whilst surfing the internet during one weekend sleepover, and then infighting over the consequences! That actually plays into that really interesting final voiceover from the character of the sister that both clarifies the story and also feels a bit of a veiled, if pointed, reference to the real attempted murder case that tainted the brand:

"He only shows himself just enough to infect us. The more fear he creates, the more fascinated we get. We talk and write about him, share pictures, click on links, photoshop images: that's how a virus works. That's how it spreads. Some people cross the line to actually seek him out, like my sister and her friends did. Those messed up people go out and do messed up things that become more stories for people to tell. It's all spreading His word, you know?"

EDIT: And here's a much more negative (and probably truer to most normal people's perspectives!) take on Slender Man from Red Letter Media, which does note that one of the writers of Slender Man was David Birke who before this project worked on Paul Verhoeven's Elle and since Slender Man is a writer on Verhoven's upcoming Benedetta. Rewatching that video it makes me want to lobby Film4 to show Wish Upon now!

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1174 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Apr 13, 2021 4:33 pm

A pretty quiet week next week, though with a few big premieres. jlnight has noted the most important one with First Man on Channel 4 at 9 p.m. on Saturday 17th.

The unfortunately titled Charles Manson film Charlie Says (NSFW) from Mary Harron, director of American Psycho, is showing on Film4 at 11.15 p.m. on Saturday 17th. I say "unfortunate" because with that title now I can only imagine Manson being voiced by that talking cat from the 1970s Public Information films!

And the only other new film of note is The Girl In The Spider's Web (NSFW) on Film4 at 9 p.m. on Friday 23rd. This is apparently based on a story from an author continuing the series after Stieg Larsson passed away (so this is based on the fourth in the Millennium series of six books), and doing it in the tradition of the David FIncher 2011 English language remake of Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Which presumably means that it ignores the Played With Fire/Kicked The Hornet's Nest books that were never US adapted, or just skips over them? It all seems rather confusing, and may not be helped by Lisabeth Salander now beginning to get to the point of having had as many different actresses playing her as John Connor had actors in the Terminator films!

TV-wise it is very quiet as well (though not as quiet as last Friday where every BBC channel on television and radio was given over to blanket news coverage, and BBC4 was pulled off air entirely), with the only item of note being Elizabeth Taylor: A Life In Ten Pictures at 9:10 p.m. on BBC2 on Saturday 17th

jlnight
Joined: Tue Oct 22, 2013 10:49 am

Re: Upcoming Movies on TV (UK)

#1175 Post by jlnight » Sat Apr 17, 2021 8:38 am

Young and Innocent, Fri 23rd Apr, Talking Pictures. Also Sun 2nd May.
The Final Conflict (1981), Fri 23rd Apr, Talking Pictures. Also Mon 26th Apr. Or...

Night Ferry (CFF), Sat 24th Apr, Talking Pictures.
Julia (1977), Sat 24th Apr, Talking Pictures.

Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), Sun 25th Apr, Talking Pictures.
The Girl Can't Help It, Sun 25th Apr, Talking Pictures. (last on BBC4 in 2016)

Saturday Night Out, Mon 26th Apr, Talking Pictures. (been on London Live)
Ray & Liz, Mon 26th Apr, Film4.

Savage (2018), Thu 29th Apr, Film4.

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