Noel Curry (@DJBogTrotter) continues this regular feature. He’s done the TV guide trawling for you and picked out some of the filmic highlights available via free to access digital channels. And what another wonderfully eclectic mix it is.
Film of the Week
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (Friday 6th 1.05am Film Four)
Charlie Kaufman’s scripts for both Being John Malkovich and Adaptation were crammed full of fascinating and hilarious ideas, but they lacked emotional oomph. In Eternal Sunshine, together with French video director Michael Gondry, Kaufman delivered another high concept comic tale but this one also has a point to make. Kate Winslet plays carefree Clementine, who uses a new service that promises to wipe all memories of your unhappy relationship, in order to escape from her lover Joel, played by Jim Carrey who, surprisingly, turns out to be a pretty good actor, once he stops all that incessant gurning. Carrey, having found out what Winslet has done, decides to have the process too and we see him get chased through the recesses of his own mind, as his relationship is scrubbed away. The film shows them, and us, that although it may be desirable to forget the pain, it is inextricably bound up with the pleasure of being in love and you can’t have one without the other.
Worth Another Look
Minority Report (Friday 6th 11.15pm BBC2)
Yet another of my rather qualified recommendations, as I think this film is best turned off about half an hour from the end. Spielberg directs a fine sci-fi thriller with Tom Cruise playing a cop who, with the help of pre-cogs and their visions of future events, is able to arrest people before they commit a crime. When it’s his name that the pre-cogs select, he goes on the run to prove his innocence of a murder he has not yet carried out. As you’d expect from a story from Philip K Dick, who also provided the source for Blade Runner and Total Recall, the narrative is not short on ideas about the nature of reality and has a definite bleak outlook on what the future holds. And had the film ended when Cruise reaches his lowest point (I don’t want to spoil too much by saying when that is, but you’ll know it when you see it) it might have been regarded as a classic of the genre, but then Spielberg’s predictable need for redemption and his undying belief in the ‘indomitability of the human spirit’ (trademark Amblin Entertainment) get in the way with a trite and, in the end, unbelievable reversal in our hero’s fortunes.
The Classic
The Searchers (Friday 6th 12.45pm Channel 4)
Much under-appreciated and misunderstood at the time, John Ford’s western has gone on to become a classic, perhaps the classic, of the genre. John Wayne plays Ethan Edwards who spends years searching for his abducted niece, Debbie. However, by the time he finds her, she has become so accepted into the Native American life of her kidnappers, that the audience is unsure whether Ethan is going to rescue her or kill her. The film daringly (for the time) examines the racism that lies behind Ethan’s tenacity, whilst also exploring the vital role that violence played in shaping America. The now iconic last shot reveals however that the men behind the violence that formed the west were then unable to share a place at the family hearth they had protected.
What I’ll Be Watching
Killer of Sheep (Monday 2nd 2.10am Film Four)
Charles Burnett has been called America’s most gifted black director but few have ever heard of him. Killer Of Sheep deals with Stan and his life of drudgery at the slaughterhouse. Like a lot of his films, it deals with black family life but strives to avoid the typical African-American stereotypes. I’ve only seen one of his other films, To Sleep With Anger, and although I can’t remember much of the plot, there was a haunting unease to it, that has stayed with me ever since. Killer Of Sheep, his first feature film and a little rough around the edges due to a very low budget, is regarded as his masterpiece and should definitely be worth a look.
Noel Curry has degrees in both film studies and film production and now works as a freelance television editor. When he’s not editing, looking after his kids or watching the latest series of Mad Men with his wife, he likes to draw silly cartoons and publish them online (see www.miltonslife.com, www.djbogtrotter.co.uk and www.sascomic.com). He has views on films, which he has now decided to start writing down rather than just shouting them out of windows.
You can find Noel on Twitter: @DJBogtrotter
Mike McKenny is The Culture Vulture’s film editor. If you have any film related stories, articles, reviews with a twist, etc, contact him on mike.mckenny1983@gmail.com or find him on Twitter @DestroyApathy