Your night in: Every movie on Melbourne TV tonight - rated and slated
From Vin Diesel as an intergalactic outlaw with night-vision to a star-studded cast in Little Women, these are the movies to put on your list tonight.
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RIDDICK
**1/2
8:30 PM GO!
Vin Diesel’s character of Riddick, an intergalactic outlaw with night-visiony eyes and steroidy muscles, stole the show in the very good Pitch Black (2000). Then stole our dough in the very bad Chronicles of Riddick (2004). In terms of entertainment value, this third vehicle sits smack-bang between the previous two. The wonky excesses of Chronicles have been ripped up. The last-bad-man-on-a-last-bad-planet stylings of Pitch Black have been stitched back together. In this passable affair, Riddick is stuck on a far-flung world with just 11 bounty hunters that want him dead for company. Will he survive to fight another day (and star in another sequel)? No answers please. Co-stars Matt Nable, Katie Sackhoff.
KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE
***1/2
8:30 PM CH. 7
This smart, edgy and unpredictable thriller-comedy is a Bond film pared back to basics, and then pumped-up with street-cred steroids. Colin Firth plays a posh British spy who recruits a housing-estate kid (Taron Egerton) with potential to join a secret society of super-spooks. Meanwhile, a mobile-phone tycoon (Samuel L. Jackson) plots to take over the world with sinister SIM-cards. Not everything works here, but when it does, the energy expended and electricity generated can take your breath away. Co-stars Mark Strong, Michael Caine.
BEYOND THE MAT
****
8:30 PM NITV
Just how do you sum-up the American breed of that strange, strange species known as professional wrestlers? This engrossing 2004 documentary - which as not dated all that much, surprisingly - takes an honest spanner to the nuts and bolts of a most peculiar occupation. The wrestlers might be well-oiled, but the machine which grinds them up and spits them out on a regular basis - all in the name of entertainment - most certainly isn’t. Director-narrator Barry Blaustein’s interviews with major players (such as controversial WWE honcho Vince McMahon), fallen soldiers (a knock-kneed Terry Funk and a crack-addicted Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts) and deluded dreamers (meet the rising star Puke, who can show you what he had for lunch on cue) is ‘Access All Areas’ all the way.
GET ON UP
****
8:30 PM VICE LAND
This early work in the all-too-short career of recently-departed actor Chadwick Boseman just might his finest. Sorry, Black Panther fans, but Boseman’s charismatic and eerily accurate performance as American R&B legend James Brown is truly something to behold. Though an unconventional biopic of Brown in that the filmmakers are barley bothered with following a traceable chronology, both the movie and Boseman have no problem transmitting the complexities, contradictions and sheer musical genius of the late, great JB. Co-stars Viola Davis, Dan Aykroyd.
MARATHON MAN
***1/2
11:00 PM VICE LAND
A rare TV airing for a distinctly uncomfortable, yet undeniable well-acted and executed psychological thriller. Dustin Hoffman stars as a graduate history student unwittingly caught in the middle of an international conspiracy involving stolen diamonds, an exiled Nazi war criminal, and a rogue government agent. Goes up another gear when Hoffman goes head-to-head with the classiest of co-stars, the legendary Laurence Olivier.
TOP PICKS FOR STREAMING OR RENTAL
LITTLE WOMEN (G)
****1/2
FOXTEL, AMAZON
A fastidiously realised and impeccably cast rendition of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel. With their father taken away by the US Civil War, all the growing up the four young March sisters have to do will be completed under the watchful eye of their warmly supportive mother, Marmee (Laura Dern). The much-admired Saoirse Ronan has the plum role of Jo March, and delivers her usual shrewd read of a character. Rising star Florence Pugh (Midsommar) more than matches Ronan in the deceptively demanding part of Amy, the youngest and most high-spirited of the March women. Adding yet more power to an already strong ensemble are the incomparable Meryl Streep and the ever-consistent Timothee Chalamet (skilfully underplaying the male heart-throb role of Laurie). Written and directed by Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird).
A PERFECT DAY (M)
***
SBS ON DEMAND
The title of this tense dark comedy is ironic, of course. Any day during the Balkans War of the mid-1990s was bound to go haywire. Benicio Del Toro and Tim Robbins lead a group of international aid workers tasked with retrieving a body from a well that is contaminating the only water supply in the region. OK, it doesn’t read as the stuff that laughs are made of. Nevertheless, there is a wisdom to the world-weary interplay of the leads and their co-stars (most notably, Olga Kurylenko as a visiting oversight analyst) that is all the more human because of the inhumane atmosphere around them.
ALAN PARTRIDGE : ALPHA PAPA (M)
***
stream via STAN; or rent via GOOGLE, APPLE, FOXTEL STORE
The long-awaited movie debut of a British TV character revered by comedy connoisseurs all over the globe. Alan Partridge (played by Steve Coogan) is a washed-up talk-show host now making ends meet on a low-rating radio station. When a fellow DJ is sacked by management and takes the entire station hostage, the bitter, twisted and supremely self-serving Partridge is the only person the cops and the crook will trust. A big mistake for both parties. Perhaps best appreciated if you have already had some exposure to the unique absurdity of all things Alan Partridge. The humour can plunge to dark depths very quickly if you’re not on your guard. So have your wits about you, and be prepared to laugh hard and often. Sometimes against your better judgment.
Originally published as Your night in: Every movie on Melbourne TV tonight - rated and slated