Your night in: Every movie on TV tonight rated or slated
Ben Mendelsohn, Jennifer Lawrence and Morgan Freeman headline tonight’s movie line-up on free-to-air TV. Leigh Paatsch rates every flick on the box so you can make the most of your wintry Tuesday night in.
Leigh Paatsch
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MISSISSIPPI GRIND (M)
****
7.30PM WORLD MOVIES
The acting of Ben Mendelsohn continues to bend into unusual (and sometimes unsightly) shapes. But not once does it break. The Australian star is in superlative form here, playing Gerry, a down-and-out gambler looking high and low for a win that will never reveal itself. Joining forces with a card shark (Ryan Reynolds) who is quicker and slicker whenever money is at stake, Gerry hits the open road to end his lifelong losing streak. There is not a lot of story in play here, but the damaging alterations Mendelsohn adds to an already weather-beaten character throughout more than compensate. Reynolds can’t quite hit the same hangdog heights, but does give it a hell of a whirl. Directed and written by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (Half Nelson).
JOY (M)
***1/2
8.30PM 7FLIX
The opening title card of this appreciably unconventional (and as a result, intriguingly uneven) biopic reads as follows: “Inspired by stories of brave women”. It might have been wise to add another clarifying statement immediately thereafter: “Powered by another electric lead performance from Jennifer Lawrence.” For quite often, it is Lawrence alone keeping this oddly distracted affair from totally losing focus on the job at hand. That job is to tell the remarkable life story of Joy Mangano (Lawrence), a down-and-out, but always driven single mother who realised all of her considerable ambition through sheer, bloody-minded force of will. As the inventor (and popular TV sales face) of the essential 1990s domestic gadget the Miracle Mop, Mangano rose to become a self-reliant businesswoman of the highest calibre. While it is indeed a fascinating tale, the overall experience can get quite erratic when the antics of a wide array of support characters come into play. Co-stars Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Isabella Rossellini.
THE SUM OF ALL FEARS (M)
***
7.30PM GO!
Effective Hollywood thriller in which Ben Affleck replaces Harrison Ford as airport novel author Tom Clancy’s favourite creation, CIA super-snoop Jack Ryan. Although set in the present day, Affleck plays a younger, greener Ryan looking to make his mark at the agency under the guiding hand of his seasoned leader (Morgan Freeman). A credibility-challenged plot about the possibility of a new Cold War is blown away by a gripping sequence in which terrorists explode a stolen nuclear device.
THE DISH (PG)
****1/2
8.40PM CH. 9
The second film from local comedy collective Working Dog shares little in common with its predecessor, The Castle. This may well be a great Australian comedy, but a universally stirring tale is being told here: one of battlers, bulldust and backroom bravado, set against one of the most significant of man’s all-time achievements. The setting is the small provincial New South Wales town of Parkes in 1969, home to the biggest satellite dish in the southern hemisphere. With Neil Armstrong about to plant his size 12’s on the surface of the moon, the race is on to provide live TV coverage as evidence of this history-making fact. But the pictures can’t be bounced around the world without making a whistlestop in the bottom half of the globe. Which is where the good people of Parkes and their over-sized wok come in. While local Mayor Roy Billing lays out the red carpet for Prime Minister Bille Brown, everyone else is peering over the shoulder of head engineer Sam Neill and his assistants, Kevin Harrington and Tom Long. Also putting in his two cents worth on behalf of Uncle Sam is NASA man of action, Patrick Warburton.
THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS (MA15+)
*1/2
10.00PM GO!
Hollywood was never a happy hunting ground for former Hong Kong action superstar Chow Yun-Fat. Chow was very good at gliding ballet-style through deathly action scenarios. Chow was not so good at demonstrating any expressive range whatsoever. There is just two grimaces in his repertoire – that of a man just about to have an upset stomach, and that of a man who is recovering from an upset stomach. Not only did Chow need an acting coach, but he could probably have used some Quick-Eze as well. As for the plot here, let’s just say it has something to do with hit men, drug lords and revenge, and leave it at that. To add a dash of pointless spice to proceedings, Mira Sorvino (Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion) occasionally lets a beautifully-stitched black bra pop out of her shirt.
BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (M)
****
9.30PM WORLD MOVIES
An eccentric attack upon the modern-day religion of celebrity, via one of the strangest, most out-there concepts ever committed to film. Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is a struggling street puppeteer who finds a small tunnel hidden behind a filing cabinet. He crawls inside, only to find he has been transported directly into the brain of actor John Malkovich. Yes, that John Malkovich. Once you get your bearings, it is actually great fun inside John Malkovich’s head. You get to lead the exalted, pampered life of an A-list celeb. There’s only one drawback – it is only for 15 minutes at a time. Then you’re unceremoniously spat out, dropped from the sky onto the side of a busy freeway. The intense invention and creativity at work in this extraordinary movie is overwhelming. A black (but not bleak) sense of humour works in tandem with the endless mould-breaking of director Spike Jonze.
Originally published as Your night in: Every movie on TV tonight rated or slated
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