Your Night In: Every movie on TV tonight rated or slated

Is the second Harry Potter film better than Oscar-winning Parasite? Expert film reviewer Leigh Paatsch thinks so, but there’s another sequel on the box tonight that isn’t as well-received.

The second Harry Potter movie is a spellbinding and enchanting adventure.

HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS (PG)

****1/2

8.30pm 7MATE

The world’s favourite wand-waver raised the stakes the second time around with a follow-up that is superior to the original in every department. Harry, Ron and Hermione investigate the existence of a mythical abyss inside Hogwarts that threatens the lives of all wizards born to human parents. The magic spells, the playful pranks and even the Quidditch matches are leaner and meaner than before, while the introduction of some new characters and a darker sense of adventure and intrigue bring the movie iteration of Harry P closer in alignment to his literary counterpart. Brilliant stuff.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is as close as it gets to a perfect book adaptation.

SEX AND THE CITY 2 (M)

*

9.00PM 10 PEACH

Sex and the City 2 lets the franchise’s standards slip to an abysmal level. The filmmakers have arrogantly assumed that merely spending time in the company of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her flock of shop-till-you-drop sheep will be enough. It is not. Someone falls off a camel. Someone else loses their passport. There are costume changes every two minutes. An emergency “inter-friend-tion” every five. And enough patronising observations about the backwards ways of local Arabs to set Christian-Muslim relations back to before the Crusades. The worst scene in the movie? Easy. The final-act bit where we learn what a Muslim woman is really hiding under her burka: handled with all the sensitivity, subtlety and social insight of someone spilling the beans on what a Scotsman keeps up his kilt.

The girls are back for another Sex and the City movie.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (PG)

**

10.45pm 7MATE

Disappointing remake of the classic 1962 thriller. Denzel Washington is as fine as ever playing a brainwashed Gulf War veteran piecing together the jigsaw of a vast political conspiracy, but the drama lapses into pulpy pantomime when the pressure is on. Meryl Streep’s weird Hillary Clinton impersonation doesn’t help, either.

Two acting heavyweights clash in The Manchurian Candidate.

SAHARA (PG)

**

7.30pm GO!

The best-selling book by Clive Cussler has been retooled as a rollicking, Indiana Jones-style romp, rife with audacious set-piece stunts and a lot of expensive eye candy. A shame this slick vehicle often stalls in a traffic jam of action-adventure cliches and unnecessary mucking about. A forcibly forgettable knock-off of Nic Cage’s National Treasure. Stars Matthew McConaughey, Penelope Cruz.

Part Indiana Jones, part National Treasure, Sahara falls flat.

Three movie picks for streaming or rental to get you through the evening

THE LODGE (MA15+)

***1/2

Rent via Google, iTunes, YouTube Movies

An expertly constructed horror film, more interested in the elliptical manipulation of moods than straight shocks to the senses. Anyone knocked for a loop by the 2018 angst-fest Hereditary will be most taken by the quietly menacing momentum building from scene to scene here. (Hereditary fans will also notice a few scripting and visual similarities, which cannot be classified as merely coincidental.) The story centres on a family unit recently reconfigured by a sudden death. As a result, youngsters Aidan and Mia have a new stepmother, Grace (Riley Keough), they cannot abide, and a father that cannot be reached.

The Lodge has shades of Heriditary.

PARASITE (MA15+)

****

Stan; or rent via Foxtel Store, Google, iTunes, YouTube Movies

Recent winner of the Best Picture Oscar. Just who is leeching the life force from whom in Parasite? There is no definitive answer forthcoming, and that might just be the point of a funny, strange, sobering and distinctly original satire. We open in a back alley of Seoul, where a poor family subsists on a combo of the help-yourself (an ever-pressing task is nicking some nearby wi-fi) and the hand-to-mouth (pre-folding pizza boxes to secure their next meal). So far, so down-and-out, right? Not so fast: things suddenly look up when eldest son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-sik) gets a job tutoring the daughter of a wealthy CEO, Mr Park. One by one, the rest of Ki-woo’s family infiltrate Park’s lavish designer home in menial positions. So far, so happy ending, right? Wrong again. An ever-blackening dark comedy starts hinting Ki-woo and clan may merely be swapping one form of daily desperation to another.

Who is leeching off whom in Parasite?

RICHARD JEWELL (M)

***

Rent via Foxtel Store, Google, iTunes, YouTube Movies

During the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, security guard Richard Jewell went from celebrated hero to prime suspect after discovering a hidden bomb in a busy public space. The media feeding frenzy that followed is clearly what has drawn a high-profile filmmaker like Clint Eastwood to revisit this chilling, cautionary tale. However, it is actor Paul Walter Hauser’s natural, understated portrayal of Jewell that humanises and elevates this feisty production. Long an actor’s director, Eastwood also draws great support work from Sam Rockwell (as Jewell’s crusading lawyer) and Kathy Bates (his heartbroken mother).

Richard Jewell tells the story of a hero-turned-suspected villain.

Originally published as Your Night In: Every movie on TV tonight rated or slated