Your Night In: Every movie on TV tonight rated
From the most entertaining Harry Potter flick in the franchise, to the least impressive Godfather film, and a timely US political drama — there’s a movie for everyone to enjoy on telly tonight.
Weekly Guide
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HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE (M)
****1/2
7.30pm 7MATE
The fourth Potter picture is one of the busiest in the series. And one of the most enjoyable for fans, too. Especially if they love visiting the stars of the minor constellations in the Potter-verse. Hagrid is hairier than ever in this one, and is on the verge of turning into a human dreadlock. Nerdy Neville Longbottom proves himself to be quite the accomplished ballroom dancer. Bad boy Draco Malfoy finally gets his right whack and is temporarily turned into a ferret. The Weasley twins, Fred and George, are turning into quite a polished double act. Did their younger brother Ron really tell his best mate Harry to “p*** off”? And what about that new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Mad-Eye Moody? Meanwhile, over in the main plot, It is here Harry learns he will be balancing his studies with participation in the finals of the Triwizard Tournament, which will pitch the gifted wand-waver against the best of his peers from around the world.
POLICE ACADEMY 4 : CITIZENS ON PATROL
*1/2
10:40 PM 7MATE
Take the first letter from each of the words Citizens, On and Patrol, and there is every chance they will form the word COP. That’s about it for wit in the fourth Police Academy outing, in which regulars contractually obligated to participate do as little as possible to secure their pay cheque. The premise of this one concerns a pilot program where selected civilians will be given the same powers as police officers. To make sure it will fails, shadowy forces inside the Police Force get goobers like Office Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg), Zed (Bobcat Goldthwait) and Tackleberry (David Graf) to train the plain-clothed recruits.
AGATHA CHRISTIE’S THE MIRROR CRACK’D
***
8:40 PM GEM
This is the 1980 version of the mid-strength Agatha Christie whodunnit, with a pre-Murder She Wrote Angela Lansbury doing a pretty good job in the iconic role of Miss Marple. The year is 1953, and an American studio has set up shop in Marple’s hometown to shoot a much-anticipated historical drama. When one of the locals is poisoned - and famous actress Marina Rudd (Elizabeth Taylor) appears to be the intended victim — it is up to Miss Marple and her Scotland Yard-affiliated nephew (Edward Fox) to work out what is going on. Quite a loopy support cast keeps the fun factor in play, with the likes of Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson and Geraldine Chaplin all pulling their weight.
STARGATE
***
7:30 PM GO!
An ungainly, but interesting blend of sci-fiction and an old-fashioned, sandblown desert epic. James Spader plays an Egyptologist who cracks a code to opening an ancient Stargate (an interplanetary time-travel gateway), and then accompanies a military expedition led by ace army operative Kurt Russell to explore the strange world on the other side of the galaxy. A slogging fight for freedom ensues as our good guys try to liberate the population of a primitive planet from the sinister enslavery of an immortal time lord, played by The Crying Game’s Jaye Davidson.
STARGATE: THE ARK OF TRUTH
*
10:00 PM GO!
No-one of note from the original bothered showing up for this shonky sequel, and neither should you.
THE GODFATHER: PART III
***
9:30 PM WORLD MOVIES
I’ve always felt a bit sorry for poor old Part III of the Godfather saga. Not its fault it had to follow two of the greatest movies ever made. Stripped of that context, it’s actually quite an engrossing (if thematically erratic) organised crime drama that has aged better than many would have thought. Al Pacino returns to his greatest role as Don Michael Corleone, looking to make a gracious exit from his grubby career by securing some late-in-life credibility from the Vatican. Co-stars Joe Mantegna, Andy Garcia, Sofia Coppola and George Hamilton.
BLACK SHEEP (MA15+)
***
9.30pm NITV
They used to say New Zealand was the land where men are men, and the sheep are nervous. That equation may be reversed forevermore after this very entertaining Kiwi horror-comedy, which transforms the farmyard world’s most docile residents into fluffy killing machines. Treads the fine line between hilarity and repulsion with sly cunning and some fine ideas. This is what you truly call raising the baa. Stars Nathan Meister.
THREE PICKS FOR STREAMING OR RENTAL
ON THE ROCKS (M)
****
APPLE TV+
Reunited once more with his Lost in Translation collaborator, writer-director Sofia Coppola, Bill Murray plays Felix, a veteran New York art trader who drifts in and out of the life of his cherished daughter Laura (Rashida Jones) as he pleases. A bit of a rogue, an obvious ladies’ man and a clandestine philosopher, Felix is about to add ‘private detective’ to his resume when he gets an inkling Laura’s workaholic husband might be cheating on her. Against Laura’s wishes, Felix is soon applying all kinds of unnecessary surveillance tactics to get to the bottom of what is going on. While this movie is definitely slender when it comes to plotting, the chemistry it nurtures and builds between Murray and Jones is as vivid as any screen coupling you’ll catch right now. Murray is the king of the one-note, multi-layered performance, but Jones — who excels in On the Rocks’ all-important dialogue exchanges between Laura and Felix — keeps pushing him not to rest on his well-earned laurels.
THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN (M)
**1/2
Stream via FOXTEL; or Rent via various platforms.
In the absence of any movies exploring such rich dramatic subjects as the growing of grass, the drying of paint or the completion of tax returns, a movie about the secret history of a dictionary might be just the thing problem sleepers have been hoping for. Mel Gibson stars as James Murray, the self-taught man of letters whose winning way with words willed the famous Oxford English Dictionary into being in the 1800s. Murray was also the founding father of crowdsourcing, as it was his idea to invite the general public to hunt, trap and submit undocumented words from the English language to his offices. One of the most prolific contributors to the project was William Minor (Sean Penn), a US Civil War veteran detained in a London asylum for the criminally insane. The movie tells its modest story effectively enough, even if the inelegant performances of the two leads (particularly Penn and his love of a ranty tantrum) are of much help.
GAME CHANGE (M)
****
BINGE, FOXTEL
A very timely re-release on to streaming platforms, particularly with the most contentious US Presidential election of the modern era only days away. This cracking political drama tells the true story of the meteoric rise to notoriety by Alaska governor Sarah Palin (played with eerie precision by Julianne Moore). When the mere possibility of power goes straight to Palin’s head, her 2008 running mate Senator John McCain (Ed Harris) is at his wit’s end to stop her. Co-stars Woody Harrelson as a justifiably exasperated Republican spin doctor.