Your night in: Every movie on TV tonight rated or slated

Of all the things you can watch on the telly tonight, make sure it’s not a profoundly unfunny, no-calorie comedy about late Apple founder Steve Jobs. Try one of these flicks instead.

Jack Black, Robert Downey Jnr and Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder.

SWEET COUNTRY (MA15+)

*****

9.35pm WORLD MOVIES

The best Australian movie of the past five years by a considerable distance.

A claustrophobically compelling experience unfolds across wide open scrublands on the wrong side of Alice Springs. The year is 1929, and the soft-spoken Aboriginal stockman is the most wanted man in the NT.

As a blackfella who’s shot dead a whitefella, Sam has no choice but to make a run for it. No-one cares that psychopathic homesteader Harry March (Ewen Leslie), was about to kill him. Or that March had recently raped Sam’s wife.

Justice, when it comes, will possibly only be for show, but certainly for keeps.

Not a frame, sound, look or gesture is out of place in this brutal, beautiful and bitterly insightful experience. Mark that down as two feature films for two undisputed masterpieces on the CV of filmmaker Warwick Thornton (Samson & Delilah). Co-stars Bryan Brown, Sam Neill.

Bryan Brown, Hamilton Morris, Natassia Gorey-Furber and Sam Neill in a scene from Sweet Country.

TROPIC THUNDER

**1/2

8.30PM GO!

While shooting a blockbuster war film in the wilds of Vietnam, a cast of egocentric actors become engaged in a running battle with local drug lords.

The performers think it’s all part of a show being filmed with secret cameras, which only further enrages the enemy.

Despite an all-star cast of funnymen – led by Ben Stiller, Jack Black and a brilliant Robert Downey Jr. – this high-concept, low-impact farce doesn’t quite stir up a perfect storm of mirth. Good enough, but it should have been great.

iSTEVE

*

11.05PM GO!

A satirical biopic of the life, times and tantrums of Apple Computers visionary Steve Jobs is a great idea. Unfortunately, that’s where all good things that can be said about iSteve well and truly end. This is profoundly unfunny, no-calorie comedy for those too high or too lazy to change channels. Woeful.

ALI’S WEDDING (M)

***

7.30PM WORLD MOVIES

This appealing Australian romantic comedy was one of the few bright lights in a bleak year for homemade product in 2017. Osamah Sami stars as Ali, the Iraq-born Aussie son of a Muslim cleric (Don Hany).

Helana Sawires in Ali's Wedding.

Against all odds (and advice), Ali has his sights set on Dianne (Helana Sawires), a not-so-traditional woman of Egyptian heritage. The two inexperienced leads make a modest, yet irresistible screen couple: you really do want them to get together once they have navigated all the rom-com roadblocks put in their way. Better still, the film doesn’t sell out its multicultural authenticity for cheap laughs.

LIKE CRAZY (M)

***1/2

11.40PM WORLD MOVIES

A tale of how absence makes the heart go haywire. Felicity Jones plays a British exchange student in LA, banished back home after overstaying her visa to be near her boyfriend (Anton Yelchin). The film, for the most part, is quiet, intimate, and willing to reach for an emotional authenticity that could leave everyone involved looking rather silly. That they do not in any way is testament enough to Like Crazy’s class. Recommended if you’ve overdosed on too many rom-coms lately.

YOUR NIGHT IN: Three movie picks for streaming or rental to get you through the evening

THE KITCHEN (MA15+)

***

NETFLIX & rent via GOOGLE, ITUNES, YOUTUBE

This unorthodox and unrelentingly violent crime drama hits the ground running, only to slow down to a jog before falling across the finish line exhausted. Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss star as three Hell’s Kitchen’s housewives hitched to three crooked Irish gangsters.

Elisabeth Moss, Tiffany Haddish and Melissa McCarthy in a scene from The Kitchen. Picture: Warner Bros.

When their brutish better halves are thrown in jail, the ladies are left to fend for themselves. This being New York City in the early 1980s, the hard-boiled heroines know all too well desperate times demand desperate measures.

So they set up a protection racket – first using hired muscle, then their own rapidly evolving intimidation techniques – to become the dominant mobsters in their neighbourhood.

While the three leads impress, the screenplay (based on an obscure comic book series) can get somewhat sketchy. Co-stars Domhnall Gleeson, currently doing great work in the Foxtel series Run.

ON CHESIL BEACH (M)

***

BINGE, FOXTEL

Don’t schedule this deceptively intense and insightful romantic drama for your next date night. Set in 1962, on the first (and maybe the last) day of a coastal honeymoon for young newlyweds Florence (the ever-consistent Saoirse Ronan) and Edward Mayhew (Billy Howie).

20 FEET FROM STARDOM (PG)

***1/2

DOCPLAY, STAN & rent via GOOGLE, ITUNES, YOUTUBE

Both a sight for sore eyes, and a clearing of blocked ears.

Filmmaker Morgan Neville turns the spotlight on those who have often been the reason a good song becomes a great song: the finest female backup vocalists in the history of popular music. Finally, it is they that get to do the talking after decades of leaving the stage (and the recording studio) in silence. Wonderful.

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