Your night in: Every Movie Tonight on Melbourne TV – Rated or Slated
From an acclaimed documentary chronicling the life — and death — of a tragic pop icon to a suite of action-packed classics guaranteed to trigger a trip down memory lane, here’s a definite ranking of every movie on TV tonight.
Entertainment
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WHITNEY (M)
****
9.20PM SBS
The second recent documentary to chart the irresistible rise and irreversible demise of American singing legend Whitney Houston is clearly the superior offering, digging deeper and pushing harder for a fuller understanding of its talented, tragic subject. Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald skilfully reminds us there was more going on with Houston than just an extensive vocal range, or precision pitching. There was passion. There was soul. There was belief. There was beauty. However, whenever Houston stepped away from the microphone, an ugly reality was soon there to surround and consume her. Macdonald’s film expertly isolates the disconnect between the joy Houston found only in music, and the betrayals, denials, addictions and abuses that ultimately ended her life at just the age of 48.
JUSTICE LEAGUE (M)
**1/2
8.45PM 7mate
An all-star assembly of DC Comics’ biggest brand names, together on the screen for the first time to snaffle some market share from Marvel’s Avengers. Batman (Ben Affleck) is the dream team’s list manager, and the first half of the movie is all about recruiting Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher). If you’re wondering why Superman (Henry Cavill) isn’t in the starting line-up, let’s just say he hasn’t quite recovered from his own funeral at the end of Batman V Superman. Once the world needs saving from a fleet of magic-box-collecting aliens known as the Parademons, the whole shebang is locked in a groove that neither overwhelms nor underwhelms. Just another reminder that whatever the DC Comics movies do, the Marvel movies keep doing better.
A FEW GOOD MEN (M)
****
7.30PM GEM
As speechy and preachy a courtroom drama as you’ll ever find, detailing the secret manoeuvring that shadows a naval court-martial. The key here is the constant butting of heads between the three leads – Tom Cruise’s cocky maritime defence lawyer, Demi Moore’s determined career-woman, and Jack Nicholson’s charismatically psychotic renegade colonel. A fantastic good-guy / bad-guy melodrama, where justice ultimately prevails, but not before everyone (and I mean everyone) has said their piece. The tingles that run up the spine during Cruise and Nicholson’s final electrifying confrontation (”you can’t handle the truth!”) seals an apt final verdict.
PUSH (M)
**
11.10pm 7mate
A movie which never quite comes to shove. Apparently there are all kinds of paranormally active folk who live among us. The US government is after them. Uncle Sam likes to drug these freaks and steal their abilities for defence purposes. Ambitious, but alarmingly confusing thriller set in Hong Kong. A young and up-for-anything cast look to be enjoying themselves, which must count for something, I guess. Stars Chris Evans, Camilla Belle, Dakota Fanning.
DAYS OF THUNDER (M)
**
10.20PM GEM
Nicole Kidman’s inglorious Hollywood debut saw her supply the eye candy, while future husband Tommy Cruise brought the guy candy. She plays Dr Claire Lewicki, a non-nonsense neurosurgeon who falls in love with Cole Trickle (Cruise), a NASCAR nuff-nuff.
THE TERMINATOR (M)
***1/2
7.30PM GO!
The foundation stone of all things Terminator is a big, fat concrete slab of futuristic mythology. At the time of release, this was a breakthrough effort for Arnold Schwarzenegger, playing the archetypal ‘bad’ Terminator sent from the future to make sure Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) does not get a chance to spawn a resistance movement destined to be led by her son John. Though the production design is a bit flimsy at times, both the big ideas at work and director James Cameron’s brilliance as a proactive, inventive filmmaker generate a powerful flow that cannot help but sweep viewers totally away.
RAMBO (MA15+)
*
9.40PM GO!
AKA Rambo 4. But only if you are a Rambo fan who knows how to count. When we last saw him in Rambo III, big John (Sylvester Stallone) was assisting Osama bin Laden to drive the Russkies out of Afghanistan. That’s right, conspiracy theorists. Rambo indirectly helped bring about 9/11. Which perhaps explains where we first find him here: hiding out in the jungle in northern Thailand, wrangling snakes for the local python prize-fighting circuit. However, when some do-gooder missionaries inform him of some oppressed folks in nearby Burma, Rambo is back on the job as a freelance killing machine.
LA VIE EN ROSE (M)
****
8.30PM WORLD MOVIES
A thoroughly gruelling, yet highly engrossing biopic of the legendary French singer Edith Piaf (brilliantly portrayed by Marion Cotillard). Each stirring musical interlude arrives just in a nick of time, not only to remind us of Piaf’s immense talent, but also how so much personal tragedy earned her the right to sing as if her life depended on it.
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