Tim Winton’s The Turning brings Australian stories to life

Tim Winton’s The Turning is among the highlights of films screening on pay television this week.

Hugo Weaving in Robert Connolly’s film adaption of Tim Winton’s The Turning.

As any good film tragic knows by now, former At the Movies co-host Margaret Pomeranz has thankfully resurfaced — on Foxtel’s Screen with Graeme Blundell and introducing selected titles on the Masterpiece Movies channel.

This week her choice is among the most daringly conceived Australian films in recent memory, Tim Winton’sThe Turning (Wednesday, 8.35pm, Masterpiece Movies). For 2013’s three-hour imagining of the 17 intertwined short stories in Winton’s 2004 collection, director Robert Connolly assembled a group of veteran and first-time filmmakers to tell these pungently Australian stories in their own distinct voices. A contemporary triumph of outside-the-box narrative filmmaking, this is a film that can be experienced as a whole or sampled at will — just like any good short story collection.

When deciding which script he should select as his directorial debut, child star turned genial adult actor Jason Bateman (Arrested Development, Up in the Air) apparently decided to subvert his image and be as transgressive as possible. Thus the 2014 comedy Bad Words (Saturday, 8.30pm, Premiere Movies), in which his 40-year-old misanthrope decides to enter a series of children’s spelling bees. Improbably enough, given the profane language and general unpleasant demeanour of its protagonist, the film is quite funny on its own deadpan terms. Though not for all tastes, Bad Words is nothing if not original. And the contemporary movie world can always use more of that.

Shot in vivid Technicolor, John Ford’s 1948 western 3 Godfathers (Friday, 8.30pm, TCM) re-imagines the biblical story of the Three Wise Men in California’s Death Valley and stars his regulars John Wayne, Harry Carey Jr (to whose father, a long-time Ford crony, the film is dedicated) and Pedro Armendariz as bank robbers on the lam from a pursuing sheriff (Ward Bond). Vowing to care for the newborn of a dying mother near a remote watering hole, the trio strikes out for the nearest town, New Jerusalem. The film isn’t usually cited as among Ford’s best work, and that’s a shame.

Ignore the dreadful Vince Vaughn remake and seek out the original 2011 Canadian dramatic comedy Starbuck (Thursday, 11.10am, World Movies), in which a hapless 40-something layabout is pursued by more than 500 young people conceived from sperm he donated during his college years.

To give Paul Thomas Anderson credit, he marches to the beat of his own drum. Inherent Vice failed to capture the moviegoing imagination, but his equally eclectic 2002 romantic comedy Punch-Drunk Love (Saturday, 8.30pm, Romance Movies) is certainly worth a look. Adam Sandler is a moody businessman caught in a phone sex scam. It’s his best performance to date, though the bar’s quite low.

Tim Winton’s The Turning (MA 15+) 4 ½ stars

Wednesday, 8:35pm, Masterpiece Movies

3 Godfathers (G) 4 stars

Friday, 8:30pm, TCM

Punch-Drunk Love (M) 4 stars

Saturday, 8:30pm, Romance Movies