Best films on the box: September 8-14

Film and television critic Philip Wakefield assesses the best movies on offer on the box this week, for Tuesday, September 8 to Monday September 14.

Tuesday, September 8

SPIDER-MAN 3
2007, AO. 8.30pm, TV2.

Supernerd is superbad in this superbusy sequel. Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) risks losing the love of his life while learning the truth about his uncle's murder and wrestling with three nemeses, including an alien goo that infects the good-guy geek with a mean streak. Spider-Man 3 is the closest the franchise has come to bringing the comic book to life, thanks to spectacular skyscraper scrapes and astonishing visual effects feats like Sandman, a villain who's as gritty as he is vulnerable.

****

Wednesday, September 9

PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES
C4, 8.30pm

One of the funniest screen comedies ever stars Steve Martin as an uptight ad exec who's so desperate to get home in time for Thanksgiving that he hitches a ride with John Candy's insufferable know-it-all shower curtain ring salesman. Yet as the silk-and-dinner-bib duo progress through one nightmarish mishap after another, we sympathise more with Candy than Martin (although the latter never loses our empathy). The ending verges on sentimentality but it's such perfectly executed pathos that it's hard to imagine this achingly funny and sweetly moving character study being as satisfying without it.

*****

Thursday

ROAD TRIP
2000, AO. 8.30pm, TV3.

Tasteless American Pie-wannabe about four college friends who hit the road to stop an amateur sex tape being delivered to one of the gang's girlfriends. As no less an esteemed organ than the New York Times confessed: "As we all know, bad taste is timeless. And sometimes it can be so funny that you can't help laughing." (The same can't be said of TV2's 2006 comedy, Beerfest, which screens 10.40pm Saturday.)

***

Friday

THERE WILL BE BLOOD
2007, AO. 8.30pm, Sky Movies.

Daniel Day-Lewis won his second Oscar for this enthralling epic that falters with an overwrought finale. He plays a merciless oilman who makes his fortune in the California of the early 20th century when, under the guise of enriching communities, he plunders them for the wealth that lies beneath their feet. Ultimately, he - and the audience - pays a high price for his greed and deviousness when writer/ director Paul Thomas Anderson (Punch Drunk Love, Magnolia) undermines two hours of cinematic mastery with third-act histrionics.

****

Saturday

MARS ATTACKS!
1996, PGR. 8.30pm, TV2.

A Camembert of cheesy sci-fi send-ups that's freaky, funny and star-studded (Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan, Michael J Fox, Danny DeVito, Annette Benning, Rod Steiger, Tom Jones). Tim Burton directs.

****

RUNAWAY JURY
2003, AO. 8.30pm, TV3.

Glossy John Grisham courtroom thriller that's highly implausible but is given weight and sweep by an outstanding cast, including Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman in their first on-screen dust-up. They play protagonists in a high-profile case that pits the widow of a shooting spree victim against the gun lobby. Hoffman represents the plantiff while Hackman is a jury guru who'll stop at nothing to stack the 12 men and women in the defence's favour. He doesn't, however, reckon on a renegade jurist (John Cusack) with his own agenda.

****

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
2005, AO. 8.35pm, TV One.

Brokeback Mountain is a mournful, majestic ode to the call of those faraway hills for two cowboys who 'gotta do what gay men gotta' do. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal play lonesome drovers whose campfire friendship unexpectedly spills over into a forbidden love that haunts them - and their families - for the rest of their repressed lives. Director Ang Lee acutely contrasts the freedom of Wyoming's spectacular vistas with the protagonists' trapped desperation while Ledger and Gyllenhaal turn in performances just as breathtaking.

*****

Sunday

WHITE OLEANDER
2003, AO. 12.40am, TV2.

Mother-daughter angst is at the heart of this absorbing, artful tragi-drama about a woman convicted of killing her lover who manipulates her daughter from behind bars. Alison Lohman is sensational as the tortured teenager who's hustled from one foster home to another, where she experiences pseudo- motherhood as dysfunctional as it is dangerous. Surrounding this budding talent with so much star power could have robbed the movie of its heart and integrity but Michelle Pfeiffer, Robin Wright Penn and Renee Zellweger's finely nuanced turns are anything but the stuff of self- serving celebrity cameos.

****

50 FIRST DATES
2004, AO. 8.30pm, TV2.

This Wedding Singer reunion stars Adam Sandler as a jaded Honolulu playboy in love with a woman (Drew Barrymore) whose memory disorder forces her to re-live the same day over and again. But the execution couldn't be more different from Groundhog Day, with minimal chemistry and a cruel, moronic sense of humour that undermines its romantic, feelgood intentions.

**

Monday

BASIC
2003, AO. 8.30pm, TV One.

Pulp Fiction's John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson reunite for this John McTiernan (Die Hard)- directed thriller about military corruption. Travolta plays a rogue narcotics agent investigating why an elite Special Forces sergeant (Jackson) and his men have mysteriously gone AWOL. (AWOL also is what's happened to this slot's previously advertised crime-and-punishment double-bill, Cops With Cameras and Law & Order: UK.)

***

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY
2004, AO. 8.30pm, TV3.

Kiwi Karl Urban plays a hitman stalking Matt Damon's reborn assassin in an exciting but confusing sequel that falls short of the original. Bourne is a smarter franchise than the 007 series yet still relies more on pace and style than logic and plausibility. United 93 director Paul Greengrass was recruited to anchor the action with a documentary intensity yet often it feels more like an extended episode of another Damon franchise, TV's The Amazing Race.

***

- © Fairfax NZ News