The best films on the box: September 30 - October 6

RUBBER FACE: Jim Carrey stars in The Mask on Sky Movies 2 on Thursday night.

Relevant offers

TV

A Sheep's Show How many chances for Once Upon a Time? Entertainment Quiz 10/2 House to end after current season Rescued dog bites TV host during broadcast DeGeneres hits back at haters Curb or Seinfeld: which is better? More claims about PM's man and doco funding Excuse me, I was just wondering ... Henry has dig at new employers

Film and television critic Philip Wakefield assesses the best movies on offer on the box this week, for Tuesday, September 30 to Monday, October 6.

Tuesday, September 30

Derailed
2005, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
In this strangers-on-a-train thriller, Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston play commuters with a fatal attraction that leads to a one-night stand with a nightmarish morning after. The set-up for the movie is explained at the outset, when Owen’s advertising executive tells his young daughter to write in her book report, “The author intrigues the reader by twisting the narrative so you never know what’s coming next.” The filmmakers largely achieve this without going off the rails but stubbornly stay one stop short of satisfying.

Wednesday, October 1

Snow Cake
2006, AO, 8.30pm, Rialto Channel
In their first film together since Galaxy Quest, Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver play a troubled odd couple who meet through tragic circumstance: she’s the autistic mother of a free-spirited young woman who dies in a car accident while hitching a ride with his demon-riddled ex-con. This exquisite, finely tempered first feature from British screenwriter Angela Pell is as surprising as it is perceptive, funny and profound. There’s nary a sentimental miscue but the outcome will melt the hearts of even the most mush-averse.

Thursday, October 2

The Mask
1994, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies 2
Special effects spectacular about a black magic mask which turns timid bank clerk Jim Carrey into a superhero who owes more to Roger Rabbit than Batman. In so doing, he wins the heart of the girl he loves while single-handedly destroying a mobster’s empire. Wow! Carrey, director Charles Russell and the gang certainly know how to sock it to us - at least visually. While The Mask’s screenplay would have benefitted from going back to the drawing board, technically the film turns Carrey into the world's first living, breathing ‘toon.

Friday, October 3

The Shaggy Dog
2006, PGR, 7.30pm, TV2
Remake of the Disney romp about a dad who turns into a dog that’s remarked more for its pedigree cast - Tim Allen, Kristin Davis, Danny Glover, Robert Downey Jun, Jane Curtin - boneheaded humour. Brain Robbins (Norbit, Meet Dave) directs a mongrel screenplay partly written by National Treasure’s Marianne and Cormac Wibberley, whose next movie is another remake, Fantastic Voyage.

Saturday, October 4

Joe Dirt
2001, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
Bumpy road comedy starring Just Shoot Me’s David Spade as a janitor trying to find the parents who abandoned him when he was a belligerent eight-year-old - with a little help from an alligator trainer and a mobster in a witness protection programme.

Ned Kelly
2002, AO, 9.15pm, TV3
Heath Ledger reunited with Two Hands director Gregor Jordan for this handsome but hamfisted dramatisation of the iconic outlaw’s short life and crimes. There’s much to recommend it, from the haunting cinematography to the authenticity of the costumes and production design. But it suffers from a contrived symmetry in its storytelling and a surfeit of overripe romanticism that makes Butch & Sundance look like Bonnie & Clyde.

Risky Business
1983, AO, 10.20pm, TV2
Twenty-five years ago this teen sex comedy turned Tom Cruise into a star after he turns the family home into a brothel while his parents are on holiday. Cruise is at his disarming best, and the sharp script and direction are by Men Don’t Leave’s Paul Brickman. Rebecca De Mornay and Joe Pantoliano co-star; watch for Will & Grace’s Megan Mullaly as one of the call girls.

Sunday, October 5

The Godfather
1972, AO, 8.30pm, C4
Mario Puzo’s novel about the rise of a Mafia don was a good read but Francis Ford Coppola’s visualisation is an American film masterpiece. He adroitly juggles themes of power, corruption and loyalty with the sweep of an intimate family saga spanning continents and generations. A dense, satisfying epic that won several Oscars and spawned two sequels, it stars Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Diane Keaton and James Caan.

The Gift
2001, AO, 10.30pm, TV2
Red herring-rife murder-mystery starring Cate Blanchett as a widowed solo mum with a psychic’s knack for seeing both into the future and the past who becomes the sceptical police’s last resort when the floozy fiancee (Katie Holmes) of her son’s teacher (Greg Kinnear) disappears and the prime suspect is the wife-beating husband (Keanu Reeves) of a client (Hilary Swank). The script, by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson (One False Move), isn't without shortcomings but it’s refreshingly dense and keenly realised by Sam Raimi's tense, atmospheric direction and an outstanding cast.

Monday, October 6

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
2007, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
The magic’s starting to wear thin in the fifth instalment of the Hogwarts franchise that sees a new director waving the wand. The director of distinguished TV series like State of Play and The Way We Live Now, David Yates made his feature debut with Phoenix and also is helming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Coming midway in the batting order, Phoenix feels as if it’s marking time with a mechanical conspiracy plot in which a teenage Harry makes an enemy of the Ministry of Magic while questioning his identity on the eve of arch nemesis Lord Voldemort rising from the ashes.

- © Fairfax NZ News