Films of the week: Teenager learns an important lesson in love
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Wednesday
Gregory's Girl
9pm ITV3
(Bill Forsyth, 1981) This is one of the sweetest and most keenly observed teen romantic comedies, in which the gawky, pimply Scottish adolescent Gregory (John Gordon Sinclair) fancies from afar the glamorous blonde new addition to the school football team (Dee Hepburn), failing to notice that he's already got something pretty special going on with tomboyish Clare Grogan. Also starring Jake D'Arcy and Robert Buchanan. ****
Saturday
Dr No
3.15pm ITV1
(Terence Young, 1962) The low-budget, straightforward and yet exotic spy thriller that launched cinema's most successful franchise is one of the best in the series. Sean Connery's casually misogynistic and violent, not entirely suave Bond heads to Jamaica to investigate the killings of other double-0 agents, sees Ursula Andress emerge from the sea, and infiltrates a Fu Manchu-ish villain's lair. ****
Sunday
Super 8
4.15pm & 8PM Sky Movies Premiere
(JJ Abrams, 2011) Super 8 is a family-friendly monster movie that's unashamedly nostalgic for the cinema of its own producer, Steven Spielberg, and has the same irresistible mix of action and dewy-eyed sentimentality. It's about a gang of friends who, in between BMXing, building Airfix models and feeling the pangs of first love, investigate some strange goings on in their small Ohio steel town. ****
Monday
Black Narcissus
2.55pm Film4
(Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1947) In what may be the most distinctive of all British melodramas, Deborah Kerr heads a mission to establish a Catholic convent in the Himalayas, where the isolation, unfamiliar local customs and suppressed sexual desire can play tricks on a young nun's mind. The Technicolor scenery couldn't have seemed more vivid had Powell and Pressburger shot on location. *****
Tuesday
Winter's Bone
2pm & 12mdn't Sky Movies Indie
(Debra Granik, 2010) A bruised, wintry atmosphere hangs heavy over this film, which is a bleak, deliberately paced, utterly gripping thriller about a gutsy 17-year-old (Jennifer Lawrence) searching for her missing father in the Orzak region of rural Missouri, where local custom apparently trumps law enforcement, and no one has much more than a wooden shack and a bunch of problems to their name. ****
Thursday
You Can Count on Me
12mdn't Sky Movies drama & romance
(Kenneth Lonergan, 2000) Everyday life gets that little bit more messy and emotionally complex for a small-town single mother, brilliantly played by Laura Linney, when her feckless brother (Mark Ruffalo) comes to stay. This low-key bittersweet drama (imagine a US indie Mike Leigh film) is written and acted with a real sense of how people actually talk and behave. ****
Friday
Inglourious Basterds
11.10pm Film4
(Quentin Tarantino, 2009) The titular bloodthirsty Jewish-American commandos are only one-dimensional ciphers for derring-do – but then they only have supporting roles. And what Quentin Tarantino's Second World War film unexpectedly lacks in action, it makes up for with things that were missing from his other recent excursions into genre cinema: well-written characters, suspense and plot. ****
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments