Pick of the week
The Surfer
Lorcan Finnegan’s sunburnt psychological thriller is an electrifying throwback to Australian cinema’s new wave of the 70s and its studies in toxic masculinity. Nicolas Cage is almost too perfectly cast as “the Surfer”, a father hoping to introduce his teenage son to his childhood seaside home and ride some waves. However, a gang of larrikins led by Julian McMahon’s smug Scally deem Luna Bay a locals-only venue – and will do anything to stop his attempts to surf there. This brightly lit but darkly menacing film grows increasingly hallucinatory and nightmarish as the Surfer is stripped of his money, phone, food, car, even his board. And Cage on the edge is, as always, a magnetic watch.
Friday 22 August, 7.25am, 12.35pm, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
Night Always Comes
Musician/author Willy Vlautin’s modern noir novel is brought to the screen in gritty style by two alumni of The Crown – director Benjamin Caron and lead Vanessa Kirby – though the subject matter couldn’t be more different. Set over a taut 24 hours, it follows Kirby’s Lynette as she races around the city to find the $25,000 needed to buy her home before she, her brother and feckless mother are evicted. A drip-feed of revelations about her traumatic past life accompany the desperate quest, with Kirby superb as a woman torn between what she wants and what she needs.
Out now, Netflix
***
Ill Met By Moonlight
The great British partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger was nearing its end in 1957 when they produced this fact-based second world war drama. It isn’t up there with their many classics (Powell himself was particularly scathing about it) but there’s a surprising jollity to its story of a mission to kidnap a German general (Marius Goring) in 1944 Crete and spirit him off the island. Dirk Bogarde is the nonchalant leader of the operation, Maj “Paddy” Leigh Fermor, while the local resistance are a fun-loving bunch despite the occupation.
Saturday 16 August, 3pm, U&Yesterday
***
Hounds
In a Casablanca far from the tourist traps, petty criminal Hassan (Abdellatif Masstouri) and his as-yet untainted son Isaam (Ayoub Elaid) are hired by Hassan’s boss to abduct a man. Unfortunately, the victim suffocates in their van, so they set off across the city in an error-strewn attempt to dispose of the body before daylight. Kamal Lazraq’s neorealist Cannes winner offers a raw but sometimes comic closeup on the underbelly of Moroccan society, while the shifts in the father-son relationship give the film dramatic heft, despite the leads being nonprofessional.
Saturday 16 August, 10.30pm, BBC Four
***
Reservoir Dogs
As a tribute to the late Michael Madsen, you could do worse than Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 debut. He certainly steals the film as Mr Blonde, with his dance/torture routine to the strains of Stuck in the Middle With You. But there’s a lot more to recommend it, from the smart if expletive-filled dialogue to the rug-pulling flashback plot structure, as a gang of robbers – including Harvey Keitel and Tim Roth – assemble after a botched diamond heist to work out who is the mole in their midst.
Monday 18 August, 11.35pm, ITV4
***
And Then We Danced
“There is no sex in Georgian dance!” The strictures of tradition – choreographically and sexually – come down heavily on Merab (an affecting Levan Gelbakhiani), a student dancer at the Georgian National Ensemble, where a “masculine” performance style is the rule. His attraction to new boy/rival Irakli (Bachi Valishvili), which may be mutual, further complicates his feelings about his art and life. Levan Akin’s 2019 film – do check out his more recent trans drama Crossing – is a tender, troubling coming-of-age tale set in a world where difference is only tolerated at the margins of society.
Tuesday 19 August, 1.50am, Channel 4
***
Hi, Mom!
This early Brian De Palma effort from 1970 shows the New York-based director playing around with some of his influences (Godard, Hitchcock) in a lively if slightly scattergun satire. Robert De Niro – himself not fully formed as an actor – plays a voyeuristic film-maker trying to make a movie by spying on his neighbours in the apartment block opposite. This devolves into a bizarre mock documentary about a radical theatre group staging an experience called Be Black Baby, which features paint and an education in racial inequality.
Tuesday 19 August, 3.10am, Talking Pictures TV
