BC Pires

An im­pres­sive al­so-ran list to­day in­cludes the bet­ter ver­sion of The Pres­tige (The Il­lu­sion­ist, 11 am MaxW), the still-very-watch­able Christo­pher Reeve Su­per­man (1 pm MaxW, with Part II fol­low­ing im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter), what may be the strongest African mem­oir ever filmed (Out of Africa, 1 pm TCM) and what is cer­tain­ly the best Hol­ly­wood West­ern adap­ta­tion ever of a samu­rai film (The Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en, 9 am MCC). For the cine­files, Wong Kar-Wai's first Eng­lish-lan­guage Amer­i­can film would be un­miss­able (My Blue­ber­ry Nights, 5.30 pm Mon­day MaxW), as would the Ken­neth Branagh's ver­sion of Shake­speare's Ham­let, for those who can get home ear­ly enough (3.05 pm Mon­day, Max). Had it not been cho­sen last week, Taxi Dri­ver BEST FILM OF THE WEEK (9 pm Thurs­day Max) would cer­tain­ly have been this.

To­day's best film:

Dri­ve (Nico­las Wind­ing Refn/2011/USA/Crime-Thriller-Dra­ma/100 mins/Rat­ed R for strong, bru­tal, bloody vi­o­lence, lan­guage and some nu­di­ty) 8.15 am and 1.30 pm to­day and again to­mor­row at 4.50 pm Movie City Pre­mieres. Watch this if you liked No Coun­try for Old Men, Non-Ed­u­cat­ed Delin­quents or Fight Club. The ac­tion film that re­minds the dis­cern­ing view­er that there is a great deal of room for dra­ma with­in the genre, Dri­ve was nom­i­nat­ed for Best Film, Best Di­rec­tor and Best Sup­port­ing Ac­tress Baf­tas, the Palme D'Or and ac­tu­al­ly won Best Di­rec­tor at Cannes–and it shows why in every frame. Cine­files al­ready knew Ryan Gosling was a very strong ac­tor from Blue Valen­tine and Lars and the Re­al Girl but this could well be the best role he might ever have. Play­ing to all of his strengths, and with a bad-ass score, too be­sides, Dri­ve is a car flick that dis­plays more aware­ness of hu­man frailty than car stunts; a film that fans of Arnie Schwarzeneg­ger and Woody Allen might en­joy to­geth­er over a bag of pop­corn. Ex­cep­tion­al.

Rest of the week:

Dead Calm (Phillip Noyce/1988/Aus­tralia/Dra­ma-Thriller/96 mins/Rat­ed R for lan­guage, nu­di­ty, sex, vi­o­lence and scenes of per­il) 5.45 pm Mon­day HBOC. Watch this if you liked Cape Fear, The Kill List or Fa­tal At­trac­tion. Nicole Kid­man's first ma­jor fea­ture is just the kind of film BC on TV lives for and thrives on. As a piece of sto­ry­telling alone, it is ad­mirable–the ef­fort­less ac­quaint­ing of the au­di­ence with the nec­es­sary back­sto­ry, the rus­tle-free un­fold­ing of the plot it­self–but it ex­cels as a psy­cho­log­i­cal thriller. Open Wa­ter was far more har­row­ing and Das Boot re­mains the bench­mark for sea­far­ing film anx­i­ety, but in an all-time com­pe­ti­tion for Tense Wa­ter Scene, there can be few that will top the one with the cameo from the in­sect; you'll know it when you've sat through it. Hearti­ly rec­om­mend­ed.

An­nie Hall (Woody Allen/1977/USA/Com­e­dy-Dra­ma/93 mins/PG), 1.15 pm Sat­ur­day Movie City Clas­sics. Watch this if you liked Amer­i­can Beau­ty, Con­ver­sa­tions with Oth­er Women or Clos­er. Woody Allen's finest film, for many, and cer­tain­ly the film in which he blends com­e­dy, dra­ma and pen­e­trat­ing in­sight most smooth­ly. A fun­ny, en­ter­tain­ing film about a re­la­tion­ship break-up is al­so a film school com­pul­so­ry, for every­thing from the rewind­ing of the film it­self to set­tle an ar­gu­ment with An­nie to the sub­ti­tles show­ing what the ac­tors re­al­ly think. Sim­ply ex­cel­lent.

Best of the rest: Mon: Fair Game, 9.35 pm HBO; Tues: Think Like a Man, 5.45 pm HBOC; Wed: The Shaw­shank Re­demp­tion, 10 pm TCM; Thurs: Moon, 9 pm HBOC; Fri: Saw, 10 pm TCM; Sat: Puss in Boots, 4.40 pm and 6.40 pm MCF.

*Starred films have been cho­sen in the last three months. Sched­uled In­ter­net times of­ten vary on the day, par­tic­u­lar­ly around month-end.