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Culture Vulture 27 June – 3 July 2026

June 26, 2026 at 2:44 pm · Filed under Culture Vulture, Film & DVD Reviews ·Tagged film, Film Reviews, movie-review, Patrick Harrington, TV, TV guide, TV reviews, TVGuide

Every now and again a week’s television schedule reminds us that culture is far broader than entertainment. This week journeys from Yorkshire steam railways to distant galaxies, from the tennis courts of Wimbledon to the streets of Soweto, from Glastonbury Festival to the concert halls of the West End. It is a week that celebrates imagination, perseverance and the people who have quietly changed the world through sport, music, politics and art.

The strongest schedules always offer variety rather than simply quantity, and that’s certainly true here. Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind remains one of cinema’s greatest expressions of hope and curiosity, while the final chapters of the documentaries on Evonne Goolagong and Nelson Mandela remind us that real lives can be every bit as inspiring as fiction. Alongside them sit musicals, comedy, documentaries, horror, social drama and some outstanding archive television.

This is also an exceptional week for music lovers. Glastonbury dominates the weekend, Sky Arts delivers an evening devoted to Pauline Black and later celebrates the enduring power of Les Misérables, while Friday rounds things off with American singer-songwriters and a welcome return to The Old Grey Whistle Test. Whether you’re looking for classic cinema, intelligent documentaries or simply something that makes you think, this week’s schedules have plenty to reward the curious viewer. Selections and writing is by Pat Harrington.

🌟Highlights of the Week

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Saturday)
Free Nelson Mandela – The Whole World Is Watching (Sunday)
Past Lives (Wednesday)

Saturday 27 June

Frankie — 12.30pm, Rewind TV

Rewind TV digs back into the attic again and pulls out Frankie, a sitcom from the era before studio audiences were trained to roar at every punchline. What you get instead is character — gently drawn, slightly daft, and all the better for it.

There’s a warmth to these lunchtime repeats that modern comedy rarely attempts. No frantic pacing, no self‑conscious cleverness. Just a reminder that television once trusted charm to do the heavy lifting.

The Railway Children (1970) — 1.15pm, BBC Two

Some films slip into the national bloodstream and stay there. The Railway Children is one of them. Lionel Jeffries directs with a lightness that avoids nostalgia’s usual traps, letting the story’s kindness speak for itself.

Bernard Cribbins is a quiet marvel, and Jenny Agutter radiates sincerity in every scene. The film’s famous final moment — you know the one — still lands with astonishing force. It’s earned, every second of it. A classic that doesn’t need defending.

🌟 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) — 4.00pm, BBC Two

Spielberg’s great hymn to curiosity remains a wonder, not because of its special effects — though they still dazzle — but because of the spirit behind them. This is a film built on the idea that the universe might be reaching out to us not with malice, but with possibility. Richard Dreyfuss plays an ordinary man whose life is nudged off its axis by something he can’t explain, and Spielberg treats that disruption not as a threat but as an invitation. The mystery doesn’t close in on him; it opens out.

What’s striking, even now, is how gentle the film is. There’s awe, yes, and fear in the way any encounter with the unknown carries fear, but the dominant emotion is wonder. Spielberg shoots headlights, clouds, kitchen appliances — the mundane — with the same reverence he gives to the mothership. It’s as if the extraordinary has been hiding in plain sight all along, waiting for someone to notice.

John Williams’ five‑note motif has become part of cinema’s shared language, instantly recognisable and strangely comforting. Douglas Trumbull’s effects, meanwhile, still shimmer with imagination; they feel handcrafted, touched by human ingenuity rather than digital perfection. Half a century on, the film’s optimism feels almost radical. In an age where the unknown is so often framed as danger, Close Encounters insists that curiosity is not only natural but necessary.

The film’s final act — luminous, wordless, almost symphonic — remains one of the most beautiful sequences Spielberg has ever created. It’s a reminder that the universe is vast, mysterious, and perhaps kinder than we expect. Sometimes the unknown isn’t something to fear. Sometimes it’s simply waiting for us to look up.

Alexander Armstrong Across America — 6.00pm, Channel 5 (Episode 1: Pennsylvania)

Armstrong begins his American ramble in Pennsylvania, and the tone is exactly what you’d expect: genial, curious, and quietly amused by the quirks of the places he visits. He doesn’t rush. He lets people talk.

It’s a gentle start, but a promising one — the kind of travelogue that values conversation over spectacle.

Cats — 7.00pm, Sky Arts

Love it, loathe it, or simply marvel at its audacity, Cats remains a phenomenon. Sky Arts’ broadcast gives you the full sweep of the staging: the neon alleys, the prowling choreography, the sheer commitment of performers who must embody cats without ever tipping into parody.

It’s a strange, shimmering piece of theatre — and undeniably one of the twentieth century’s most successful.

Grease (1978) — 7.00pm, Sky One

Nearly fifty years on, Grease still fizzes. Travolta and Newton‑John glide through the film with a chemistry that feels effortless, and the soundtrack is a jukebox of songs that refuse to age.

It’s one of those rare films that families return to without negotiation. Everyone has a favourite number. Everyone knows the words.

Goolagong — 9.00pm, BBC Four (Final Episode)

The final chapter brings Evonne Goolagong back to Wimbledon, older, wiser, and carrying the weight of personal loss. Her victory as a mother is presented not as a fairy tale but as the culmination of resilience, talent and quiet defiance.

Across the series, the filmmakers have treated her story with intelligence and care, placing her achievements within the broader fight for Indigenous recognition. This closing hour is both moving and deserved — one of the standout sports documentaries of the year.

Les Misérables: The Staged Concert — 9.00pm, Sky Arts

The concert format strips away spectacle and leaves the music exposed — and what music it is. Les Misérables has endured because its themes are elemental: justice, mercy, hope, the cost of compassion.

When Bring Him Home rises into its final notes, or I Dreamed a Dream breaks open, the emotional power is undimmed. A reminder of why this show refuses to fade.

Hustlers (2019) — 9.55pm, Channel 4

Hustlers could easily have been a glossy caper, but Lorene Scafaria steers it somewhere richer. Jennifer Lopez gives a performance with real steel — charismatic, calculating, and unexpectedly tender.

The film’s moral terrain is messy, and that’s the point. It’s a story about survival in a world that rewards greed, told with more nuance than its premise suggests.

Glastonbury Gems — 10.00pm, BBC Two

Another dip into the BBC’s ever‑expanding Glastonbury vault. These compilations have become a kind of unofficial history of British music, charting shifts in taste, fashion and attitude simply by letting the performances speak.

Whether you’ve been to Worthy Farm or only ever watched from the sofa, there’s always something here to rediscover.

Pauline Black: A 2‑Tone Story — 11.55pm, Sky Arts

Pauline Black looks back on her life in The Selecter and the wider 2‑Tone movement, and the result is both personal and political. Her reflections on race, identity and the energy of late‑70s Britain give the documentary real heft.

It’s a portrait of an artist who helped reshape British music while challenging the country to look at itself more honestly.

Diego Maradona (2019) — Midnight, Channel 4

Asif Kapadia’s archive‑driven portrait of Maradona is riveting from the first frame. He captures the brilliance, the chaos, the contradictions — the man who could bend a match to his will yet struggled to control his own life.

You don’t need to care about football to be drawn in. The story is universal: genius meeting pressure, and the cost that follows.

Sunday 28 June

Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical (2022) — 4.15pm, BBC One

Tim Minchin’s songs make the leap from stage to screen with real flair. They’re sharp, funny, and threaded with that slightly anarchic spirit Dahl always prized. The film never forgets that Matilda’s rebellion is rooted in imagination rather than spectacle, and that gives it a warmth many modern musicals lack.

Emma Thompson, meanwhile, goes gloriously big as Miss Trunchbull — a performance pitched somewhere between pantomime villainy and genuine menace, and all the better for its theatrical excess.

Clever, spirited and unexpectedly moving, it honours both the book and the stage show without feeling beholden to either.

The Mosquito Coast (1986) — 7.35pm, Talking Pictures TV

Harrison Ford’s decision to step away from heroic roles pays off handsomely here. As Allie Fox, he’s brilliant and maddening in equal measure — a man convinced he can outthink the world, even as the world quietly proves otherwise.

Peter Weir directs with his usual intelligence, letting the story drift from adventure into something far more unsettling. The jungle becomes a mirror, reflecting back the consequences of obsession and idealism pushed to breaking point.

It remains one of Ford’s most daring and underrated performances.

🌟 Free Nelson Mandela – The Whole World Is Watching — 9.00pm, Channel 4 (Final Episode)

The final instalment brings the global anti‑apartheid movement into sharp focus. Rather than retelling the familiar headlines, it shows how countless campaigners — students, trade unionists, church groups, artists, diplomats — built a pressure that could no longer be ignored.

What emerges is a portrait of collective action at its most determined. The programme makes clear that Mandela’s release was not inevitable; it was fought for, argued for, sung for, demanded.

An inspiring reminder that entrenched systems can shift when enough people refuse to look away.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) — 9.00pm, ITV

Still one of the great modern British comedies. Edgar Wright’s precision — the whip‑smart edits, the visual gags tucked into the corners of the frame — rewards every rewatch.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, of course, are the beating heart of it all: two men muddling through apocalypse with pints, loyalty and a surprising amount of emotional honesty.

It’s affectionate, clever and endlessly quotable.

Challengers (2024) — 9.00pm, BBC Three

Luca Guadagnino takes a love triangle and turns it into a taut psychological contest played out across tennis courts, hotel rooms and years of unresolved desire. Zendaya is magnetic — sharp, unreadable, and entirely in command of the film’s shifting power dynamics.

The score thrums like a heartbeat, pushing the tension forward until the final moments. Stylish, bold and alive with energy, it’s one of the standout films of the past few years.

Copycat (1995) — 9.00pm, Legend

A thriller that trusts atmosphere over gore. Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter make a formidable pairing, grounding the film in character rather than cliché.

Its restraint is its strength: the dread creeps in slowly, built from psychology rather than shock tactics. A reminder that the 1990s produced more than its fair share of smart, grown‑up thrillers.

Back to Black (2024) — 10.00pm, BBC Two

Marisa Abela approaches Amy Winehouse with care and nuance, capturing not just the tragedy but the talent — the wit, the musical intelligence, the vulnerability that shaped her songs.

The film avoids the worst pitfalls of biopics by keeping its focus tight. It doesn’t try to explain everything; it simply tries to understand her. More thoughtful than many early reviews suggested, and anchored by a performance that feels lived‑in rather than imitated.

Monos (2019) — 1.55am, Film4

A film that feels like it’s been carved out of the mountains themselves. Monos follows a group of teenage guerrilla fighters whose isolation warps into something dreamlike and terrifying.

The imagery is astonishing — mist, mud, sudden bursts of colour — and the mood shifts between war story, survival tale and political fable without ever settling into one shape.

It’s unsettling, hypnotic and fiercely original. One of the most distinctive international films of the last decade.

Monday 29 June

Terror on the Space Station — 8.55pm, PBS America

Space documentaries often lean towards triumphalism — the moon landings, the shuttle launches, the great leaps forward. This one looks instead at the moments when everything nearly went wrong.

Drawing on archive footage and calm, clear-eyed testimony from astronauts and engineers, it pieces together the incidents that pushed crews to the edge of disaster. The tension comes not from melodrama but from the simple fact that human beings were improvising solutions hundreds of miles above the Earth with no margin for error.

A gripping reminder that space exploration has always been as much about survival as discovery.

Hot Fuzz (2007) — 9.00pm, ITV4

Edgar Wright’s second outing with Pegg and Frost remains a joy. It’s both a parody and a love letter to action cinema, stitched together with the kind of meticulous writing that rewards you for paying attention.

Every throwaway line returns later with a flourish; every background detail becomes a punchline. Pegg’s earnestness and Frost’s shambling charm make the perfect double act, and the film’s final act — a full-throttle, village‑wide shootout — is still one of the funniest sequences in modern British comedy.

It grows richer with each revisit.

David Hockney Night — From 9.00pm, BBC Four

BBC Four dedicates the evening to David Hockney, which feels entirely right. Few British artists have shaped the national imagination quite as profoundly, and fewer still have done so with such restless curiosity.

It’s the sort of programming the channel excels at: thoughtful, unhurried, and genuinely interested in the creative mind rather than the mythology around it.

Hockney — 9.00pm, BBC Four

This acclaimed documentary traces Hockney’s journey from Bradford to California and beyond, but it’s less a biography than a study of a mind that refuses to settle.

The film lingers on his experiments — photography, digital drawing, new ways of seeing — and shows how each shift in medium reflects a shift in thinking. It’s affectionate without being reverential, and it captures the mixture of discipline and playfulness that defines his work.

House of the Dragon — 9.00pm, Sky Atlantic

(Also available from 2.00am and on NOW)

The battle for the Iron Throne tightens as loyalties fray and old grudges resurface. While the series can’t escape comparisons with Game of Thrones, it has carved out its own identity by focusing on political manoeuvring rather than sheer spectacle.

The dragons may dominate the posters, but it’s the human ambition — petty, ruthless, occasionally noble — that keeps the drama compelling.

David Hockney: A Life in Art — 10.45pm, BBC Four

A quieter, more intimate portrait. Hockney speaks with the clarity and generosity that have become hallmarks of his interviews, reflecting on creativity, ageing, and the pleasure of simply looking.

It’s a companion piece to the earlier documentary, but with a more conversational warmth.

Hockney: Double Portrait — 11.10pm, BBC Four

This short film delves into one of Hockney’s recurring artistic fascinations: the double portrait. What looks effortless on the canvas reveals itself to be a complex interplay of psychology, composition and emotional truth.

A thoughtful, precise examination of how Hockney sees people — and how he paints relationships as much as faces.

Face to Face with David Hockney — Midnight, BBC Four

The evening ends with a classic interview that captures Hockney’s irrepressible curiosity. Even after decades of acclaim, he remains open, funny and unwilling to repeat himself.

A reminder that some artists stay interesting simply by continuing to look closely at the world.

The Asphyx (1972) — 1.35am, Legend Xtra

British horror has always had a taste for the eccentric, and The Asphyx is a prime example. Its premise — that death can be photographed, trapped and controlled — is wonderfully bizarre, yet the film treats it with surprising seriousness.

Atmospheric, inventive and oddly philosophical, it stands apart from the era’s more familiar gothic fare. A late‑night curiosity worth catching.

Tuesday 30 June

Torture Garden (1967) — 3.00pm, Legend

Amicus were the great craftsmen of the British anthology horror film, and Torture Garden shows them at full tilt. Four macabre stories, each with its own twist of the knife, are threaded together by Burgess Meredith’s deliciously sinister carnival showman — a performance pitched somewhere between charm and threat.

The tales themselves range from the eerie to the gleefully bizarre, but what binds them is imagination: that particular British blend of gothic unease and sly humour. It’s one of the studio’s most entertaining portmanteaus, and still a pleasure for anyone who enjoys horror with a theatrical wink.

Cromwell (1970) — 3.40pm, Talking Pictures TV

A proper, old‑fashioned historical epic — the kind that fills the screen with banners, cavalry charges and political fury. Richard Harris brings volcanic intensity to Cromwell, while Alec Guinness offers a beautifully measured Charles I, all wounded dignity and quiet calculation.

Historians have long argued over the film’s liberties, but dramatically it works: the English Civil War becomes a clash of personalities as much as ideologies. The scale is impressive, the performances commanding, and the ambition unmistakable.

The Rise and Fall of the Rust Belt — 6.40pm, PBS America

The story of America’s industrial heartlands is, in many ways, the story of the country’s modern political identity. This documentary approaches that history without melodrama or sentimentality, choosing instead a clear, steady gaze. It walks through the factories that once defined entire regions, the steel towns built around a single employer, and the communities left exposed when those industries collapsed almost overnight.

What gives the film its weight is the attention it pays to the people who lived through the decline. Workers who once expected a lifetime of secure employment describe the moment the gates closed for good; families talk about the pride that came with industrial work, and the disorientation that followed its disappearance. The documentary understands that economic change is never just economic — it reshapes culture, confidence, and the stories people tell about themselves.

It also draws a direct line between the Rust Belt’s collapse and the political fractures that now dominate American life. The anger, the nostalgia, the sense of abandonment: all of it has roots in the decades‑long unravelling of these industrial communities. Without ever lecturing, the film shows how the vacuum left behind by lost industry became fertile ground for new political movements and resentments.

Timely, thoughtful and quietly moving, it’s the kind of documentary that helps make sense of the present by listening carefully to the past.

Dave Allen Night — 9.00pm & 10.00pm, BBC Four

BBC Four devotes the evening to Dave Allen, a comedian whose bar‑stool monologues remain astonishingly fresh. With a whisky in hand and a raised eyebrow, he dismantled religion, politics and social convention not with rage but with wit — a far rarer commodity.

His comedy feels modern precisely because it wasn’t built on shock tactics. It was built on intelligence, timing and a deep understanding of human absurdity. A welcome celebration of a singular talent.

Rick Mayall: Sketches – Rare and Unseen — 9.00pm, Sky Arts

Rick Mayall didn’t just perform comedy — he detonated it. This collection of previously unseen sketches offers a glimpse of the raw, unfiltered energy that made him such a force in The Young Ones, The Comic Strip, Blackadder and beyond.

There’s joy in simply watching him try things, push ideas, and occasionally topple over the edge of sanity. A reminder of how much he gave British comedy, and how irreplaceable he remains.

The Day of the Triffids (1962) — 10.10pm, Talking Pictures TV

John Wyndham’s novel has cast a long shadow over British science fiction, and this early adaptation still carries a surprising chill. The killer plants themselves may look quaint to modern eyes, but the film’s real power lies in its vision of a society collapsing almost overnight — streets abandoned, institutions crumbling, people suddenly alone.

Atmospheric, eerie and more unsettling than you might expect.

Brimstone and Treacle (1982) — 11.35pm, Rewind TV

Dennis Potter’s drama caused uproar on its original release, and it hasn’t lost its ability to disturb. Sting delivers a performance of unnerving charm as a stranger insinuating himself into a troubled household, and Potter uses the setup to probe questions of evil, guilt and moral blindness.

It’s uncomfortable, provocative and brilliantly written — the kind of television that lingers long after the credits. Challenging viewing, but unforgettable.

Wednesday 1 July

All the King’s Men (1949) 11.00am, Film4

Politics has always provided fertile ground for cinema, and this Oscar-winning classic remains one of the sharpest examinations of ambition and corruption ever made. Inspired by the career of Louisiana governor Huey Long, it explores how idealism can gradually give way to the seductions of power.

More than seventy years after its release, its warnings about populism and political compromise remain remarkably relevant.

History’s Greatest Warriors 9.00pm, Sky History

Military history often concentrates on battles, but this series looks instead at the individuals who shaped them. By examining the leadership, personalities and strategies of history’s most influential commanders, it reminds us that warfare is ultimately driven by human decision-making as much as weaponry.

Our Friends in the North 10.00pm & 11.30pm, BBC Four
(Catch up via iPlayer)

There are great television dramas, and then there is Our Friends in the North. Peter Flannery’s masterpiece follows four friends across three turbulent decades, weaving together personal lives with Britain’s political, economic and social transformation.

Christopher Eccleston, Daniel Craig, Gina McKee and Mark Strong all announced themselves as major talents, while the script remains one of the finest ever written for British television. If you’ve never seen it, don’t miss the opportunity. If you have, it’s every bit as rewarding a second time around.

A Cock and Bull Story (2005) 9.00pm, BBC Three

Michael Winterbottom somehow achieved the impossible by adapting Laurence Sterne’s famously “unfilmable” Tristram Shandy. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon bounce effortlessly off one another in a comedy that is as much about filmmaking as literature.

Inventive, playful and gloriously self-aware.

🌟Past Lives (2023) 12.35am, BBC Two

Celine Song’s extraordinary debut explores love, memory and the roads we choose not to take. Following two childhood friends separated by emigration and reunited years later, it captures the emotional complexity of adult relationships with remarkable subtlety.

Rather than relying on melodrama, it trusts silence, conversation and lingering glances. Few recent films have said so much while speaking so quietly. One of the defining films of the decade.

Thursday 2 July

Senna (2010) 6.00pm, Sky Documentaries

Asif Kapadia’s portrait of Ayrton Senna remains one of the greatest sporting documentaries ever made. Constructed almost entirely from archive footage, it captures both the brilliance of the Brazilian driver and the intensity that drove him to greatness.

Even viewers with little interest in Formula One will find themselves absorbed by its humanity and emotional power.

Tilda Swinton: The Wild Cards 9.00pm, Sky Arts

Tilda Swinton has never behaved like a conventional film star, largely because she has never been interested in becoming one. Her career reads less like a résumé and more like a series of artistic experiments — collaborations with Derek Jarman, excursions into avant‑garde performance, unexpected detours into Hollywood fantasy, and the occasional role that seems designed purely to test the elasticity of cinema itself.

What this profile captures so well is the through‑line: curiosity. Swinton approaches each project as if it were a question rather than an opportunity, and the result is a body of work that refuses to settle into a single shape. One moment she’s gliding through the icy elegance of Orlando, the next she’s buried beneath latex in Suspiria, or playing a corporate demon in Michael Clayton, or inhabiting the strange, tender melancholy of Only Lovers Left Alive. Few actors move so freely between registers without losing their centre.

The documentary treats her not as an enigma but as an artist who has built a career on instinct and intelligence. Directors speak of her fearlessness; collaborators talk about her generosity; the archive footage shows someone who has always been slightly out of step with the mainstream, and all the more compelling for it.

What emerges is a portrait of a performer who has made unpredictability her signature. Swinton’s choices often seem wild on paper, yet on screen they make perfect sense — as though she’s glimpsed a version of the film no one else has quite imagined yet.

A thoughtful, absorbing look at an actor who has spent decades proving that cinema is at its most alive when it refuses to play safe.

Blink Twice (2024) 10.40pm, BBC One

Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut begins like an elegant psychological thriller before revealing itself to be a disturbing examination of wealth, manipulation and abuse of power.

Stylish and unsettling in equal measure, it marks Kravitz as an exciting filmmaker to watch.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) 1.15am, Film4

Jessica Chastain deservedly won the Academy Award for her compassionate portrayal of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. Rather than mocking its subject, the film finds warmth and humanity beneath the headlines.

Shiva Baby (2020) 2.25am, Channel 4

Emma Seligman’s debut is a masterclass in controlled panic. What begins as a simple family gathering — a shiva, with all the expected small talk, pastries and politely suppressed resentments — quickly mutates into ninety minutes of escalating social dread. The setting is domestic, familiar, even cosy, yet the atmosphere tightens like a thriller. Every room Danielle enters seems to shrink by an inch.

Rachel Sennott is superb as the drifting, slightly chaotic student who finds herself trapped in a house full of people who know too much about her, or worse, think they do. Her performance is all micro‑expressions: the forced smile, the darting eyes, the brittle attempts at confidence that crumble the moment someone asks a seemingly innocent question. It’s painfully recognisable — the kind of social anxiety that doesn’t require zombies, aliens or serial killers to feel apocalyptic.

Seligman directs with a precision that borders on mischievous. The camera hovers just close enough to make you complicit in Danielle’s discomfort, while the score — all nervous strings and quickening pulses — turns the most mundane interactions into moments of pure tension. A dropped remark becomes a bomb. A glance across the room becomes a threat. A plate of kugel might as well be a ticking device.

What makes the film so sharp is its understanding of how families operate: the pride, the judgement, the unspoken hierarchies, the way older relatives can dismantle your sense of self with a single well‑meaning comment. Seligman captures it all with humour and affection, but never lets you forget how suffocating it can feel when you’re the one under scrutiny.

At barely 80 minutes, Shiva Baby wastes nothing. It’s funny, excruciating, and brilliantly observed — a debut that announces a filmmaker with a rare ability to turn everyday awkwardness into something cinematic. By the end, you feel as though you’ve survived the shiva alongside Danielle, heart rate elevated, dignity slightly dented, but oddly exhilarated.

Friday 3 July

Joanna Lumley’s Danube 7.45pm, ITV1

Joanna Lumley’s journey reaches Romania, continuing one of television’s most civilised travel series. Her warmth and curiosity remain the programme’s greatest strengths, allowing history, geography and personal encounters to blend naturally together.

Agatha Christie’s England 7.50pm, PBS America

This charming documentary explores the landscapes and communities that inspired Britain’s Queen of Crime. It becomes not only a literary journey but also a portrait of an England that still echoes through Christie’s novels.

D-Day: The Unseen Footage 9.00pm, Channel 5
(Catch up via 5 Streaming)

Using restored archive film, this documentary revisits the Normandy landings from fresh perspectives. As the generation that fought the Second World War continues to pass into history, preserving and re-examining these remarkable images becomes increasingly important.

American Music Night BBC Four
9.00pm (or 10.00pm if football is shown on BBC One)

BBC Four devotes an evening to some of America’s finest singer-songwriters, exploring not only the performances themselves but the stories behind the songs.

Jackson Browne – The Old Grey Whistle Test (1976) 9.35pm, BBC Four

Jackson Browne’s appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test captures one of America’s finest songwriters during the height of his creative powers. Honest, understated and beautifully crafted, his music represents songwriting at its most enduring.

Alongside contributions from Nanci Griffith and Loudon Wainwright III, it makes this one of the week’s essential viewing choices for lovers of great music.

Licorice Pizza (2021) Midnight, BBC Two

Paul Thomas Anderson’s nostalgic coming-of-age drama wanders through 1970s California with enormous affection and confidence. Rather than following a conventional narrative, it captures the exhilaration of youth, first love and limitless possibility.

Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim make a wonderful pairing, while Anderson demonstrates once again why he remains one of America’s greatest contemporary directors.

Nosferatu the Vampire (1979) 12.40am, Talking Pictures TV

Werner Herzog’s reimagining of Murnau’s silent classic is less a remake than a dream drifting in the same direction. It isn’t frightening in the conventional sense; instead it moves with a slow, hypnotic melancholy, as though the entire film has been drained of daylight. Herzog treats the material with reverence but not nostalgia, creating a world where superstition and plague feel like natural extensions of the landscape.

Klaus Kinski’s Dracula is extraordinary — not a swaggering aristocrat but a creature hollowed out by loneliness. His pallid face and mournful eyes suggest someone cursed to outlive every connection he might ever form. The hunger is there, of course, but it’s the sadness that lingers. He’s terrifying not because he’s monstrous, but because he’s recognisably human in his despair.

Isabelle Adjani brings a ghostly stillness to the film, her presence heightening the sense that everyone is moving through a story already half‑written in fate. The imagery — rats spilling through streets, deserted squares, candlelit rooms where shadows seem to breathe — has the weight of a fevered painting. Herzog isn’t chasing shocks; he’s building atmosphere, letting dread seep in like damp.

The result is one of the great Gothic films: eerie, mournful, and strangely beautiful. A vampire story where the horror lies not in the bite, but in the ache of eternal solitude.

Streaming Choice

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Prime Video – Available Now

George Miller returns to the extraordinary world of Mad Max with a film that is every bit as visually spectacular as Fury Road, while giving Furiosa the richly detailed backstory she deserves. Anya Taylor-Joy steps confidently into the role, delivering a performance that captures both vulnerability and fierce determination.

The action is breathtaking, but what makes Furiosa memorable is its emotional depth. Miller continues to prove that even the most explosive action cinema can still be driven by character rather than spectacle alone.

Monday 29 June

Rolf Harris: Primetime Predator Prime Video

The collapse of Rolf Harris’s public reputation remains one of the most shocking stories in British entertainment. This documentary examines not simply the crimes themselves but the culture of celebrity that allowed warning signs to be ignored for decades.

Sensitive, measured and deeply unsettling, it asks difficult questions about power, trust and institutional failure.

Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova: The Final Set Netflix

Few sporting rivalries have produced such enduring respect and friendship. This documentary reflects on the remarkable careers of Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova while exploring their lives beyond tennis.

It becomes less about trophies than about resilience, loyalty and growing older with dignity, making it rewarding even for viewers with little interest in the sport itself.

Leaving Soon

Love & Mercy BBC iPlayer – Available until Monday

Bill Pohlad’s portrait of Brian Wilson remains one of the finest music biopics ever made. Paul Dano and John Cusack portray different stages of Wilson’s life with remarkable sensitivity, while the film avoids easy clichés in favour of a compassionate examination of genius, vulnerability and creativity.

If you’ve never seen it, this is the week to put that right before it disappears from iPlayer.

Tuesday 30 June

Tyler Perry’s Ruthless Paramount+

Seasons 1–5 available
Season 6 – Episodes 1 & 2 available

Perry’s spin-off from The Oval continues its increasingly dark exploration of a dangerous religious cult. Combining melodrama, suspense and psychological tension, it has developed into one of the most uncompromising series in his catalogue.

With the complete back catalogue now available alongside the opening episodes of the new season, it’s an ideal opportunity for newcomers to discover the series.

Radio Choice

Saturday 27 June

Sheba: Just Like Us 12.05pm, BBC World Service

This thoughtful documentary explores the life of Sheba, a chimpanzee whose experiences raise profound ethical questions about the use of primates in medical research. By examining the emotional and intellectual lives of our closest evolutionary relatives, it challenges listeners to consider where science, compassion and morality intersect.

As with the best radio documentaries, it encourages reflection long after the programme has ended.

Monday 29 June – Friday 3 July

Ten Fights That Made the Green Movement 1.45pm, BBC Radio 4

Environmental politics did not begin with climate change. Across five programmes, Radio 4 revisits the campaigns and protests that gradually shaped modern environmental thinking, introducing the activists whose determination forced governments and industries to confront uncomfortable truths.

Whether discussing conservation, pollution or public protest, the series demonstrates that social change rarely arrives overnight. It is usually built patiently by people prepared to challenge accepted wisdom.

Until Next Week…

One of the pleasures of putting together Culture Vulture is discovering unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated programmes. This week those connections are everywhere. David Hockney, Pauline Black, Jackson Browne and Amy Winehouse remind us how artists continue to reinvent familiar forms. Nelson Mandela, Evonne Goolagong and Ayrton Senna demonstrate the extraordinary resilience of individuals who transformed their respective worlds through determination and talent. Meanwhile, films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Past Lives and Licorice Pizza celebrate curiosity, memory and the endless possibilities of the human imagination.

It is also a week that rewards those willing to venture beyond the obvious. Alongside the major blockbusters and prestige dramas sit forgotten British horror films, classic political cinema, insightful documentaries, ambitious international films and archive television that deserves to be rediscovered. In an age when streaming services tempt us to watch only what algorithms recommend, there is still something deeply satisfying about stumbling across a hidden gem on an ordinary television channel.

Enjoy the week.

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Culture Vulture 13th–19th June 2026

June 13, 2026 at 7:54 pm · Filed under Culture Vulture, Streaming, TV Shows ·Tagged Cinema, Culture Vulture, film, movies, Patrick Harrington, TV, TV guide, TV reviews

There are weeks when television and film seem to be engaged in the same conversation. This is one of them. Across the schedules we find stories about reinvention, reputation, political upheaval and cultural legacy. Nelson Mandela emerges from prison to become a symbol of resistance. David Bowie transforms popular culture. James VI and I is re-examined through a modern lens. The American Revolution and Brexit become stories about nations wrestling with identity. Even many of the week’s films explore individuals trying to redefine themselves in changing worlds.

The arrival of the World Cup adds a further sense of occasion. England’s clash with Croatia is likely to dominate conversation, but there is plenty here for those whose passions lie elsewhere. History, music, literature, politics, wildlife, science and cinema all receive generous treatment.

🌟 This week’s highlights are Free Nelson Mandela, The American Revolution and Children of Men, three works which examine how people respond when history forces change upon them.

Selections and reviews are from Pat Harrington and apologies for the late posting which is a result of his hospitalisation for observation for a medical condition.

Saturday 13th June

🌟 Trooping the Colour: The King’s Birthday Parade
BBC One, 10.30am

Trooping the Colour returns with all the familiar splendour: the immaculate drill, the Household Division at full strength, and that unmistakable blend of ceremony and choreography that Britain still performs better than almost anyone. Yet the pageantry now sits in a subtly altered landscape. The past year’s royal difficulties — health scares, absences, shifting public sentiment — hover at the edges of the spectacle, giving this year’s parade a slightly more fragile undertone.

And then there’s the growing visibility of Republic, whose Not My King banners have become a recurring counter‑melody at major royal events. Their presence doesn’t overwhelm the ceremony, but it does frame it differently: a reminder that national rituals are no longer received with automatic deference, and that the monarchy now marches in step with a more contested public mood.

The result is a Trooping that feels both timeless and newly complicated — the grandeur intact, the context unmistakably changed.

🌟 The Magnificent Seven (1960)
BBC Two, 3.15pm

Sturges’s classic still rides tall: a western built on pure cinematic instinct, where myth, morality and melancholy sit easily alongside gunfights and swagger. What makes it endure isn’t just the action but the chemistry — a band of drifters, outlaws and idealists trying to be better men than their circumstances allow. It’s Hollywood myth‑making at full tilt, polished to a shine yet edged with just enough regret to give it weight. A film that knows exactly why the genre mattered, and why it still does.

Cyrano
BBC Two, 5.00pm

A chance to revisit Joe Wright’s lush, musical reimagining of Rostand’s classic — a tale where wit becomes armour and love demands both courage and concealment. Peter Dinklage gives the story its emotional centre, playing Cyrano with a bruised intelligence that makes the familiar tragedy feel newly intimate. The film’s blend of stylised romance, aching self‑sacrifice and Wright’s painterly visuals turns an old favourite into something tender, modern and quietly disarming.

Shanghai Noon (2000)
5 Action, 6.55pm

Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson strike gold in this breezy East‑meets‑West buddy romp. Chan’s acrobatic brilliance and Wilson’s laid‑back drawl shouldn’t work together, yet somehow they click perfectly — a clash of styles that becomes the joke, the charm and the engine of the whole film. The action is inventive, the humour easygoing, and the western backdrop gives it all a sun‑bleached swagger. One of the most purely enjoyable buddy westerns of its era, and still a delight to revisit.

🌟 Heatwave Night
BBC Four, from 7.00pm

BBC Four devotes an evening to the long, strange summer of 1976 — the drought, the dust, the cracked earth and the half‑remembered stories that have since hardened into national folklore. It was the year Britain baked, hosepipes were banned, tempers frayed and an entire generation formed its first memories of heat as something almost mythical. These programmes sift through the facts and the fantasies, revisiting a season when the country felt both sun‑struck and slightly unhinged. A warm, nostalgic dive into a moment that still glows in the collective imagination.

Originals at the BBC
BBC Four, from 8.35pm

This archive‑rich trawl through pop history looks at the songs whose first versions were quietly eclipsed by the covers that later defined them. It’s full of fascinating reversals: Mick Jackson performing “Blame It on the Boogie” before the Jacksons turned it into a disco juggernaut; Liza Minnelli debuting “New York, New York” years before Sinatra claimed it as his own; and early, often surprising takes from David Bowie, Chaka Khan, Randy Newman, Randy Crawford, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Osmonds.

What emerges is a portrait of musical evolution in real time — the moment before a song becomes a standard, when it still belongs to its original voice. It’s a quietly revelatory reminder that the version we know best isn’t always the one that came first.

Harry and Meghan: Has America Had Enough?
Channel 5, 8.35pm

This timely documentary takes the temperature of the Sussexes’ standing in the United States, where the initial fascination has cooled into something more complicated. The film charts the arc from Oprah‑era sympathy to a landscape shaped by media fatigue, shifting public sentiment and the couple’s own high‑profile projects.

What emerges is a portrait of a brand in flux: admired by some for their independence, dismissed by others as overexposed, and increasingly caught in the crossfire of America’s culture‑war reflexes. The programme doesn’t pretend there’s a single narrative — instead it maps the competing ones, showing how quickly celebrity, royalty and activism can collide in the American imagination.

A brisk, revealing look at how the Sussex story plays across the Atlantic, and why the mood there may matter more than ever.

🌟 Ferrari (2023)
Sky Mix, 9.00pm

Michael Mann’s Ferrari is less a biopic than a pressure chamber — a portrait of Enzo Ferrari at the moment when ambition, obsession and personal tragedy all begin to collide. Adam Driver plays him as a man carved out of resolve and regret, running a company on the brink while navigating a private life held together by secrecy and strain.

Mann shoots the racing sequences with his trademark precision — mechanical violence, beauty and danger fused into one — but the film’s real charge comes from the emotional wreckage Ferrari can’t outrun. It’s sleek, sombre and quietly devastating, a study of a man who built an empire at a cost he could never fully control.

Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things
Sky Arts, 9.00pm

This superb profile traces Ella Fitzgerald’s rise from a troubled childhood to becoming one of the most luminous voices of the twentieth century. The film captures both the precision and the playfulness in her singing — that effortless glide across a melody, the improvisational daring, the way she could make even the most familiar standard feel newly minted.

What stands out is the contrast between the public brilliance and the private reserve: a woman who poured everything into performance yet kept much of herself hidden offstage. Through interviews, rare footage and a lovingly curated soundtrack, the documentary shows how she shaped American music while quietly navigating the pressures of race, gender and relentless touring.

Benedetta (2021)
Film4, 12.30am

Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta is a heady collision of religion, sexuality and power — a film that treats the convent not as a sanctuary but as a crucible where desire, faith and ambition combust. Virginie Efira is mesmerising as the nun whose visions may be divine revelation, psychological rupture or calculated self‑advancement; Verhoeven keeps all possibilities alive, letting the ambiguity do the unsettling work.

The film is provocative, yes, but never cheaply so. Its real charge comes from the way it exposes the machinery of authority — how institutions police bodies, weaponise belief and fear the unruly force of female agency. It’s bold, irreverent and sharply intelligent, a late‑night watch that refuses to behave.

Nostalgia (2022)
BBC Two, 1.20am

Mario Martone’s Nostalgia is a slow, beautifully bruised meditation on what it means to return to the place that shaped you — and to discover that time has rewritten it in ways you can’t quite reconcile. Pierfrancesco Favino gives a wonderfully inward performance as a man drawn back to Naples after decades away, only to find that memory, identity and the city itself no longer align.

The film moves with a kind of haunted patience, lingering in alleyways, courtyards and half‑forgotten rituals as it explores how the past can both anchor and endanger you. It’s a drama about homecoming that understands the ache beneath the idea — the knowledge that you can revisit the streets of your youth, but you can’t return as the person who once walked them.

A thoughtful, late‑night piece: atmospheric, melancholy and quietly gripping.

Sunday 14th June

Dial M for Murder (1954)
BBC Two, 2.00pm

Hitchcock’s chamber‑piece thriller remains a masterclass in controlled tension — a film that turns a London flat into a trap, a stage and a moral maze. Ray Milland is superb as the husband whose charm curdles into calculation, plotting the “perfect” murder with the cool logic of a man who believes he’s smarter than everyone in the room. Grace Kelly, luminous and poised, becomes the pivot around which the whole scheme twists.

What makes it endure is the precision: the way Hitchcock builds suspense from timing, angles, tiny gestures, the slow tightening of circumstance. It’s elegant, claustrophobic and wickedly satisfying — a reminder that sometimes the most gripping thrillers barely need to leave the living room.

Moby Dick (1956)
Legend, 5.40pm

John Huston’s muscular adaptation of Melville’s great American novel still carries the weight and weather of a true seafaring epic. Gregory Peck sheds his usual moral steadiness to play Captain Ahab as a man consumed from the inside out — all flint, fury and fatal purpose — driving his crew across the oceans in pursuit of the white whale that has become his destiny and his doom.

The film has a rugged grandeur: storm‑lashed decks, creaking timbers, and a sense of myth gathering like fog around the Pequod. Richard Basehart’s Ishmael provides the human anchor, watching as obsession tightens its grip on ship and captain alike.

A classic tale told with salt, sweat and tragic poetry — still gripping, still immense.

🌟 Tiger Island
BBC One, 7.15pm

A beautifully filmed journey into one of the planet’s most fragile wildlife refuges, where every frame seems to shimmer with both wonder and warning. The programme follows the tigers that haunt this isolated landscape — elusive, powerful, and increasingly vulnerable — while capturing the delicate web of life that surrounds them.

What gives it real force is the sense of precarity: a habitat under pressure, a species surviving on the thinnest of margins, and the people working to protect a world that could vanish with alarming speed. It’s immersive, urgent and quietly moving — a reminder of what’s at stake when wilderness meets the modern world.

Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure
BBC Four, 8.15pm

Palin’s travelogue is a genial, gently obsessive pursuit of Ernest Hemingway’s shadow — following the writer’s footsteps from Key West to Cuba, from Parisian cafés to African plains. What begins as a literary pilgrimage becomes a portrait of the man behind the myth: the bravado, the tenderness, the damage, and the restless need to keep moving.

Palin brings his trademark curiosity and lightness of touch, treating Hemingway not as a monument but as a complicated human being whose life spilled across continents and genres. The result is part biography, part journey, part meditation on why certain writers refuse to fade.

A thoughtful, engaging evening with two great travellers — one on screen, one in memory.

🌟 Free Nelson Mandela
Channel 4, 9.00pm

This major documentary series opens with a stark, unflinching examination of apartheid — not as distant history, but as a system of white supremacy engineered to control every aspect of Black South African life. The episode traces the machinery of segregation, the brutality used to enforce it, and the early resistance movements that began to challenge the state’s grip.

What gives the film its power is the way it balances the political with the personal: the rise of Nelson Mandela set against the wider struggle of a people fighting for dignity, representation and the right simply to exist on equal terms. It’s rigorous, moving and necessary — a reminder of how oppression is built, and how it is eventually dismantled.

Bowie: The Man Who Changed the World
Sky Documentaries, 9.00pm

A familiar but always worthwhile study of one of modern culture’s most influential figures.

🌟 A Time to Kill (1996)
Legend, 9.00pm

Joel Schumacher’s adaptation of John Grisham’s novel remains a gripping, morally charged courtroom drama, set in a Deep South still riven by race, rage and old injustices. Matthew McConaughey plays the young lawyer drawn into a case that forces the town — and the audience — to confront the limits of justice when the law and lived experience collide.

Samuel L. Jackson brings fierce, wounded gravity to the father at the centre of the trial, while the film builds its tension not from legal theatrics but from the volatile atmosphere outside the courtroom: mobs, threats, and a community on the brink.

It’s slick, urgent and emotionally loaded — a 90s thriller that still knows how to get under the skin.

Later… with Jools Holland
BBC Two, 10.00pm

Jools returns with a line‑up that spans eras and energies: Mike D of the Beastie Boys, bringing the wry charm and hip‑hop heritage only he can; the smoky, soulful intensity of Baby Rose; and the radiant, genre‑defying presence of Beverly Glenn‑Copeland, whose late‑career renaissance feels like a gift every time he performs.

It’s one of those eclectic Jools nights where the contrasts do the work — hip‑hop royalty, a rising voice steeped in emotion, and a visionary elder statesman of experimental soul all sharing the same musical floor. A quietly special edition.

🌟 Children of Men (2006)
BBC Two, 10.45pm

Alfonso Cuarón’s dystopian masterpiece still feels frighteningly close to the bone — a world collapsing under infertility, authoritarianism and despair, rendered with such immediacy that it barely feels like science fiction at all. Clive Owen gives one of his finest performances as the weary bureaucrat dragged, almost against his will, into protecting the one fragile spark of hope left on Earth.

Cuarón’s long, fluid takes remain astonishing: chaos unfolding in real time, violence without glamour, humanity flickering in the rubble. Yet for all its grit and grime, the film carries a quiet, stubborn belief in the possibility of renewal.

A modern classic — urgent, immersive and emotionally shattering.

Boiling Point (2021)
Channel 4, Midnight

Stephen Graham is electrifying in this ferocious, real‑time restaurant drama, a single unbroken shot that traps you in the pressure cooker of a London kitchen on the brink. What begins as controlled chaos slowly unravels into something rawer and more revealing — a portrait of overwork, ego, exhaustion and the fragile humanity beneath the chef’s whites.

The camera never lets you escape, weaving through cramped spaces and frayed tempers as service spirals out of control. It’s tense, immersive and brilliantly acted, a late‑night watch that leaves your pulse racing long after the plates stop clattering.

🌟 World Cup 2026: Haiti v Scotland — BBC One, 2.00am

Scotland return to the World Cup stage for the first time in 28 years, opening their Group C campaign against Haiti — a match that feels both historic and quietly nerve‑shredding. Steve Clarke’s side arrive in good form after strong warm‑up wins, but the pressure is unmistakable: with Morocco and Brazil looming later in the group, this is the game they simply have to take something from.

Haiti, making their first World Cup appearance in over half a century, won’t make it easy. Expect a cagey start, flashes of jeopardy, and the hope that Scotland’s midfield spine — McGinn, McTominay, Christie — can impose control when it matters.

A late‑night (or very early‑morning) appointment for the Tartan Army, and a moment decades in the making.

Monday 15th June

🌟 The Power of the Dog (2021)
BBC Two, 12.05am

Jane Campion’s magnificent deconstruction of western mythology unfolds with a slow, coiled intensity — a frontier drama where the real battles are waged in silence, glances and buried wounds. Benedict Cumberbatch is extraordinary as Phil Burbank, a man whose cruelty masks a deeper, more dangerous vulnerability, while the wide Montana landscapes feel less like freedom and more like emotional terrain waiting to erupt.

Campion strips the western of swagger and replaces it with psychological precision: masculinity as performance, desire as threat, power as something that shifts in the smallest of gestures. Every frame is controlled, unsettling and quietly devastating.

A modern masterpiece — tense, elegant and lingering long after the credits fade.

Gagarine (2020)
Film4, 1.30am

A quietly luminous film that turns a crumbling Paris housing estate into a place of dreams, memory and fragile hope. Ladj Ly and Fanny Liatard blend social realism with a touch of science‑fiction poetry, following teenager Youri as he tries to save the only home he’s ever known — transforming the tower block into a kind of spacecraft built from longing and imagination.

The result is moving without sentimentality: a portrait of community under threat, of youth inventing escape routes when none are offered, and of the small acts of care that keep people afloat. It’s tender, inventive and unexpectedly cosmic

🌟 Brexit: A Very British Civil War
BBC Two, 9.00pm

The concluding part of the documentary examining Britain’s defining political conflict.

Dolly: The World’s Most Famous Sheep
Channel 4, 10.00pm

The story of the scientific breakthrough that quietly rewrote the rules of modern biology. This documentary revisits the creation of Dolly the sheep — the first mammal cloned from an adult cell — and unpacks the mix of brilliance, controversy and sheer audacity behind the experiment.

It’s a tale of lab‑coat ingenuity and global shockwaves, charting how a single sheep in a Scottish shed forced the world to rethink ethics, genetics and the boundaries of possibility. Clear, accessible and surprisingly moving, it captures the moment science stepped into a new era.

OnlyFans: Inside the Machine
BBC One, 10.55pm

A look inside one of the most influential — and divisive — platforms of the digital age, tracing how a site built on direct creator‑to‑audience connection became a lightning rod for debates about labour, autonomy, exploitation and the economics of online fame. The documentary digs into the company’s inner workings, the people who rely on it, and the wider cultural forces that turned a niche service into a global flashpoint.

It’s brisk, revealing and quietly unsettling — a portrait of a platform that reshaped the internet while raising questions society still hasn’t fully answered.

Tuesday 16th June

Letter to Brezhnev (1985)
BBC Two, 12.05am

A small film with a big heart, this Liverpool romance captures the grit and charm of 1980s Merseyside with disarming honesty. Alexandra Pigg and Peter Firth bring a lovely, tentative chemistry to a story that begins as a chance encounter and blossoms into something far more hopeful — all against the looming backdrop of Cold War politics and everyday economic struggle.

What makes it endure is its mix of humour and yearning: a city battered by circumstance but still capable of producing moments of joy, defiance and sheer romantic audacity. It’s tender, funny and quietly political — a reminder that even in bleak times, people still dream of escape, connection and something better.

Sign of the Pagan (1954)
Film4, 3.15pm

A proudly old‑fashioned slice of Hollywood spectacle, pitched somewhere between historical pageant and sword‑and‑sandals intrigue. Jack Palance cuts a striking figure as Attila the Hun — all brooding menace and coiled ambition — while Jeff Chandler’s Roman general provides the square‑jawed counterweight in a tale of empires clashing and destinies foretold.

The film has that unmistakable 1950s studio sheen: lavish sets, bold colours, and a script that treats history as a canvas for myth rather than accuracy. It’s grand, earnest and enjoyably overblown — the kind of matinee epic where the drama is big, the stakes are bigger, and subtlety is left at the city gates.

Rosa Elettrica
Sky Atlantic, 9.00pm

A stylish Italian crime thriller with a cool, modern pulse, steeped in neon shadows and moral ambiguity. The series follows a young woman pulled into the circuitry of organised crime, where loyalty is fragile, power shifts without warning, and every choice seems to spark another dangerous consequence.

What sets it apart is its atmosphere: elegant, moody and charged with a distinctly European sense of fatalism. The plotting is sharp, the performances simmer, and the cityscape becomes a character in its own right — seductive, treacherous, impossible to escape.

A sleek, confident slice of contemporary Italian noir.

🌟 The American Revolution — BBC Four, 10.00pm
The opening chapters of a major new history of the United States, told with a clarity that cuts through centuries of myth‑making. This first instalment traces the tensions, ideas and imperial missteps that pushed Britain’s colonies from grumbling dissent to outright rebellion — a story of taxes, pamphlets, protests and the slow ignition of a political identity that would reshape the world.

What stands out is the programme’s sense of scale: intimate portraits of the people who lived through the upheaval set against the vast geopolitical forces grinding into motion. It’s rigorous, vivid and refreshingly unsentimental — a strong start to a series that promises to re‑examine a revolution everyone thinks they already understand.

Science Fiction in the Atomic Age: Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury
Sky Arts, 10.50pm

A fascinating study of two giants whose imaginations helped define what modern science fiction could be. Clarke, the cool rationalist of the space age, and Bradbury, the lyrical chronicler of human longing and dread, make for a compelling contrast — one looking outward to the stars, the other inward to the soul.

The programme traces how their work emerged from the anxieties and exhilarations of the Atomic Age: technological leaps, existential threats, and a world suddenly aware of its own fragility. Through interviews, archive material and sharp critical insight, it shows how both writers shaped not just a genre but the way we think about the future itself.

A richly engaging hour for anyone who loves the crossroads where imagination meets history.

Knives Out (2019)
Film4, 11.40pm

Rian Johnson’s witty and ingenious revival of the murder mystery — Knives Out Johnson’s modern whodunnit is a gleeful reinvention of the Agatha Christie template — a country house, a dead patriarch, a squabbling family, and a detective who sees more than he lets on. What lifts it is the tone: sly, spry, and fizzing with character, from Daniel Craig’s drawling Benoit Blanc to Ana de Armas’s quietly brilliant moral centre.

The film delights in misdirection and social satire, peeling back layers of entitlement and ego while keeping the mystery satisfyingly tight. It’s clever without being smug, funny without undercutting the stakes, and packed with the kind of detail that rewards a rewatch.

A sparkling, precision‑tooled crowd‑pleaser — the murder mystery reborn with a grin.

Wednesday 17th June

The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
Film4, 5.15pm

One of Ealing’s finest: a perfectly judged caper that pairs Alec Guinness’s mild‑mannered bank clerk with Stanley Holloway’s genial schemer in a plot to smuggle stolen gold out of the country. What begins as a modest fantasy of escape blossoms into a wonderfully daft criminal enterprise, executed with that trademark Ealing blend of wit, warmth and gentle anarchy.

Guinness is magnificent — precise, understated, and quietly hilarious — while the film’s escalating absurdity never loses sight of the human foibles beneath the farce. A small comic masterpiece, still sparkling after seven decades.

Titans of the Cold War
PBS America, 7.50pm

A pivotal chapter in the long standoff between East and West, charting how the arrivals of Nikita Khrushchev and Dwight D. Eisenhower reshaped the Cold War’s trajectory. The programme captures a moment when bluster, brinkmanship and back‑channel diplomacy all collided — Khrushchev’s volatile mix of reformist impulses and showmanship meeting Eisenhower’s steadier, military‑minded pragmatism.

It’s a study in contrasts and consequences: two leaders inheriting a world on the edge, each trying to manage nuclear anxiety, ideological rivalry and the uneasy hope that dialogue might avert catastrophe. A brisk, insightful slice of Cold War history, illuminating the personalities who steered the superpowers into a new, uncertain phase.

🌟 England v Croatia – FIFA World Cup 2026
ITV1, 8.00pm

The World Cup rolls into its first truly seismic evening as England open their campaign against Croatia — a fixture heavy with history, expectation and the familiar national cocktail of hope and dread. Gareth Southgate’s side arrive with a squad brimming with talent but carrying the weight of a country that always wants this to be the year.

Croatia, perennial tournament disruptors, remain as technically sharp and tactically stubborn as ever, even as a new generation steps out from under the long shadow of Modrić. It’s a meeting of styles as much as reputations: England’s pace and directness against Croatia’s control and patience.

A match guaranteed to dominate the national conversation — tense, tactical and impossible to ignore.

🌟 Children of Men (2006)
BBC Three, 9.00pm

A second chance this week to catch Alfonso Cuarón’s dystopian masterpiece — a film that still feels alarmingly close to the world outside the window. Set in a Britain buckling under infertility, authoritarianism and despair, it follows Clive Owen’s weary civil servant as he’s pulled into protecting the one fragile spark of hope left on Earth.

Cuarón’s long, fluid takes remain astonishing: chaos unfolding in real time, violence stripped of glamour, humanity flickering in the rubble. Yet for all its grit, the film carries a quiet belief in the possibility of renewal.

Urgent, immersive and emotionally shattering — absolutely worth a repeat viewing.

The Idea of You (2024)
BBC One, 10.40pm

Anne Hathaway brings warmth, wit and a quietly bruised honesty to this thoughtful romantic drama about a woman who stumbles into an unexpected relationship that upends the neat borders of her life. What begins as a chance encounter with a younger pop star becomes a story about desire, agency and the courage it takes to choose happiness when the world insists you shouldn’t.

The film balances fantasy with emotional truth, letting Hathaway’s performance anchor the glamour in something recognisably human — the longing to feel seen, the fear of being judged, the thrill of rediscovery.

Thailand: The Dark Side of Paradise
BBC Three, from 10.40pm

A revealing look behind Thailand’s tourist image.

They Live (1988)
Legend, 11.10pm

John Carpenter’s cult satire remains as sharp as a boot to the ribs — a gleefully subversive blend of sci‑fi, action and anti‑consumerist rage. Roddy Piper’s drifter discovers a pair of sunglasses that reveal the world as it truly is: billboards barking obedience, elites exposed as skeletal overlords, and capitalism literally wearing a human mask.

Carpenter plays it deadpan and furious, mixing B‑movie swagger with a political bite that feels even more relevant now than it did in ’88. The famous alleyway punch‑up is still absurdly glorious, but it’s the film’s bleak wit and prophetic clarity that linger.

Thursday 18th June

Ad Astra (2019)
Film4, 6.40pm

Brad Pitt gives one of his most restrained and affecting performances in this visually ravishing sci‑fi odyssey. Set in a near‑future solar system fraying at the edges, the film follows an astronaut sent on a mission to track down his long‑lost father — a legendary explorer whose obsession may now threaten humanity itself.

James Gray turns what could have been a straight adventure into something more intimate: a story about isolation, legacy and the emotional gravity we carry across vast distances. The imagery is stunning — moon‑buggy chases, Neptune’s blue haze, the quiet terror of deep space — but it’s the film’s melancholy pulse that lingers.

A thoughtful, beautifully crafted journey into the cosmos and the self.

🌟 Catch Me If You Can (2002)
TLC, 9.00pm

Steven Spielberg’s breezy true‑life tale of deception and reinvention remains one of his most purely enjoyable films. Leonardo DiCaprio is irresistible as Frank Abagnale Jr., the teenage con artist who slips through America in a blur of forged cheques, borrowed identities and audacious charm, while Tom Hanks’s dogged FBI agent gives the chase its steady, beating heart.

Spielberg keeps the tone light without ever losing sight of the loneliness beneath the bravado, turning a cat‑and‑mouse caper into a story about yearning, escape and the strange American romance of becoming someone new.

🌟 Queen James
BBC Two, 9.00pm

A fresh, incisive examination of James VI and I — a monarch whose intellect, insecurities and political instincts shaped two kingdoms at a moment of profound change. The programme digs into the culture and court politics that surrounded him: the factional manoeuvring, the ideological battles, and the delicate dance between king and favourites.

It also confronts, without sensationalism, the long‑debated question of James’s sexuality. His intensely intimate relationships with men such as Esmé Stewart, Robert Carr, and George Villiers have led many historians to argue that he was gay or bisexual — a dimension of his life that shaped both the dynamics of his court and the anxieties of those who served within it.

What emerges is a portrait of a ruler both shrewd and vulnerable, navigating union, religion, reputation and desire in a world that scrutinised every gesture. A sharp, engaging hour that reframes a familiar figure with welcome clarity and complexity.

The Accused: Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Channel 4, 10.00pm

The opening episode tackles one of the most perilous fault lines in the justice system: the fragility of eyewitness testimony. Through real cases and forensic reconstruction, it shows how memory — fallible, suggestible, and easily distorted — can send an investigation veering off course, even when delivered with absolute confidence in the witness box.

The programme lays out the dangers with clarity: misidentification, pressure from police procedure, the subtle influence of expectation, and the devastating consequences when a jury mistakes certainty for truth. It’s sober, unsettling viewing, and a reminder that the line between justice and injustice can hinge on a single, unreliable recollection.

A compelling start to a series intent on probing the system’s most uncomfortable weaknesses.

The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Talking Pictures TV, 11.15pm

Vincent Price is superb in this stark, unsettling adaptation of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend — a film whose influence can be felt in everything from Night of the Living Dead to modern zombie cinema. Shot in eerie, depopulated Italian streets, it follows a lone survivor haunting his own ruined world, battling vampiric creatures by night and crushing loneliness by day.

Price plays it with a weary, haunted dignity, turning what could have been pulp into something strangely elegiac. The film’s low‑budget ingenuity and bleak tone give it a power that still resonates, decades later.

Friday 19th June

El Dorado (1966)
5 Action, 1.15pm

Howard Hawks reunites with John Wayne for a late‑career western that wears its age with easy charm. Wayne plays a seasoned gunfighter drawn into defending a small town alongside Robert Mitchum’s boozy sheriff and James Caan’s eager young sidekick — a trio whose chemistry gives the film its unhurried pleasure.

There’s plenty of classic Hawksian business: dry humour, camaraderie forged under pressure, and action that unfolds with relaxed assurance rather than bluster. It’s a film more interested in character than spectacle, and all the better for it.

A mellow, quietly irresistible slice of old‑school western storytelling.

Milan with Michael Portillo
9.00pm

Michael Portillo turns his eye — and his famously exuberant wardrobe — to one of Europe’s great cities, tracing Milan’s blend of industry, elegance and restless modernity. From the Duomo’s marble forest to the quiet rituals of the aperitivo hour, he explores a city where fashion, finance and centuries of artistic ambition sit comfortably side by side.

Portillo is at his best here: curious, lightly professorial, and genuinely engaged with the people who keep Milan’s cultural engine humming. The result is a portrait of a city that’s both grand and intimate, stylish yet grounded.

A graceful hour in the company of a guide who knows how to make history feel alive.

🌟 Elvis’s ’68 Comeback Special
BBC Four, 9.00pm

The King’s great reclamation of self and swagger — a televised resurrection that turned a fading Hollywood idol back into a livewire performer. Dressed in black leather, framed by a tight studio crowd and a crackling sense of danger, Elvis tears through his catalogue with a hunger that had been missing for years.

What makes the special so electrifying is its mix of intimacy and spectacle: the loose, joking sit‑down sessions where he reconnects with his roots, and the big, theatrical numbers that remind you why he became a phenomenon in the first place. It’s a portrait of an artist rediscovering his edge in real time.

Still one of television’s most iconic musical moments — and a thrill to revisit.

🌟 The Horse Whisperer (1998)
Great TV, 9.00pm

Robert Redford directs and stars in this quietly moving drama about healing, forgiveness and the slow work of finding your way back to yourself. After a devastating accident leaves both a teenage girl and her horse traumatised, her mother brings them to Redford’s Montana ranch — a place where patience, open skies and hard truths begin to do what medicine alone cannot.

Redford plays the role with understated grace, letting the film breathe in long, lyrical stretches of landscape and silence. Kristin Scott Thomas brings emotional steel as the mother trying to hold everything together, while the story unfolds with a sincerity that never tips into sentimentality.

A spacious, heartfelt film about second chances — and the courage it takes to accept them.

New Life (2023)
Film4, 11.30pm

An intelligent, tightly wound horror‑thriller that begins as a chase movie and gradually reveals something far stranger — and far more moving — beneath its surface. A woman on the run and the agent pursuing her seem locked into a familiar cat‑and‑mouse rhythm, but the film keeps shifting the ground under your feet, peeling back layers of fear, guilt and transformation.

What makes it stand out is the emotional depth threaded through the tension: moments of stillness that hint at lives derailed long before the plot catches up with them. By the time the truth emerges, the horror has become something unexpectedly humane.

Lean, surprising and quietly affecting.

The Invitation (2022)
Channel 4, 12.10am

A stylish gothic horror blending vampires, class and dark romance. A lush, slow‑burn gothic tale that uses its vampiric premise to probe something more human — desire, power and the social hierarchies that feed on both. The film wraps its blood‑dark themes in candlelit corridors, whispered secrets and a romance steeped in danger, letting the supernatural elements sharpen the class tensions rather than overshadow them.

It’s atmospheric without being overwrought, seductive without losing its bite, and smart enough to know that the scariest monsters are often the ones society quietly enables. A beautifully made slice of gothic unease.

Streaming Choice

Polar Park — Channel 4 Streaming, from Friday 19th June

Polar Park arrives on Channel 4 via Walter Presents, adapted by Gérald Hustache‑Mathieu from his own cult 2011 film Poupoupidou. Set in Mouthe, officially the coldest town in France, it follows David Rousseau (Jean‑Paul Rouve), a crime novelist who drifts into the Jura mountains in search of inspiration and instead finds a series of murders staged as famous artworks.

What begins as a quirky detour becomes a stylish, snow‑dusted mystery with a distinctly French flavour: dry humour, melancholy charm and a sense that everyone in this remote community is performing a version of themselves. Hustache‑Mathieu uses the TV format to deepen the world of the original film — expanding characters, sharpening the visual language and leaning into the Coen‑esque mix of oddity and menace that critics praised on its ARTE debut.

The cast — including Guillaume Gouix and India Hair — play it with just the right level of deadpan sincerity, and the show’s wintry aesthetic gives it a personality that stands apart from the usual crime‑drama palette. It’s atmospheric, offbeat and quietly gripping: a murder mystery that’s as interested in mood and character as it is in clues.

Train-ing It with Joe Wilkinson — Channel 4 Streaming, from Friday 19th June

Joe Wilkinson’s travelogue is exactly the sort of quietly oddball delight Channel 4 does best. What begins as a simple rail journey becomes a rambling, self‑deprecating wander through Britain’s quirks, characters and minor absurdities. Wilkinson’s humour is warm, slightly baffled and never cruel, and the show’s charm lies in how happily it embraces the unglamorous. It’s gentle, funny and unexpectedly human — a series that finds meaning in missed connections, lukewarm tea and the strange poetry of public transport.

A Spark into Flame: Hamilton and Hip Hop — Disney+, from Tuesday 16th June

This documentary digs beneath the phenomenon of Hamilton to trace how hip hop reshaped the language of musical theatre. It’s part cultural history, part creative anatomy: a look at how rhythm, rhyme and political storytelling collided to produce a show that felt both radical and inevitable. The film is at its best when it connects Broadway to the wider currents of Black artistry — showing how a form born from resistance became the engine of a global hit. Smart, pacey and full of insight, it’s a reminder that revolutions in culture often begin with a beat.

Project Hail Mary — MGM+, from Thursday 18th June

This adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel leans into the joy of problem‑solving under impossible pressure. It’s part survival story, part cosmic mystery, anchored by a central performance that captures both the terror and the wonder of waking up alone in deep space with the fate of humanity on your shoulders. The film balances hard science with real emotional pull, and its unlikely partnership at the story’s heart gives it warmth amid the equations. Smart, inventive and surprisingly moving — a sci‑fi puzzle box with soul.

🌟 Poor Cow — StudioCanal Presents

Ken Loach’s debut feature still lands with a raw, unvarnished force. Poor Cow follows Joy, a young woman navigating the margins of 1960s London, and Loach shoots her life with a documentary eye that refuses sentimentality. Carol White is extraordinary — open, wounded, hopeful in spite of everything — and the film’s mix of social realism and emotional immediacy feels as fresh now as it did on release. A tough, tender portrait of a woman trying to carve out a future in a world that keeps closing in.

🌟 Kneecap — Prime Video

Kneecap is a riot of energy — a swaggering, politically charged, deeply funny portrait of Belfast’s most anarchic hip‑hop trio. It mixes satire, social commentary and sheer chaotic charm, blurring the line between myth‑making and autobiography. What gives the film its bite is the way it treats language, identity and rebellion not as themes but as fuel: everything burns bright, loud and unapologetically local. It’s bold, inventive and brimming with attitude — a cultural firecracker that refuses to behave.

Marching Powder — Prime Video

Danny Dyer’s Marching Powder is exactly the sort of swaggering, rough‑edged crime caper he was born to front. It’s loud, cheeky and unpretentious, built around Dyer’s gift for playing men who talk themselves into trouble faster than they can fight their way out of it. The film has that early‑2000s Brit‑crime energy — fast cuts, big characters, a plot that barrels forward on attitude as much as logic. It’s messy, funny and knowingly over the top, the kind of thing you watch with a grin because everyone involved clearly knows the game they’re playing.

The Woody Allen Collection — Prime Video

A new Woody Allen collection inevitably arrives with a double pull: the films themselves — sharp, funny, formally inventive — and the long shadow cast by the man who made them. Few directors have shaped modern screen comedy as deeply as Allen; fewer come with such a complicated public legacy.

Engaging with this set means holding both truths at once. The early work still crackles with wit and neurotic energy; the later films drift between nostalgia and self‑parody. But watching them now also means acknowledging the discomfort that surrounds Allen, and recognising that admiration for craft doesn’t require silence about the controversies.

The collection becomes, in that sense, a test case for how we approach socially compromised artists who are nonetheless undeniably talented. The answer isn’t to pretend the work exists in a vacuum, nor to erase it entirely, but to watch with awareness — to let context deepen, rather than flatten, our understanding.

As cinema, these films remain influential. As cultural objects, they ask us to think about the uneasy space where art, ethics and legacy meet.

🌟 The Tasters — Available to buy and rent

The Tasters takes the chilling premise of Hitler’s real‑life poison‑tasting brigade and turns it into a tense, claustrophobic character study. The film isn’t interested in easy moral binaries; instead it sits with the unsettling truth that people can be trapped inside monstrous systems without being monsters themselves. The women at its centre live in a state of suspended terror — loyal, fearful, complicit, resistant, often all at once — and the drama lies in how they navigate that impossible space.

What gives the film its bite is the way it handles socially compromised people who nonetheless possess agency, intelligence and talent. It refuses to flatten them into symbols. Instead, it asks how we judge those whose choices were shaped by coercion, survival and the machinery of dictatorship.

As with any work rooted in morally tainted history, the challenge is how to watch it: not with blanket condemnation or blind sympathy, but with an awareness of context and a willingness to sit in discomfort. The Tasters understands that history is rarely tidy — and that the people caught inside it are even less so.

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Culture Vulture: Saturday 13 – Friday 19 December 2025

December 12, 2025 at 7:35 am · Filed under Culture Vulture, Netflix, TV Shows ·Tagged British television, Cinema, classic films, Culture Vulture, film criticism, Film Reviews, Patrick Harrington, TV listings, weekly film guide

A large bird of prey, possibly a vulture, flying against a blue sky with mountains in the background. The image includes bold text reading 'CULTURE VULTURE,' and features a colorful graphic banner at the bottom labeled 'COUNTER CULTURE' with accompanying design elements.

This is a week that quietly rewards attention. Beneath the seasonal noise, the schedules offer a rich braid of post-war British cinema, American noir, European melancholy, pop-cultural memory and the long afterlife of myth — cinematic, musical and televisual. There’s a strong sense of looking back, but not nostalgically: instead, these programmes ask what endurance looks like, whether in communities, relationships, art forms or identities under pressure.

Three selections stand out. 🌟 Paris, 13th District brings contemporary intimacy and alienation into sharp monochrome focus. 🌟 Good Luck to You, Leo Grande proves how radical honesty can be when given space and respect. And 🌟 Strangers on a Train reminds us that cinema’s most elegant thrills often come from moral unease rather than spectacle.

What follows is a week that moves fluidly between eras and registers — from Ealing comedy to Bowie on tour, from The War Between Land and Sea’s mythic politics to Lucy Worsley’s festive archaeology — all bound by a fascination with how people behave when the structures around them start to fracture. Selections and reviews are by Pat Harrington.

Saturday 13 December 2025

Paris, 13th District (2021)
BBC Two, 12:45 AM 🌟
Jacques Audiard’s return to intimate, character-led storytelling is cool, lucid and quietly devastating. Shot in luminous black-and-white, the film captures a generation suspended between connection and detachment, where bodies meet more easily than lives. What might sound like a series of romantic encounters slowly reveals itself as a study of loneliness shaped by modern precarity — housing, work, image, desire all pressing in from the margins.

Audiard resists melodrama, letting silences do the work. The performances feel lived-in rather than performed, particularly as the film allows its characters to be contradictory without judgement. This is a portrait of urban life stripped of glamour but not tenderness, and it lingers because it never overstates its case.

Dead of Night (1945)
Film4, 1:55 AM
Few British films have aged as eerily well as this portmanteau classic. Its framing device — a man haunted by recurring dreams — opens into a series of stories that explore fear not as shock, but as inevitability. The famous ventriloquist segment still disturbs precisely because it understands repression and denial as horror engines.

What makes Dead of Night endure is its restraint. The supernatural is suggested rather than explained, and the film trusts the audience to feel unease without instruction. In the shadow of war, it captures a national psyche unsure whether the nightmare is truly over.

Whisky Galore! (2016)
BBC Two, 6:30 PM
This modern retelling of the Ealing classic is gentler and less subversive than its predecessor, but it retains the story’s essential charm: a community outwitting authority in the name of shared pleasure. It’s a film about solidarity disguised as comedy, where rules bend under the weight of human need.

What it lacks in bite, it makes up for in warmth. The island setting remains a character in itself, and the humour works best when it allows quiet absurdity to surface naturally rather than pushing for laughs.

David Bowie: A Reality Tour
Sky Arts, 7:40 PM
Captured during Bowie’s early-2000s renaissance, this concert film shows an artist at ease with his legacy but unwilling to be defined by it. There’s joy here, but also curiosity — a sense that Bowie was always moving forward, even when revisiting the past.

What stands out is the emotional range: the ease with which spectacle gives way to intimacy. This is Bowie as craftsman rather than icon, still interrogating what performance means late into a remarkable career.

The Batman (2022)
ITV1, 10:25 PM
Matt Reeves’ The Batman strips the superhero genre back to its noir foundations. This is not a power fantasy but a mood piece — rain-soaked, morally ambiguous, and obsessed with systems that fail the people they claim to protect. Robert Pattinson’s Batman is raw and unfinished, more vigilante than saviour.

The film’s length allows Gotham to feel like a lived-in ecosystem rather than a backdrop. It’s a crime story first, a comic-book adaptation second, and it succeeds because it understands corruption as cultural, not individual.

Chic & Nile Rodgers: Live at Jazz Vienna
Sky Arts, 10:50 PM
Rodgers remains one of pop’s great architects, and this performance is a reminder of how deeply his work is woven into modern music. The set is immaculate, but never sterile — groove as communal experience rather than nostalgia.

What elevates it is Rodgers’ generosity as a performer. This is music designed to be shared, its sophistication disguised as pleasure.

Sunday 14 December 2025

Local Hero (1983)
Film4, 1:30 PM
Bill Forsyth’s gentle classic remains one of British cinema’s most humane achievements. It’s a film about money, landscape and belonging, but its real subject is listening — to people, to place, to oneself.

The humour is soft, the emotions quieter still, and that’s precisely why it endures. Local Hero understands that progress doesn’t always mean improvement, and that some losses can’t be quantified.

The War Between the Land and the Sea– “The Deep”
BBC One, 8:30 PM
Episode 3 of 5,
This mid-series chapter leans into atmosphere and moral tension rather than spectacle. Isolation becomes political here, with the episode using its setting to explore power, sacrifice and the limits of negotiation.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022)
Film4, 9:00 PM 🌟
This is a film about sex that is really about self-knowledge. Emma Thompson delivers one of her most fearless performances as a woman confronting a lifetime of shame, politeness and deferred desire. The script is sharp without cruelty, compassionate without condescension.

The single-room setting becomes an arena for emotional excavation. What emerges is not liberation as fantasy, but honesty as practice — awkward, funny, painful and deeply human.

Donnie Brasco (1997)
Legend, 9:00 PM
Mike Newell’s undercover gangster drama remains one of the genre’s most psychologically convincing. Johnny Depp plays infiltration as erosion, while Al Pacino gives a heartbreaking performance as a man who mistakes loyalty for love.

The film’s power lies in its sadness. This is organised crime not as glamour but as terminal stagnation, where identity dissolves under the weight of performance.

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
BBC Two, 10:35 PM
Often dismissed as glossy escapism, this romantic comedy is sharper than it first appears. Beneath the luxury lies a serious examination of class, diaspora and obligation, especially in the way it frames family as both anchor and constraint.

Its cultural significance shouldn’t be underestimated, but its emotional intelligence is what gives it staying power.

Minari (2020)
Film4, 1:15 AM
A quiet, autobiographical film that treats migration as process rather than event. Minari resists triumphal narratives, focusing instead on fragility, disappointment and stubborn hope.

The film’s tenderness is its strength. It understands that belonging is built slowly, often unevenly, and never without cost.

The Big Snow of ’47
5Select, 10:30 PM
A reminder of how quickly modern life collapses when infrastructure fails. This documentary captures resilience without romanticising hardship, showing how communities adapt when systems freeze.

Monday 15 December 2025

Richard III (1955)
BBC Two, 2:40 PM
Laurence Olivier’s stylised adaptation is theatrical by design, embracing artifice as a form of truth. The film’s bold visuals and heightened performances foreground power as performance — charisma weaponised.

While later versions emphasise realism, this remains a masterclass in control and clarity.

Civilizations: Rise and Fall – Japan
BBC Two, 9:00 PM
Episode 4 of 4
A fitting conclusion to a series that treats history as movement rather than monument. Japan’s story is framed through cycles of openness and withdrawal, innovation and restraint.

The episode resists simplification, allowing contradiction to stand — a strength often missing from popular history television.

Tuesday 16 December 2025

Laura (1944)
BBC Two, 3:50 PM
Otto Preminger’s noir classic is as much about obsession as investigation. The camera glides, the dialogue snaps, and Gene Tierney’s presence haunts even in absence.

Few films understand desire as something constructed rather than felt. Laura remains hypnotic precisely because it never resolves that tension.

James May’s Shedload of Ideas
Quest, 9:00 PM
May’s appeal lies in his seriousness about triviality. The programme celebrates curiosity without spectacle, reminding us that invention often begins with play. This episode looks at sound-proofing a room.

Wednesday 17 December 2025

Funeral in Berlin (1966)
BBC Two, 3:15 PM
Cold War cinema rarely felt as domesticated and as dangerous as Funeral in Berlin. The film treats espionage not as a parade of tuxedos and car chases but as a ledger: names, memos, phone calls, the quiet transfer of dossiers. Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer moves through that ledger with a kind of weary arithmetic — alert, bored, and always calculating the cost of a single truth.

Berlin itself is a city of margins and checkpoints, a place where geography enforces suspicion and architecture keeps secrets. The camera lingers on banal interiors and bureaucratic rituals, and those small, ordinary details become the film’s real currency. The result is a mood that feels less like spectacle and more like a slow, inevitable tightening.

Palmer is not glamorous; he is practical, sardonic and stubbornly human. Caine gives him a face that registers irritation before heroics, a man who understands that survival often depends on paperwork as much as on courage. He reads the room and then reads the fine print, and that combination makes him quietly formidable. In a genre that usually rewards myth, Palmer’s ordinariness is the film’s moral engine.

Think less of cloak-and-dagger theatrics and more of a chessboard where pawns are memos and bishops are briefings. Moves are made in offices, over cups of bad coffee, in the exchange of coded phrases that sound like small talk. Loyalty is transactional; allegiances shift with the arrival of a new file. The film’s tension comes from the knowledge that a single misplaced signature can topple careers and lives.

Information in Funeral in Berlin functions like money: it buys safety, leverage and betrayal. Characters trade confidences the way merchants trade goods, always calculating margins and risk. The moral landscape is deliberately muddy — there are no clean victories, only compromises that look like necessities. That ambiguity is the film’s clearest statement: in a world run by intelligence, ethics are negotiable.

It’s espionage without glamour, and all the better for it. The film asks us to admire craft over charisma, patience over bravado, and to notice how power often hides in the most administrative of acts. Michael Caine’s Palmer doesn’t save the day with a flourish; he survives it with a ledger and a look, and that, in this cold, bureaucratic chess game, is victory enough.

Mozart’s Sister
Sky Arts, 9:00 PM
A necessary corrective to genius mythology, restoring Maria Anna Mozart to the story not as footnote but as artist. The programme interrogates how talent is recognised — or erased — by structures of gender and inheritance.

Travel Man: 96 Hours in Rio
Channel 4, 11:05 PM
Ayoade’s dry detachment works best when paired with cities of excess. Rio’s contradictions — beauty, inequality, performance — provide ample material.

Thursday 18 December 2025

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022)
Film4, 9:00 PM
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris arrives like a small, insistent kindness: unshowy at first, then quietly impossible to forget. On the surface it trades in the pleasures of costume and color, in the tactile joy of fabric and the ritual of fittings, but those pleasures are never mere ornament. They are the language the film uses to talk about worth — who is allowed to be seen, who is taught to shrink, and what it takes to insist on a place at the table.

The film’s lightness is deliberate; it disarms you so that its sharper questions can slip in unnoticed. Dignity here is not a headline moment but a series of small refusals: to accept a diminished role, to let someone else define your limits, to believe that aspiration is a private indulgence rather than a public claim. Those refusals accumulate until they become a kind of moral architecture, and the couture that frames them is less about fashion than about recognition — the recognition that a life, however ordinary, deserves to be dressed with care.

There’s a tenderness to the way the story treats its characters. They are not caricatures of longing but people who have learned to measure their desires against what the world will tolerate. The film rewards patience: gestures of generosity, the slow unpeeling of embarrassment, the awkwardness of hope. When aspiration finally meets opportunity, it feels earned rather than miraculous, and that earned quality is what gives the film its emotional weight.

Beneath the sequins and silk, the film asks a political question in the softest possible voice: who gets to dream? It’s a question about class and visibility, about the small economies that decide which ambitions are respectable and which are frivolous. By staging its answer in the language of couture, the film insists that beauty and aspiration are not frivolities to be hoarded by the privileged; they are forms of recognition that restore a person’s claim on the world.

The movie’s pleasures are modest but precise: a well-timed joke, a look that lingers, a seam that finally sits right. Those details matter because they are the proof that care can be taught and received. The film doesn’t pretend that transformation is easy or total; it knows that dignity is often a matter of incremental repair rather than sudden revelation. That realism keeps the sentiment from tipping into mawkishness and makes the final moments feel like a quiet, hard-won justice.

In the end, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is less a fairy tale than a civics lesson in empathy. It asks us to notice who we allow to aspire and to consider how small acts of recognition — a compliment, a commission, a seat at a table — can change the shape of a life. It’s a deceptively light film because it trusts gentleness to do the heavy lifting: to make dignity visible, and to remind us that aspiration, when taken seriously, is a public good.

Zola (2020)
Channel 4, 1:40 AM
Zola arrives like a live wire: loud, jagged and impossible to ignore. The film takes the fevered energy of a viral Twitter thread and refuses to domesticate it, translating the platform’s breathless immediacy into cinema that feels raw at the edges. That rawness is not a flaw but a method — the movie insists on discomfort because the story it tells is discomforting by nature.

Visually and rhythmically, the film is restless. Cuts snap, frames tilt, and the soundtrack pushes forward as if to outrun the next notification; the formal choices mimic the way attention fractures online. This kinetic style keeps you off-balance in a way that’s purposeful: it’s harder to settle into complacent spectatorship when the film keeps yanking you back to the mechanics of spectacle.

Tonally, Zola is confrontational rather than explanatory. It doesn’t offer tidy moral summaries or easy condemnations; instead it stages scenes that force you to sit with ambiguity. The characters are vivid and often unlikable, and the film refuses to soften them into archetypes. That refusal is a political gesture — a reminder that real people, not neat narratives, are at the centre of viral fame.

The movie also interrogates authorship and ownership. Who controls a story once it’s been amplified? Whose version becomes the “truth”? By dramatizing the gap between lived experience and its online retelling, the film exposes how narrative authority can be bought, sold, and distorted in real time. That collapse of authority is not merely thematic; it’s structural, embedded in how the film itself assembles and disassembles perspective.

Watching Zola is tiring in the way that scrolling can be tiring: there’s a cumulative effect, an exhaustion that’s part of the point. The film makes you complicit in the circulation it critiques — you are entertained, outraged, fascinated, and then asked to reckon with the fact that your gaze participates in the very dynamics on display. That moral friction is what gives the film its teeth.

Ultimately, Zola is less about delivering answers than about provoking attention. It refuses the consolations of neat meaning and instead leaves you with a sharper question: how do we live ethically in an economy that monetizes spectacle and flattens nuance? The film’s instability is its honesty — messy, urgent, and unwilling to let the viewer look away.

Friday 19 December 2025

The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
Film4, 3:30 PM
The Lavender Hill Mob moves with the quiet confidence of a well-oiled mechanism: precise, economical and slyly subversive. On the surface it is a neat comic caper — a plan hatched, a team assembled, a bullion shipment rerouted — but the film’s pleasures come from the way that neatness is used to expose something messier beneath. Ealing’s humour here is surgical; it cuts through civility to reveal the small, simmering resentments that make ordinary people capable of extraordinary mischief.

Alec Guinness’s performance is the film’s moral pivot. His Henry Holland is the very picture of English reserve — mild-mannered, polite, almost apologetic — and that exterior is what makes his capacity for menace so deliciously unsettling. Guinness lets you like the man before he reveals the stubborn, almost righteous impatience that propels the plot; the comedy depends on that slow, accumulating dissonance between manner and motive.

The film’s comedy is political without being preachy. It treats class not as a sociological lecture but as a lived economy of slights and small humiliations: the petty indignities of office life, the invisible ceilings, the ways respect is rationed. The heist becomes a form of reparation, a ludicrously elegant answer to the everyday arithmetic of deference. That the scheme is absurd only sharpens its moral logic — if the system won’t recognise you, you’ll outwit it.

Ealing’s visual style supports the satire. The camera delights in the ordinary: suburban streets, drab offices, the modest domestic interiors where plans are whispered and loyalties tested. Those settings make the theft feel less like a crime and more like a corrective: the world is too tidy, too complacent, and the film’s small rebellion restores a sense of balance, however mischievously.

Tonally, the movie balances warmth and bite. It invites sympathy for its conspirators without excusing them; the laughs come with a sting. That mixture is what keeps the film from becoming merely charming nostalgia — it remains alert to the social pressures that produce its characters’ choices, and it refuses to let sentiment obscure consequence.

The Lavender Hill Mob is a comedy of manners that doubles as a critique of manners. It’s Ealing at its sharpest because it understands that farce can be a form of truth-telling: by making us laugh at the lengths people will go to be seen and respected, it forces us to notice the small violences that make such lengths imaginable.

Strangers on a Train (1951)
BBC Two, 3:30 PM 🌟
Strangers on a Train arrives with the slow, corrosive logic of a thought experiment gone wrong. Hitchcock sets the scene with an almost sociological calm — two strangers, a chance encounter, a proposition offered as if it were a casual observation — and then lets that casualness metastasize. The film’s elegance is not decorative; it’s the trap. The premise is simple enough to be plausible, and that plausibility is what makes the unraveling feel inevitable.

The movie trades in manners and small talk until those very civilities become instruments of menace. Bruno’s charm is a social lubricant that hides a corrosive will; Guy’s polite bewilderment is the thin skin through which contagion slips. Hitchcock stages their exchanges like a contagion study: ideas pass, attitudes shift, and what begins as a hypothetical conversation acquires the force of a plan. The terror is not sudden spectacle but the gradual recognition that ordinary interactions can be weaponised.

Visually, the film is a masterclass in suggestion. Shadows, reflections and the geometry of public spaces do the heavy lifting; violence is implied more often than shown, and that restraint sharpens the dread. The famous carousel sequence, the tennis match, the suburban facades — each set piece refracts the central idea: proximity breeds possibility. Hitchcock’s camera watches civility as if it were a crime scene, and in doing so it teaches us to read the everyday for danger.

Morally, the film is ruthless because it refuses tidy motives. Bruno’s violence needs no elaborate justification; it requires only an opening and a refusal to acknowledge responsibility. The film’s darker insight is that evil can be banal — a whim given form, a grievance turned into action. That makes the viewer complicit in a new way: we are invited to admire the cleverness of the plot even as we recoil from its consequences, and that split feeling is precisely Hitchcock’s point.

There’s also a corrosive psychology at work: denial as a social lubricant. Characters smooth over contradictions, rationalise small betrayals, and in doing so they create the conditions for larger ones. The film shows how polite evasions and bureaucratic neatness can become moral cover, and how the refusal to see a problem is often the first step toward catastrophe.

Strangers on a Train is less a thriller about action than a study of moral transmission. Its cruelty is intellectual: it demonstrates how an idea, once voiced, can escape containment and remake lives. The film’s elegance and ruthlessness are inseparable — the cleaner the premise, the fouler the fallout — and Hitchcock leaves you with the uncomfortable lesson that the most dangerous things are often the ones we treat as conversation.

Oh What a Lovely War (1969)
Sky Arts, 3:20 PM
Joan Littlewood’s Oh What a Lovely War lands like a theatrical grenade: bright, noisy, and designed to shatter the comfortable narratives that cushion national memory. The film borrows the language of music hall and revue — choruses, comic routines, jaunty tunes — and then uses that very language to puncture itself. Songs that should be consolations become instruments of exposure; spectacle is turned inside out until the laughter tastes of ash.

The staging is deliberately artificial, which is its moral point. By refusing naturalism, the piece keeps us at a distance that is also a mirror: we watch performance and are forced to recognise performance in the stories we tell about sacrifice and glory. Costumes and choreography become a kind of forensic evidence, showing how ritual and pageantry have been enlisted to sanitise violence. That theatrical artifice makes the film’s anger precise rather than merely loud.

There is a cruelty to the humour that never quite lets you off the hook. Jokes land and then are immediately undercut by a cutaway, a caption, a newsreel insert that reclaims the moment for history’s harder facts. The bitterness is not gratuitous; it is a corrective. Where patriotic myth smooths edges and names, Littlewood’s satire sharpens them, insisting that the human cost cannot be folded into tidy rhetoric.

The film’s collective voice is another of its weapons. Rather than privileging a single hero, it disperses attention across ranks and roles, making the viewer feel the scale of ordinary loss. That democratic chorus refuses the consolations of exceptionalism: the tragedy is not a failure of a few but a system that manufactures casualties as if they were inevitable byproducts of ceremony. In that sense the film is less about blame than about the structures that make blame unnecessary.

Visually and rhythmically the work is restless: montage and music collide, and the editing itself becomes an argument. Moments of comic choreography sit beside archival textures and stark tableaux, and the resulting dissonance keeps the audience off balance. This is not entertainment that soothes; it is entertainment that interrogates the appetite for entertainment in the face of atrocity.

Oh What a Lovely War is a lesson in moral clarity disguised as a revue. Its anger remains bracing because it is disciplined; its humour remains bitter because it refuses to let sentiment obscure responsibility. The film asks us to recognise the rituals that make violence tolerable and then to refuse them — not with a sermon, but with a song that will not let you sing along without thinking.

Mozart’s Women
Sky Arts, 7:30 PM
A thematic continuation that broadens the frame, examining how genius is supported, exploited and constrained.

Kirsty MacColl at the BBC
BBC Four, 10:45 PM

Kirsty MacColl: The Box Set
BBC Four, 11:45 PM

The Story of “Fairytale of New York”
BBC Four, 12:30 AM
A moving late-night trilogy celebrating MacColl’s voice, wit and defiance. The final documentary rightly frames the song not as seasonal novelty, but as a portrait of love under pressure.

STREAMING CHOICE

Netflix
Breakdown: 1975 — available from Friday 19 December

Breakdown: 1975 is explicitly about how films such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Network are products of social upheaval, not merely responses to it. It reads the mid‑1970s as a moment when institutions—hospitals, corporations, media—were under strain, and shows how that strain reshaped cinematic form: sharper editing, exposed performances, and narratives that treat institutional routine as evidence. Rather than depicting collapse as spectacle, the film argues that these landmark movies emerged from real political and cultural ruptures, and that their formal choices—pointed satire, clinical observation, fractured viewpoint—are themselves symptoms of the crises that produced them. In short, Breakdown insists that art in turbulent times is both made by upheaval and a way of diagnosing it.

Channel 4 Streaming / Walter Presents
Stranded — all eight episodes available from Friday 19 December

Stranded on Channel 4 Streaming via Walter Presents lands as a compact, eight‑episode pressure cooker: set on Christmas Eve when an avalanche severs the Vanoi Valley ski resort, the community is left without power or help from the outside world. The series uses that enforced isolation to turn small choices into moral tests — supplies run low, alliances shift, and the claustrophobia of the resort becomes a social microscope.

At the centre is Giovani Lo Bianco, stranded and forced to confront a double life that begins to fray under scrutiny. Bingeing the eight episodes lets the show treat unraveling as a process: secrets surface, loyalties calcify, and the slow accumulation of compromises becomes the story’s engine. Walter Presents’ taste for texture means the drama trades spectacle for detail, making the collapse feel lived‑in and morally urgent.

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Top Night Owl Music Shows at the Fringe You Can’t Miss

July 6, 2025 at 9:26 am · Filed under Biographical, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Music, Night Owl ·Tagged 007 Voices of Bond, A Fleetwood Mac Story, California Dreams, Dylan Under Cover, Edinburgh Fringe 2025, Night Owl Shows, Patrick Harrington, The Billy Joel Story, The Blondie Story, The Carole King & James Taylor Story, The Elton John Story, The Legend of Queen, The Rise Of The Eagles, The Story of Sting & The Police, Women Of Rock

609 words, 3 minutes read time.

Counter Culture can’t get enough of these Night Owl shows—each one blends stellar musicianship, backstage lore and pure, unadulterated fun. We’ve reviewed a handful of these in past years (you’ll spot our links sprinkled throughout), and they never fail to surprise and delight. After a day racing between venues, there’s no better way to unwind than sinking into soaring vocals, iconic riffs and tasty trivia—perfect for rounding off your Fringe adventure with a smile. Click any show title above to dive into full details and grab your tickets.

007 Voices of Bond

1–24 August 2025

A pulse-pounding journey through 007’s most iconic soundtracks, mixing live orchestration with behind-the-scenes trivia. Expect stirring strings, soaring brass—and maybe a shaken martini or two. We reviewed it here.

The Carole King & James Taylor Story

1–24 August 2025

Two legends, one stage: relive the genesis of Tapestry, Fire and Rain and their lifelong friendship It’s a back-to-the-roots journey: Brill Building beginnings, Brooklyn loft rehearsals and Laurel Canyon cabins. Every note hits with fresh emotional weight. You’ll leave humming the classics.

Dylan Under Cover

1–24 August 2025

Bob Dylan’s catalogue like you’ve never heard it—stripped-back, reimagined, reinvented. This show peels back the layers on Blowin’ in the Wind and Like a Rolling Stone with fresh arrangements and storytelling that shines a new light on a Nobel Prize-winning oeuvre.

The Elton John Story

1–24 August 2025

From Empty Sky to Rocket Man, experience Elton’s meteoric rise with powerhouse vocals, dazzling piano solos and backstage anecdotes—from acid-fueled beginnings to global superstardom. A kaleidoscope of sequins, showmanship and timeless hits.

California Dreams

1–24 August 2025

Surf’s up! Ride the West Coast musical wave from The Beach Boys through Eagles, Red Hot Chili Peppers and beyond. Expect sun-soaked harmonies, surf guitar riffs and fun insights into the songs that defined a generation. We reviewed it here.

The Fleetwood Mac Story

1–24 August 2025

Discover the drama and genius behind Rumours, delivered with pristine harmonies and candid backstage tales. It’s equal parts heartbreak ballad and arena-filling rock anthem—an electrifying, emotional rollercoaster.

The Story of Sting & The Police

1–24 August 2025

From punk-y early gigs to reggae-rock fusion, watch Every Breath You Take and Roxanne reborn through Angus Munro’s four-octave range. It’s a deep dive into The Police’s evolution—equal parts raw energy and solo-career brilliance. We reviewed it here.

The Blondie Story

1–24 August 2025

Punk meets pop with Deborah Harry’s signature cool. Dive into the anthemic Heart of Glass, One Way or Another and more, punctuated by tales of CBGB chaos and the band’s fearless NYC attitude. We reviewed it here.

The Rise of The Eagles

1–24 August 2025

Soar through Hotel California, Life in the Fast Lane and beyond with impeccable harmonies and country-rock flair. This show unpacks the band’s Californian roots and secrets behind some of rock’s most enduring tracks.

Women of Rock

1–24 August 2025

A powerhouse salute to icons like Joni Mitchell, Joan Jett, Stevie Nicks and more. Celebrate fearless female voices with soaring performances and the stories behind the songs that shattered ceilings.

The Billy Joel Story

1–24 August 2025

From Piano Man to Uptown Girl, explore Joel’s journey from dive-bar pianist to pop-legend. Expect poignant storytelling, jaw-dropping musicianship and nostalgic nods to New York’s vibrant music scene. We reviewed it here.

The Legend of Queen

1–24 August 2025

Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Ga Ga, Don’t Stop Me Now—relive Queen’s epic soundtrack with a full band and flamboyant flair. This show captures Freddie Mercury’s theatrical genius and the band’s anthemic legacy.

And there you have it—twelve unmissable Night Owl experiences to soundtrack your Fringe!

By Patrick Harrington

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Glastonbury and the Politics of Free Speech

July 3, 2025 at 6:32 am · Filed under Culture ·Tagged BBC editorial policy, Bob Vylan, Censorship, Free speech, Gaza conflict, Glastonbury, human rights, Kneecap, Patrick Harrington, War crimes, Wes Streeting, Zionist lobby

999 words, 5 minutes read time.

Glastonbury’s acres have long nurtured more than music and mud. From its birth amid Britain’s counterculture in 1970 through the CND rallies of the early 1980s to today’s climate strikes and aid drives, the festival has worn its politics on its sleeve. Yet this summer’s fierce backlash to pro-Palestinian chants—while far graver atrocities in Gaza meet only muted response—reveals a troubling double standard in how we police speech versus how we confront state violence.

A joyful festival-goer wearing a colorful outfit dances enthusiastically atop a person's shoulders, surrounded by a vibrant crowd and festival flags.

A Storied Tradition of Political Expression
The first Glastonbury festivals combined open-mic poetry with anti-establishment rock, drawing 1,500 people to Worthy Farm in 1970. By 1982 Michael Eavis had raised over £130,000 for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, cementing an anti-war identity. In 2005 Live 8 attracted 1.5 billion TV viewers worldwide in a bid to cancel Third World debt, and Greenpeace and Oxfam have run ongoing campaigns on site—calling out fossil fuels, water privatisation and corporate tax avoidance to crowds of tens of thousands.

Scholars of popular culture note that Glastonbury’s blend of music and protest reflects a broader European tradition of politicised festivals dating back to the 1960s. The Pyramid Stage has hosted everything from Joan Baez’s Vietnam-era ballads to Fishbone’s critiques of police brutality, while Billy Bragg’s Left Field arena featured Tony Benn delivering impassioned political narration in 2002 and again in 2008. Other voices such as Caroline Lucas and Jeremy Corbyn have joined those sessions, reinforcing Glastonbury’s role as a pulse-check on Britain’s political mood.

Clarifying Key Terms
Policing dissent describes institutional actions—by governments, broadcasters or venues—that restrict, sanction or censor critical speech.
Hate speech denotes expressions that directly incite violence or discrimination against a protected group. How is criticism or condemnation of the Israeli Defence Force fit that? Are the IDF a “protected group” under UK law?
State violence refers to systematic actions by a government, military or their proxies that violate human rights or international humanitarian law.

The Outcry Over Words
On June 28, punk-rap duo Bob Vylan led West Holts in chants of “Death to the IDF,” broadcast live by the BBC. Within hours, the prime minister labelled it appalling hate speech, police opened an investigation, talent agencies dropped the band, and their US tour visas were revoked. A two-word slogan prompted a cascade of punitive measures.

The BBC’s Editorial Challenges and Defense
Covering six days of live music and debate is a logistical tightrope. The BBC issued on-screen warnings, removed the set from its on-demand archive and has since launched a review to introduce broadcast-delay systems and empower on-site editors to cut streams instantaneously. A senior editor explained that mistakes were made under extreme time pressure but stressed the corporation’s commitment to platforming diverse, even contentious, voices within clear hate-speech guidelines.

Silence on Actual Atrocities
Meanwhile, UN OCHA reports that over 1.9 million Gazans—more than 80 percent of the territory’s population—have been internally displaced since October, and at least 60,000 Palestinians killed. A UN Special Rapporteur has described Israel’s siege-style blockades and forced expulsions as war crimes, even genocide. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International document systematic attacks on hospitals and schools and deliberate starvation strategies. Yet none of these findings has triggered visa revocations, parliamentary motions or media apologies on the scale meted out for a few words from the stage at a festival.

Diverse Voices on Accountability
Ravi Gill, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, calls this disparity a moral blind spot, urging that public outrage be calibrated to the scale of harm. Dr Sara Roy of Harvard’s Centre for Middle Eastern Studies argues that cultural platforms like Glastonbury are uniquely placed to bridge the gap between distant suffering and popular conscience. Israeli group B’Tselem has condemned military actions in Gaza as a grave breach of international law, challenging Western allies to apply pressure rather than fall silent.

Kneecap’s Court Battles and Unbowed Defiance
Northern Irish rap collective Kneecap face two legal fronts. Member Mo Chara is charged under the Terrorism Act for allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag during a London gig—a charge he and his lawyers call political policing—and remains on unconditional bail until his August hearing. Separately, the trio successfully sued the UK government for unlawfully withdrawing their £14,250 arts funding, donating the settlement to Belfast youth charities. Their solidarity with Gaza may infuriate powerful lobby groups, but, as Chara says, speaking out against war crimes is not optional; it’s our duty.

Wes Streeting: Holding Israel to the Same Standard
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has proven one of the few MPs willing to apply consistent scrutiny. On Sky News he urged Israel to get its own house in order by cracking down on settler violence in the West Bank and ensuring due process for Palestinians under occupation. His candour deserves praise for insisting that accountability be universal—whether at a festival or in a parliament.

Why Speaking Out Remains a Moral Imperative
Art is more than entertainment; it is conscience in living colour. If we police every festival chant more zealously than we prosecute every atrocity, we abdicate our humanity. Speaking out against war crimes in Gaza may antagonise powerful interests, but it is a moral imperative. When public broadcasters are forced to apologise for airing a slogan when women and children are being murdered in Gaza, they expose the skewed priorities of our politicians and their subservience to the Zionist lobby.

Concluding Call to Action
Glastonbury’s fields have proven fertile ground for truth-telling. You can help keep them that way:

Advocate for clear broadcast-delay protocols and free-speech training at public broadcasters.
Defend the BBC from unfair criticism.
Share reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and UN Special Rapporteurs.
Write to your MP demanding equal accountability for all actors—artists and states alike.
Participate in peaceful solidarity events and campus forums to keep conversations alive.

Art must challenge power or risk becoming a polite distraction from injustice. Take a stand now—before the next message is silenced and the next atrocity is covered up.

By Pat Harrington

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Elysium Movie Review: A Dystopian Look at Inequality By Patrick Harrington

January 25, 2025 at 11:09 am · Filed under Film & DVD Reviews ·Tagged Dystopian Future, Jodie Foster, Matt Damon, movies, Neill Blomkamp, Patrick Harrington, Sci-Fi Thriller

By Pat Harrington

882 words, 5 minutes read time.

What happens when the gap between rich and poor becomes unbridgeable? Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium raises this question to a harrowing, futuristic extreme. It delivers a dystopian thriller that is both visually stunning and deeply thought-provoking. Set in 2154, the film explores a world divided into two starkly different realities. On Earth, the overcrowded and polluted environment forces the impoverished masses to scrape by in harsh conditions. Meanwhile, on Elysium, a luxurious space station, the elite live in comfort and enjoy miraculous healthcare. Blomkamp’s film critiques inequality and systemic injustice. It goes beyond science fiction tropes in a way that resonates deeply with contemporary issues.

Plot Outline

The story follows Max Da Costa (Matt Damon), an ex-convict working in a hazardous factory on Earth. After a workplace accident exposes him to a lethal dose of radiation, Max is given only five days to live. He is desperate for survival. He turns to a criminal syndicate for help. They assist him in reaching Elysium, where advanced medical pods can heal any condition. Along the way, Max reconnects with Frey (Alice Braga), a childhood friend and nurse whose daughter is gravely ill. Their journey becomes more perilous. They face Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster), the authoritarian leader of Elysium. She is determined to maintain the space station’s exclusivity. They also confront Kruger (Sharlto Copley), her volatile mercenary. As Max transforms into a cybernetic-enhanced fighter, he shifts from self-preservation to self-sacrifice. He risks everything to rewrite Elysium’s system. His goal is to make healthcare accessible to everyone.

Acting and Character Motivations

Matt Damon’s portrayal of Max is a standout. He brings a raw vulnerability to the role. This is especially evident in moments like Max’s heart-wrenching plea to Frey. He realizes he may not survive his mission. Damon captures Max’s evolution. Max transforms from a man driven by fear and desperation to a hero. He understands the broader implications of his actions. This transformation reflects the film’s central theme: the moral imperative to challenge systemic injustice, even at great personal cost.

Jodie Foster’s Secretary Delacourt embodies the ruthlessness of power. Her icy performance is chilling. This is particularly clear in scenes where she coldly justifies her authoritarian measures. One such instance is when she orders a missile strike on a ship carrying desperate Earth residents to Elysium. Sharlto Copley’s Kruger is pure chaos. He is a sadistic enforcer. His unhinged brutality makes him a terrifying counterpoint to Max’s reluctant heroism. Alice Braga adds emotional depth as Frey. Her scenes with her daughter are particularly moving. They ground the film’s high-stakes action in a poignant human struggle.

Cinematography and Musical Score

Visually, Elysium is breathtaking. Cinematographer Trent Opaloch masterfully contrasts the grim, industrial slums of Earth with the pristine, utopian beauty of Elysium. One striking example is the scene where Max fights Kruger in the sterile, white corridors of Elysium’s core. This setting visually underscores the clash between Earth’s downtrodden and the privileged elite. The film’s world-building is meticulous, from the sprawling shantytowns of Los Angeles to the gleaming mansions of the space station.

The musical score by Ryan Amon amplifies the film’s emotional intensity. The blend of orchestral and electronic elements mirrors the tension between humanity and technology. Key moments, like Max’s transformation into a cybernetic warrior, feature stirring compositions. The score’s relentless pacing during action sequences adds to the film’s intensity. Its haunting undertones in quieter moments reflect the themes of desperation and hope.

Social, Ethical, and Political Themes

At its heart, Elysium critiques systemic inequality, using the division between Earth and Elysium as a metaphor for the widening gap between rich and poor. The film raises pressing ethical questions about privilege and access: why should life-saving resources be hoarded by a few? Secretary Delacourt’s policies on immigration and exclusion echo contemporary debates about border control and the ethics of privilege. The film also explores the dehumanizing effects of technology, as seen in Elysium’s robotic enforcers and the impersonal bureaucracy that treats Earth’s inhabitants as expendable.

Max’s journey reflects the power of individual action to challenge oppressive systems. His transformation from reluctant participant to selfless hero underscores the idea that personal growth and societal change are intertwined. In this way, Elysium aligns with the principles we’ve explored in Patrick’s character: empathy, collaboration, and the courage to fight for systemic justice.

Critical Perspective

As Peter Debruge of Variety aptly noted, “Blomkamp crafts a world that’s both visually stunning and uncomfortably plausible, delivering a biting critique of 21st-century disparities.” Some critics argued that the film’s message was overly didactic. Nonetheless, its willingness to tackle complex social issues sets it apart from conventional action fare. The performances and world-building lend the narrative a grounding that ensures its themes resonate deeply.

Conclusion

Elysium is more than just a sci-fi thriller. It’s a thought-provoking examination of inequality, privilege, and the ethical responsibility to create a fairer world. The film captivates viewers with stunning visuals. A gripping score heightens the experience. Powerful performances draw us into a future that feels all too possible. Like the question posed in the introduction, Elysium challenges us to consider unchecked inequality. It also questions whether we have the courage to bridge the divide. For fans of socially conscious cinema, this is a must-watch, blending thrilling action with a call for systemic change.

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Better Man: A Unique Portrayal of Robbie Williams By Patrick Harrington

January 3, 2025 at 8:37 am · Filed under Film & DVD Reviews, Uncategorized ·Tagged Better Man, film, Liam Gallagher, movies, Patrick Harrington, reviews, Robbie Williams, Take That

650 words, 3 minutes read time.

The film Better Man offers a compelling portrayal of Robbie Williams. It presents an unconventional view and brings his story to life with an unexpected twist. Directed with flair, the movie seamlessly integrates vivid storytelling with high-energy performances. It is a must-watch for fans of both the man himself and music biopics in general.

One of the standout features of the film is its electrifying dance sequences. These scenes are executed with precision and style, capturing the exuberance and chaos of Robbie’s meteoric rise to fame. Highlights include a dazzling recreation of the ‘Let Me Entertain You’ tour. This includes flamboyant costumes and high-energy moves. There is also a raw, emotional performance of ‘Angels’ where the choreography mirrors Robbie’s inner turmoil. The film journeys from pulsating nightclub performances to intimate moments of artistic expression. The choreography acts as a vibrant thread weaving through the narrative. It echoes the highs and lows of his tumultuous journey.

Better Man delves deeply into Robbie’s personal struggles. It focuses particularly on his marriage breakdown. It also explores his complicated relationship with Liam Gallagher. The film explores Robbie’s tumultuous relationship with his wife, Nicole Appleton. It showcases the passionate beginnings of their union. The film also shows the eventual unraveling due to his battles with addiction and the pressures of fame. The heartbreak grows when she marries Liam Gallagher later. This development complicates an already fraught relationship between the two men. The film also explores Robbie’s relationship with his father. Their bond is marked by deep affection. Still, there are also moments of tension and unmet expectations. It doesn’t shy away from depicting the emotional toll of these conflicts. The film paints a raw and honest portrait of a man battling inner demons. He navigates the demands of fame and personal relationships. The dynamic between Robbie and Liam is marked by rivalry, camaraderie, and occasional bursts of humor. This adds depth to the narrative. It showcases both the fragility and resilience of their bond.

The scenes of drug use are among the most harrowing in the film. These moments are depicted with unflinching realism. They are both disturbing and profoundly sad. They offer a stark reminder of the darker side of stardom. The director’s approach makes sure that these scenes are neither gratuitous nor glamorized. Instead, they serve as a sobering counterpoint to the film’s more exuberant moments.

The most surprising element of Better Man is its bold artistic choice. It portrays Robbie as a monkey. This representation is metaphorical for his struggles with identity, fame, and self-perception. This choice resonates deeply with the central themes of the film. It symbolizes the feeling of being caged or controlled by public expectations. It also addresses the primal instincts and vulnerabilities that make us human. Robbie himself has commented on this creative decision. He explained that it captures his inner conflict. He often felt reduced to a caricature in the public eye.

The storytelling might initially make this portrayal feel jarring. Still, it is so immersive that, after a while, the audience becomes wholly engaged with the plot. They almost forget the unconventional portrayal. The monkey metaphor invites viewers to consider fame’s animalistic nature. It also explores the struggle to reconcile one’s public image with private identity. By embracing this artistic risk, the film gains depth. It provokes meaningful conversations about the pressures and expectations placed upon public figures.

Better Man is a daring and emotionally resonant film. It balances its inventive artistic choices with a heartfelt exploration of Robbie Williams’ life. You might be drawn to its captivating dance scenes. You could be intrigued by the intricate character dynamics. Or you may find yourself captivated by the powerful narrative arc. This film leaves a lasting impression. It offers both entertainment and introspection.

By Pat Harrington

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Culture Vulture 4th to the 10th of January 2025

January 1, 2025 at 6:23 pm · Filed under Culture Vulture, Film & DVD Reviews ·Tagged '71, 120 BPM, Accused: The Fake Grooming Scandal, action, Arena: Bob Dylan: No Direction Home, Bank Of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger, Bob Dylan: Shadow Kingdom, Building Britain's Biggest Nuclear Power Station, Camera, Colette, film, Flag Day, Jerry Springer: Fights, Kelly's Heroes, Mona Lisa, movie-review, movies, Nowhere Special, Patience, Patrick Harrington, Playground, Rome: Rise And Fall Of An Empire, The Big Snow Of '82, The Courier, The Fugitive, The Life And Deaths Of Christopher Lee, The Shallows, Walter Presents: Sleepers

4,767 words, 25 minutes read time.

Welcome to this edition of Culture Vulture. It is your ultimate alternative weekly entertainment guide. We bring you the best of film, music, and the arts. Our perspective is fresh. Mainstream media often overshadows unique voices and creative expressions. Culture Vulture aims to shine a light on hidden cultural gems that deserve your attention. Each week, we curate a selection of films, music, and events designed to inspire and engage. We celebrate the diverse tapestry of artistic endeavours that shape our world. Writing is by Pat Harrington and music is from Tim Bragg.

Highlights of the Week Include

The Courier (2020) (BBC1, Saturday 4th January, 11.40pm)
A gripping Cold War thriller where a businessman-turned-spy risks everything to prevent global catastrophe.
Patience (Episodes One and Two) (C4, Wednesday 8th January, 9pm, and Thursday 9th January, 9pm)
This ground-breaking drama introduces Patience, an autistic investigator whose unique perspective proves invaluable as she solves complex cases while navigating family tensions and personal growth, set against the backdrops of York and Antwerp.
120 BPM (2018) (C4, Saturday 4th January, 2.05pm)
A powerful and unflinching tribute to activism during the AIDS crisis, capturing the urgency and resilience of a community fighting for survival.

Saturday 4th of January 2025

The Courier (2020) (BBC1, 11.40pm)
This gripping Cold War thriller tells the true story of Greville Wynne, a British businessman unwittingly drawn into the world of espionage. Wynne becomes a courier for MI6, tasked with delivering vital intelligence from a Soviet informant. Benedict Cumberbatch delivers a compelling performance as Wynne, a man thrust into danger yet determined to make a difference.

The film explores Wynne’s transformation from an unassuming salesman to a reluctant hero. His growing camaraderie with Soviet informant Oleg Penkovsky adds emotional depth to the narrative. Their bond is both a source of strength and vulnerability, as their clandestine efforts expose them to grave risks. The stakes escalate as both men face the harsh realities of betrayal and the threat of imprisonment.

While The Courier is a story of courage and sacrifice, it also raises questions about the ethics of espionage. The toll on those caught in its web is profound, with lives irrevocably altered by decisions made in the shadows. Ultimately, The Courier is not just a spy thriller but a poignant exploration of friendship, loyalty, and the sacrifices made in the name of peace.

120 BPM (2018) (C4, 2.05pm)
Set during the AIDS crisis of the 1990s, this powerful drama follows members of ACT UP Paris, a group fighting for visibility and treatment. The film, directed by Robin Campillo, offers an unflinching portrayal of activism, focusing on the lives of those at the frontline. It captures the urgency, heartbreak, and resilience of a community under siege.

The story centres on Nathan and Sean, whose relationship unfolds against the backdrop of the fight for survival. Sean, living with AIDS, embodies both the defiance and fragility of the movement. His passion and anger are palpable, as are his moments of vulnerability. The film’s intimate moments between Nathan and Sean contrast with the chaos of protests and meetings, showing the personal stakes behind the public struggle.

120 BPM excels in capturing the energy of activism. The group’s meetings, debates, and protests are depicted with raw authenticity, highlighting the complexities of collective action. The tension between pragmatism and radicalism among the members adds depth, showing the challenges of navigating a fight where every decision feels like life or death.

The film is also a celebration of life in the face of death. Its characters are vibrant, finding joy and solidarity even as they confront overwhelming grief. Dance scenes, particularly those set to pulsing electronic music, serve as both a release and a defiant assertion of existence. These moments are electrifying, juxtaposing the vibrancy of life with the looming spectre of loss.

Campillo doesn’t shy away from the grim realities of the epidemic, but his lens is compassionate. The film forces viewers to confront the human cost of institutional apathy and societal prejudice. 120 BPM is not only a tribute to those who fought and died during the crisis but a reminder of the power of collective action and the enduring need for empathy and justice.

Sunday 5th of January 2025

Kelly’s Heroes (1970) (BBC2, 12.30pm)
Kelly’s Heroes is more than a simple war film. Set during World War II, it blends comedy, action, and satire. Beneath the surface of its adventure lies a sharp critique of military bureaucracy and the futility of war. The film’s characters highlight human greed and ingenuity, raising questions about individualism in times of collective struggle. It is a story about soldiers seeking personal gain amidst chaos, but it also examines deeper social and ethical concerns.

The film critiques the absurdity of war through its anti-heroic approach. Kelly and his crew are not traditional war heroes. They abandon their mission to steal gold from the Nazis, driven by self-interest rather than patriotism. This moral ambiguity challenges the audience’s view of heroism. Are their actions justifiable in the face of wartime destruction? The soldiers’ greed mirrors the exploitation and opportunism often seen in conflicts, suggesting that even in war, personal motives can outweigh collective duty.

Political themes emerge in the way the film portrays authority figures. Commanding officers are shown as incompetent or self-serving. This creates a stark contrast with the resourceful and rebellious soldiers. The breakdown of the chain of command is not just comedic but also a critique of hierarchical power structures. By highlighting the disconnect between the front line and decision-makers, Kelly’s Heroes questions the efficiency and ethics of military leadership.

The camaraderie among the soldiers is both heartening and revealing. It shows the resilience of human connection, even in morally grey circumstances. Their diverse backgrounds and shared mission reflect a microcosm of society, where people unite for a common goal despite individual flaws. Ultimately, Kelly’s Heroes is not just a war film. It is a commentary on greed, power, and human resilience in the face of absurdity, making it as relevant today as it was in 1970.

Rome: Rise And Fall Of An Empire (Sky History, 1pm–9pm)
This marathon recounts the glory and decline of a civilisation. Each episode sheds light on ambition, leadership, and hubris. The empire’s achievements clash with its excesses. The echoes of its downfall still resonate.

Monday 6th of January 2025

Building Britain’s Biggest Nuclear Power Station (one of two) (BBC4, 11pm)
The first episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at the construction of the UK’s largest nuclear power station, delving into the technical challenges and the immense scale of the project. Engineers and workers face logistical and environmental hurdles as they work to complete a site expected to power millions of homes. The programme vividly illustrates the collaboration of science, engineering, and sheer determination involved in such a venture.

The documentary provides a brief but compelling exploration of nuclear power’s role in addressing the UK’s energy needs. With renewable sources like wind and solar dependent on weather conditions, nuclear power offers a stable and reliable base load. This is particularly critical for energy security, ensuring that the UK has a consistent supply of electricity to meet growing demands. However, the programme raises questions about whether the advantages of nuclear energy, such as its low greenhouse gas emissions and long-term reliability, outweigh its high costs and concerns about waste disposal.

Although the show focuses on the engineering triumphs and logistical complexities, it touches only lightly on the broader implications of nuclear power. The environmental benefits of reducing reliance on fossil fuels are mentioned, but the discussion lacks depth. Critics of nuclear power are largely absent, leaving viewers to ponder whether the programme presents a balanced perspective. For those curious about the broader debate around nuclear energy’s place in the UK’s energy strategy, this first episode serves as an intriguing starting point but leaves much room for further exploration.

Nowhere Special (2020) (BBC2, 11.05pm)
Nowhere Special is a quietly devastating film about love, loss, and the fragility of life. It tells the story of John, a terminally ill window cleaner, as he searches for a family to adopt his young son, Michael. The premise is simple, but its emotional weight is profound. Through John’s journey, the film explores the quiet resilience of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances. His stoic determination contrasts with the heartbreaking reality of his situation, making every moment deeply affecting.

The film is a tender portrait of lives on the margins, where small acts of kindness carry immense weight. Director Uberto Pasolini focuses on the mundane details of John’s life, creating a sense of intimacy that draws the audience in. The interactions with potential adoptive families reveal societal divides, exposing themes of class and privilege. Yet, the film never judges. It captures the humanity of each character, showing that even in the face of hardship, dignity and compassion endure.

What makes Nowhere Special so haunting is its restraint. It avoids melodrama, relying instead on quiet moments and unspoken emotions. James Norton’s understated performance as John is remarkable, conveying grief, love, and hope with subtlety. The bond between father and son is beautifully portrayed, making their inevitable separation all the more poignant. This is not just a story about loss but also about the enduring power of love.

’71 (2014) (Film4, 11.40pm)
’71 is a gripping and intense exploration of survival in a war-torn city. The film follows Gary Hook, a young British soldier separated from his unit during the Troubles in Belfast. Alone and disoriented, he must navigate a hostile environment where danger lurks around every corner. The streets become a battleground, where alliances shift, and trust is a scarce commodity. It is a taut, relentless thriller that vividly captures the chaos and fear of being stranded in enemy territory.

The film portrays the disorientation of urban conflict with striking realism. Director Yann Demange immerses the audience in Gary’s perspective, using tight, handheld camera work to convey the confusion and panic of his ordeal. The stark, unrelenting visuals reflect the grim reality of the Troubles, where violence and mistrust define daily life. Through Gary’s eyes, the film paints a harrowing picture of a divided community, where civilians and combatants alike are caught in a cycle of violence.

What sets ’71 apart is its focus on human connections amidst the chaos. Gary encounters strangers who risk their safety to help him, highlighting moments of compassion in an otherwise bleak world. These fleeting alliances reveal the complexity of the conflict, where personal ethics often clash with political loyalties. The film avoids simplistic portrayals of good and evil, showing the moral ambiguity faced by those on all sides of the conflict. It reminds us that humanity can persist, even in the most dire circumstances.

At its core, ’71 is more than a survival thriller; it is a powerful commentary on the devastating impact of war on individuals and communities. Jack O’Connell delivers a raw and compelling performance as Gary, embodying vulnerability and resilience. The film’s tension never lets up, keeping the audience on edge until the final moments. Taut, visceral, and deeply affecting, ’71 is a masterful depiction of survival and the human cost of conflict.

Tuesday 7th of January 2025

Accused: The Fake Grooming Scandal (one of three) (C4, 9pm)
This first episode introduces a media storm that tore apart lives and communities. A series of accusations led to innocent individuals being vilified in a frenzy of public outrage. Through interviews and reconstructed events, this episode sheds light on how the initial claims gained traction. It shows how powerful narratives, even when false, can override evidence and common sense.

The focus is on the accused, who found themselves at the centre of a modern witch hunt. Their stories are heartbreaking, highlighting the devastation caused to careers, families, and mental health. The public’s thirst for outrage, fuelled by sensationalist headlines, is examined in unflinching detail. Viewers are left questioning how easily collective judgment can be manipulated.

This episode also introduces the journalists and investigators who began to doubt the official narrative. Their determination to uncover the truth provides a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak story. A tense and gripping start to a series that demands attention.

Accused: The Fake Grooming Scandal (two of three) (C4, 9pm)
In the second episode, the focus shifts to the efforts to clear the names of the falsely accused. Those who were targeted face overwhelming odds as they seek justice. The episode documents their struggles against a system seemingly indifferent to the truth. Courtrooms, social media, and public opinion become battlegrounds, revealing how difficult it is to undo the damage of false accusations.

The emotional toll on the victims and their families is laid bare. Viewers see the pain of ostracisation, financial ruin, and psychological trauma. One particularly poignant moment shows a family forced to leave their community after receiving threats. The human cost of misinformation is explored with sensitivity and depth.

This instalment also highlights the role of legal advocates and journalists who fight to uncover the facts. Their work exposes the fragility of systems meant to protect the innocent. As cracks begin to form in the public narrative, the stakes grow higher for everyone involved. The tension builds, leaving viewers eager for the resolution..

Mona Lisa (1986) (Film4, 1.20am)
Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa is a neo-noir masterpiece that dives into the murky waters of London’s underworld, offering a gripping and emotionally complex exploration of redemption and connection. The film follows George (Bob Hoskins), a small-time hood recently released from prison, as he takes a job chauffeuring Simone (Cathy Tyson), a high-class call girl. Their unlikely partnership forms the core of the narrative, blending crime, romance, and existential longing.

Bob Hoskins delivers a powerhouse performance as George, a man grappling with his place in a world that has moved on without him. George is rough around the edges—blunt, sometimes violent, but with a raw humanity that makes him deeply relatable. His growing concern for Simone transcends the transactional nature of their arrangement, becoming a mission to protect her from the dangers of the life she inhabits.

Cathy Tyson’s portrayal of Simone is equally riveting. Beneath her polished exterior lies a woman trapped by circumstance, navigating a system that exploits her at every turn. Her relationship with George is complex, oscillating between trust, manipulation, and moments of genuine connection. Simone’s quest to find a young girl lost in the same web of exploitation serves as a poignant reminder of the vulnerability of those caught in cycles of abuse.

Neil Jordan’s direction is moody and evocative, capturing the grime and glamour of 1980s London. The city itself becomes a character, its neon-lit streets and shadowy corners reflecting the duality of hope and despair that permeates the story. Michael Caine’s chilling turn as the menacing underworld boss Mortwell adds further tension, reminding viewers of the ever-present dangers lurking beneath the surface.

Mona Lisa is more than just a crime drama—it’s a meditation on power, morality, and the human need for connection. The film’s noir aesthetic is enhanced by a haunting score and moments of sharp humour, making the darker themes even more impactful. By the end, the audience is left with a bittersweet conclusion that refuses to offer easy answers, instead embracing the messy, often painful complexities of life.

This is a must-watch for fans of character-driven narratives and atmospheric filmmaking. Mona Lisa continues to stand as one of British cinema’s finest achievements, with its themes of redemption and compassion resonating just as strongly today as they did in 1986.

Wednesday 8th of January 2025

Patience (one of six) (C4, 9pm)
The opening episode introduces Patience, a young autistic woman whose unique way of thinking becomes central to solving crimes. Played by Ella Maisy Purvis, who is herself autistic, the portrayal brings depth and authenticity to the character. Patience’s meticulous attention to detail and unconventional perspective prove indispensable as she unravels complex cases. The series, based on the Franco-Belgian crime drama Astrid: Murder In Paris, blends procedural intrigue with a heartfelt exploration of neurodiversity.

Filmed across York and Antwerp, the dual settings enrich the narrative with visual contrasts. The cobbled streets of York evoke warmth and history, while Antwerp’s urban landscapes add modern tension. The representation of neurodiversity in Patience is refreshing and overdue. Rarely do dramas place autistic characters at the centre without resorting to stereotypes or tokenism. Instead, this series offers an empathetic, layered depiction of a woman whose differences are her strengths.

The inclusion of Purvis, a neurodivergent actor, adds further authenticity. Her performance resonates with viewers, breaking barriers for representation in mainstream media. The show also fosters broader conversations about inclusivity and understanding. In a genre often dominated by conventional leads, Patience feels like a bold step forward, shining a light on stories that deserve to be told.

Accused: The Fake Grooming Scandal (three of three) (C4, 10pm)
The concluding episode centres on accountability. Those who spread falsehoods are confronted with the consequences of their actions. The victims, once silenced and sidelined, finally have their voices heard. The episode captures moments of vindication, but not without lingering damage to reputations and lives.

The programme highlights the institutional failures that allowed the scandal to escalate. Authorities, pressured by media and public opinion, acted hastily, compounding the harm. The ethical dilemmas faced by investigators and journalists are explored in depth. Viewers are challenged to consider how justice can be restored when trust is shattered.

As the series ends, it leaves a powerful impression. It’s a stark reminder of the cost of collective error and the importance of diligence in uncovering truth. A sobering and thought-provoking finale to a harrowing story.

The Shallows (2016) (BBC1, 10.40pm)
The Shallows is a tense and gripping survival thriller that pits human determination against the raw power of nature. The story follows Nancy, a surfer stranded on a rocky outcrop just 200 yards from shore, as she fights to outwit a relentless great white shark. The film’s premise is simple, yet its execution is masterful, capturing the primal fear of the unknown lurking beneath the waves. It’s a tale of survival that feels both visceral and deeply personal, immersing the audience in Nancy’s peril at every turn.

The vast, open sea becomes more than just a backdrop—it is a metaphor for isolation and resilience. Nancy’s struggle against the shark mirrors her internal battle, as she confronts her fears and draws strength from her determination to live. The film’s stunning cinematography heightens the tension, juxtaposing the beauty of the ocean with its deadly unpredictability. Every ripple and shadow in the water becomes a source of dread, underscoring the fragility of the human spirit when faced with nature’s might.

Blake Lively delivers a compelling performance, capturing Nancy’s vulnerability and resourcefulness with raw authenticity. Her physical and emotional endurance grounds the film, making her journey one of survival and self-discovery. The Shallows is more than a thriller; it’s a story about the indomitable will to survive. Taut, visually striking, and emotionally resonant, it leaves a lasting impression, reminding viewers of both the terror and awe inspired by the natural world.

Flag Day (2025) (Film4, 11.40pm)
Flag Day is a poignant and emotionally charged exploration of family, trust, and identity. The film follows Jennifer Vogel as she unravels the truth about her father, John, a charismatic but deeply flawed conman. Their relationship is marked by tenderness, love, and the ever-present shadow of deception. The film weaves these conflicting emotions into a powerful narrative, offering a deeply personal tale of a daughter’s search for clarity and self-discovery amidst a web of lies.

Flag Day is about the complexities of love and the pain of disillusionment. John’s larger-than-life personality draws both admiration and resentment from Jennifer, who must reconcile the father she adores with the man whose actions have hurt her. The film masterfully captures these emotional layers, revealing how love and betrayal can coexist. Through its intimate storytelling, it challenges viewers to consider how much of ourselves is shaped by our parents and their choices.

Visually, the film reflects the tension between beauty and chaos, with striking cinematography that underscores the emotional turmoil of the characters. Sean Penn delivers a nuanced performance as John, capturing the charm and desperation of a man running from the truth. Dylan Penn’s portrayal of Jennifer is equally compelling, conveying vulnerability and strength as she navigates the complexities of her father’s legacy. Flag Day is a bittersweet and thought-provoking journey, reminding us that self-discovery often comes at a personal cost.

Thursday 9th of January 2025

Patience (two of six) (C4, 9pm)
The second episode of Patience deepens the exploration of its titular character, played by the brilliant Ella Maisy Purvis. Building on the strong foundation of the series opener, this instalment delves into Patience’s personal and professional life, focusing on the complexities of her relationships and the intricate case she is tasked to solve. It’s a rich, layered episode that continues to blend procedural drama with deeply personal storytelling.

Patience’s autism remains central to the narrative, shaping both her investigative methods and her interactions with others. The episode sensitively portrays the ways her unique perspective becomes an asset in uncovering hidden details others might overlook. This case, involving a cold trail connected to an old family tragedy, forces her to confront her own past while piecing together the lives of those involved. Purvis’s nuanced performance conveys both the power and the challenges of seeing the world differently, making her portrayal authentic and deeply resonant.

Family dynamics take centre stage in this episode, as Patience’s relationship with her parents and siblings is explored through a series of flashbacks. These moments provide insight into her upbringing and the formative experiences that have shaped her identity. The tension between her desire for independence and her family’s protective instincts is palpable, offering a relatable depiction of the push and pull faced by neurodivergent individuals and their loved ones.

Playground (2021) (C4, 2.45am)

The film explores how social hierarchies are established and reinforced in seemingly innocent spaces. Adults, often oblivious or indifferent, fail to intervene effectively. This highlights the challenges of safeguarding the vulnerable. The children’s interactions are raw and authentic, capturing the ways young minds process and replicate what they see in the adult world.

The portrayal of peer pressure and complicity raises challenging questions about responsibility. Who has the power to disrupt cycles of cruelty? The film lingers on moments of tension and inaction, showing how easy it is for harm to persist unchallenged. At the same time, it offers glimpses of hope through fleeting acts of courage and compassion.

Playground resonates because of its honesty. It invites viewers to reflect on the subtle yet profound dynamics that shape early experiences. This is not just a story about school; it’s about the foundation of how we learn to treat one another. A small yet profoundly impactful film.

Friday 10th of January 2025

Arena: Bob Dylan: No Direction Home (BBC4, 10.20pm)
Arena: Bob Dylan: No Direction Home is an enthralling exploration of one of the most iconic and enigmatic figures in music history. Directed by Martin Scorsese, this documentary captures Dylan’s transformative journey from a young folk singer in the early 1960s to a cultural legend. Through a rich blend of rare archival footage, interviews, and performances, the film offers a layered portrait of an artist who continuously reinvented himself while shaping the musical and cultural landscape of his time.

The documentary focuses on pivotal moments in Dylan’s career, including his rise as a folk hero and his controversial decision to go electric, which divided fans and critics alike. It brings to life the energy and intensity of his early performances, as well as the profound influence of his music on the civil rights movement and the counterculture of the 1960s. Dylan’s evolution is presented not just as a musical journey but as a reflection of the social and political upheaval of the era.

Scorsese’s direction crafts a compelling narrative that balances the public and private aspects of Dylan’s life. While much of the musician’s mystique remains intact, the film provides glimpses into his creative process and the challenges he faced as an artist constantly pushing boundaries. No Direction Home is not only a celebration of Dylan’s genius but also a meditation on the complexities of fame, art, and identity. It is a must-watch for anyone seeking to understand the enduring impact of this extraordinary musician

Bob Dylan: Shadow Kingdom (BBC4, 1.45am)
This concert reimagines Dylan’s classics with a fresh lens. The intimate setting feels timeless.

Colette (2018) (BBC2, 11.05pm)
Colette is a captivating biographical drama that tells the story of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, a young woman who defies societal norms to become one of France’s most celebrated authors. The film begins with Colette’s marriage to Willy, a charming but self-serving literary entrepreneur who convinces her to ghostwrite for him. Her early novels, published under his name, gain widespread acclaim, but the credit is not hers. This sets the stage for a story of artistic liberation and personal empowerment.

As Colette’s voice grows stronger, so does her resistance to the constraints placed upon her. The film captures her journey from a subdued wife to a bold and independent artist determined to claim ownership of her work. Keira Knightley delivers a compelling performance, bringing to life Colette’s wit, passion, and growing defiance. Her portrayal highlights the struggles and triumphs of a woman reclaiming her identity in a world designed to silence her.

The film also explores the complexities of Colette’s relationship with Willy. Dominic West’s portrayal of Willy is both charming and infuriating, embodying the era’s gender dynamics that allowed men to exploit women’s talents for their gain. Their relationship is a mix of affection, manipulation, and rivalry, reflecting the broader societal tensions of the time. As Colette breaks free from his shadow, the film becomes a testament to her resilience and determination to succeed on her terms.

Director Wash Westmoreland brings early 20th-century France vividly to life, with lush cinematography and detailed period settings that immerse viewers in Colette’s world. Beyond its aesthetic appeal, the film delves into broader themes of gender, power, and artistic expression. Colette’s story resonates as a timeless reminder of the barriers women have faced—and continue to face—in asserting their voices in male-dominated spaces.

Colette is more than a biopic; it’s a celebration of creative freedom and self-discovery. Colette’s journey from obscurity to literary fame is both inspiring and thought-provoking, reminding us of the courage it takes to challenge conventions and reclaim one’s identity. With its powerful performances and rich storytelling, the film is a fitting tribute to a trailblazing artist who refused to be silenced.

and finally, Streaming

Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action (Netflix, 7th January 2025)
The chaotic talk show gets a deep dive, unpacking its cultural impact. It revels in the spectacle of conflict, often encouraging participants to expose raw emotions for public consumption. The programme raises unsettling questions about entertainment derived from humiliation and pain. Are such shows a mirror to society’s flaws, or do they amplify them for profit?

Behind the shouting matches and dramatic reveals lies a platform that gave a voice to the marginalised. Yet, the line between empowerment and exploitation often blurred. Viewers are invited to laugh or gasp at the participants, while their struggles are commodified. It’s both fascinating and troubling to consider who truly benefited.

The review also probes the wider consequences of this format. The normalisation of sensationalism reshaped television, spawning countless imitators. It left a legacy of shows prioritising conflict over resolution, entertainment over empathy. The audience, too, was complicit, consuming drama at the expense of dignity.

This retrospective forces reflection on the ethical balance of such programmes. While undeniably engaging, they raise difficult questions about the media’s responsibility and the cost of public spectacle. Is it a window into reality or a distortion of it? A guilty pleasure that demands closer scrutiny.

Bank Of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger (Netflix, 10th January 2025)
A sequel showcasing grassroots financial triumphs. Heartfelt and inspiring, it reminds us of people power.

Walter Presents: Sleepers (Channel 4 Streaming, 10th January 2025)
This series delves into lives disrupted by choices from the past. It’s gripping, atmospheric, and full of twists.

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Picture credits

The Courier (2020)
By Studio and or Graphic Artist – Can be obtained from film’s distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66517874
120 BPM (2018)
The poster art can or could be obtained from the distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55875917
Kelly’s Heroes (1970)
By Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) – IMPawards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38329896
The Fugitive
Rome: Rise And Fall Of An Empire
Building Britain’s Biggest Nuclear Power Station
By gov.uk – https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-confirms-hinkley-point-c-project-following-new-agreement-in-principle-with-edf, OGL 3, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116286699
Nowhere Special (2020)
By https://www.cinematerial.com/movies/nowhere-special-i11286640/info, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65296426
’71 (2014)
The poster art can or could be obtained from the distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43901375
Accused: The Fake Grooming Scandal (parts one, two, and three)
Mona Lisa (1986)
By http://www.moviegoods.com, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8176586
Patience (parts one and two)
The Life And Deaths Of Christopher Lee
The Shallows (2016)
The poster art can or could be obtained from Columbia Pictures., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49562440
Flag Day (2025)
By IMP Awards / 2021 Movie Poster Gallery / Flag Day Poster, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68345493
Playground (2021)
By The poster art can or could be obtained from the distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69613644
Arena: Bob Dylan: No Direction Home
By May be found at the following website: Amazon.com, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2759904
Bob Dylan: Shadow Kingdom
By Raph_PH – DylanYoungKilkenny140719v2 (50 of 52), CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=153840966
Colette (2018)
By https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5437928/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57884483

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Strange Days: A Dystopian Vision of Technology and Identity by Pat Harrington

December 29, 2024 at 11:27 am · Filed under Film & DVD Reviews, Uncategorized ·Tagged Film Reviews, Kathryn Bigelow, Memory Technology, movies, Patrick Harrington, reviews, Sci-Fi Thriller, Strange Days

805 words, 4 minutes read time.

Released in 1995 and directed by Kathryn Bigelow, Strange Days is a film that defies easy categorization. Combining elements of science fiction, neo-noir, and gritty social commentary, it explores a dystopian Los Angeles on the brink of the new millennium. Despite its star-studded cast and ambitious vision, the film remains underappreciated, perhaps because of its raw depiction of race, violence, and identity in a society pushed to the edge. Yet, this very audacity makes it a film that feels prophetic and worth revisiting in today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape.

A Visionary Premise

At the heart of Strange Days is the concept of “playback” technology: illegal recordings of people’s memories and sensations that others can experience as if they were their own. Ralph Fiennes stars as Lenny Nero, a fallen ex-cop turned black-market dealer in these sensory experiences. The technology itself is both thrilling and disturbing, offering viewers a window into the ethical dilemmas of voyeurism, consent, and the commodification of human experience. As Lenny navigates a city embroiled in racial tensions and systemic corruption, the film questions what it means to consume someone else’s memories and how this alters one’s sense of self.

The brilliance of this premise lies in how it anticipates our current relationship with technology. While Strange Days presents a physical, tactile technology, the themes resonate with today’s social media landscape, where the curated lives of others are consumed incessantly. The idea that experiencing someone else’s memories could distort our own identity feels prescient in a world where personal narratives are shaped by what we see and share online.

Identity and the Consequences of Memory Sharing

One of the film’s most fascinating explorations is the impact of memory-sharing on personal identity. For Lenny, replaying his past relationship with Faith (Juliette Lewis) becomes a form of addiction, a refusal to move forward from a romanticized, idealized past. This echoes how individuals today often use digital memories—photos, videos, and posts—to construct a narrative of who they are or wish to be, sometimes at the expense of growth or reality.

The implications of such technology are vast. If memories could be shared indiscriminately, they might blur the boundaries between individual experiences and collective consciousness. Would we lose a sense of self, or would we gain a deeper understanding of others? Strange Days doesn’t offer easy answers but invites viewers to wrestle with these questions, making it a profoundly philosophical work masked as a thriller.

Rapid Technological Change and Its Reflection

One of the film’s most striking points is its warning about the pace of technological advancement. In Lenny’s world, the playback technology has outpaced society’s ability to reflect on its moral and ethical implications. This mirrors the real-world dilemma of our time: the explosion of AI, virtual reality, and social media has brought about transformative changes, but we often adopt these technologies without fully understanding their societal impacts.

By showcasing how this unchecked advancement exacerbates existing inequalities and feeds into voyeuristic, exploitative tendencies, Strange Days becomes a cautionary tale. It asks whether humanity can handle the tools it creates or if these tools will amplify our worst impulses.

The Shocking and the Underappreciated

Strange Days does not shy away from uncomfortable truths. Some of its scenes, particularly those depicting violence and exploitation, are shocking and hard to watch. These moments are not gratuitous but serve as a critique of a society desensitized to suffering and consumed by spectacle. However, the film’s uncompromising approach might also explain its limited reception.

Could the racial themes—depicting a city on the brink of racial warfare and the assassination of a Black activist—have been too edgy for mainstream audiences in the mid-90s? Or was it the visceral violence, combined with its unflinching commentary on police corruption, that alienated viewers? Perhaps the film’s hybrid genre and ambitious scope made it difficult for marketing teams to categorize and promote effectively.

Moreover, the film’s underwhelming box office performance may have contributed to its scarcity in home media and streaming platforms, leaving it a hidden gem for cinephiles rather than a celebrated classic.

Conclusion: A Moral Ground for an Era-Defining Film

Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days is not just a film but a cultural artifact. Its commentary on technology, race, and human nature feels more relevant today than it did upon release. The performances, particularly Angela Bassett as the fiercely loyal Mace, elevate the film beyond its genre trappings, grounding its speculative elements in emotional reality.

Strange Days is a film that deserves greater recognition, not just for its technical achievements and performances but for its bold willingness to confront the societal undercurrents many films shy away from. It stands as a stark reminder of the responsibilities that come with technological power and the need for reflection amid rapid change—a message that resonates even more profoundly in our modern world.

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By May be found at the following website: http://iluvcinema.com/2011/06/tuesdays-overlooked-film-strange-days/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4802513

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Pat Harrington looks at Gladiator II: A Visual Feast with a Lack of Depth?

December 4, 2024 at 12:11 pm · Filed under Film & DVD Reviews ·Tagged Claire Simpson, Connie Nielsen, David Franzoni, David Scarpa, Denzel Washington, Derek Jacobi, Douglas Wick, Fred Hechinger, gladiator, Harry Gregson-Williams, John Mathieson, Joseph Quinn, Lior Raz, Lucy Fisher, Michael Pruss, movies, Patrick Harrington, Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Peter Craig, Ridley Scott, Sam Restivo

339 words, 2 minutes read time.

Gladiator II is a visual spectacle. It builds on the legacy of Ridley Scott’s 2000 classic, but its depth falls short. While the original Gladiator was rich in moral and political themes, this sequel prioritises action over meaning.

The first film explored power, corruption, and the idea of justice. It was a story of revenge but also redemption. Maximus was a symbol of honour in a dishonourable world. His journey exposed the rot at the heart of the Roman Empire.

In contrast, Gladiator II offers less reflection. It focuses more on violence and spectacle. The political undertones are vague, and the ethical dilemmas feel superficial. It entertains but rarely provokes thought.

Psychologically, it touches on the scars left by violence. Characters struggle with loss and trauma, but these themes feel secondary to the action. The emotional weight of Maximus’s story is missing. Instead, the film feels more like an adrenaline rush.

The Romans were drawn to violent games for many reasons. The Colosseum was a place to distract the masses. It provided entertainment and reinforced imperial power. The games celebrated strength and dominance. They masked the struggles of daily life with blood and glory.

Today, films like Gladiator II serve a similar purpose. They distract us from our own realities. They let us experience danger and power from a safe distance. Violence on screen shocks, but it also excites.

Why are we so drawn to it? Perhaps it connects us to something primal. Violence is dramatic. It reveals extremes of human nature—courage, fear, cruelty. The arena, whether ancient or cinematic, is a place of high stakes.

But where the original Gladiator questioned this spectacle, the sequel embraces it. It doesn’t challenge our fascination with violence; it indulges it. This makes it thrilling but less profound.

Gladiator II is entertaining, but it lacks the soul of its predecessor. The first film asked big questions. This one delivers big action. It’s a triumph of visuals, but not of ideas.

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By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77311566

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Posts Tagged Patrick Harrington

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STREAMING CHOICE

Plot Outline

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and finally, Streaming

A Visionary Premise

Identity and the Consequences of Memory Sharing

Rapid Technological Change and Its Reflection

The Shocking and the Underappreciated

Conclusion: A Moral Ground for an Era-Defining Film

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