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| I Am Not A Witch |
Rungano Nyoni’s second film On Becoming A Guinea Fowl will be in competition at London Film Festival this autumn and here’s a chance to catch up with her first. Young Zambian Shula (Maggie Mulubwa) finds herself accused of practising the dark arts. Packed off to a witch camp, she is forced to work, tethered alongside her fellow "witches" by gigantic cotton bobbins, which add an edge of the surreal to the Welsh-Zambian writer/director’s tale. Shula’s self-declared state guardian Mr Banda (Henry PJ Phiri) embodies the ludicrous elements of the patriarchy as well as the danger, as he brags to the women about how much longer their tethers are since he took office. There are plenty of laughs here but they are mixed with sharp satire about power dynamics and politics that gives way to a moving poignancy as Nyoni slowly tightens the focus on Shula's plight.
Unstoppable, 9pm, ITV4, Monday, September 2 and the same time on the channel on Friday, september 6
Jennie Kermode writes: Trying to stop the train in The Railway Children may have been a close call, but what if it can’t be stopped at all? Tony Scott’s final film as a director takes this admittedly silly premise and goes completely off the rails. Denzel Washington and Chris Pine battle their way through one patently unfair crisis after another, and although it takes a while to get going, once the engine is fired up the action doesn’t stop. You’ll have to be prepared to suspend disbelief a bit – as in Snowpiercer, neither the body of the train itself nor the shape of the track quite conform to physics as we know it – but Scott was never one to worry about these things and the actors are more than capable of convincing us that they believe it. With dangerous chemicals on board (it’s never really clear why) and a town in peril, the runaway train has to be brought under control.
Batman, 7.05pm, Talking Pictures TV (Freeview Channel 82), Tuesday, September 3
Long before the Caped Crusader took on bleak big-screen tendencies, this enjoyable adventure saw TV favourites Adam West and Burt Ward step up to a feature-length superhero tale as Batman and his faithful sidekick Robin. In terms of bad guys, the gang’s all here, with Cesar Romero and Burgess Meredith particularly memorable as Joker and Penguin alongside Lee Meriwether’s Catwoman and Frank Gorshin's Riddler, equipped with a kidnap plot that’s not exactly taxing. West and Ward nail the tone as they camp it up with aplomb in a story that’s bright, breezy and - though we might whisper it in Christian Bale tones - a hell of a lot of fun.
Inglourious Basterds, 9pm, Film4, Tuesday, September 3
Quentin Tarantino leaves his usual American stomping ground behind for this period piece about a group of Jewish-American soldiers on the hunt for Nazis during the Second World War. Led by Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine, the group find themselves involved in a plot to blow up Hitler. The writer/director's penchant for creative violence and baroque scripting is very much in evidence as the story unfolds in chapters, showcasing a broad cast of characters, including Christoph Waltz in a memorable role as an SS colonel. Although the film's five segments are a little uneven, with Tarantino's love of dialogue inevitably leading the pace to slacken in places, this is nevertheless a polished homage to war films that gathers pace as it goes.
Get Carter, 10.45pm, BBC2, Thursday, September 5
The grimy world of gangsters is to the fore in Mike Hodges feature debut, the tale of a man on a mission of vengeance in Newcastle. Michael Caine feels as sharp and raw as a jagged knife edge as enforcer Jack Carter, who is determined to get to the bottom of his brother's death. Unashamedly brutal in its approach to violence - including the memorable dispatching of Brian Mosley (more remembered for his regular turn as Alf Roberts on Corrie). Coupled with snappy dialogue and Caine's dry delivery, this is gangland with all the grit that offers a time capsule of a Seventies underworld long paved over.
Gladiator, 10.40pm, ITV1, Saturday, September 7
With Ridley Scott’s sword and sandals sequel due in cinemas this autumn and Those About To Die available on Amazon, Rome is back in fashion. Your mileage may vary in terms of the drama of this tale of an exiled general (Russell Crowe), who becomes a gladiator out for vengeance but the action sequences are on the money. Among the more impressive interludes is a colosseum fight with a tiger. A real tiger was used for some of the shots and it got a bit close for comfort. At the time, Scott told Variety: “[The tiger was] a big boy from tail to nose, 11ft. You’ve got two guys on a chain with a ring in the floor to control it. Russell said, ‘OK, release them,’ and when Russell would fall back, the tiger would come out of the hole and Russell would roll out of the way and he said, ‘F*** me, that was close.’" The tiger might only be onscreen for about five minutes but as cameos go, it's a roaring success.
Mr Popper’s Penguins, 2.55pm, Film4, Sunday
There may be a predictable sweep to this adaptation of the novel by Richard and Florence Atwater but, as always, Jim Carrey - who had already had a go at being a workaholic dad in Liar Liar - elevates the material by force of will and contortion of face. Mr Popper (Carrey) ends up inheriting a pack of penguins who proceed to wreak havoc - and quite a few impressive set action pieces - in his life. Another plus for the script is Angela Lansbury as the owner of a tavern that Popper's real estate bosses want to get their hands on, bringing with her the sort of life lessons she regularly dished out in cinema since Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
You'll need to pop over to Vimeo to watch our short for this week. Daniel Mulloy's Baby is a dark little tale starring Daniel Kaluuya back before he was a Hollywood hot property.
