Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Simon Wardell

Pinocchio to Thor: Love and Thunder – the seven best films to watch on TV this week

Tom Hanks as Geppetto in Disney's Pinnochio.
Tom Hanks as Geppetto in Disney's Pinnochio. Photograph: Disney

Pick of the week

Pinocchio

Later this year, Guillermo del Toro will release his version of the classic nosy tale, but Disney has beaten him to the punch with their own remake. With the film’s mingling of live action and animation, Robert Zemeckis is a safe pair of hands as director, having previous with Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Inevitably, his old mucker Tom Hanks stars as Geppetto, the carpenter who builds a wooden puppet (voiced by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) that is brought to life but dreams of being a real boy. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Pinocchio’s insect conscience Jiminy Cricket, while Cynthia Erivo’s Blue Fairy puts her spin on When You Wish Upon a Star and Keegan-Michael Key plays a menacing fox. Simon Wardell
Thursday, Disney+

***

Color Out of Space

Nicolas Cage in Color Out of Space.
Nicolas Cage in Color Out of Space. Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

Richard Stanley’s psychedelic sci-fi fuses an HP Lovecraft story with classic body horror Society – and then throws Nicolas Cage into the mix to guarantee chaos. He plays an alpaca farmer whose life, and those of his wife and two teenage kids, becomes increasingly nightmarish after a mysterious, glowing meteorite crashes in his garden. Its sickly magenta-purple emanations infect the land, water, flora and fauna, leading to visions, violence and insanity. Cage is a loose cannon but he fits perfectly in a gloriously hallucinatory experience. SW
Saturday, 9pm, AMC

***

The Incredibles

Still super – The Incredibles.
Still super – The Incredibles. Photograph: Disney\pixar/Allstar

Pixar’s affectionate ode to the superhero comic and James Bond movies gives its heroic couple probably the hardest mission of their lives: childcare. After the “supers” are forced to retire, Mr Incredible and Elastigirl – AKA Bob and Helen Parr – settle down into a humdrum life of office work, wrangling three kids and trying not to use their powers to fight crime. It can’t last, of course, and Brad Bird’s animated adventure has great fun with their faltering return to action, amid secret lairs and island hideouts Bond designer Ken Adam would have been proud of. SW
Sunday, 3.50pm, BBC One

***

Eastern Promises

Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises.
Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises. Photograph: Bbc Films/Allstar

Before Peaky Blinders, writer Steven Knight had already delved into a criminal empire – that of the Russian mafia in the UK – in David Cronenberg’s murky tale of crime and morality. Viggo Mortensen plays it cool as Nikolai, the London-based henchman to the impulsive Kirill (Vincent Cassel), heir of mobster Semyon (a quietly dangerous Armin Mueller-Stahl). After a 14-year-old trafficked sex worker dies in childbirth, midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) finds herself in Nikolai’s orbit, where the codes of loyalty and violence will be familiar to fans of the Brummie gang. SW
Tuesday, 11.15pm, BBC Two

***

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Sam Rockwell in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
Sam Rockwell in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
Photograph: Miramax/Allstar

For his 2002 debut as a director, George Clooney picked a doozy of a story – the memoir of American TV gameshow producer Chuck Barris. The creator of The Gong Show and The Dating Game (AKA Blind Date), Barris was also, he claims, a CIA assassin in his spare time. It’s a fascinating caper, lovingly shot in styles that change with the decades (faded Technicolor for the 60s; hard-edged noir for the 70s) and with a wholehearted Sam Rockwell as the off-kilter Barris. SW
Tuesday, 12.40am, Sky Cinema Greats

***

Thor: Love and Thunder

Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Love and Thunder.
Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Love and Thunder. Photograph: Disney/Allstar

Comedy is to the fore again in the latest outing for Chris Hemsworth’s winningly obtuse Norse god. This makes for an interesting clash of styles with his arch foe, Gorr the God Butcher, played by Christian Bale. Gorr is a sombre, sympathetic figure, who sets out to take revenge on the deities who let his daughter die. The dynamic is further complicated by the return of Thor’s ex, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). She has terminal cancer but gets respite via Thor’s hammer, becoming Mighty Thor and stealing his thunder, in Taika Waititi’s scattergun but still enjoyable fantasy adventure. SW
Thursday, Disney+

***

Cold Mountain

Jude Law on target in Cold Mountain.
Jude Law on target in Cold Mountain. Photograph: Cattleya Films/Allstar

Anthony Minghella nailed the kind of epic drama that used to be common Hollywood currency with this 2003 historical romance. Jude Law plays Inman, a Confederate soldier who deserts to return to his true love, Ada (Nicole Kidman), in North Carolina’s Appalachians. A well-off preacher’s daughter, Ada struggles to work her farm alone after her father’s death, until the no-nonsense Ruby (a boisterous, Oscar-winning Renée Zellweger) turns up to set her right. A film of sumptuous landscapes and sweeping emotions, with distinct Homeric overtones. SW
Friday, 8pm, Sky Cinema Greats

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.