Once Upon A Time in…Hollywood
Comedy, Sat 1, Sunday, 10:20 p.m
The almost unvarnished story of self-doubting actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new neighbor is a sweet sensation. Rarely is one transported into a foreign time as completely as here (to the late 1960s). Like all great films, this one grows in memory. There are a number of reasons for this: Quentin Tarantino has never been more laid-back, his music selection has never been more coherent, Brad Pitt has never been cooler than in the role of Rick’s sidekick and Los Angeles has never been more real than in the sprawling drives through the city. Some took offense at Margot Robbie’s portrayal of Sharon Tate – and even more so at Tarantino’s free resolution of her story. On the other hand, the world has reached such a dark point, why not reward the right ones?
Mr & Mrs Smith
Action comedy, Sat 1, Saturday, 8:15 p.m
Strong Women’s Weekend begins with the fantasy that a man could take on Angelina Jolie. She and Brad Pitt are married couples in this action-comedy who haven’t realized they’re rival hitmen for years. So they’re either amateurs because they don’t see each other’s camouflage. Or the best pros ever, because they got their camouflage so good they couldn’t see each other. Sandra Bullock, on the other hand, is poorly disguised as Miss undercover (Sat 1, Saturday, 10:40 p.m.). Ironically, the tomboy and uncouth cop with the inappropriate name Gracie is supposed to compete in a beauty pageant to find culprits before a bomb goes off. Bullock was so funny doing it that part two, which runs after that (12:50am), was inevitable. At least he had the quarrelsome Bullock/Regina King duo.
A heart and a crown
Romance, RBB, Saturday, 11.30 p.m
It is said that this project was ruled unfilmable in the early 1950s. Comedy specialist Frank Capra complained that no one could meet the criteria for the leading role. Until Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston appeared as Princess Ann, “long-legged, swan-necked”, unused – and eloped in Rome. The US journalist, who first wants to sell his encounter as a scoop (do-gooder Gregory Peck), quickly succumbs to the charm that Audrey Hepburn exuded in almost every one of her films for 15 glorious years – “confirming Billy Wilder’s prediction that she would break the bosom out of the brought fashion”, as Brigitte Desalm in her portrait of Hepburn 30 years ago steady cam wrote. No one blamed Hepburn for that, because she still managed to make both men and women fall in love with her with ease.
sense and sensuality
Romance, Sixx, Sunday, 10:50 p.m
Jane Austen’s love affair with cinema will soon last 85 years. The quantity and quality of the films has never been as high as it was in 1995/96, when half a dozen outstanding versions hit the cinemas. Mostly they are about courageous women who are ahead of their time, but who often need to be nudged again to take the last step and put false friends in their place. Emma Thompson, as the writer of this adaptation of sense and sensuality Oscar-winning, despite the tight corset in which the role and the historical background forced her, she managed to make the volcano behind the supposed iceberg palpable. At that point at the latest you understand what director Ang Lee (Tiger & Dragon) interested in this project with his mixture of Taiwanese good manners and surprising sharpness.