Given the chimpanzee documentary declared the best movie of the week, the most difficult thing BC on TV has done all year is to refrain today from picking *Rise of the Planet of the Apes (8.55 pm MCP). Today's also-rans are limited to a couple of kiddie flicks *Hugo (7.30 am and 9.30 am, MCP), *Rango, (1.25 pm and 3.25 pm today and again 5.20 pm Tuesday MCF) and a Spidey revamp The Amazing Spider-Man (3 pm and 6.38 pm HBO). The rest of the week's runners-up include what may be the best Western shot in B&W *High Noon, (8 pm Tuesday Enc3), the best American comedy about teenage pregnancy *Juno, (6.30 pm Friday MaxW) and probably Steven Spielberg's best film, ever *Schindler's List, (10 pm Friday TCM).
Today's best film:
The Descendants (Alexander Payne/ 2011/ USA/ Drama/ 115 mins / R for language including some sexual references), 5.30 am and 7.30 am Movie City Premieres. Watch this if you liked Another Year, The Kids Are All Right or Please Give. The Sideways director delivers a powerful, touching drama giving George Clooney his best role since O Brother Where Art Thou? Apart from the possibly intermittently intrusive score, this is a nearly perfectly made film about loss, forgiveness and redemption. The last frame, in which the cast watch the audience, recalls The 400 Blows and approaches genius. Named by BC on TV as the third-best DVD release of 2013, it is an unmitigated delight for all but the moronic.
Rest of the week:
Project Nim (James Marsh/2011/UK-USA/Documentary/93 mins/PG-13 for some strong language, drug content, thematic elements and disturbing images) 9 pm Monday HBO Family. BEST FILM OF THE WEEK. Watch this if you liked Into the Abyss, Grizzly Man or The Fog of War. A contender for Best Documentary Ever Made (though it would still place second behind The Fog of War for BC on TV; probably), the great strength of this exceptional film about an intelligent monkey is how plainly it reveals the foolishness of man. The most tragic role BC on TV has ever seen on screen falls to the real-life chimpanzee, Nim Chimsky, playing himself: the cute little monkey who a bunch of semi-intellectual poser-stoners in the 70s thought they could teach sign language, and whose innocent life they ruined in the process. Almost every human implicated in the conspiracy looks awful, and the creature destroyed by their thoughtlessness correspondingly magnificent. Were this film ever screened in a prison, it would cause riots. Magnificent but extremely harrowing for the sensitive.
American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman/2003 USA/Black Comedy-Biography-Drama-Animation-Fantasy/ R), 8 pm Thursday Max. Watch this if you liked A Scanner Darkly, Persepolis or Daredevil. The partially animated, partially real film biography of Harvey Pekar, who wrote a comic book series based on his own ordinary life–"Ordinary life is pretty challenging stuff"–is far better as film than the comic was as comic; it is a contender for the best-made American film (technically) of the new century. As biography, it is kind to its considerably less than extraordinary subject without being at all condescending.
Best of the rest: Mon: Jean-Michel Basquiat, 7 pm HBOC; Tues: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 5.10 pm MCC; Wed: Lethal Weapon, 5.45 pm MaxW; Thurs: *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, 9 pm HBOF; Fri: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 9 pm HBOF; Sat: The Wild One, 6.30 pm TCM.
*Starred films have been chosen before. Scheduled Internet times often vary on the day.