TV Movie Guide: 27 April – 3 May | Movie News

MONDAY 27 APRIL

Angry Inuk
1:00pm, NITV

M
Canada, 2016
Genre: Documentary
Language: Inuktitut
Director: Alethea Arnaquq-Baril
What’s it about?
With selfies and social media, a new tech-savvy generation of Inuit is wading into the world of activism, using humour and reason to confront aggressive animal rights vitriol and defend their traditional hunting practices. Director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril joins her fellow Inuit activists as they challenge outdated perceptions of Inuit and present themselves to the world as a modern people in dire need of a sustainable economy.

Childish Games
12:20am, SBS VICELAND

M
Spain, 2012
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Language: German, Spanish
Director: Antonio Chavarrías
Starring: Juan Diego Botto, Bárbara Lennie, Mágica Pérez, Marc Rodríguez
What’s it about?
When flaky novelist Mario (Rodríguez) turns up one day at the school where Daniel (Botto) teaches, the educator is convinced the writer is a spirit from his repressed past, buried deep in his subconscious. As children, the two might almost have been brothers. But the marriage between Daniel’s father and Mario’s mother never materialised. This unexpected re-encounter brings both families together.

TUESDAY 28 APRIL

Battlefield Earth
12:00pm, SBS VICELAND

M
USA, 2000
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Director: Roger Christian
Starring: Barry Pepper, Forest Whitaker, John Travolta
What’s it about?
It is 3000 A.D. and Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Pepper) is a renegade human who has eluded alien enslavement, until he too comes under the savage rule of alien chief of security, Terl (Travolta). Terl is impressed with Jonnie’s skilful attempts at escape and spares him for a special project. Jonnie, however, has plans of his own and annihilation of his captors is just the beginning. 

Battlefield Earth: Review

I Am Steve McQueen
9:20pm, SBS VICELAND

M
Canada, 2014
Genre: Documentary
Language: English
Director: Jeff Renfroe
What’s it about?
“I Am Steve McQueen” tells the incredible life story of this legendary actor, racer, and cultural icon. Extensive interviews, movie clips, archival footage and sound bites chronicle his extraordinary career while focusing on the correlation between his on-screen and off-screen experiences. Narrated by Robert Downey Jr.

Prince Avalanche
12:40am, SBS VICELAND

M
USA, 2013
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Language: English
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Gina Grande, Joyce Payne, Lance LeGault, Lynn Shelton, Paul Rudd, Emile Hirsch
What’s it about?
An odd couple of sorts, Alvin (Rudd), meditative and stern, and his girlfriend’s brother Lance (Hirsch), dopey and insecure, leave the city behind to spend the summer in solitude repainting traffic lines down the center of a country highway ravaged by wildfire. As the two begin their gradual journey across the landscape, swapping stories and butting heads, what unfolds is a humorous yet moving examination of an unlikely friendship. From David Gordon Green, director of George Washington and Pineapple Express.

Prince Avalanche: David Gordon Green interview

WEDNESDAY 29 APRIL

BASEketball
8:30pm, SBS VICELAND

M
USA, 1998
Genre: Comedy
Language: English
Director: David Zucker
Starring: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Yasmine Bleeth, Jenny McCarthy, Ernest Borgnine
What’s it about?
Two losers from Milwaukee, Coop (Parker) & Remer (Stone), invent a new game playing basketball, using baseball rules. When the game becomes a huge success, they, along with a billionaire’s help, form the Professional Baseketball League where everyone gets the same pay and no team can change cities. Theirs is the only team standing in the way of major rule changes that the owner of a rival team wants to institute.

Your Highness
10:25pm, SBS VICELAND

MA15+
USA, 2011
Genre: Comedy, Adventure, Fantasy
Language: English
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Danny McBride, Justin Theroux, Natalie Portman, James Franco, Zooey Deschanel
What’s it about?
Thadeous (McBride) has spent his life watching his perfect older brother Fabious (Franco) embark upon valiant journeys and win the hearts of his people. Tired of being passed over for adventure, adoration and the throne, he’s settled for a life of wizard’s weed, hard booze and easy maidens. But when Fabious’ bride-to-be, Belladonna (Deschanel), gets kidnapped by the evil wizard Leezar (Theroux), the king gives his deadbeat son an ultimatum: Man up and help rescue her or get cut off. 

Dr. Knock
11:55pm, SBS

M
France, 2017
Genre: Comedy
Language: French
Director: Lorraine Levy
Starring: Omar Sy, Ana Girardot, Alex Lutz, Helene Vincent, Pascal Elbé, Christian Hecq
What’s it about?
Doctor Knock (Sy) is a former thug who has become a doctor and arrives in the small village of Saint-Maurice to make his fortune according to a particular method. It will make the villagers believe that they are not as healthy as they might think. It is thus that he will find in each one an imaginary symptom, or not, and thus will be able to exercise his profession lucratively.

The Future
12:20am, SBS VICELAND

M
USA, 2011
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Director: Miranda July
Starring: Miranda July, Hamish Linklater, David Warshofsky
What’s it about?
When a couple (July & Linklater) decides to adopt a stray cat their perspective on life changes radically, literally altering the course of time and space and testing their faith in each other and themselves. Miranda July’s follow up as writer-director to 2005’s arthouse hit Me and You and Everyone We Know.

The Future: Review

THURSDAY 30 APRIL

The Monkey King
12:00PM, SBS VICELAND

M
Hong Kong, 2014
Genre: Family, Adventure, Action
Language: Mandarin, Cantonese
Director: Soi Cheang
Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Donnie Yen, Aaron Kwok, Joe Chen
What’s it about?
Donnie Yen plays the legendary character Sun Wukong, AKA The Monkey King, in the new big budget adaptation of the classic 16th century novel, Journey to the West. After obtaining special superpowers, Sun Wukong goes on an adventure to India and battles duelling armies of gods and demons.

The Monkey King: Review

Takeover
1:05pm, NITV

M
Australia, 1979
Genre: Documentary
Language: English
Director: David MacDougall, Judith MacDougall
What’s it about?
This documentary observes the profound effect on an Aboriginal community of political and bureaucratic decisions made far away. Although specific to time and place, the film is timeless and universal in its observations of a conflict between an Indigenous minority and a powerful government.

The Strength of Water
9:40pm, NITV (repeats 1:30pm, Friday 1 May)

M
New Zealand, 2009
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Director: Armagan Ballantyne
Starring: Melanie Mayall-Nahi, Hato Paparoa, Nancy Brunning, Isaac Barber, Kingi Allen
What’s it about?
Soon after a mysterious stranger arrives in their isolated town on the rugged coast of New Zealand, 10-year-old twins, Kimi (Paparoa) and Melody (Mayall-Nahi), are forced apart by a tragic accident. Kimi must find the strength to deal with his loss. Nominated for Best Children’s Feature Film at the 2009 Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

FRIDAY 1 MAY

Born to Dance
11:40am, NITV

PG
New Zealand, 2015
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Director: Tammy Davis
Starring: Tia Maipi, Stan Walker, Kherington Payne, John Tui, Parris Goebel
What’s it about?
Coming of age tale told through the eyes of ‘Tu’, an ambitious young man from Auckland who dreams of being a professional hip-hop dancer.

Lupin the Third
12:00pm, SBS VICELAND

M
Japan, 2017
Genre: Crime, Thriller
Language: Japanese
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
Starring: Shun Oguri, Jerry Yan, Tetsuji Tamayama
What’s it about?
A Japanese heist film that follows the grandson of a legendary gentleman burglar as he assembles a team of thieves to steal a Cleopatran necklace from two parties – an ally-turned-rival, and an underworld tycoon. 

The Watsons Go to Birmingham
7:45pm, NITV (repeats 10:00am, Saturday 1 May)

PG
USA, 2013
Genre: Family, History
Language: English
Director: Kenny Leon
Starring: Bryce Clyde Jenkins, Harrison Knight, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, David Alan Grier
What’s it about?
In the Summer of 1963, Flint, Michigan is home to the Watsons, a close knit family. When 15 year-old Byron’s (Knight) antics go over the top, his parents realise enough is enough and they decide the family needs a dose of Grandma Sands’ no nonsense approach in Birmingham, Alabama. So the Watsons load up their 1948 Plymouth Brown Bomber and head South.

mother!
11:00pm, SBS

MA15+
USA, 2017
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
Language: English
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer
What’s it about?
A couple’s (Lawrence, Bardem) relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence. The controversial latest feature from Darren Aronofsky, director of The Wrestler, Black Swan and Requiem For a Dream.

SATURDAY 2 MAY

Crazy Heart
8:30pm, SBS

M
USA, 2009
Genre: Drama, Music
Language: English
Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Colin Farrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall
What’s it about?
Bad Blake (Bridges, in an Oscar-winning performance) is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician.

Crazy Heart: Review

One Thousand Ropes
8:30pm, NITV

M
New Zealand, 2016
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Director: Tusi Tamasese
Starring: Frankie Adams, Nathaniel Lees, Uelese Petaia, Beulah Koale
What’s it about?
The father of a deeply troubled household that endured tragedy both from without and within, seeks to reconcile with his youngest daughter by making a journey to both symbolically and culturally lay the family “ghosts” to rest.

A Better Man
10:40pm, NITV

M
Canada, 2017
Genre: Documentary
Language: English
Director: Lawrence Jackman, Attiya Khan
Starring: Attiya Khan
What’s it about?
Following a series of intimate conversations between a former couple who lived through two years of domestic abuse, this documentary is a fresh and nuanced look at the healing and revelation that can happen for everyone involved when men take responsibility for their abuse.

New World
12:15am, SBS VICELAND

MA15+
South Korea, 2013
Genre: Thriller
Language: Korean
Director: Hoon-jung Park
Starring: Jung-jae Lee, Min-sik Choi, Jung-min Hwang
What’s it about?
An undercover police officer investigating a powerful Korean crime ring is torn between his duty to uphold the law, and his loyalty to the criminal who trusts him implicitly in this tense crime thriller. Under the watch of his superior Kang, devoted cop Ja-Sung embarks on a clandestine mission to infiltrate the powerful ‘Gold Moon’ crime syndicate. 

SUNDAY 3 MAY

Vitamania: The Sense and Nonsense of Vitamins
4:00pm, SBS

G
Australia, 2018
Genre: Documentary
Language: English
Director: Sonya Pemberton
What’s it about?
Dr. Derek Muller takes us on an epic journey, a world-spanning investigation of vitamin science and history from molecules to marketing, from colds to chemotherapy. What he uncovers will confound opinions on all sides of the vitamin debate.

Copwatch
8:30pm, NITV

M
USA, 2017
Genre: Documentary
Language: English
Director: Camilla Hall
What’s it about?
The true story of We Copwatch, an organization whose mission is to film police activity as a non-violent form of protest and deterrent to police brutality. Around the country, a network of regular people take up cameras to bear witness to police actions and hold law enforcement to accountability.

Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood
9:35pm, SBS VICELAND

M
USA, 1988
Genre: Horror
Language: English
Director: John Carl Beuchler
Starring: Terry Kiser, Jennifer Banko, John Otrin
What’s it about?
When a telekinetic camper accidentally unchains Jason from the depth of Crystal Lake, she can only hope that her powers can save her from the ax-wielding maniac.

Raising Bertie
10:15pm, NITV

M
USA, 2017
Genre: Documentary
Language: English
Director: Margaret Byrne
What’s it about?
Raising Bertie follows three young African American boys over the course of six years as they grow into adulthood in Bertie County, a rural African American-led community in Eastern North Carolina. Through the intimate portrayal of these boys, this powerful vérité documentary offers a rare in-depth look at the issues facing America’s rural youth and the complex relationships between generational poverty, educational equity, and race.

Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
11:15pm, SBS VICELAND

M
USA, 1989 
Genre: Horror
Language: English
Director: Rob Hedden
Starring:  Jensen Daggett, Kane Hodder, Todd Caldecott
What’s it about?
When Jason boards a cruise ship taking teenagers on a grad night voyage to New York City, there’s no place for the passengers to run. Beyond Crystal Lake, Jason will find new slaygrounds in the subways, sewers, and mean streets of Manhattan.

Afterparty
1:05am, SBS VICELAND

MA15+
Spain, 2013
Genre: Horror
Language: Spanish
Director: Miguel Larraya
Starring: Luis Fernández, Alicia Sanz, Rocío León
What’s it about?
Carlos (Fernandez), a TV star and teen idol, is invited to a wild party packed with girls and excesses of all kinds. The morning after, he wakes up trapped in a sinister house with three girls that he had several encounters with the previous night. With communication cut off and escape impossible, they come to realise that they are not alone in this house and they may never be able to escape.