Pick of the week
Moana 2
This is the second instalment of what we must now call a “franchise” (a live-action version of the 2016 original is out next year), so savour the rarity value while you can. It’s colourful, musical business as usual, with Auli’i Cravalho’s ebullient Polynesian navigator Moana setting off into the blue to seek a drowned island – cursed by bad-tempered storm deity Nalo – whose revival will reconnect all the scattered ocean peoples. Dwayne Johnson as demigod Maui vies for the comic foil position with her pet pig and hapless rooster, and it’s good to see the coconut pirates back in fighty form. Gods and monsters abound, with Nalo clearly being positioned as the Thanos of the series. Simon Wardell
Wednesday 12 March, Disney+
***
The French Dispatch
Arguably the most Wes Andersony of all Wes Anderson’s films, this whimsical doll’s house of a comedy dramatises the contents of a fictional American magazine based in Ennui-sur-Blasé, France. Sections include Tilda Swinton’s art critic profiling Benicio Del Toro’s jailed killer turned painter, Frances McDormand’s reporter taking in a May 68-style student protest, and Jeffrey Wright’s James Baldwin-like food writer being caught up in a kidnapping. Gently satirical, with nods to the Nouvelle Vague, Jacques Tati and the New Yorker, it’s a feast for the eyes. SW
Friday 14 March, 11.20pm, Film4
***
Blood for Dust
Hangdog travelling salesman Cliff (Scoot McNairy) is struggling to get by when he bumps into ex-colleague Ricky (a smirking Kit Harington), his partner in an embezzlement scam at their old firm. Ricky offers him a simple job, driving drugs and guns from A to B – but, inevitably, there’s nothing straightforward about it. Rod Blackhurst’s foreboding thriller – all deadbeat motels and snowbound Montana roads – has pleasing echoes of Fargo, with Cliff finding reserves of cunning and stamina as his options narrow. SW
Saturday 8 March, 11.15am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
Cliffhanger
Sylvester Stallone is nobody’s idea of an elite rock climber – those biceps would just get in the way – but suspension of disbelief is at the heart of Renny Harlin’s precipitately enjoyable 1993 action thriller. Sly plays a former Rockies mountain rescuer who falls foul of bank robbers in search of suitcases full of loot lost from a crashed plane, with his outdoors expertise helping him to escape their clutches. Kudos to the stunt performers for the vertiginous climbing, jumping and falling, and to John Lithgow for adding a touch of class as the big baddy. SW
Saturday 8 March, 9pm, 5Action
***
Get Carter
There is often a cruel, amoral edge to Michael Caine’s most memorable characters, and Jack Carter in Mike Hodges’s hardcore crime drama is a case study in cold-hearted revenge. Back home in Newcastle upon Tyne to find out who killed his brother, London-based gangster Jack rubs everyone up the wrong way. But will he get to the truth before the local mobsters send him packing, or worse? Hodges has a great feel for the working-class environment Jack moves through, setting scenes in pubs, racecourses, ferries and the bingo, as his quest gets ever more brutal. SW
Sunday 9 March, 10pm, BBC Two
***
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter One
With its creator and star Kevin Costner anticipating three more chapters, the first tranche of his epic western has a definite scene-setting mood. It revolves round the nascent Arizona frontier settlement of Horizon at the start of the civil war. Folk for whom the dream of a town could become a reality – though the local Apaches have their own views on it – include Sienna Miller’s homesteader, Costner’s horse trader and a wagon train led by Luke Wilson’s trail boss. SW
Friday 14 March, 11am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
Medusa Deluxe
Thomas Hardiman’s one-camera whodunnit roams around backstage at a regional hairdressing contest where one competitor has just been murdered. As the stylists and models come to terms with the death, gossip and rumour swirl in the air alongside copious clouds of hairspray. The suspects include the dead man’s main rival Cleve (a marvellously angry Clare Perkins), Darrell D’Silva’s event organiser Rene, and Kendra (Harriet Webb), who may or may not have fixed the result. The single-shot technique keeps things bubbling, while the hairdos are suitably outrageous. SW
Friday 14 March, 11.05pm, BBC Two
