XIII Oceans

Not too much happening during the week this week filmwise so here’s three to take a peak at.

Wednesday night at 9pm on Film4 there’s an opportunity to catch Guillermo Del Toro’s Oscar and BAFTA winning Pan’s Labyrinth that was lauded to high heaven by every critic around.  Me?  I enjoyed it but I wasn’t raving about it and I found there to be several films better than it released that year.  All that said it’s visually impressive and contains some truly memorable images.

Friday night on Film4 at 22.55 is a true little gem, American Splendour.  Based on the comics of Harvey Pekar it’s the one truly great comic book adaptation there’s been which is probably down to the fact that it’s not about latex nippled superheroes.  Pekar is one of those characters that could quite easily appear in a BBC documentary and is given life by the ever excellent Paul Giamatti.  My film of the week. 

Last up on Sunday night on BBC1 at 11.20pm is some cheap entertainment from the late 80s in She’s Having A Baby.  John Hughes directs Kevin Bacon and Eliazabeth McGovern’s newlyweds in what’s a fairly non-offensive comedy about getting involved in all that suburban aspirational lifestyle shit.  You know you get a good solid pair of hands with Bacon and here’s he supportedly wonderfully by McGovern who retains just the right level of irritability without annoyance and Alec Baldwin, as Bacon’s successful corporate bachelor.  It’s not taxing but it is quite enjoyable.