14 hours ago
7
Pick of the week
Ocean With David Attenborough
As David Attenborough passes his 99th birthday, here’s another landmark documentary to add to his collection – and one that’s more polemical than usual. His lucid message here is “If we save the sea we save our world”, as he talks us through what humanity has done to the Earth’s oceans and how we can protect them. Awe and anger intermingle – there are glorious images of aquatic life, such as the remote submarine seamounts that are “pitstops” for migrating fish or the kelp forests in coastal waters that capture carbon. But it’s the underwater footage of indiscriminate dredging by trawlers that has the most emotional impact – a picture of devastation that’s also a call to arms.
Sunday 8 June, 8pm, National Geographic/Disney+
Piggy
Small-town Spanish teenager Sara (Laura Galán) is nicknamed “Cerdita” (Piggy) by her mocking peers, being overweight and the daughter of the local butcher. Their bullying reaches a peak at the outdoor swimming pool but, fatefully for them, a stranger (Richard Holmes) witnesses it and makes them pay. Carlota Pereda’s smart horror thriller teases a common cause – even a twisted desire – between Sara and the malevolent mystery man as kids go missing, the community descends into panic and Sara painfully discovers her inner fighter.
Saturday 7 June, midnight, Film4
Purple Rain
For a man not short on ego, Prince let himself come across as a pretty unlikable character in this 1984 musical drama, which spawned his most commercially successful album. He plays the Kid, a resident singer at a Minneapolis nightclub who rubs everyone up the wrong way with his independent/selfish approach. Apollonia is the new girl in town who catches his eye, while Morris E Day is the comic relief as a competing band’s frontman. But the romance and rivalry angles play second fiddle to the exhilarating, axe-wielding antics of one of rock’s greatest showmen.
Saturday 7 June, 12.45am, BBC Two
Anora
It was a surprise multiple Oscar winner this March, but Sean Baker’s brilliant indie drama deserves all the plaudits. The writer-director’s ability to immerse us fully in the lives of society’s marginal characters is here focused on Mikey Madison’s titular Brooklyn stripper and sex worker. When a Russian oligarch’s son, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), falls impetutously in love with her, Anora seizes the chance of a better life. But she is up against some formidable in-laws … From slapstick comedy to gritty drama, a superbly acted, manic treasure.
Friday 13 June, 10pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
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Julius Caesar
There aren’t many Shakespeare plays with more quotable lines than his Roman power play, from “It was Greek to me” to “Let slip the dogs of war”. And in Joseph L Mankiewicz’s slick take it’s Marlon Brando as Mark Antony who gets the best: his “I came to bury Caesar not to praise him” speech is a masterclass in rhetorical rabble-rousing. And Brando has to raise his game, what with seasoned stage stars James Mason (Brutus), Louis Calhern (Caesar) and, particularly, John Gielgud (Cassius) immersing us eloquently in portents and plots, murder and mayhem.
Sunday 7 June, 2pm, BBC Two
Snow White
An apple-barrelful of controversy surrounds this amiable live-action version of Disney’s animated fairytale. There’s a revised plot that gives the sleeping princess more agency; the casting of Rachel Zegler, an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights, as the lead alongside the Israeli actor Gal Gadot as the evil queen; and those seven dwarves. The dwarf issue is sidestepped by making them CGI versions of the originals, and the songs from 1937 are still wonderfully whistle-worthy. Simon Wardell
Wednesday 11 June, Disney+
Naked
Mike Leigh’s unsettling 1993 drama features his most complex lead character. David Thewlis – in a searing performance – is Johnny, who has to flee Manchester for London and imposes himself on a former girlfriend, Louise (Lesley Sharp), and her flatmate Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge). But he soon finds himself adrift in the city and endures a dark night of the soul. The lonely, desperate people he encounters, including Peter Wight’s security guard and Gina McKee’s cafe waitress, are mirrors of his own misanthropic, eloquently despairing worldview.
Friday 13 June, 11.20pm, Film4
