AFTER a couple of feeble days, the film fare is looking up again with two reasonable comedies as well as the excellent adaptation of Ronald Harwood's play The Dresser. As so often happens, the best is saved until last. Surely Pearl could have scheduled this first-run of The Dresser (12.55am, Original Running Time 118 mins) in yesterday's 9.45pm slot instead of repeating the highly derivative Mac and Me. Albert Finney plays ''Sir'', a grand old man of the theatre based on real-life actor-manager Donald Wolfit. Sir is larger than life on-and off-stage, roaring his travelling theatre company - and in one scene British Rail - into submission. But Sir's very survival depends on his dresser Norman (Tom Courtney), a fastidious, mincing nag who submits to the old actor's unreasonable demands, reminds him which part he's meant to be playing and, in return, lives his own life vicariously through Sir's stage performances. Now as age and illness weaken his tyrannical hold on the company, Sir is preparing for his 227th performance as King Lear. A must for anyone who loves the theatre. CYBILL Shepherd (Moonlighting) stars in Chances Are (World 9.30pm, ORT 108 mins), a light-hearted romantic comedy. She plays Corinne, a widow who remains devoted to her husband Louie decades after his death, much to the chagrin of her would-be beau (Ryan O'Neal) and her daughter Mary Stuart Masterson (Fried Green Tomatoes). Louie's spirit returns in the body of a much younger man (Robert Downey Jr), causing a lot of jealousy all round. But Louie's actually come back to sort out everyone's life, not to destroy anything. OKAY, so Running Scared (Pearl 9.45pm, ORT 107 mins) has been on before - last March to be exact - but Billy Crystal (City Slickers) is always worth watching and this was his first feature film after graduating from stand-up comic on Saturday Night Live. It's not a great film, but Crystal and Gregory Hines (White Nights) , playing a couple of wise-cracking Chicago cops make it a funny one. They're the best officers on the force until they cock it up one day while hunting down drug lord Julio Gonzales (ex-LA Law's Jimmy Smits playing a baddie for a change). A forced vacation convinces the pair that they should leave the force and run a bar, but with just four weeks to go as cops, they start playing it careful instead of cool - and careful gets you dead. NOW that we've all learned what sex is, the second episode of Pearl's series The Sexual Imperative (8.35pm) looks at why some animals have many mates and others just one, and what it is about females that make males fight over them. It also asks if there is the same basis for polygamy in humans as in animals - that should have half of Hongkong glued to the set. MARTIAL Arts Festival (Prime Sports, 6.30pm) offers an orgy of karate, kick boxing taekwondo, judo, etc, for those interested in such sports. Sixteen world champions take part in the show, and actor Jean-Claude van Damme (Universal Soldier) performs a range of stunts including firewalking, Ninja and Nunchaku.
