It will not have escaped your notice that the 1996 Cathay Pacific HongkongBank Sevens are taking place. World is showing live action today (2pm) and tomorrow from 4pm. For those who can't tell a rugby ball from a beach ball entertainment comes in the form of a young Mel Gibson in The Year of Living Dangerously (World, 12.30am), in which he plays an Australian journalist on his first foreign assignment, in Indonesia. The film falters slightly in its attempt to be thriller, romance, political tract and to encompass director Peter Weir's penchant for mysticism all at the same time. But it's ambitious, stylish and for the most part gripping. For Gibson and young co-star Sigourney Weaver this was the beginning of the beginning. The Year of Living Dangerously was a film of gambles for Weir. His most outrageous risk was to cast the diminutive, gravel-voiced Linda Hunt as a man, Billy Kwan, a Chinese-Australian photographer who shows Gibson the ropes when he steps off the plane in Jakarta. Hunt won a best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Whatever its faults (Weir's use of Indonesian puppetry is only partly successful) this film is that rare thing; a contemporary movie that embraces a political issue and aims itself at an audience older than the world's average shoe size. Take Beetlejuice (Pearl, 9.30pm), which will scare children and bore adults. Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin are a couple of newly-deads who decide they do not want to give up their temporal home. Michael Keaton is the 'freelance bio-exorcist' of the title. Youngblood (Pearl, 12.15pm) details the romances of a young ice hockey star (Rob Lowe), for those who are interested. In Blind Side (Pearl, 1.45am) happy couple Ron Silver and Rebecca DeMornay are held to ransom by Rutger Hauer, who sees them perform an unscheduled hit and run in Mexico and later turns up on their doorstep making demands in return for his silence. Some thrills. Hauer makes a splendid psycho. Films on STAR Plus: The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood (noon). Few bright spots in a comedy that goes bang where it should go fizz. Roddy McDowall is not at his best. Look out for Tom Baker, who played Dr Who in the popular British television series of the same name. Meet John Doe (2pm). Overlong but interesting social comedy with naive Gary Cooper hired to spearhead a national goodwill drive for a corrupt politician. For the Term of His Natural Life (2am). An accused murderer is transported from Scotland to Australia, leaving his sweetheart bewildered. Anthony Perkins stars. First of three episodes. Films on Cable Movie Channel: Love And Fear (7pm). Involving if occasionally melodramatic account of the lives and loves of a trio of sisters: the oldest (Fanny Ardant) is an intellectual and all too aware of passing time and advancing age; the middle one (Greta Scacchi) has no professional identity and lives by her emotions; the youngest (Valeria Golino) is a passionate, idealistic pre-med student. Based on Chekhov's Three Sisters and crammed with ideas and observations about how life is in constant flux. Easy Money (9pm). Comedy of errors begins when a naive mainlander arrives in Hong Kong to get rich and instead gets involved in a number of complicated romantic situations. The Amityville Curse (11pm). Attempt to cash in on the Amityville name with a strictly ho-hum story about the house with a life on its own. Without decent special effects there seems no point to this one at all.
