Ultimate Dean

Even the title of this afternoon's feature, Rebel Without A Cause (Pearl, 2pm), seems a little dated now. Teenage rebellion, undefined angst, and overly defined hostility towards one's parents are cliches today, but in 1955 when the film was made, they were almost daring.

It was James Dean's last movie - he died driving far too fast before the film had even opened - and remains the definitive Dean movie.

Today a film about teenagers would be the height of commercialism, a la John Hughes. Then, this was seen as cinematic art, and was rated by the leading critical journal Cahiers du Cinema as better even than the latest Frederico Fellini movie, Senso.

Hollywood has been using war as a way to make big-budget gory movies for as long as it has been making movies. As tonight's film about films, Cinema Combat: Hollywood Goes To War (Pearl, 9.30pm), shows, war was one of the first subjects film-makers fixed on: Thomas Edison filmed real-life soldiers tramping off to the Spanish-American War.

Martin Sheen narrates this collection of clips, which also includes a bit from his own war movie, Apocalypse Now, one of the most disturbing war movies ever made, and a project which took nearly as long as most small wars to complete.

The producers take no position on the films included here. There is no admiring background babble about any of them, no discussion of the issues of romanticising, and trivialising the subject.