Cinemax, 11.40pm
Get your VCR ready. We have two great movies on tonight but, oddly enough, neither are showing in the prime time slot. First comes Out Of Sight, a slick, dark comedy that pushed George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez (both above) into the stratosphere of mega-stardom. Based on crime novelist Elmore Leonard's book of the same title, the film is written by Scott Frank, directed by Steven Soderbergh and has a Tarantino-esque feel to it. Jack Foley (Clooney) is a twinkle-eyed habitual criminal who has just busted out of a Florida prison with fellow convict Buddy Bragg (Ving Rhames). During their escape they run into and kidnap federal agent Karen Sisco (Lopez). And in what is now regarded as a classic Hollywood scene, she and Jack soon find themselves spooned in the truck of his getaway car discussing their favourite movies. Charming, unpredictable, sophisticated, multi-faceted performances from the entire cast makes this film more than another 'girl gets kidnapped and falls in love with captor' story. Michael Keaton and Samuel L Jackson appear unbilled, while the chemistry between Clooney and Lopez is electric (1998).
Pearl, 11.50pm
OK, this is on a bit late but any film that stars the talented Scottish actor Robert Carlyle is worth staying up for. Boiled down to a one-line blurb, Go Now sounds like a hundred other soppy disease-of-the-week films. Carlyle plays a Scottish soccer player and construction worker Nick Cameron who suffers from multiple sclerosis. The progressive disease is about to turn his entire life upside down, including his relationship with his girlfriend Karen Walker (Juliet Aubrey). Directed by Michael Winterbottom (whose recent work includes the brilliant London flick Wonderland) this film is surprisingly unsentimental and there is more black humour than you might expect in the low-key script. Carlyle's performance is so quietly moving that the film has an intimacy rarely seen in illness dramas (1995).
