AFTER what feels like years of campaigning and controversy, tonight is finally the night when the International Olympic Committee reveals which country will host the Games in 2000. Andrew Sams will introduce a live broadcast (Pearl, 1.25 am) of the announcement taking place in Monte Carlo.
All the talk has been of Sydney and Beijing, reportedly the front-runners in the race. But what's wrong with Manchester? The opening ceremony - complete with whippets, homing pigeons, and clog-dancing to the rhythms of the Coronation Street theme tune - would be champion.
AMERICAN film critics recently voted Cat People (World 9.30pm, Original Running Time 118 mins) one of the 10 sexiest films of all time. Whether it will maintain a semblance of eroticism after Hong Kong's censors have had a crack at it remains to be seen, for director Paul Schrader was certainly liberal with the old lustful nude scenes.
Nastassja Kinski (Maria's Lovers ) is the beauty and the beast here. She plays increasingly bewildered Irena, who's given to metamorphosing into a panther when sexually aroused. Reunited with her long lost brother Malcolm McDowell (Caligula ), she discovers he shares this feline leaning.
He's also violently keen on possessing Kinski sexually and emotionally, though her cat's eyes are only for zoo-keeper John Heard (Home Alone ), whose desires, ostensibly anyway, are more natural.
The film is based on the 1942 classic of the same name. Schrader's version is far more gory and less subtle than the original B-movie, which relied on horrors imagined rather than seen. But - assuming enough of the film has survived the scissors - it remains an intriguing study of sexual obsession.
THERE'S more gore on the other side in The Serpent and The Rainbow (Pearl 9.30pm, ORT 98 mins), directed by horror master Wes Craven, veteran of several nightmares on Elm Street.