Cher in feel-good comedy
CANCEL that social life, there are some movies worth watching on the box this week. What's more they're first runs - and they include the thriller to end all thrillers Silence of the Lambs, and the somewhat soppy, but phenomenally popular Ghost.
They also include tonight's Mermaids (World 9.30pm, Original Running Time 110 mins), a feel-good comedy about a sexy single mum (Cher) who moves home with her daughters whenever she gets too involved with a man.
Winona Ryder (Bram Stoker's Dracula) plays the elder girl, a teenager just finding out about lurve, and increasingly embarrassed by her mom's sexuality. Christina Ricci (The Addams Family) is the younger sister, whose main hobby is holding her breath underwater.
The action's set in 1960s New England, where a baseball-mad shoe salesman (Bob Hoskins) becomes the newest man to fall for Cher's charm, if not her cooking which never progresses beyond hors d'oeuvres.
It's a charming blend of comedy and drama - and don't forget to listen out for The Schoop-Schoop Song, with which Cher, Ryder and Ricci had a hit record.
THE alternative Big (Pearl 9.30pm, ORT 102 mins) is equally charming, but has the slight disadvantage of having been on several times before.
HK favourite Tom Hanks (Sleepless in Seattle) revels in his best role ever, playing 13-year-old Josh, a boy who's transformed overnight into an adult.
After initial problems, like his mum (Mercedes Ruehl) not recognising him and believing he's his own abductor, Josh manages to get a dream job, as a tester in a toy company. Aided by his best friend (Jared Rushton, awesome) he also finds and furnishes one great flat (complete with trampoline, but no seating), deals with the office politics, and even gets the girl (Elizabeth Perkins).
Two main reasons for the film's success are Hanks' engagingly gangly and artless portrayal of a character who simply cannot comprehend adult life, and Penny Marshall's direction which never lets Big become mawkish.
IT's not too late to catch up with the mini-series Lonesome Dove (STAR Plus 8.30pm, repeated at midnight) a four-parter which started yesterday.
Based on Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning story about cattle-drivers in the Old West travelling from Texas to Montana in a bid to carve out a new life from the last remaining wilderness.
A great story with all the vital Wild West ingredients - heroes, outlaws, whores, Indians, settlers and stampedes - and what's more it has one weighty cast, led by Robert Duvall and Anjelica Huston.
Part three is on Wednesday.
PICKET Fences (still on Pearl at the ridiculously late hour of midnight) this week sees a group of armed Chippewa Indians declaring war on Rome after Judge Bone gives the nod to a development project that would encroach on the tribe's sacred burial ground.
Jill (Kathy Baker) starts administering a growth hormone to a short boy, and incurs the wrath of midget Ginny who rounds up a group of small friends to barricade themselves in Jill's office.
DOES anyone understand the new Chanel No. 5 ad? It involves one silky-looking woman, with an unidentifiable accent, huskily telling her dinner-suited partner that he hates her and she hates him. In fact she hates him so much she thinks she's going to die from it.
All the while, she has one hand behind her back in which she's clutching a hefty bottle of perfume. Is she going to thwack him over the head with it while he's busy kissing her, or is this some sort of up-market S&M game? I think we should be told.
