Pick of the week
Milli Vanilli
Girl you know it’s true … expect it wasn’t. The scandal of Grammy-winning pop duo Milli Vanilli, who in 1990 were exposed as having lip-synced on all their records, is revived in Luke Korem’s cautionary documentary. In 1988, Munich dancers and singers Robert “Rob” Pilatus and Fabrice “Fab” Morvan were lured into being the silent frontmen for Boney M svengali Frank Farian’s new hit-making project. “We embraced the lie,” says Fab, but the film details the strain on the duo of keeping the secret as they went global and, after their outing, the backlash that contributed to Rob’s early death. A tale of industry horrors with terrible racial undertones.
Wednesday 25 October, Paramount+
* * *
The Pigeon Tunnel
Master documentary-maker Errol Morris meets master spy writer John le Carré, AKA David Cornwell, for a fascinating extended interview. Cornwell is a wonderfully eloquent subject (though you’ll have to look elsewhere for details of his many affairs), as he talks about his exciting childhood with his confidence trickster father, early career as a spy in Berlin as the wall went up, and instant success as an espionage novelist. “Betrayal fascinates me,” Cornwell reveals, and it’s hard not to see his roguish dad as a major influence on his career in fictional duplicity.
Out now, Apple TV+
* * *
Pearl
A hot-on-the-heels prequel to Ti West’s 2022 slasher horror X, with the returning Mia Goth (West’s co-writer) scarily convincing as the young Pearl. It’s an origin story of the murderous farmgirl, who lives in rural tedium in 1918 Texas with her strict German mother and quadriplegic father but fantasises about becoming a movie star. Shot in classical Hollywood style – all swooning strings and melodramatic acting – it’s a stylish nightmare, with Pearl morphing from Judy Garland’s Dorothy to Baby Jane as she descends into mania.
Saturday 21 October, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
* * *
Poltergeist
“They’re here!” From the fertile imagination of Steven Spielberg, though officially directed by Tobe Hooper, came this still-impressive 1982 supernatural thriller, which exploits childhood fears of monsters in the closet – and parental fears of being unable to protect their kids. JoBeth Williams and Craig T Nelson move with their three children to a new housing estate. But inexplicable incidents lead to their youngest daughter being dragged through a portal into another world – and their comfy, borderline smug middle-class life falls apart.
Saturday 21 October, 11.50pm, BBC One
* * *
Titane
Alexia (Agathe Rousselle), a young dancer with a plate in her head after a childhood road accident, murders a persistent male fan, is impregnated by a car then, on the run after further killings, poses as the long-lost son of fire chief Vincent (Vincent Lindon). Julia Ducournau’s provocative, Cronenberg-influenced horror doesn’t get any less bizarre after that, as the gender-fluid Alexia’s intrusion into the hyper-masculine environment of the fire station provokes and disrupts.
Wednesday 25 October, 10.50pm, Film4
* * *
The House of Mirth
The death of Terence Davies has left us with tragically few examples of his passionate movie-making. Film4 is showing two of them this week: his 2011 Terence Rattigan adaptation The Deep Blue Sea on Monday and this beautifully composed take on Edith Wharton’s novel from 2000. In a career-best performance, Gillian Anderson plays Lily, a socialite in 1905 New York whose unmarried state and financial precarity leave her dangerously vulnerable to predatory male acquaintances and gossiping female ones. Her attempt to retain her dignity as her options narrow is truly heartbreaking. SW
Wednesday 25 October, 1.10am, Film4
* * *
Censor
Prano Bailey-Bond’s hallucinatory drama delves into the “video nasty” panic of the 80s (Driller Killer, I Spit on Your Grave etc), while cheekily mimicking those very films’ low-budget, visceral horror aesthetic. A haunted-looking Niamh Algar stars as film censor Enid. She’s mostly inured to the (male) violence she sees in her job, until she watches a film that has echoes of the disappearance of her sister when they were kids. Fiction and reality blur as her belief that her sibling is still alive leads her into a surreal, Lynchian world of mystery and confusion. SW
Thursday 26 October, 10.50pm, Film4
