Pick of the week
Rocks
Directed by Sarah Gavron, but grounded in months of workshops with its non-professional teenage cast, this London-set drama has a real authenticity to it. Bukky Bakray is its focal point as Shola, AKA Rocks, a British-Nigerian girl whose mother walks out, leaving her to look after her young brother Emmanuel (a heart-tugging D’angelou Osei Kissiedu). She tries to hide this from her tight-knit group of schoolmates, and the authorities, but her outlook becomes more and more desperate. A terrifically engaging film about female friendship, it lights up whenever Rocks and her pals are together, with her BFF, British-Somali Sumaya (Kosar Ali), a vital presence.
Sunday 30 October, 10.15pm, Channel 4
***
Halloween
Still not surpassed by the many, many reboots and sequels (TCM Movies is showing Nos 2 to 5 this week), John Carpenter’s 1978 chiller is one of the blueprints for the modern horror genre. Boasting choice jump-scares and relatively discrete blood-letting, backed by Carpenter’s own menacing electronic score, it also has a well-rounded Final Girl in teenage babysitter Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis, impressing in her first film role). Menaced by masked killer Michael Myers, she’s an active participant in her fate, in contrast to her doomed schoolfriends.
Saturday 29 October, 11.35pm, Channel 4
***
Red Rocket
The Florida Project’s Sean Baker again digs down into the lives of folk on the breadline in this astute comedy-drama. Mikey Saber (a wonderfully narcissistic turn from Simon Rex) is a has-been porn actor who returns to his Texas home town and inveigles his way back into his estranged wife’s house and life. Then he meets teenage shopworker Strawberry (Suzanna Son) and plots a way back into the sex industry via her. Shot in Baker’s loose-limbed style, it’s very funny while also treating the lives of its working-class characters with respect.
Sunday 30 October, 10pm, 2am, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
His House
This imaginative mix of folk horror and immigration drama stars Sopé Dìrísù and Wunmi Mosaku as a couple who arrive as asylum seekers in the UK after fleeing South Sudan, but realise they have brought a “night witch” and a host of ghosts to the decrepit council house assigned to them. Writer-director Remi Weekes skilfully builds up the tension – while dropping in some genuinely terrifying moments – as noises in the walls, scary presences and dark memories assail them, drawing them back to past decisions they hoped they could forget.
Sunday 30 October, 10.45pm, BBC Two
***
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
With his manly presence and “a voice that could make a wolverine purr”, San Diego TV news presenter Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) has it all. Then ambitious journalist Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) is hired, and love rears its befuddling, equality-minded head. Ineffably silly, Adam McKay’s 2004 comedy has terrific one-liners, a great cast (Steve Carrell’s dim-witted sports reporter steals most of the scenes he’s in) and a fight scene between rival news teams that is one for the ages.
Tuesday 1 November, 9pm, Sky Showcase
***
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
If you’re looking for an emotionally raw biopic telling the true story of the US parody songsmith, you’ve come to the wrong place. Eric Appel’s mock heroic comedy is a proudly ridiculous rewriting of Yankovic’s history, from his “coming out” as an accordion player and writing Eat It – the original song that Michael Jackson stole for Beat It – to becoming a power couple with a manipulative Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood). Daniel Radcliffe is a leftfield choice to play Al but nails the deadpan humour and naive joy as his witty lyrical rewrites of pop hits bring fame but also heartache.
Friday 4 November, The Roku Channel
***
Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me
“How do I learn how to breathe my own breath again?” We’ve all been there, right? But ludicrous psychobabble aside, this documentary is a raw insight into the pitfalls of getting too much, too soon. Gomez rocketed to fame as a child, courtesy of the kids’ TV show Barney & Friends, and has subsequently branched out into music. However, about a decade ago, she was diagnosed first with lupus and then with depression and anxiety. The main problem? “My whole life, since I was a kid, I’ve been working.” This film tracks her recovery.
Apple TV+, from Friday 4 November
