Pick of the week
Riff Raff<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a distinct whiff of Fargo to Dito Montiel\u2019s blood-flecked crime drama. We\u2019ve got the seemingly ordinary family with secrets: Ed Harris\u2019s Vincent, spouse Sandy (Gabrielle Union) and her nerdy teenage son DJ (Miles J Harvey). There are the disrupters: Vincent\u2019s ex-wife Ruth (Jennifer Coolidge), their errant son Rocco (Lewis Pullman) and his girlfriend Marina (Emanuela Postacchini), who spark revelations about Vincent\u2019s former life. And there are the comic-relief mob killers, nicely underplayed by Bill Murray and Pete Davidson. But it\u2019s Coolidge who is the film\u2019s trump card: funny, profane, horny \u2013 and wonderfully disinclined to take the revenge plot in any way seriously.
Sunday 21 September, Prime Video<\/p>\n
ElioHe\u2019s the alien ambassador! \u2026 Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio. Photograph: Pixar<\/p>\n
The latest from the Pixar factory is another chipper animation, a sci-fi adventure that serves up big doses of Spielbergian wonder and DayGlo visuals. One other regular Spielberg theme \u2013 broken families \u2013 provides the emotional heart of the drama, as the titular hero, a lonely, 11-year-old orphan (Yonas Kibreab), dreams of finding extraterrestrial life. But then he is mistaken for Earth\u2019s ambassador by a commonwealth of actual aliens, who need his help to negotiate with the warlike Lord Grigon. Luckily, Elio has made friends with Grigon\u2019s neglected son, Glordon \u2026
Out now, Disney+<\/p>\n
The Night of the Shooting StarsMakes a lasting impression \u2026 The Night of the Shooting Stars. Photograph: TCD\/Alamy<\/p>\n
For a tale of wartime atrocities in occupied Italy in 1944, there\u2019s a surprisingly playful tone to the Taviani brothers<\/a>\u2019 1982 film. The inhabitants of a small Tuscan town decide to flee to the American side when they suspect the retreating German army are planning to massacre them. But their escape becomes an increasingly fable-like meander through a pastoral idyll of woods and wheatfields (and bomb craters), punctuated by tragicomic scenes of death. It\u2019s a tough balance to maintain but the drama makes a lasting impression. NovocaineAstoundingly grisly \u2026 Jack Quaid in Novocaine. Photograph: AP<\/p>\n Jack Quaid has experience of being put through the ringer in The Boys<\/a>, but Dan Berk and Robert Olsen\u2019s comedic but astoundingly grisly thriller<\/a> must be his most extreme role yet. His assistant credit union manager Nate has a congenital insensitivity to pain, which makes him wary of human contact \u2013 until the fellow employee he has fallen for, Sherry (Amber Midthunder), is taken hostage by bank robbers, transforming him into a have-a-go hero. Like Home Alone if the Wet Bandits couldn\u2019t feel the blows, it\u2019s a riot of slapstick violence. French LoverMeet cute \u2026 Sara Giraudeau and Omar Sy in French Lover. Photograph: Emmanuel Guimier\/Netflix<\/p>\n Lisa-Nina Rives\u2019 Paris-set romantic drama relies heavily on the charms of its male lead, Lupin<\/a>\u2019s Omar Sy<\/a>, for its success. So there\u2019s a sly irony that those same characteristics \u2013 embodied in his pampered film star Abel \u2013 don\u2019t really work on the bar worker, Marion (Sara Giraudeau), he meets not-so-cutely. She has her own, unstarry problems, which means their union is a slow burner. But the reassuring narrative of the \u201cboy meets girl\u201d trope does kick in eventually, with Sy convincing as a self-obsessed but lovable actor. Seven PsychopathsKeeps you on your toes \u2026 Colin Farrell and Sam Rockwell in Seven Psychopaths. Photograph: Moviestore\/Rex\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Saturday 20 September, 9pm, Talking Pictures TV<\/p>\n
Thursday 25 September, 9.20am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere & Paramount+<\/p>\n
Friday 26 September, Netflix<\/p>\n