Apologies to those of you who’d prefer this to be a preview of all the films this week, but you’ll have to pick up a Danish newspaper for an explanation of the plot of American Beauty. Nevertheless, this week we’re making an exception, because if we didn’t, you probably wouldn’t know it was on.
Garage, a 2007 Irish film – they started making some pretty good movies during their economic boom – is a work of beauty and understatement that would most likely be considered too slow and uneventful for mainstream television.
So thank god for DR K (by their standards, this is an action flick) because Irish comedian Pat Shortt’s heart-wrenching performance as a petrol station attendant in the middle of nowhere who may very well be the loneliest man ever committed to celluloid, is a tour-de-force. Well worth turning your iPhone off for, if you can for more than 30 minutes without getting the shakes.
Staying in Ireland, Knuckle (SV1, Tue 22:00) is a brutal account of bare-knuckle fighting in the traveller community: cock-fighting for humans. Made over 12 years, it concentrates on a feud between three families, and at times is in danger of becoming a snuff movie.
Elsewhere, Cat Ladies takes us into the world of four women who love being in control, even if they do smell of cat – one of them has 16 (you think that’s bad, another has 123!); there’s the fourth season of US legal drama Damages (SV1, Sun 22:00); Talking Movies (BBC World, Sat 20:30) pays a visit to the Sundance Film Festival; there’s the third season of Gavin and Stacey (SV2, Mon 19:30); Britain’s Greatest Machines (DR K, Mon 20:55), Chris Barrie from Red Dwarf takes a look at some of the 20th century’s most important inventions; Annie Leibovitz: Life through a Lens (DR K, Fri 22:25 & Sun 12:55) depicts America’s most starriest photographer to the stars; Origins of Us (DR2, Wed 19:05) is a three-parter doc about six million years of evolution dumbed down into three hours; Seven Dwarves (K4, ep1: Sat 20:00, ep 2: Wed 21:00) is an amusing UK reality programme about little people preparing for panto; and Australia’s Great Flood: Brisbane (SV1, Mon 21:00) is an harrowing doc about last year’s mayhem.
