The Shape of Water
Sunday, 11.50pm, OSN Movies First
Guillermo Del Toro’s typically fantastical tale of a mute cleaner in a government research facility, who develops a strange relationship with an aquatic test specimen, landed armfuls of awards, including 2018’s Oscar for Best Picture.
The choice may have surprised a few people, not because it's a bad film, but simply because quirky, romantic fantasy isn't typical Oscars fare, particularly when competing with that year's favourite, the much more "worthy" Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. But the movie's a delight, with some touches of Del Toro's trademark darkness to keep this fairy tale in the realm of the Brothers Grimm rather than Disney.
Disturbia
Monday, 1am, Paramount Channel
There's more than a nod to Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window in CJ Caruso's thriller about a teen tearaway who, after being placed under house arrest, begins to spy on his neighbours from his bedroom, becoming convinced that one of them is a serial killer.
The film may be somewhat derivative, but it's a well-put-together, tense thriller nonetheless, and features a fine performance from Shia LaBoeuf, back when he was Hollywood's next big thing, and before the arrests, plagiarism, paper bag-wearing and bizarre online posting moved him into the bracket of "too much, too young".
It Comes at Night
Tuesday, 11.55pm, OSN Movies First
Another of the recent run of high-quality, low-budget horror offerings that prove that, sometimes, less is more. Joel Edgerton and Carmen Ejogo star in Trey Edward Shults's post-contagious outbreak shocker as a couple hiding out in a cabin in the woods from a mysterious menace.
True to the genre template, newcomers arrive and we're not quite sure what their intentions are. Half of the fun is that we never really find out. Shults gives little away in terms of the threat our heroes face, the enemy they are facing, or even the layout of the house the events take place in – a nice nod to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. It all adds up to a disorienting thrill ride.
Moulin Rouge!
Wednesday, 7.25pm, OSN Movies
Baz Lurhrmann is on typically all-singing, all-dancing, flamboyantly costumed form for his musical tale of life in the fabled Parisian hotspot at the height of the Bohemian era. Nicole Kidman is the theatre's star dancer Satine, who yearns for a career as a serious actor away from the bawdy delights of the Moulin Rouge.
Ewan McGregor is the idealistic young writer who falls head-over-heels for the femme fatale, and Luhrmann is the director who turns the whole thing into an absolute visual and audio delight, complete with huge ensemble song and dance numbers, tear-jerking intimate moments, sweeping vistas of the Montmartre rooftops and plays-within-plays-within films. Breathtaking stuff.
The Whole Nine Yards
Thursday, 10.30am, Star Movies
A comedy crime caper starring Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry and Natasha Henstridge from the genre master Jonathan Lynn, who also brought us My Cousin Vinny and Nuns on the Run.
When a Chicago gangster on the run from a rival moves in next door to an amiable Quebecois dentist, things quickly become complicated, with hired hit men, feuding gangsters, murderous spouses and huge sums of dirty money entering our protagonist's quiet, suburban life.
A Quiet Place
Friday, 11.50pm, OSN Movies First
Emily Blunt stars alongside her real-life husband John Krasinski, who also directs, as the parents of a family struggling to survive after the destruction of most of humanity by sightless monsters with hypersensitive hearing.
As a result, the film takes place in almost total silence, with the characters, including deaf daughter Regan, played by deaf actor Millicent Simmonds, communicating largely in American Sign Language. Like It Comes at Night, the film follows the refreshing recent trend of smart horror, and made more than $300 million (Dh1.1 billion) at the global box office on release last year.
Naila and the Uprising
Saturday, 9pm and 11pm, Cinema Akil
Amid nationwide uprising in 1987, a woman in Gaza must make a choice between love, family, and freedom. Undaunted, she embraces all three, joining a secret network of women in a movement that forces the world to recognise the Palestinian right to self-determination for the first time. The film follows Naila Ayesh, whose story weaves through the First Intifada of the late 1980s.
