2:00 p.m. / Hollywood
“Alien, the Eighth Passenger”
Extraterrestrial. USA, 1979 (110 minutes). Director: Ridley Scott. Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright.
Alien became iconic from the moment it was released. At the time, it revolutionized two genres, horror and sci-fi, with the virtues of memorable artistic direction, powerful and careful staging, and a firm commitment to suggestion (explanation comes at the last few minutes). A suffocating spaceship, a remote planet, and a terrifying alien whose full description is never revealed are the pillars played by a Ridley Scott who was still a director to believe. A film that accumulates sensations to the max, punctuated by cloudy explosions of panic.
14.50 / SyFy
‘Excellent’
United States, 2010 (117 minutes). Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Cast: Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Mark Strong
A student who is passionate about comics decides to become a superhero. No superpowers, but superhero nonetheless. And he’ll even get some clones… Such a Thug starting point lives on in the awesome comics created by writer Mark Millar and artist John S. Romita Jr. in 2008. On screen, Kick-Ass emphasizes its transgression of genre codes thanks to a meticulous script and an impeccable visual calculation by Matthew Vaughn, who a year later would take on the young mutants of X-Men: First Generation.
15.30 / Movistar cinema Ñ
‘Lonliness’
Spain, 2007 (100 minutes). Directed by Jaime Rosales. Cast: Jose Luis Torrijo, Luis Villanueva, Miriam Correa.
The second film by Jaime Rosales shows that other cinemas are possible. And you can see that protected by the Goya prizes: Solitude beat films like Las trece rosas and El orfanato at the time. Rosales uses the resource of the split screen to connect the story of the daily lives of two women struggling against life and against their fears and desires. His transparent images, which make the still image his central stylistic figure and in which the spirit of Bresson’s works pulsate, are imbued with absolute truthfulness.
16.05 / Extreme
‘Tropical Thunder’
United States, 2008 (107 minutes). Directed by Ben Stiller. Cast: Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Tom Cruise.
With a keen craving for hooliganism, Tropic Thunder pursues a troublesome crew of actors making a film about the Vietnam War. Between laughs, the comedy hits the ins and outs of the industry, producers and directors, method actors and the Hollywood Academy. A well-understood farce.
10.17 / TCM
‘Ninochka’
USA, 1939 (105 minutes). Director: Ernst Lubitsch. Cast: Greta Garbo, Melvin Douglas, Ina Claire.
“Garbo laughs.” This is how Ninotschka was announced in his day; In reality, Master Lubitsch made the whole planet laugh. Supported from a screenplay by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and Walter Reisch, Ninotschka is an admirable comedy that masks Garbo with the features of a rigid Soviet commissar (“a small cog in the great wheel of revolution,” she says of herself). who arrives in Paris and succumbs to the charming frivolities of a seducer, personified with absolute elegance by the unrepeatable Melvyn Douglas. The film soon explodes in a chain of great dialogues and sequences between tingling and humorous. He also secretly throws arrows laden with poison at humanity. There was a time when commercial American cinema incessantly delivered jewels of this magnitude.
18.00 / COSMO
“The Thirteenth Warrior”
The 13th warrior. United States, 1999 (100 minutes). Directed by John McTiernan. Cast: Antonio Banderas, Vladimir Kulich, Omar Sharif.
The suspense of a production that stirs up aggressive and suffocating frames is the solid pillar of this gritty adventure story. A clear example of how a conventional story can grow thanks to the visual work of its director, the unsettling John McTiernan, who alternates remarkable works with slightly wacky films.
6:20 p.m. / Comedy Central
‘fat’
Spain, 2009 (120 minutes). Director: Daniel Sanchez Arevalo. Actors: Antonio de la Torre, Roberto Enriquez, Veronica Sanchez.
Sánchez Arévalo addresses five stories that have a common connection to a therapy group attended by overweight people. Gordos walks between drama and comedy in a kind of tightrope walk, resulting in a cast of true and accurate characters. A more than risky commitment, which the filmmaker undertakes with care towards his characters and with sequences of contagious vitality.
18.30 / 1
Alcaraz-Struff, Madrid Open final
Carlos Alcaraz wants to repeat the title at the Mutua Madrid Open. This afternoon he plays the final of the tournament against the German Jan Lennard Struff, who is the first to reach the decisive match of the Masters 1,000 “refreshed”. Alcaraz is set to face off after beating Borna Coric in his semi-final. Last year, the Spaniard won the title against Alexander Zverev, whom he also beat in the round of 16 this edition.
20.30 / Movistar Classic
“The Fourth Commandment”
The great Ambersons. USA, 1942 (88 minutes). Directed by Orson Welles. Cast: Joseph Cotten, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead.
A year after the undisputed Citizen Kane, Orson Welles shot this memorable masterpiece in which he was not responsible for the final editing, manipulated by the production company RKO with cuts and additions that the author did not intend. However, the grandeur, the depth, the density of her images manage to keep all their magic intact: a reflection on the appearance of progress in a stagnant society that causes the rise of a new social structure in which a group of people move fascinating, deep and ambivalent characters. A monumental work, as tragic as it is hopeless.
21.30 / The sixth
Mamen Mendizábal and “Anatomy of…”
Mamen Mendizábal’s new program takes a look at one of the most popular pranks in television history in this episode, starring Ricky Martin against his will in 1999. A story that never existed but that spread in just a few hours in a still image analogous to Spain. Future parts of the program will address, among other things, the conflict between the government and the air traffic controllers that saw the state of alert declared for the first time in democracy in 2010, or the attack that tried to end the life of President José María Aznar, other stories . .
21.30 / DMAX
Double Episode of ‘Road Control’
In the documentary series Road Control, Guardia Civil agents search for drugs at checkpoints and provide assistance in car accidents. In the double sequel, the patrols help with a multiple collision that causes chaos on the freeway, they issue various fines for irresponsible and drunk driving, and they come across the case of a man driving a car whose owner has died.
22.25 / The 2
“A Wild God”
France, 2011 (80 minutes). Director: Roman Polanski. Cast: Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz.
After a dispute between their children, two couples try to resolve the conflict amicably. Yasmina Reza’s play serves Polanski to lock his protagonists in an apartment and follow them with a millimeter camera as they confront their prejudices, contradictions and cruelties.
22.30 / The sixth
Évole talks to Nacho Vidal
The Lo de Évole room closes the season with an interview with Nacho Vidal, the greatest figure in Spanish porn cinema. During the conversation, Vidal will talk about what it’s like to live without a sexual appetite after a life devoted to pornography, he will evaluate his career from the point of view of the social consequences of porn films and talk about the physical consequences of his work.
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