Films on TV round-up: Matt Damon never shuts up

This week, the charming tale of how The Man screwed you out of all your money and has no intention of giving it back. Matt Damon to the rescue! Plus a cartoon fish. And what?

Commencing: Monday 5th December 2011

Storyville: Inside Job (2010) Wednesday, BBC2, 9pm



I'm-a go all Storyville on you again this week. Inside Job is a documentary about the current financial crisis, unless we're now in a different financial crisis from the one we got into back in 2008, in which case it's about that one. Narrated by Matt Damon, it does an excellent job of relaying a lot of complex information in layman's terms, to the extent that, while watching at least, I vaguely understood what it was on about.

The following diagram represents the rough extent of what I understood about the financial crisis before watching Inside Job.


And the following diagram represents the extent of the conclusions I drew from it.


Join me and watch it, people! You've lived in ignorance too long!
Ponyo (2008) Saturday, Film4, 6.55pm



I meant to see Ponyo last year when it was in cinemas but never got round to it, mainly because the only screenings going seemed to be the English-language dub and, though this ranks highly among the most pretentious things I've ever said, I far prefer watching Studio Ghibli films in the original (subtitled, obviously) Japanese, because I think the rhythm of the speech is important to maintain. Japanese being a language with eight alphabets and about a billion different ways of saying "Good morning" depending on the specific time of day, the number of legs the person you're addressing has and whether or not you happen to be wearing a hat while saying it, it's hardly surprising that English-language versions struggle to convey the films' themes effectively.

This being a Hayao Miyazaki film, however, you can guarantee that it features some form of flying machine, an allegorical commentary on mankind's mistreatment of the natural world, and a plucky young female lead character transported into a magical land by a boy who later turns out to be the spirit of a river or a tree or something.

Matt Damon again provides one of the voices. I like to imagine that he recorded this and Inside Job on the same day, and that somewhere there's an outtake of him attributing the collapse of Bear Stearns to a magic goldfish.
Also on this week

Brief Encounter Monday, Film4, 5.10pm
The Great Outdoors Monday, ITV4, 7.15pm
Lethal Weapon Monday, ITV4, 9pm
Ned Kelly Monday, ITV4, 11.15pm
Three Kings Monday, ITV2, 11.30pm
Inside Man Tuesday, ITV2, 10pm
Universal Soldier: Regeneration Tuesday, ITV4, 10.45pm
Nacho Libre Tuesday, Film4, 7.05pm
Transformers Tuesday, Film4, 9pm
21 Grams Tuesday, Film4, 11.45pm
Erin Brockovich Wednesday, C5, 9pm
Meet the Fockers Wednesday, BBC3, 10pm (also Saturday, 10pm)
Enter the Dragon Thursday, ITV4, 11pm
Brazil Thursday, Film4, 9pm
K-Pax Friday, Film4, 6.45pm
The Happening Friday, Film4, 9pm
28 Weeks Later Friday, E4, 10pm
Street Kings Friday, Film4, 10.45pm
The Outlaw Josey Wales Friday, ITV1, 11.05pm
Singin' in the Rain Saturday, Film4, 4.55pm
Vicky Cristina Barcelona Saturday, C4, 9pm
Shooter Saturday, E4, 10pm
Hot Fuzz Saturday, ITV2, 11.20pm