Movies
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday July 6, 2009
Mom At Sixteen(2005) Seven, noonSixteen-year-old Jacey Jeffries is a little surprised when her doctor advises her she's up the duff. Jacey's "mom", Terry (Mercedes Ruehl), a divorced mother of two, advises her to have the baby in secret and adopt it out. Arrangements are duly made but after a talk with her non-judgmental (and childless) teacher, Donna Cooper the wife of handsome coach Bob Jacey is unwilling to turn the infant over to welfare. She loves the baby and her mother seems to have mellowed enough to entertain becoming a proxy mum to her granddaughter. Predictability is written all over this lamington but if you can put the bleeding obvious morality to one side, it might dissolve 90 minutes agreeably.Back To The Planet Of The Apes(1981) Seven HD, noonNot to be confused with Return To The Planet Of The Apes (1975), this is actually two episodes of the 1974 TV series crudely jammed together to resemble a feature film. Three 20th-century astronauts crash on Earth in the year 3085. NASA apologises for any inconvenience. The two survivors are captured by gorilla mercenaries and taken to face the orangutan tribunal that, very sensibly, condemns them to death for time-warping offences. They are rescued from the calaboose by Galen (Roddy McDowell), a sympathetic simian who questions the morality of the ruling clique. They make good their escape, pursued by the ferocious Urko. Scenes in the ruined underground railway station will seem familiar to viewers unfortunate enough to be among the seething throng of commuter gibbons that swarms through Town Hall Station during peak hour.The Falcon Out West(1944) ABC1, 2.05am (Wed)Michael Arlen's debonair crime sleuth has much in common with Leslie Charteris's The Saint. This is the 12th in the series of 16 second-feature releases cranked out by RKO during the 1940s. Tom Lawrence is unwillingly drawn into the affairs of a damsel, much distressed by the murder of her husband in a New York nightclub. The Falcon intervenes when he discovers the victim, a colourful Texan playboy (not Kinky Friedman, I trust), has been given a rattlesnake venom zinger. Why didn't he simply stick with a Pink Orgasm as recommended in the Herald's Guide To Upmarket Bars? This mystery necessitates a trip to Texas in its pre-Dallas days.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
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