Tonight’s TV tips
Tune in to BBC 2 at 9pm tonight for Welcome to Rio, a documentary series exploring Rio's shanty-towns, the favelas.
You’d have to have been living under a very large, soundproofed rock to have not noticed that the world is football mad this year, thanks to the 2014 World Cup – and all eyes are on Rio de Janeiro.
But this stunning series isn’t about the football – it’s about the lives of the city’s residents, and the daily goings-on in the favelas.
As Rio prepares for the World Cup and the Olympics, the Brazilian government has launched a military campaign to wrest control of the areas from drugs gangs; a process known as Pacification.
This first instalment comes from one of the first favelas to be pacified, Cantagalo, and one of its residents, Rocky, is a delivery man who works everyday, hauling fridges, ovens and televisions on his shoulders, to support his family.
Meanwhile, Acme lives with his family beside a football pitch where drug traffickers used to execute anybody who broke their rules...
It’s probably not unfair to say that, as a nation, we love a good moan - whether it’s about the weather, local eateries, or the service down the local; anything will do.
In fact, last year 38 million complaints were lodged against corporations in the UK. That’s rather a high figure – so companies are coming back with new ways of dealing with us.
This new three-part series follows some of the country’s most persistent and stubborn complainers, with the first instalment coming from the complaints department of Transport for London.
Among the super complainers are an obsessive tweeter and a cyclist who deploys a strange array of tools to defend his position on the road, including bike-mounted cameras.
At TfL, one call handler has developed a special relationship with a persistent customer, while we’ll also hear from a bus driver who is sent on a course known as the ’naughty boys club’.
There used to be a time when animation was reserved solely for the kids – not these days.
The likes of The Simpsons, and more recently Family Guy, changed all that, and the latest of the bunch, centring on football and the passion of being a fan, has gone down a treat.
Alas, like all good things Warren United must come to an end – but it does so on a high. Darren Boyd and co have pulled off a blinder.
In the final episode, Brainsford’s arch rivals, Rovers, have just been taken over by billionaire Middle Eastern owners, who have plans to buy the whole Brazil team, or perhaps the Argentina one.
Warren’s not happy – and he won’t be until some billionaire owners buy Brainsfords. However, his passion is about to land him in trouble with the police.
Boyd, Nitin Ganatra and Johnny Vegas lend their voices to this superb offering.
When so many other music shows have come and gone, why is this one still going strong after all these years?
One reason could be the presenter, who has a genuine and infectious enthusiasm for the artists who appear on his programme. Even if the former Squeeze keyboardist can’t always resist joining his guests for a jam session, it’s clear Jools cares more about the music than getting his own face on telly.
But given the calibre of guests for this latest season, you’d be forgiven for wondering how the heck he was going to top the bill for this, the final show of the series.
So step forward Canadian indie-rockers Arcade Fire, who will be performing tracks from 2013’s chart-topper, Reflektor.
Dublin rockabilly singer Imelda May showcases her Tribal LP, while Glasgow’s blues-punk trio the Amazing Snakeheads, serve up tracks from debut album Amphetamine Ballads.
Plus, music from Sharon Vann Etten, Damien Jurado and Kwabs, while Jools gets to know Shadows guitarist Hank Marvin a little bit better.
Freelance gun-for-hire Mallory Kane is one of the best in the business, keeping a cool head when the rest of her team panic during a bungled operation to rescue a kidnapped Chinese journalist in Barcelona.
Her handler, Kenneth, accepts a job from the enigmatic Rodrigo and dispatches Mallory to Dublin, where she must pose as the wife of fellow assassin Paul and neutralise a high-profile asset.
However, the mission is fatally compromised and Mallory discovers that her friends have betrayed her, marking her for death.
This movie is a curious mix of action movie and European arthouse drama, with director Steven Soderbergh handling the erratic timeline with his usual skill.
Although he surrounds then-newcomer Gina Carano with a wealth of A-list talent, he needn’t have worried.
She does a good job of holding the attention, whether performing stunning action scenes or not.
Gina Carano, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton
80%
A group of astronauts unwittingly pick up an alien life-form while intercepting an SOS on a barren planetoid.
While en route to Earth, the ’hitchhiker“ proceeds to destroy them one by one.
Despite being a revamp of B-movie It! The Terror From Beyond Space, director Ridley Scott and his team of designers created a sci-fi classic that once seen is never forgotten.
The eponymous ’xenomorph“, brilliantly designed by the late HR Giger, rewrote the book on big-screen monsters, and this paved the way for sequels, prequels, and countless inferior clones.
A sequel to 2012 blockbuster prequel Prometheus is now in the pipeline, and is expected to bridge the gap between that movie and this 1979 masterpiece.
Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton
97%
Based on Janet Fitch’s novel, White Oleander centres on a teenager who drifts from one foster home to another, but she still maintains a fascination for her mother, who’s languishing in prison after poisoning her lover.
Alison Lohman has done a vanishing act in the past five years since her last feature, Gamer. A shame as she’s always good value for money and this drama, ably directed by Brit Peter Kosminsky, is no exception.
Alison Lohman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Renee Zellweger, Robin Wright, Billy Connolly, Cole Hauser, Noah Wyle, Patrick Fugit
70%
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