Movies on TV

A shaggy, sun-soaked variation on Jean-Pierre Melville 's glistening Bob le Flambeur, director Neil Jordan 's film runs parallel to the original: Sometimes the two versions are so close they nearly touch, at others they diverge dramatically. Nick Nolte stars as a gambler and a junkie whose luck has gone south and who knows full well he's getting too old to be getting high in barroom toilets. But just as it seems that his luck has finally run out, a redemptive opportunity knocks in the form of an old pal (Tcheky Karyo), a hard-bitten cop with a soft spot for smooth criminals.

This hard-knocks coming-of-age story about a miner's son (Jamie Bell) who finds his true calling in ballet could easily have become mired in treacly cliches. But writer Lee Hall and director Stephen Daldy transform the material into an exhilarating, funny and deeply sad story of growing pains that works on two levels; it's a feel-good story that quietly undermines the notion of gain without loss.

Similar in many ways to Mary Poppins, this innovative family fantasy is filled with unique special effects and delightful music. Angela Lansbury stars as Eglantine Price, the owner of a seaside house in England who has three children foisted on her during WWII. The children aren't thrilled -- until they learn that Eglantine is studying witchcraft by mail and has much mischief planned for the Nazis if they ever land in England.

Writer-director Larry Cohen (Phone Booth) tapped into the burgeoning blaxploitation market with this clever and entertaining paean to such traditional gangster films as Little Caesar and the original Scarface. Fred Williamson stars as Tommy Gibb, a black errand-boy for white mobsters who murders his way to the top of the heap while his personal life crumbles.