These three films this week are all available to Sky subscribers, starting with two very different movies for music lovers.
I’m not much of a fan of Tina Turner but she has had a long and varied career and a traumatic personal life. So, there is plenty of interest in the documentary Tina. Her whole career is covered efficiently and familiar as the stories of Ike’s abuse is, it is still shocking. The usual mix of old footage and contemporary interviews is enlivened by a revealing interview with the subject of this solid doc.
The rise of Alan McGee is dramatised in Creation Stories. He is a chancer who ends up running the record label that Oasis had their biggest hits on and his is engagingly brought to life by Ewen Bremner. Overall this a fast paced and enjoyable film but it does have a heavy debt to the more visually inventive and funnier 24 Hour Party People. And, let’s face it, though Creation did have some great bands – such as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream and Teenage Fanclub – its output and influences pales in comparison to Factory. Also, there is heavy dramatic licence with McGee being depicted as from a working-class background (not true) and with a non supportive father (not true).
Finally, Six Minutes to Midnight, a pleasant surprise from director Andy Goddard. Co writer Eddie Izzard stars as government agent Thomas Miller. On the brink of war in 1939, he is sent undercover as a teacher at a school that houses the daughter’s of the Nazi top brass. That may sound ridiculous but such a school did actually exist.
Izzard, Goddard and Celyn Jones take that startling fact and create an old fashioned rollicking adventure yarn, very much in the style of John Buchan. It incorporates a lot of the tropes of the genre, including Izzard having to go on the run after being falsely accused of murder, but it is a lot of fun. The accomplished cast includes Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent in an amusing cameo, but it is Izzard in a career best turn who really shines.
Tina: 6.5 out of 10
Creation Stories: 6.5 out of 10
Six Minutes to Midnight: 8 out of 10