If **The Hours (5pm FoxCin) or **The Shining BEST FILM OF THE DAY (10.37pm Spac) started within BC on TV’s 6pm-10pm primetime, they would have been in contention; likewise Son of Saul (7.10pm Max) if it had English subtitles; and if An Education hadn’t been picked yesterday, it certainly would have been today.

Today’s Number One Film:he Incredibles, 6.43pm Cinemax Ch 509. Watch this if you liked Inside Out, Finding Nemo or Up. There are kiddie movies – such as Paddington, Shrek and The Toy Story films – that are really grown up films kids can also enjoy. Right below them is a tier of movies that are indisputably “kiddie” but are so good, grownups love them, too; and The Incredibles is near the top of that level.

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IF YOU REALLY want to depress yourself, walk over to your bookshelf and pull out your tattered old Penguin paperback of Old Sir Video’s first travel book, The Middle Passage, and read the chapter on Trinidad – assuming people in Trinidad have bookshelves at all, far less a copy of a 50-year-old book by an eighty-year-old firetruck we’d all rather hate for all time than contemplate for even a few minutes.

It can depress you almightily but, if you substitute, “the soca” for “the bands” in the text below, Sir Video’s 55-year-old paragraph could have been written this morning: “Port of Spain is the noisiest city in the world. Yet it is forbidden to talk… In restaurants, the bands are there to free people of the need to talk. Stunned, temples throbbing, you champ and chew.. In a private home as soon as anyone starts to talk the radio is turned on. It must be loud, loud, loud… There was no guiding taste because there was no taste. In Trinidad, education was not one of the things money could buy; it was something money freed you from. Education was strictly for the poor…

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If the Batman flick had screened on a “real” movie channel, it might well have got the nod but keep your teenaged daughters – and sons – awake late to watch An Education; better they miss the pretend education of school tomorrow.

Today’s Number One Film:

An Education, 9.50pm ISat Ch 520 BEST FILM OF THE DAY. Watch this if you liked Blue Valentine, Juno or The Education of Charlie Banks. With a strong screenplay from novelist Nick Hornby (adapted from the Lynn Barber memoir) and excellent performances, particularly from Carey Mulligan in the lead (who was nominated for the Oscar and won the BAFTA), this film should be mandatory viewing for all SEA girls entering big school;

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Today’s Number One Film:

The Shining, 10pm Turner Classic Movies Ch 504. Watch this if you liked A Nightmare on Elm Street, Jaws or Don’t Look Now BEST FILM OF THE DAY. Stanley Kubrick’s interpretation of Stephen King’s best book about the man descending into madness at the haunted hotel is far better than the travesty King himself perpetrated 17 years later. Filled with scares of all kinds – creepy-under-the-skin/ set-your-heart-racing/ jump-out-of-your-seat – and, as lanyap, Jack Nicholson’s greatest performance.

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Today’s Number One Film:

Dope, 6.10pm HBO2 Ch 525 BEST FILM OF THE DAY. Watch this if you liked The Breakfast Club, Straight Outta Compton or Top Five. BC on TV called the American (born of Nigerian immigrant parents) director Rick Famuyiwa’s film one of the most pleasant surprises – and the 16th most outstanding DVD release – of 2015 for very good reasons. A top-notch all-round film that is only incidentally youth- or African-American- or geek-comic or anything else,

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