WINNERS & LOSERS - SEVEN, 9.00pm
The beauty of lightweight drama Winners & Losers is that it milks the highs and lows of life for all their worth. From the dizzying excitement of winning the lottery to death and despair, the girls (and guys) have it covered. As far as Virginia Gay, who plays super-organised Frances James, is concerned, she has hit the acting jackpot, saying, "In a fictional life, you want terrible, terrible things, so you can really start to play". The high-school friends have now grown up and overcome their "uncool" past, but it has been far from smooth sailing, as Gay and her co-stars Melanie Valejo, Melissa Bergland and Zoe Tuckwell-Smith are given ample opportunity to access their inner histrionics.
SCHEMES (1994) - SEVEN, 12.00pm
James McCaffrey, Leslie Hope, Polly Draper, John Glover. Schemes, plots and extortion intermingle easily in this tale of dangerous obsession. James McCaffrey plays a man trying to come to terms with the sudden death of his wife. Just when he thinks he has found new happiness with another woman (24's Leslie Hope), his best friend finds out that Hope is really only after his money. Things get interesting, though, when Hope finds out she's been rumbled.
BEFORE SUNRISE (1995) - NINE, 1.00pm
Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Tex Rubinowitz. With Slacker and Dazed and Confused, self-taught filmmaking hero Richard Linklater proved you didn't need a plot to explore 1990s American youth culture. It's all in the dialogue for Linklater, and this daringly original romance has loads of it. Grungy American student Jesse (Ethan Hawke) meets petite French girl Celine (Julie Delpy) aboard a Budapest-Vienna train. On a whim, he suggests they "hang out", and 14 hours later, after taking in the sublime scenery of Vienna and philosophising on various cerebral topics, they say goodbye. The beauty of their union is in its subtle details - the silences, the pauses, the lingering emotions. Films don't come any more charming than this.
BANGKOK DANGEROUS (1999) - SBS 2, 11.15pm
Pawalit Mongkolpisit, Premsinee Ratanasopha, Patharawarin Timkul. Style over substance is the order of the day for this neat Thai variant on the contract-killer genre. Where the protagonists in the likes of Leon or Ghost Dog were largely silent loners, here extremes are taken, with mute killer Kong (Pawalit Mongkolpisit) using his job as a dark release from his silent world. All that changes though when love enters the equation, courtesy of the delightful Premsinee Ratanasopha. The plot may be predictable, but it looks - and feels - great, despite some appropriately bloody moments.
