68 | TV Films
A Guide to the Week’s Viewing
SATURDAY AUGUST 5
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (TVNZ 2, 5.25pm). Unsettling psychosexual drama in which an outcast hunchback (Tom Hulce) and a sadistic judge (Tony Jay) fall in love with a gypsy (Demi Moore). There are themes of sin, lust, damnation, genocide and the treatment of outsiders. Too disturbing for children, obviously. (1996)
Wild Hogs (TVNZ 2, 7.00pm). Is there a genre description, like chick flick, for the middleaged-guys’ wild-weekend movie? The male menopause movie? The beta-male flick? Or, for Wild Hogs, the mind-numbingly mediocre men-on-bikes movie? John Travolta, William H Macy, Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence flee their emasculating suburban lives on fancy hogs, get in trouble with a biker gang, get kicked in the crotch, fall over and make gay jokes. So bad, it would give Marlon Brando something to rebel against. (2007)
The Autopsy of Jane Doe (Rialto, Sky 039, 8.30pm). And now … Scandi-horror? Troll Hunter director André Øvredal’s first English-language film stars Emile Hirsch and Brian Cox as father-andson coroners whose latest body (Irish actress Olwen Kelly, who received raves for her ability to lie perfectly still) starts to do some strange things indeed. Plenty of scares and lots of gore. Be prepared to be disgusted by the soundtrack alone. (2016)
A Million Ways to Die in the West (Three, 8.35pm). Filtered through a giant teddy bear in Ted, Seth MacFarlane’s scatological, ribald humour at least had ironic juxtaposition, but this spoof western is altogether too much MacFarlane. He co-wrote, co-produces, directs and stars – and lets the movie drag on for a punishing 116 minutes. There is something here in a running joke of violent deaths, and Charlize Theron,
Liam Neeson, Neil Patrick Harris and Sarah Silverman are having fun, but MacFarlane should have been banned from the editing suite. (2014)
Jackie Chan’s First Strike (TVNZ 2, 8.55pm). Part of the push to establish the world’s most popular action star in the
US, which began with 1995’s Rumble in the Bronx. A huge hit
in Hong Kong, First Strike was re-edited by New Line and dubbed into English, giving it that kung-fu movie language disconnect, but it hardly matters when there are so many terrific action scenes, including a classic in which Chan fights off 20 guys using his clothes, furniture and a ladder. The plot involves a stolen Ukrainian nuclear warhead that somehow ends up – where else? – in a shark tank in Brisbane. (1996)
SUNDAY AUGUST 6
Fantastic Four (Three, 8.30pm). A Marvel Comics creation (the first superhero team to be created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, in fact), but owned by Fox, which is why this reboot takes place in the X-Men universe and not the MCU, as the Marvel Comics Universe is known. A shame, as it’s a stinker (“the cinematic equivalent of malware,” said Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers) that you can’t help feeling would have been better handled by Marvel. It won three Golden Raspberry Awards, including worst director for Josh Trank, whose previous film was the critically acclaimed Chronicle. (2015)
The Hurt Locker (Maori TV, 8.30pm). Still one of the best movies about the Iraq War, from the American perspective, at least. Kathryn Bigelow put her cast and crew through a tough shoot in Jordan and achieves a visceral authenticity to the numbing tension of bomb disposal. Jeremy Renner plays a new guy, whose laissez-faire attitude puts him at odds with team-mates Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty. Written by journalist Mark Boal, who was embedded with a US bomb squad, the movie won six Oscars, including one for Bigelow, who remains the only female director to receive a Best Director award. (2008)
MONDAY AUGUST 7
Escape from New York (TVNZ Duke, 9.35pm). B-movie director John Carpenter originally wrote the story in the wake of Watergate and applied a Mad Max 2- style dystopian sensibility to his gloriously nuts actioner. Kurt Russell couldn’t have found a role more different from his Disney-comedy career (which was his intention); Snake Plissken is now a cult figure. (1981)
FRIDAY AUGUST 11
Alex Cross (Prime, 9.35pm). Tyler Perry, creator of a vast light-entertainment empire, and Matthew Fox, the lead heartthrob from TV series Lost, are badly miscast in this actioner based on James Patterson’s character. Perry steps into the role vacated by Morgan Freeman, although the movie is a kind of prequel and not based on any of Patterson’s novels. It is set in Cross’s early days as a cop in Detroit, where he and partner Edward Burns are faced with a serial killer. Fox looks impressive – weirdly thin and muscular – but as a means of shucking off past roles and showing his range, it’s a blunt instrument. (2012) Films are rated out of 5: (abysmal) to (amazing).