HIGHLIGHTS
RUGBY SUPER RUGBY Blues v Stormers Sky Sport 1, 7pm, Saturday (live); Prime, 9.30pm, Saturday Jaguares v Chiefs Sky Sport 1, 10.35am, Sunday (live) Highlanders v Hurricanes Sky Sport 1, 7pm, Friday (live)
LEAGUE NRL Manly Sea Eagles v NZ Warriors Sky Sport 2, 4.30pm, Saturday (live); Prime, 11.30pm, Saturday NZ Warriors v Gold Coast Titans Sky Sport 2, 7.30pm, Friday (live); Prime, 12.30am, Saturday
NETBALL ANZ PREMIERSHIP Pulse v Tactix Sky Sport 1, 2pm, Sunday (live) Mystics v Stars Sky Sport 1, 4pm, Sunday (live) Magic v Steel Sky Sport 1, 6pm, Sunday (live) Mystics v Magic Sky Sport 1, 7.30pm, Monday (live) Pulse v Stars Sky Sport 1, 7.30pm, Wednesday (live)
FOOTBALL A LEAGUE Wellington Phoenix v Newcastle Sky Sport 4, 7pm, Saturday (live) HANDA PREMIERSHIP Final Sky Sport 4, 4.30pm, Sunday (live)
MOTORSPORT F1: Bahrain Grand Prix Spark Sport, 4.10am, Monday (live) and backup on TVNZ Duke
SATURDAY
Despicable Me Three, 7pm Voices Steve Carell. This animated comedy was a stunning 3D movie release, and its inherent quality means it’s still highly watchable on the small screen. Steve Carell voices Gru, a former top supervillain whose fortunes are fading until he discovers some unlikely allies – three little orphan girls. Although firmly a family film, director Chris Renaud throws in a few goodies for the adults. ★★★★
17 Again
TVNZ 2, 7pm
Starring Matthew Perry, Zac Efron. Mike O’Donnell threw away a bright future when his high-school sweetheart became pregnant. Twenty years later the marriage has failed and he hates his dead-end job. Then he is miraculously transformed into a teenager and has the chance to relive his life. The theme has been explored in many movies, but tends to work better the other way around, as in Big. ★★★
Dunston Checks In M ori TV, 7pm Starring Jason Alexander. This is a predictable family movie, starring Jason Alexander from
Seinfeld, about a thieving orangutan that wreaks havoc in a luxury hotel. Loaded with slapstick, kids will love this, but some of the cheesy moments might make adults cringe. ★★
Kodachrome Sky Premiere, 8pm Starring Ed Harris, Jason Sudeikis. Kodachrome may not mean much to the digital generation but it was a brand of camera film. Ben Ryder, a famous photojournalist, is dying of cancer and he wants his son to go on a road trip with him to get his last four rolls developed at the only place left that can do so. It’s a solid, thoughtful, father-son drama and Harris adds the kind of vibrant colour Kodachrome was known for. ★★★
A Single Man M ori TV, 8.30pm Starring Colin Firth, Julianne Moore. A poignant film about love, loss and the human condition. Colin Firth plays George, a middle-aged professor mourning the death of his lover Jim in a car crash. Throughout the course of a day, George mulls over his decision to take his own life. He’s sanguine about it, finding time to discuss the politics of the day, have dinner with an old friend and flirt with one of his students. ★★★★ Jackie Chan’s First Strike
TVNZ 2, 8.55pm
Starring Jackie Chan. The fourth instalment in the Police Story movie series, with balletic martial arts star Jackie Chan a standout when he’s fending off numerous bad guys with a stepladder or battling them on stilts. The story, on the other hand, is a confusing mess and the dubbing is simply atrocious, but fans will no doubt sit through it all with good grace. ★★★
Jaws Three, 8.55pm Starring Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss. Jaws was the film that put up-and-coming director Steven Spielberg on the map, a perfect exercise in menace and suspense. Even today, more than four decades on, Jaws still delivers the goods – true testimony to the flair and talent with which it was made and the terror it continues to strike into the hearts of generations of movie fans. ★★★★★
Big Stan Choice, 9pm Starring Rob Schneider. He’s never going to be anyone’s star leading man, but it has to be said that Rob Schneider is capable of carrying some truly horrendous material on the strength