| TV Films Fiona Rae
A Guide to the Week’s Viewing
SATURDAY APRIL 28
Kung Fu Panda (TVNZ 2, 7.00pm). Jack Black is the nextbest thing to Robin Williams in this Disney wuxia-inspired film and the animation is beautiful, too. Mark Osborne co-directs with John Stevenson, who has worked on everything from The Muppet Show to Shrek. They were sincere in their intent to make a real Chinese story, and it went down a treat in China, becoming the first animated film to take more than ¥100 million ($22 million) at the local box office. Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Liu and Jackie Chan also provide voices. (2008) The Handmaid’s Tale (Maori TV, 8.30pm). A messy adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel that lost both a director, Karel Reisz, and a writer, Harold Pinter (although the latter is still credited). German director Volker Schlöndorff (who won the Cannes Palme d’Or for
The Tin Drum) took over and made a good-looking movie that is tense at times, but loses sight of what it is meant to be saying. “Paranoid poppycock,” said one reviewer at the time, somewhat missing the point. The cast features Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, Aidan Quinn and Elizabeth McGovern. (1990) Starsky & Hutch (TVNZ 2, 8.40pm). A sight gag stretched to movie length: Ben Stiller in the Starsky cardy, Owen Wilson making like a stoned David Soul. Snoop Dogg steals the film as Huggy
Bear. (2004)
The Eagle (Three,
8.50pm). American beefcake Channing Tatum doesn’t convince as a Roman army commander in this adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliff’s 1954 novel The Eagle of the Ninth. It’s directed by Kevin Macdonald, who is principally known for his biographies and documentaries ( The Last King of Scotland; Touching the Void; Marley).
In second-century Britain, a Roman soldier (Tatum) travels beyond Hadrian’s Wall with his slave (Jamie Bell) in search of the eagle standard of his father’s legion. Pictish encounters ensue. Slightly silly, and Macdonald is a stolid rather than stimulating director. For a better second-century experience, Centurion, starring Michael Fassbender, is the go. (2011)
Field Punishment No 1 (TVNZ 1, 10.30pm). Cruel times: Peter Burger’s 2014 telefeature depicts the gruelling punishment of conscientious objectors during World War I, in particular that of Archibald Baxter (father of poet James K), who endured horrific treatment, including being tied to a post in the snow. Fraser Brown is terrific as Baxter, and the film raises many questions about the nature of war, courage and conviction. It won a gold medal at the New York
Film & TV Festival in 2015. (2014)
End of Watch (TVNZ 2, 10.40pm). Training Day writer David Ayer takes a cinéma-vérité approach to this entertaining cop-onthe-beat flick, although if you really wanted to see the dayto-day dealings of an American police officer, you’d just watch episodes of Cops. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña patrol the tough South Central Los Angeles area, where a successful bust puts them on a Mexican drug cartel’s radar. Ayer goes to great lengths to show not only the dangerous street work, but also the camaraderie and love between the partners; Anna Kendrick and Natalie Martinez are there for support. (2012)
SUNDAY APRIL 29
The Legend of Tarzan (TVNZ 2, 8.30pm). British director David Yates, who helmed four Harry Potter films, steps into dangerous waters with a story that is basically about a white guy saving Africans from slavery. It may help that Lord Greystoke/ Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård) is accompanied by Samuel L Jackson as George Washington Williams, a real figure who blew the whistle on Belgian king Leopold II’s treatment of the Congolese in the late 19th century. Christoph Waltz is the baddie who kidnaps Tarzan’s feisty wife (Margot Robbie), but the movie is stodgy, with leaden CGI and too much going on. Of course, with a ripped and shirtless Skarsgård in the lead, the story may not be the main attraction. (2016)
Charlie’s Country (Maori TV, 8.30pm). Another quietly enraging slice of the Aboriginal experience and another quietly devastating performance from David Gulpilil, as the Charlie of the title. As Charlie’s already degraded world disintegrates, director Rolf de Heer (who worked with Gulpilil previously on The Tracker and Ten Canoes) maintains a steady and almost motionless gaze. Riveting. (2013)
The Big Sick (Movies Premiere, Sky 030, 8.30pm). The little romcom that could. Kumail Nanjiani ( Silicon Valley) and Emily V Gordon took the low-budget film based on their relationship all the way to the Oscars. Their script deserved the nod: it hits the right notes in the right places and although Nanjiani is the comedian, it’s Ray Romano, as Emily’s father, who provides quite a lot of the comedy with some very awkward conversations. The obstacle to Kumail and Emily’s relationship is, as he puts it, 1400 years of culture: he is expected to marry a Pakistani woman, but when Emily (here played by Zoe Kazan) falls grievously ill, there is a reckoning. (2017)
Lawless (TVNZ Duke, 9.30pm). Australians John Hillcoat ( The Proposition and The Road) and Nick Cave take on a hillbilly true story about the Bondurant brothers, who were bootleggers in the Appalachians in the 1930s. There will be blood and torture and … cardigans. Tom Hardy, as the head of the operation, plays mum to a hair-trigger Jason Clarke and more-brains-thanbrawn Shia LaBeouf. Hillcoat weaves in two love stories, between Hardy and Jessica Chastain and LaBeouf and
Mia Wasikowska, but there are many brutal scenes with Guy Pearce’s lawman and mobster Gary Oldman. (2012)
THURSDAY MAY 3
The Terminator (Three, 8.30pm). Nuclear paranoia and a warning that the machines will turn on us. The premise of James Cameron’s classic seems to be getting nearer by the day. Arnold Schwarzenegger is pretty much an immutable walking bomb, and putting little Linda Hamilton in harm’s way was a stroke of genius from Cameron who, with Ridley Scott, changed the future of action movies, and the role of women in them. (1984)
FRIDAY MAY 4
Source Code (Maori TV, 8.30pm). David Bowie’s kid does good again. After his acclaimed debut Moon, here’s another small gem from director Duncan Jones, who never wastes a shot or gives his actors unnecessary dialogue. (He even managed to make Warcraft coherent.) Jake Gyllenhaal is a confused soldier who keeps on waking up on a train in someone else’s body and discovers that he has a Groundhog Day eight minutes to work out why the train is going to explode. “A thinking person’s thrill ride,” said our reviewer. (2011)