TV Films Fiona Rae
A Guide to the Week’s Viewing
SATURDAY JULY 7
Rush Hour (TVNZ 2, 7.00pm). The slick Hollywood machine known as Brett Ratner was just gearing up in Rush Hour, his second feature film and first big commercial success. It’s a dumb Hollywood buddy-cop movie, although there is definitely some pleasure in seeing martial-arts legend Jackie Chan, in his first American blockbuster, dodging, flipping, hanging and tumbling through the action sequences. Chris Tucker, as Chan’s motormouth American partner, is funny and wearying in equal measure. (1998)
Chinese Take-Away (Māori TV, 8.30pm). A gentle Argentine comedy about life’s absurdities: Roberto (Ricardo Darín) is a grumpy neat freak who collects clippings about, well, life’s absurdities. Against his better judgment, he helps Jun (Ignacio Huang), a Chinese man who has washed up in Buenos Aires with no money, no Spanish and an address tattooed on his arm. (2011) Premium Rush (TVNZ 2, 8.45pm).
Nothing to do with the preceding Rush Hour; this taut actioner features
Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a presciently topical story about cycling and illegal immigration. Director David Koepp is principally known as the writer of blockbusters, having penned everything from the first Jurassic Park to War of the Worlds, but his fifth directorial effort is a lesson in telling a non-linear story at breakneck speed as cycle courier Gordon-Levitt is pursued through the streets of New York by corrupt cop Michael Shannon. Koepp included real NY cycle couriers in the movie, and the stunts are so real, GordonLevitt needed 31 stitches after crashing into the back of a cab. (2012)
Battle of the Sexes (Movies Premiere, Sky 030, 8.30pm). The third feature from Little Miss
Sunshine directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris seemed to take everyone by surprise with its subtlety. Certainly, recreating the famous 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs could have been a blunter affair in anyone else’s hands, but great performances by Emma Stone and Steve Carell as King and Riggs, and a terrific script from Simon Beaufoy ( The Full Monty, Slumdog Millionaire) make this nuanced and insightful – and a reminder of how much things have changed, thanks to pioneers such as King. (2017)
Final Portrait (Rialto, Sky 039, 8.30pm). A labour of love for Stanley Tucci, who makes a good fist of capturing Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti’s interior and exterior world. As director and writer, Tucci wisely doesn’t make a biopic of the Swiss painter and sculptor’s life, but focuses instead on a series of frustrating and infuriating days in which Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush) painted US art critic James
Lord (Armie Hammer). Lord detailed the experience in his 1965 memoir, coming to know the people around the artist, including his long-suffering wife Annette (Sylvie Testud), his brother Diego (Tony Shalhoub) and mistress Caroline (Clémence Poésy). Much of the action takes place in Giacometti’s chaotic Paris studio, brilliantly recreated here, and Rush is extraordinary as the tortured, self-doubting, erratic genius. (2017)
The East (Three, 10.40pm). An eco-terrorist thriller that premiered at Sundance: we’re in the clever world of indie darling Brit Marling, who teams up again with Sound of My
Voice director Zal Batmanglij. She is a former FBI agent working for a private intelligence firm who infiltrates a group of eco-activists that includes True Blood’s Alexander Skarsgård and Ellen Page. The group, The East of the title, undertakes dangerous criminal actions, and Marling, who goes from dumpster diving to righteous cause, finds her loyalties tested. (2013)
SUNDAY JULY 8
Godzilla (TVNZ 2, 8.30pm). Our favourite cranky monster gets a reboot for the 30th time, although Gareth Edwards, whose previous monster mash was, ah, Monsters, overstretches the metaphor with unleashed nuclear behemoths that require an equally large foe to emerge as saviour (“We call him … Gojira”). Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche and Ken Watanabe lend the flick weight, while Aaron TaylorJohnson does a creditable job as Cranston’s son. The Japanese didn’t like it, and responded with Shin Godzilla. (2014)
Warcraft (Three, 8.30pm). World of Warcraft gamers agree: Duncan Jones did an okay job, sticking faithfully to the look and lore of the online game played by millions. However, it may seem incomprehensible to outsiders. Jones spends equal time with orcs and humans, as represented by Toby Kebbell as the orc leader and Vikings’ Travis Fimmel as the commander of the humans. The movie is largely a triumph of CGI over a decent story. (2016)
A Little Chaos (Choice TV, 8.30pm). The title could perhaps also describe Alan Rickman’s second film as director: it’s a little messy, but mostly harmless. Never mind, the costumes and sets are lovely, and Kate Winslet is especially gorgeous as a (fictional) lady landscaper who helps the (real) André Le Nôtre (Matthias Schoenaerts) in the construction of a new outdoor area in the Gardens of Versailles. Other real figures float by, including Duke Philippe d’Orleans (Stanley Tucci) and Madame de Montespan (Jennifer Ehle), but Rickman nearly steals his own movie as King Louis XIV. (2014)
MONDAY JULY 9
Fractured Land (Māori TV, 8.30pm). Documentary following First Nations lawyer and activist Caleb Behn as he fights hydraulic fracking in north-eastern British Columbia. It’s not only a matter of, as he puts it, reconciling two different world views; the title refers also to the rift between First Nations people who work within the oil and gas industry, including Behn’s mother, and those who are fighting to save an environment that has already taken a battering. (2016)
THURSDAY JULY 12
The Wolverine (Three, 8.30pm). Walk the Line and 3:10 to Yuma director James Mangold fleshes out Hugh Jackman’s Logan/ Wolverine with a backstory that starts with the bombing of Nagasaki and carries through to modern-day Japan. Logan is being offered the chance to relinquish his pesky immortality and there are yakuza and ninjas to fight and a new love interest (Tao Okamoto). Mangold is deft with the action scenes and Japan looks great. Just don’t play the shirtless Jackman drinking game; you’ll never make it through the movie. (2013)