No pointless exorcise
Frank 8.30pm, Maori TV Domhnall Gleeson, Michael Fassbender and Maggie Gyllenhaal star in this offbeat 2014 dramedy about a young wannabe musician, who discovers he’s bitten off more than he can chew when he joins an eccentric pop band, led by the mysterious and enigmatic Frank. ‘‘A functioning, funny, weirdly touching fable of artistic angst and aspiration, a meditation on fame and its terrors and the metaphoric usefulness of masks and huge fake heads,’’ wrote Chicago Tribune‘ s Michael Phillips. Stupid Man, Smart Phone 7.30pm, Choice TV Can you survive the most remote locations in the world using only your mobile phone? British comedian Russell Kane thinks so and aims to prove it in this six-part BBC series which takes him to places like Morocco, Poland, Norway and Costa Rica. ‘‘If you put a couple of hopeless, funny men somewhere way outside their comfort zone, you’re going to get laughs. I’d much rather watch this than Bear Grylls, doing it the right way,’’ wrote The Guardian‘ s Sam Wollaston.
The Hard Truth with Nigel Latta 8.30pm, TV One We’re always being told stuff about the economy. One minute its a ‘‘rockstar’’, the next, the sky’s falling in and, once more, we’ve fallen victim to forces beyond our control. Back in the Tonight, 9.40pm, TV2 When Jeremy Slater was initially approached about remaking classic horror movie The Exorcist for television, he responded with one word – ‘‘don’t’’.
‘‘They wanted to take William Peter Blatty’s original novel and turn it into a 10-hour mini-series. I told them it was a terrible idea. I felt we’d never top what had gone before, it would just be a longer version of a story that’s already very firmly grained in the public consciousness.’’
However, rather than walk away completely, Slater countered with a different treatment of the concept to that ‘‘daft plan’’.
‘‘I pitched them The Exorcist as a sort of weekly serialised show which involved telling a brand new story, with brand new characters and a whole new mythology. Something that was respectful of the legacy that had come before, but very consciously was not a reboot or a remake.
‘‘There’s a moment in the pilot where our main character is doing some internet research about exorcisms and he actually pulls up a website that mentions the [film’s] ‘Georgetown Exorcism’. That was our little way of reassuring the fans – ‘don’t worry this isn’t a remake and the story you love didn’t get written out of existence’. – James Croot this popular US comedy gets underway, Mike (Billy Gardell) and his fast-talking, wise guy partner, Officer Carl McMillan (Reno Wilson) go to couples counselling to try to reconcile their police partnership. Meanwhile, now a successfully published author of a romance novel, Molly (Melissa McCarthy) decides to do a promotional radio interview on her own. The Mexican 8.30pm, Maori TV Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and James Gandolfini star in this 2001 action-comedy about a man trying to transport an ancient gun back across the US-Mexican border. ‘‘Lively acting and stylish directing make this an engaging comedy-drama, although its attitude toward guns and violence is disconcertingly romantic,’’ wrote The Christian Science Monitor‘ s David Sterritt. The Box Trolls 7pm, TV3 Based on Alan Snow’s 2005 novel Here Be Monsters, this is another devilishly dark and delightful tale from stop-motion specialist Laika Animation. Like its previous efforts Coraline and ParaNorman, this eschews the modern-day animation tropes of superheroes and pop culture references and instead revels in the stuff of kids’ nightmares. The deep bench of vocal talent includes Jared Harris, Nick Frost, Toni Collette, Elle Fanning, Simon Pegg and Richard Ayoade. Although likely to be a little too scary for littlies, this 2014 film offers something refreshingly different and enormously satisfying.