A few interesting films on the TV this week.
TODAY
Meet The Robinsons (TV2, 7pm) is a frenetically paced, over-written and candy-coloured kids’ sci-fi animated movie from 2007. The plot is a kind of Back to The Future-ish mash-up of every timetravel movie that ever there was, but most of it kind of hangs together in hindsight. A lot of reviewers dismissed the film as too complex for the intended audience, but I took a couple of 7-year-olds along and they were pretty much in stitches the whole time. Recommended.
At 9.20pm on TV3, Hot Fuzz is Edgar Wright’s (Shaun of the Dead) spot-on parody of every cop movie you’ve ever seen. Simon Pegg is the big city hero who gets demoted to a sleepy backwater village, which then erupts – Midsomer style – into an orgy of murder most foul. Nick Frost is terrific as the local copper Pegg finds himself hitched too.
Hot Fuzz is a very funny film, though it does get surprisingly violent at times. Point Break will never look the same again.
The Pa Boys (Maori TV, 9.10pm) is Himiona Grace’s debut feature and it turned out pretty well. Three young guys start a band and take their first road-trip ‘‘down North’’ with their partners. Old – some very old – allegiances and feuds are brought back to life. The stunning locations, Rewa Harre’s cinematography and Warren Maxwell’s soundtrack are standouts.
Meanwhile, Sky Classics is running a mini-Tarantino festival from 8.30pm, with Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and the underrated Jackie Brown playing back to back. Jackie Brown (12.40am) is an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel Rum Punch. Leonard said this and Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight were his favourites of the dozens of adaptations his stories inspired. Pam Grier, Robert De Niro, Samuel L Jackson and Bridget Fonda all star. Great film.
TOMORROW
Alice in Wonderland (TV2, 7pm) is the 1951 animated classic from the Disney Studios. The film was only a moderate success when it was first released, but found huge acclaim and a cult reputation when it was re-released in the 1970s and 80s. And not just with the stoners, as is often claimed. Today Alice is regarded as one of Disney’s greatest achievements.
Dallas Buyers Club runs on Maori TV at 8.30pm. This 2013 true-story won Matthew McConaughey an Oscar, playing a Southern good ol’ boy forced to change his view of the world significantly after he contracts HIV. Jennifer Garner and Jared Leto co-star. You won’t see a better film anywhere tonight than this.
BEST OF THE WEEK
Philomena (Sky Movies Extra, Friday, 6.50pm) stars Judi Dench and Steve Coogan in the true story of an Irish woman who went searching for the son who she was forced to give up for adoption in the 1950s. It’s heartbreaking stuff, but a terrific film none the less.