TV & Radio Saturday October 29

A documentary about photographer Allan Baldwin reveals kuia mau moko from the 60s, and Street Chant live at Roundhead.

TV

Allan Baldwin: In Frame

Allan Baldwin: In Frame (Maori, 8.30pm). There is an eerie moment in this documentary when a photograph is rendered into 3D, and the flame of a match dances above the bowl of a pipe. The effect almost brings to life kuia Ngaakahikatea, her face with its deep-seated moko captured beautifully by Allan Baldwin. The documentary is part historical document, part memory and part tribute to old people now dead. It also brings into the light some of the magnificent photographs Baldwin took in the 60s and 70s of “kuia mau moko”. Only a handful have been seen in public, but it was Baldwin’s photos that inspired Michael King to write his 1972 book Moko: Maori Tattooing in the 20th Century. Baldwin, now 90, remembers attaching a caravan to his car in 1967 and setting out into the central North Island. It was by chance he met a kuia with a moko, and having been told that moko were all gone, he decided to try to photograph her. The endeavour was not just an artistic one, but a matter of gaining the trust of his subjects, and it’s a testament to Baldwin’s character that he was allowed. “The Pakeha, he seemed very genuine and sincere,” remembers Hokimoana Te Rika-Hekerangi, whose mother was photographed by Baldwin. Te Warena Taua remembers his grandmother, “Ngaa”, the lady with the pipe. “She was the first person ever allowed to smoke in my home,” he says. She would move around to visit whanau and he remembers her talking to people long gone, including Kiingi Taawhiao, whose children she had looked after. It was the King, she told Baldwin, who arranged for her moko. If there is one thing missing, it’s the actual carving of the moko: how it was done, who did it, how frequently it’s done today. But otherwise, the documentary is a beautiful waiata to the wahine.

FILM

Monsters, Inc. (TV2, 7.30pm). A charmer from Pixar that takes the idea of monsters under the bed and flips it: in this world, the monsters are afraid of children. Although the monsters slip into children’s bedrooms to scare them at night (their screams power “Monstro­polis”), they believe a human child’s touch is the kiss of death. The fun comes when a toddler follows a monster back and Sully (voiced by John Goodman) and his friend Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) try to conceal her at the same time as fending off a rival (Steve Buscemi) who wants to bring Sully down from his position as lead scarer. Monsters, Inc. doesn’t cross the kidult divide like, say, Shrek or The Incredibles, but it is thoroughly inventive and terrific fun. (2001) 8

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Kingdom of Heaven (TV3, 8.30pm). It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Orlando Bloom can’t cope with the present day: he doesn’t spend enough time in it. Here he’s a 12th-century French blacksmith who is given the job of defending Jerusalem during the Crusades. Director Ridley Scott’s pal King Mohammed VI of Morocco kindly lent out 1500 of his soldiers: they played both Christians (in Weta Workshop chainmail) and Muslims. But everything about this epic whopper is on a grand scale. Scott had an enormous replica of Jerusalem built in Ouarzazate, Morocco, where he also shot Gladiator and Black Hawk Down; 7500 weapons and 3000 shields were constructed and the filming of the siege of Jerusalem took 21 days, whereas the actual siege lasted only 13. So you do all this and it takes years – and the bloody critics don’t like it. Lacks depth? Not satisfying enough? Jeez. It’s a Holy War, not a PhD thesis on the Middle Ages. With Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson, Eva Green and our Marton Csokas. (2003) 7 – Diana Balham

So I Married an Axe Murderer (Four, 8.30pm). After Wayne’s World and before Austin Powers: this is early Mike Myers. He attempts to play a romantic leading man in this cult classic about a poet who meets the girl of his dreams (Nancy Travis) in a butcher’s shop, where she works and has learnt a lot about cutting things up. We know he’s winding up to funnier stuff, and this is mildly amusing in places, but the hair had to go. (1993) 5 – Diana Balham

Black Sheep (TV2, 9.30pm). Our very own Kiwi zomcom, only here it’s genetically engineered sheep that turn into killing machines.
A homegrown hoot, written and directed by Jonathan King with a great cast: Oliver Driver is particularly good as a greenie who turns feral after being savaged by a wild woolly. Maaaagical. (2006) 7 – Diana Balham

Don’t Move (Maori, 9.30pm). That Penélope Cruz sure is versatile – she’s able to look slightly constipated in at least three languages. Here, she’s in Sergio Castelitto’s Italian/Spanish drama about a fancy surgeon who is looking back at the past 15 years while he waits to see if his teenage daughter will come out of a coma following a motorbike accident. Cruz is the destitute hottie who has been his mistress all this time – complete with bad dental work and no makeup. Either a hopelessly overwound melodrama or a deeply intense and well-acted “foreign film”, depending on your tastes. Because Italian is the language of love, I’ll give it a pass. Aka Non ti Muovere. (2004) 6 – Diana Balham

The Man with the Golden Gun (TV1, 11.25pm). Not one of the more memorable Bonds – named fourth worst in an Entertainment Weekly ranking – although there were plaudits for Christopher Lee as the villain, Scaramanga. Against a background of the 1970s energy crisis, Roger Moore’s Bond has to retrieve the stolen sun-harnessing “solex agitator” (might as well have been called a MacGuffin) from Scaramanga. Boring. (1974) 4

RADIO

Saturday Morning with Paul Diamond (Radio New Zealand National, 8.10am). Broadcaster, author and historian Paul Diamond is running things today while Kim Hill is on leave. He will be speaking to composer Jenny McLeod about her new work, Hōhepa, which is being staged by NBR New Zealand Opera and premiering at the NZ International Arts Festival in March. It tells the true story of the friendship between a Maori chief and a Pakeha settler in the 1840s and how Hohepa’s spirit is finally put to rest by his descendants in the 1980s. Diamond will also be talking to Edward Meyer, vice president of exhibits & archives for Ripley Entertainment, Inc. This is the outfit that brought us Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, which started out as a newspaper panel created by Robert Ripley in 1929 and developed into a superlative-flinging radio and TV show. The company now operates more than 80 “attractions” – from waxwork museums to 3D moving theatres. – Diana Balham

Street Chant and Wilberforces Recorded Live at Roundhead Studios (95bFM, 11.00am, and Friday, 2.00pm). Thrashy Auckland punk-poppers Street Chant are first up today. The trio like to honour such bands as Nirvana and positively encourage fans to jump around onstage with them. They must be really rich because singer/guitarist Emily Littler has also been known to throw her instrument into the crowd. Littler used to be in Wilberforces, today’s second band, but now they are a boys-only duo, which recently released a second LP. It’s called Vipassana and, as bFM put it, “their frantic session at Roundhead conjures up anything but a tranquil meditative state”. There will be live streaming and podcasts on 95bfm.com and on this website after October 29. (The first part of this concert will be repeated on Radio New Zealand National at 4.10pm and on Friday, 8.30pm.) – Diana Balham

Music Alive (Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm). Dirty Beasts and Other Stories is the first of five programmes recorded during last year’s NZ International Arts Festival. Subtitled “musical settings for younger listeners, based on stories by Roald Dahl, Hilaire Belloc and JRR Tolkien”, it answers such pertinent questions as, what happened to Little Red Riding Hood as she went through the forest?; is there another animal as vile as Crocky-Wock the crocodile?; and, will you ever slam a door again?, with works by Oliver Hancock, Paul Patterson and Martin Butler. The performers include Nigel Collins (narrator), the Zephyr Wind Quintet, Vesa-Matti Leppänen (violin), Rowan Prior (cello), Patrick Barry (clarinet), Mark Carter (trumpet), David Bremner (trombone), Diedre Irons and Emma Sayers (pianos) and Leonard Sakofsky (percussion). – Diana Balham