The main parties' leader get one last chance to impress us, on TV anyway, and the final episode ever of Entourage.
TV
Entourage
Election 2011 – Leaders Debate (TV1, 7.00pm). Last chance for them to impress us, although whether TV1’s more restrictive format will make room for actual debate is unclear. Can Goff replicate his worm-charming performance of Monday night? Can Key replicate his “Show me the money” moment? As always, we’ll be covering it on our Election 2011 Live blog.
Hot in Cleveland (TV2, 8.00pm). We must like Hot in Cleveland because TV2 is rolling straight into season two of the show that Slate magazine described as “a retro casserole tapping into a popular appetite for leftovers”. It does have that old-fashioned cookie-cutter sitcom format that Chuck Lorre has perfected with Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory, and it’s not quite as clever, but there’s definitely something nice about a group of women making funny about the ageism of Hollywood. Besides, anything with Betty White in it has to be worth watching. Special guest star tonight is Mary Tyler Moore.
The Borgias (TV3, 9.30pm). The penultimate episode of the season, and the French army led by King Charles VIII is preparing to enter Rome. But wait – Rodrigo has a secret weapon in the form of Lucrezia, and you that the French can never resist a pretty girl.
Entourage (TV2, 11.35pm). They’ve been heading towards happy endings for everyone for the final series of Entourage – Turtle just became a millionaire (thanks to Vince); Drama is in a hit show at last; and Eric and Sloane are edging back towards each other. That just leaves Vince, the one they owe it all to.
FILM
aimRenderAd(300, 250, '300X250','ContentRect','/POS=POS2'); if(!$.browser.msie){ ContentRect_frame = $("#ContentRect")[0]; ContentRect_frame.src = ContentRect_frame.src; }Cyrus (Sky Movies, Sky 020, 8.30pm). Mumblecore founders Mark and Jay Duplass got Hollywood money to make this comedy with Jonah Hill, John C Reilly and Marisa Tomei; results are slightly Apatowian. The Duplasses keep their handheld style and allow the actors to largely improvise the story of a middle-aged sad-sack (Reilly) who meets a nice woman (Tomei), who has an unnatural bond with her socially awkward son (Hill). “An enjoyably off-kilter romantic comedy with a touch of madcap farce and just a hint of darkness,” said Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir. (2010)
Blown Away (MGM, Sky 023, 8.30pm). A Jeff Bridges flick that suffers in comparison to Speed, which came out just before Blown Away in 1994. Speed will always be a near-perfect series of suspense-filled action sequences, while Blown Away may have roughly the same plot, but is a plodder in which bomb disposal expert Bridges is pitted against bomber Tommy Lee Jones. Not only that, it’s criminal what Jones and Bridges do to an Irish accent. (Here’s Roger Ebert’s review from 94.) (1994)
RADIO
Appointment (Radio New Zealand Concert, 7.00pm). Tonight, the series 13 Days When Music Changed Forever looks at Stalin’s allergic reaction to “modern music”, in an article entitled “Chaos Instead of Music”, which was published in Pravda in January 1936. His “review” of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District includes these comments: “From the first minute, the listener is shocked by deliberate dissonance, by a confused stream of sound. Snatches of melody, the beginnings of a musical phrase, are drowned, emerge again, and disappear in a grinding and squealing roar … The singing on the stage is replaced by shrieks … The danger of this trend to Soviet music is clear. Leftist distortion in opera stems from the same source as Leftist distortion in painting, poetry, teaching, and science.” Ouch! – Diana Balham
Music Alive (Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm). The Soviet sniping continues immediately after: let’s hope listeners enjoy Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto more than did his colleague at the Moscow Conservatoire, pianist Nicolai Rubinstein, for whom it was written in 1874. Tchaikovsky admits he found the writing hard going, but Rubinstein wasn’t too pleased with the result, calling it “worthless and absolutely unplayable” and “bad, trivial and commonplace”. Tchaikovsky rededicated it to Hans von Bulow; Rubinstein later changed his mind. Tonight’s concert, under the baton of Yakov Kreizburg, features the Monte Carlo Philharmonia, who all play gold-plated instruments and drove their Bentleys to the Auditorium Rainier III, where it was recorded, in November 2010. Russian pianist Nikolai Tokarev takes on the dreaded concerto, as well as works by Rachmaninov and Chopin. – Diana Balham
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