David Suchet finally gets his Murder on the Orient Express, and the Parker/Hulme murder gets a new going-over.
TV
Poirot
NB: The TV1 listings in the November 12 issue of the Listener say “To Be Advised” at 4.55pm every weekday, and at 7.30pm on Tuesday and Thursday because, at the time we went to press, TVNZ had not made a decision about the programmes that would screen in those timeslots. However, TVNZ has since announced it is screening Coronation Street at 7.30pm on Thursdays and Fridays starting November 10. Ellen will screen at 5.00pm every weekday. TVNZ’s full TV guide is here.
Ice Road Truckers (TV3, 7.30pm). You need to be a special kind of risk-taker to drive 18-wheelers on the most treacherous roads on Earth, but not all the truckers are manly men doing manly work: Lisa Kelly (pictured) is a 28-year-old former bus driver and freestyle motocross champion who foots it with tough guys Hugh “Polar Bear” Rowland and Alex, er, “Alex” Debogorski. Season three also features veteran George “King of the Haul Road” Spears and Jack, er, “Jack” Jesse. They haul everything from construction materials to oversized drilling rigs on the Dalton Highway in Alaska, and among the dangers they face (apart from cliffs, hairpin bends and -56°C temperatures) are avalanches and white-outs. Supplies had to be trucked in because volcanic ash from the Mt Redoubt eruption grounded planes.
Maori Boy Genius (Maori, 8.30pm). A documentary by Auckland film-maker Pietra Brettkelly about a Hawke’s Bay teenager who attended Yale University at just 15. Nga Rauira Pumanawawhiti began his first university degree at 12, and at 15 attended a summer session at Yale. Pumanawawhiti, the eldest of six children, was educated in kura kaupapa and learnt English at age four. Brettkelly says Pumanawawhiti, clearly a future leader, has “political aspirations and educational plans beyond our shores, confident that his future success lies in the strength of his Maori culture and language in a contemporary, international world”. She describes her documentary as a coming-of-age film that “hints at the coming-of-age of New Zealand, of a future of true biculturalism and a genuine respect for diversity”.
Poirot (Prime, 8.40pm). Of all the Agatha Christie stories, Murder on the Orient Express would appear to be the one to adapt, and it seems to have been the one David Suchet was waiting for. “I have never seen a man so excited in my life,” producer Karen Thrussell told the Telegraph about the moment Suchet, who has played Hercule Poirot for 22 years, received the script. However, the rights to the story only became available in 2008, following the poorly received 2001 version starring Alfred Molina. Given the financial strain ITV was under in the economic downturn (this is the channel that cancelled Heartbeat among a slew of other cost-cutting measures), it’s a wonder a drama as expensive as a Poirot mystery was ever made again. It is a grand production, too, “nicely done, lavish and glossy”, said the Guardian. Carriages have been carefully recreated, down to resin reproductions of Lalique glass panels in the restaurant car. The story might be well known, but writer Stewart Harcourt (who also wrote this series’ The Clocks) and director Philip Martin (who won an Emmy for Prime Suspect and Baftas for Wallander and Mo Mowlam biopic Mo) have made their version much darker: it is set in 1938, with World War I looming. “This isn’t a parlour game, a Christmas charades exercise of fancy dress and pretending. It’s a story about vigilante justice,” Martin told the Telegraph. The four mysteries in series 12 bring to 65 the number of times Suchet has played Poirot, and he is determined to film the remaining six books, including the one that features the death of Poirot. “I won’t have closure – that horrible word – until we film his death,” he told the Telegraph. “After that I’ll probably be in Styles [the old people’s home where Poirot ends his days] myself, watching all the reruns.”
FILM
aimRenderAd(300, 250, '300X250','ContentRect','/POS=POS2'); if(!$.browser.msie){ ContentRect_frame = $("#ContentRect")[0]; ContentRect_frame.src = ContentRect_frame.src; }Scary Movie (TV2, 8.30pm). The Scream series of films introduced us to the idea of horror parodies, and just in case we didn’t get it before here’s another cycle of gross-out spoofery. If you’re not familiar with the teen slashers in question, your head will be spinning – and not because you are a child of Satan. (2000) 6 – Diana Balham
Lakeview Terrace (TV1, 8.30pm). Welcome to the new TV1, folks: home of US thrillers on a Saturday night and excruciating cooking shows throughout the week. Who do they think watches the channel now? How apt, then, that this drama should be about not fitting in: a bigoted black cop (Samuel L Jackson) monsters his interracial neighbours (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) in a posh suburb of LA. Intelligent writer/director Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men) presents another sociopath alive and well and living right under our noses, and forces us to ask ourselves whether he would be more outrageous if he were white. (2008) 6 – Diana Balham
Max Payne (TV3, 8.30pm). A nasty violent crime drama that’s the long version of an equally nasty video game. Exactly the sort of glamorised blood-spilling with big weapons and sexy chicks that young blokes get their jollies from. Also a pretty bad movie. It doesn’t help that the eponymous lead (Mark Wahlberg) has a name that makes him sound like a headache pill. (2008) 4 – Diana Balham
After the Wedding (Maori, 9.30pm). Big ups once again to Maori TV for its thought-provoking menu of foreign-language films. Tonight, a tense yet restrained Danish drama about an altruist (Mads Mikkelsen) who has devoted his life to helping India’s poor and must return to Denmark to secure a very large donation for his orphanage. But the routine visit takes an unexpected turn when he learns why the benefactor wanted to see him in person. Director Susanne Bier (Open Hearts, Things We Lost in the Fire) follows the “Danish Dogma 95” style of austere film-making but this was internationally appealing enough to score an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film. On the other hand, two reels were apparently switched by mistake at a showing at a film festival in Estonia, and hardly anyone noticed. (2006) 8 – Diana Balham
Glory Road (TV2, 10.15pm). Another Jerry Bruckheimer underdog sports team drama screening just three weeks after Remember the Titans on TV1. The only difference is this one’s about basketball, not American football. But: fact-based – check; set in the recent past – check; black team fighting prejudice – check; inspirational coach – check; happy ending – you betcha. Plucky team leader du jour – Josh Lucas. (2006) 6 – Diana Balham
RADIO
Saturday Morning with Kim Hill (Radio New Zealand National, 8.10am). Telling stories could be a theme today: former Crown Counsel and barrister Peter Graham left the law to write about crime, concentrating on real cases from our history. His new book, So Brilliantly Clever, looks at the Parker/Hulme murder of 1954, promising to reveal the whole truth for the first time. Jack Ralston has always been preoccupied with sport, and he has a CV as thick as a weightlifter’s bicep. His jobs include 12 years of directing national and international events in a wide variety of sports, working with Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Carl Lewis with Nike Sports Entertainment, and his current gig as CEO of Gymnastics NZ. He has just released a memoir, The Sports Insider: A Life Among Champions. And American storyteller Jay O’Callahan makes a living travelling the world listening to the experiences of others and passing them on in his own inimitable fashion. Info and audio here. – Diana Balham
Las Tetas/1995 Recorded Live at Roundhead Studios (95bFM, 11.00am and Friday, 2.00pm). Truly terrifying Auckland “thrash punk all-girl quartet” Las Tetas – whose connections with other bands are too numerous to mention – are up first today. Their unreleased track You’re Not Invited is one minute and 27 seconds of lead singer Renee shrieking “You’re not invited. You’re not invited. You know who you are!” (A Facebook posting reads: “You ARE invited!! We’re gonna be playing the baddest shit, come if you wanna hear some sick az music.”) If this sounds like you, by all means tune in. It’s all relative but 1995 are a slightly gentler male five-piece, also based in Auckland. They describe themselves as “Concrete/idol/pop” on their Myspace page. Make of this what you will. There will be live streaming and podcasts on 95bfm.com, and video on this website after November 12. – Diana Balham
Jazz Concerts (Radio New Zealand Concert, 1.00pm). Television’s My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding showed us travelling people were just old softies with terrible taste in clothes, but their music has always been another matter altogether. The gypsy band Latcho Drom is led by Christophe Lartilleux, who was born into a circus family and spent his childhood roaming through Europe in a caravan. Their seductive and mysterious music embraces the nomad cultures of Egypt, Turkey, Eastern Europe, France and Spain, with legendary jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt their main source of inspiration. This concert was recorded last July in the Théâtre de l’Agora in Montpellier, France. – Diana Balham
Live: Dudley Benson with the Dawn Chorus (Radio New Zealand National, 4.10pm). Former ChristChurch Cathedral choirboy Dudley Benson hails from a goat farm in the Port Hills and is the kind of original performer who forms a genre all by himself. What it is I’m not sure. Amplifier website tried “indie-chorister” and “folk-popist” (but possibly meant “poppist”). Today’s concert, recorded in the Oratia Settlers Hall in West Auckland, is the final show of his 2010 nationwide tour of marae and community halls that featured songs from his second full-length album, Forest: Songs by Hirini Melbourne – reinterpretations of Melbourne’s native bird waiata – and other numbers from his back catalogue. He’s accompanied by his a cappella ensemble, alt-barbershoppers the Dawn Chorus, and beatbox singer Hopey One. – Diana Balham
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