The TV3 leaders debate brings back the worm, but you have to have a smartphone, and it's criminal what they're doing to the schedules.
TV
Criminal Minds
Decision 2011 – The Leaders Debate (TV3, 7.00pm). TV3 leaves it till the last week of campaigning to get the pollies into the studio, but what excitement there has been! Will John Key “storm off”? How many times will Phil Goff says “teapot tapes” just to rattle his opponent? John Campbell, of course, moderates this debate between the National and Labour leaders and, awesomely, they’re bringing back the worm. Or rather, the Roy Morgan Reactor, which you can download for your smartphone. (Can we just point out that the poll therefore is only a poll of people with smartphones? Just sayin’). After the debate, Campbell, Duncan Garner, Therese Arseneau and Paul Henry will chew over the leaders’ performances.
Criminal Minds (TV1, 8.30pm). Here we are, apologising again for our listings being, through no fault of our own, wrong. Dancing with the Stars US is out, and TV1 is back to Criminal Minds, which is even less interesting, if that’s possible.
aimRenderAd(300, 250, '300X250','ContentRect','/POS=POS2'); if(!$.browser.msie){ ContentRect_frame = $("#ContentRect")[0]; ContentRect_frame.src = ContentRect_frame.src; }The Mentalist (TV2, 8.30pm). The lovely Morena Baccarin stars in tonight’s episode; she is a nerd favourite from Firefly days, and the now-cancelled V, but has got herself a really nice gig in Homeland, a top-notch thriller starring Mandy Patinkin, Claire Danes and Damian Lewis. Tonight, she plays the wife of the owner of an online dating service who may or may not have killed her husband.
Mad Dogs (TV1, 9.30pm). The final of this four-parter, and the four hapless holidaying Brits are going to have to get their badass on in order to get out of the fine mess they’ve got themselves into.
FILM
Jarhead (TV3, 8.30pm). Sam Mendes’s brutal biopic puts ex-marine Anthony Swofford’s experiences fighting in the first Gulf War right at the centre of everything. Not much different from any other picture about any other war – only the technology changes. In the end it’s about sheer survival. Jake Gyllenhaal does a good job of portraying the intellectual son from a military family, with solid backing from Peter Sarsgaard, Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper. (Our 2007 interview with Anthony Swofford http://www.listener.co.nz/culture/books/anthony-swofford-interview/ here.) (2005) 7 – Diana Balham
Donnie Brasco (Movies Greats, Sky 022, 8.30pm). Johnny Depp didn’t quite break out of his oddball romantic roles after Donnie Brasco – he went on to make The Man Who Cried and Chocolat – but this is the first role that showed he was more than a smart kid with a pretty face. He is nuanced and moving as an undercover FBI agent who bonds with his Mob mentor, Al Pacino. British director Mike Newell makes sure we understand the stresses of being undercover and that the Mafia life is not a glamorous one, just paunchy middle-aged men doing very nasty things. Pacino is similarly stunning as Lefty Ruggiero, the small-time Mobster who is both dangerous and pathetic. (1997) 9
Incendiary (Rialto, Sky 025, 8.30pm). An adaptation of Chris Cleave’s 2005 novel that came to be associated with the July 7/7 terrorist attacks in London because it had just been published when they happened, and it features the bombing of a football stadium in London (here’s the Guardian’s 2005 reivew of the book). Unfortunately, the film tries to do too much and does not have a good enough script to pull it off, despite a great cast of Michelle Williams, Ewan McGregor and Matthew Macfadyen. Williams is a working-class mum who begins an affair with McGregor’s tawdry journalist. Then her husband and son are killed in an al Qaeda attack on Arsenal’s stadium and all domestic hell breaks loose. An “ambitious attempt” by Bridget Jones’s Diary director Sharon Maguire, said the Guardian. (2008)
RADIO
Music Alive (Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm). Live from the Auckland Town Hall tonight it’s Voices of Aotearoa, a concert from the award-winning Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir and Horomona Horo, conducted by Karen Grylls. Horo plays taonga puoro – the traditional musical instruments of Maori. He has worked with Hirini Melbourne and Richard Nunns, won the inaugural Taonga Puoro Concerto in 2001 and performs around New Zealand and overseas. – Diana Balham
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