A week on the box: December 22-28

Reviewer James Croot checks out the best shows and films on New Zealand television screens for the week of Tuesday, December 22 to Monday, December 28.

Tuesday, December 22

Real Life: Blood Sweat and T-Shirts
9.30pm, TV1
BBC documentary which takes six British high-street fashion victims to India to see what it’s like to live and work in one of the clothes factories they rely on. The group undertake various challenges in order to learn the hard way the true cost of their fashion habit.

River Cottage Christmas
7.30pm, Prime
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall issues his toughest challenge yet to chefs Gil and Colin – help transform the reputation of the much maligned Brussels sprout. River Cottage Guests also take part in a Secret Santa competition with each expected to make their gift which they could draw out themselves.

The Secret of the Grain
8.30pm, Rialto

Providing wonderful preparation for your own upcoming family gatherings, this slow moving but seductive French drama focuses on the lives of an Arab immigrant family. As well as providing plenty of visual gastronomic delights the story also presents plenty of food for thought.

Engineering Connections: Ocean Airport
7.30pm, National Geographic
Turns out the construction of Hong King International Airport, one of the world’s busiest and biggest airports, drew inspiration form a 13th Century Arab irrigation machine, a World War II bomber and car suspension. Host Richard Hammond also reveals how a Cold War spy device helped reduce lost baggage.

Wednesday, December 23

Forrest Gump
8.30pm, TV2
Today much parodied and maligned for its simplistic take on American events in the latter half of the 20th century, there is still a lot to like about director Robert Zemeckis’s 1994 fable. Tom Hanks is at his charismatic best while Gary Sinise has never again reached the same heights.

Clash of the Santas
8.35pm, TV1
Generation X girls’ favourite beefcake Robson Green reunites with his Northern Lights co-star Mark Benton for this Christmas tale. The story has Benton’s Howie representing England at the World Santa Championships in Lithuania and Green’s Colin tagging along as a female elf.

Aotearoha! Dai’s Xmas Special
8.30pm, TV3
7 Days regulars Ben Hurley, Steve Wrigley, Paul Ego and Jesse Mulligan join New Zealand’s pint-size prince of comedy for this 90-minute slice of festive fun. Also features musical creations from the likes of The Lonesome Buckwhips, Ali McGregor and The Sami Sisters. Followed by The Best of Pulp Sport at 10pm.

Back Benches Summer Tour
9.10pm, TV7
New Zealand’s own pub politics show hits the road for the summer, travelling to licenced premises in the likes of Napier, Gisborne and Tauranga. This week host Wallace Chapman and local identities will be holed up in the Duke of Marlborough Hotel in Russell.

Thursday, December 24

Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat
TV2, 5pm
Despite being described by the Washington Post as "about as creatively inspired as a giant hairball", director Bo Welch’s film is actually a triumph of style over substance. Art directed to within an inch of its life, Amville is a riot of pastels, uniformity and Giesel-inspired architecture with Mike Myers’ running riot as the title character.

Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather
8.30pm, Prime
From the delightfully twisted mind of best-selling satirist Terry Pratchett, this two-part mini-series weaves together pagan myths, druid worship, winter solstice rites, childhood bogeymen, and holiday spirit. Stars David Jason, Marc Warren and Tony Robinson. Continues tomorrow at 8.30pm.

A Knight’s Tale
7pm, TV3

Or the movie that announced Heath Ledger’s arrival in Hollywood. Deliberately anachronistic, like Moulin Rouge! Brian Helgeland’s 2001 action-drama aims to blend period past with pop culture with mixed results. Look out for Paul Bettany in one of his first film roles.

Bridget Jones’s Diary
9.40pm, TV3

Deserves the award for the most obvious but essential casting of the past decade by having Mr Darcy himself Colin Firth play Mark Darcy. A beefed-up Renee Zellweger might have been a far more controversial choice to play Helen Fielding’s heroine but she pulls it off with aplomb.

Friday, December 25

The Shawshank Redemption
8.30pm, TV1

Despite barely registering at the box office, Frank Darabont’s 1994 adaptation of Stephen King’s short story regularly tops “favourite movie” lists and with good reason. Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins makes for an unlikely but endearing double act and the against the odds story is at once uplifting and beautifully subversive.

Airplane
8.30pm, C4

Probably the funniest film in Hollywood history. Not every joke scores but there are so many packed into the 88-minute running time that the smile will hardly ever disappear from your face. Lloyd Bridges, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves and Robert Stack head an all-star cast.

Elvis: Viva Las Vegas
10.10pm, Prime
American documentary examining how the King of Rock-and-Roll reinvented Las Vegas and how it reinvented him. Incorporates rarely seen footage of Elvis performing in Las Vegas, revealing interviews with those closest to him, and special performances from some of today's top recording stars singing Elvis's Vegas classics.

Calendar Girls: 10 Years On
10pm, Living
A decade after the creation of their world famous and inspirational tastefully nude calendar, six members of the Rylstone Women's Institute reunite to strip for the cameras one more time. They recount the rollercoaster ride they have been on, including how an emotional split tore the group in two.

Saturday, December 26

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
9pm, Maori

For those of a certain age, this is the perfect unwinder after the trials and tribulations of Christmas and Boxing Day. Joan Plowright and Rupert Friends star in this 2005 drama about an elderly woman who is all abandoned by her family but strikes up a friendship with a young writer.

The Castle
8.30pm, TV1

From the most fertile period in Aussie comedy history (the mid 1990s) comes this cracker about a family battling bureaucracy to save their home. As well as introducing Eric Bana it also added countless phrases to the antipodean lexicon. "Tell him he’s dreaming" and "How’s the serenity?" to name but two.

Changling
8.30pm, Sky Movies

Angelina Jolie was unlucky to miss out on an Oscar earlier this year for her performance as a 1920s woman convinced that the boy the police have returned to her is not her son. And in directing this based-on-fact drama, Clint Eastwood again shows why he is one of the best helmsmen around.

The Sixth Sense
11.35pm, TV2

What in the world has happened to Hayley Joel Osment? The young actor had the world at his feet in 1999 after his compelling and chilling turn in this Hitchcockian thriller from the then unknown director M Night Shyamalan. A film that also brought Bruce Willis back from the brink of obscurity.

Sunday, December 27

The Zoo: This is Your Life
7pm, TV1
Five-part local series that celebrates the lives of some of Auckland Zoo’s special residents. Today’s episode focuses on 25-year veteran Indra the Orangutan. For those who prefer their animals sassier, wittier and more animated, the original Madagascar () starts at the same time on TV2.

Nanny McPhee
7pm, TV3

Based on former governess Christianna Brand’s popular Nurse Matilda this 200 film is cheeky and charming. Possessing the same magical feel as the Potter series, Lemony Snicket and Narnia, it is distinguished by its dazzlingly bright and breezy art direction (involving vivid greens, purples and reds) and Tim Burtonesque wild and wacky costuming.  Emma Thompson stars.

Australia
8.30pm, Sky Movies

Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman stars in Baz Luhrmann’s ambitious but flawed 2008 epic. Trys to shoehorn everything from cattle cartels, Japanese invasions and internal race relations into the mix, but there’s just a hint that this pavlova is slightly over-egged. Only in the last hour’s air attack on Darwin, do the sneering cartoon villains get sidelined, the emotional intensity rises and Australia fulfils its stunning potential

Oliver Twist
8.30pm, TV1
An all-star cast including Timothy Spall, Sophie Okonedo, John Sessions, Edward Fox and Rob Brydon assemble for this two-part take on Charles Dickens’ classic tale. "It manages to feel modern, yet also faithful - somewhere between melodrama and gritty realism," wrote The Guardian’s Sam Wollaston of the BBC production. Continues tomorrow at 8.30pm.

Monday, December 28

The Mummy
7pm, TV3

Brendan Fraser puts his square jaw to good use in this enjoyable 1999 Indiana Jones knock off. Director Stephen Sommers places a lot of emphasis on the then cutting-edge CGI which fortunately manages to come up trumps. Lightning wouldn’t strike a second or third time.

Mythbusters - Pirate Special
Prime, 8.30pm
Jamie and Adam have plundered the seven seas in search of pirate parables and maritime myths and the result is a two-hour spectacular. Experiments include firing cannonballs to prove the damage splinters caused and creating a pirate-themed obstacle course to understand why some wore eye patches over perfectly good eyes.

Willie Jackson’s Newsbites
9.30pm, Maori
Prime Minister John Key joins the Radio Live broadscaster for a special end-of-year programme looking back on the biggest, funniest and most moving stories of 2009. Expect discussion on Susan Boyle, the All Whites, the Samoan Tsunami and that other Wacko Jacko.

American Psycho
10pm, TV3

Before he was Batman or John Connor, Christian Bale was best known for bringing to life Bret Easton Ellis’s Yuppied killer Patrick Bateman. At turns scary and hilarious, particularly due to Bateman’s love of Phil Collins. Reese Witherspoon, Chloe Sevigny and Willem Dafoe provide engaging support.

- © Fairfax NZ News