AUGUST 3 2019 LISTENER 69
SATURDAY AUGUST 3Jumanji (TVNZ 2, 7.00pm).
The effects no doubt look
rudimentary now, especially
the CGI monkeys, but this
is nonetheless straight-out
Spielberg-esque adventure fun.
Robin Williams is at his best
as the boy who grew up in the
jungle after being sucked into
the enchanted board game
Jumanji, and isn’t that little
Kirsten Dunst? (1995)
Juliet, Naked (Movies Premiere,
Sky 030, 8.00pm). Former Lem-
onhead Jesse Peretz is a good
fit for another one of Nick
Hornby’s delayed-adolescence
stories. In a High Fidelity-style
tale, Chris O’Dowd’s Duncan
is obsessed with an obscure
singer-songwriter called Tucker
Crowe (Ethan Hawke), but
this singular focus in which
his online life has precedence
over his real life is taking a
toll on his relationship with
Annie (Rose Byrne). There are
several strands here, including
warnings about meeting your
heroes and taking parental
responsibility, but Peretz keeps
it light and also commissioned
songs from Ryan Adams and
Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst.
(2018)The Railway Man (Māori TV,
8.30pm). Australian directorJonathan Teplitzky muddles
this biopic of Eric Lomax, a
British soldier who was forced
to work on the Thai-Burma
Railway – also known as the
Death Railway – and was
tortured for building a radio
receiver. It’s perhaps one of
the few films to address the
long-term effects of post-
traumatic stress disorder: Colin
Firth’s Lomax is an ageing,
absent-minded professor when
he meets lonely Patti (Nicole
Kidman, looking real for once)
in 1980. However, his experi-
ences, seen in flashback with
Warhorse’s Jeremy Irvine as a
young Lomax, have never left
him and, finally, he embarkson a journey to confront his
torturer. Although the film is
rather leaden, there are very
good performances and a
moving denouement. (2013)27 Dresses (TVNZ 2, 8.55pm).
Katherine Heigl is always the
bridesmaid, never the bride,
which seems to sum up her
post-Grey’s Anatomy career to a
tee. She’s stood up for friends
27 times, but life-changing cat-
alysts arrive in the form of her
manipulative sister, who snags
the guy Katherine’s secretly
pining for, and journalist
James Marsden, whose cyni-
cism (because journalists areA Guide to the Week’s Viewing
TV Films
The Railway Man, Saturday.by FIONA RAE