New Zealand Listener - May 26, 2018

68 LISTENER MAY 26 2018

THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT

Ocean’s Twelve (TVNZ 2,

9.00pm). There is a law of

diminishing returns with

Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s

series – the more clever-clogs

crims, the less coherent the

movie. Twelve relocates to

Europe, where Danny (George

Clooney) and the gang must

plan a heist in order to pay

back the money they stole

from Andy Garcia in the first

movie. Catherine Zeta-Jones is

added as an Interpol agent and

Vincent Cassel shows off his

capoeira skills as master thief

the Night Fox. (2004)

Catching the Black Widow

(TVNZ1, 10.30pm). A terrific

central performance by Aidee

Walker anchors this Sunday

Theatre telemovie about a

sister who wouldn’t give up. It

dramatises the 2009 murder of

Phil Nisbet by his wife Helen

Milner, who had been dubbed

the Black Widow by her

workmates when she claimed

that Phil was trying to poison

her. Walker plays Nisbet’s

sister, Lee-Anne Cartier, who

realised that Milner was lying

about a suicide note and many

other things. Katherine McRae

is opaque and subtly threaten-

ing as Milner and the scenes

between her and Walker are

scary and tense. (2017)

SUNDAY MAY 27

Olympus Has Fallen (TVNZ 2,

8.30pm). Given the current

detente between the US and

North Korea, it is perhaps in

bad taste to be hauling out

this actioner in which there

is an all-out North Korean

attack on the White House.

It’s the American lone-hero

myth personified in the form

of Secret Service agent Mike

Banning (Gerard Butler), who’s

going to kill all the bad guys,

save the free world and find

redemption for an imagined

past mistake.

That this is all

done without a

shred of irony has

us wondering what

Antoine Fuqua was

thinking. Angela Bassett

and Melissa Leo also star, and

Rick Yune plays a Korean bad

guy called Kang. (2013)

Blue Jasmine (Maori TV,

8.30pm). Cate Blanchett excels

in everything she does, but

she was even more exceptional

than usual in Woody Allen’s

43rd film. She plays a Blanche

DuBois character who, when

her husband’s finances col-

lapse, takes refuge with her

nervous-nelly sister – another

excellent performance from

Sally Hawkins. Blanchett is

selfish, ghastly, manipulative

and desperately vulnerable

all at once; meanwhile, Alec

Baldwin is everything that you

thought a grasping Wall Street

cheater would be.

(2013)

Ain’t Them Bodies

Saints (Choice

TV, 8.30pm). David

Lowery is often spoken

of in the same sentence as

Terrence Malick and Ain’t

Them Bodies Saints does have

something in common with

Malick’s 1973 Badlands.

However, Lowery is more

in the present than Malick;

he is not seeking to describe

life, the universe and eve-

rything, and he unfolds his

multifaceted story with care

while giving his characters

their own deeply complicated

inner lives. As Casey Affleck’s

Bob Muldoon makes his

way back to Rooney Mara’s

Ruth after a prison break, her

small Texas town braces for

impact, especially Ben Foster’s

sheriff, who has taken a shine

ALAMY to Ruth. The underexposed,

Ocean’s Twelve,

Saturday.

Best

Queen

SHAKESPEARE

IN LOVE

Friday, Bravo

8.30pm