ScreenScribe

Sky Movies Premiere: The Thing (Sky 20, 8.30, 5.1) Despite its title, this is not a re-make of the last decent horror movie John Carpenter directed but a prequel that effectively ends where the 1982 original began. It’s nowhere near as thrilling but the startling visual effects help to compensate for the familiarity of the [...]

Sky Movies Premiere: Drive (Sky 20, 8.30, 5.1) Drive’s sleek surface sheen is sensational but extreme violence and reckless plotting tarnish what could have been a vintage thriller. Ryan Gosling plays a self-contained, ultra-cool getaway driver who, out of love for a vulnerable woman (Carey Mulligan) and loyalty to a luckless friend (Bryan Cranston), risks his [...]

Sky Movies Premiere: The Change-Up (Sky 20, 8.30, 5.1)  This raunchy comedy from the writer of The Hangover and the director of Wedding Crashers stars Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman as best mates — one’s a workaholic with kids, the other a womaniser who’s never grown up — who switch bodies and learn to be careful what [...]

Sky Movies Greats Premiere: Poseidon (Sky 22, 8.30, 5.1) The killer wave can’t come quick enough in this lame duck of a disaster movie that’s a technical tour-de-force but a damp squib dramatically. It completes director Wolfgang Petersen’s so-called “water trilogy” yet sails perilously close to being his Waterloo in the wake of Das Boot and The [...]

Weaker competition on TV2 helped The Block to top the ratings on Wednesday. It won the 7.30 hour in all the key demographics, averaging 10.4% – 14.2% against the first half of TV2’s Two and a Half Men re-run marathon (10.3% – 13.3%). This helped lead-out The Slap to rate higher among household shoppers (7.2%) [...]

Series Premiere: First Crossings (TV One, 8.30) In this next-generation Matthew and Marc meets Intrepid Journeys, Kiwi adventurers Kevin Bigger and Jamie Fitzgerald recreate the journeys of early pioneer explorers. As the NZ Herald observed in recommending this as one of the week’s top-five picks: “Over the past 10 years, Kevin and Jamie have taken on some tough [...]

New Zealand’s definitive free-to-air guide to what’s airing nightly in 1080i: Saturday The Bionic Vet (TV One, 5.20) TradeZone Gone Fishin’ (TV3, 5.30) Hyundai Country Calendar (TV One, 7.00) ITM Fishing Show (TV3, 7.00) Judy Bailey’s Australia (TV3, 8.30, F) CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) CSI: Miami (TV3 9.30, 5.1) Movie: I Think I Love My Wife (TV3, 10.25, [...]