HD Heads-Up: January 11

➢ Three will mark the 10th anniversary of Heath Ledger’s death with the documentary I Am Heath Ledger (January 22, 8.45). “Imbued with a trove of old personal videos and low-fi behind-the-scenes footage, and chock-a-bloc with bittersweet reflections of Ledger’s character and ambition, the film has the homemade, timeworn, slightly scrappy quality of a well-used and well-loved photo album,” The Guardian said. “It is sweet but desperately sad, earmarked from the start with a eulogy-like quality that makes no claim to bearing any kind of even vaguely subjective intellectual perspective” …

➢ IndieWire magazine thought it “touching but superficial” while Variety summed it up as a “haunting personal documentary” in which the star of The Dark Knight and Brokeback Mountain “comes across more intimately than we’ve seen, but his demons remain behind a closed door” …

➢ The same week Prime will premiere the Louis Theroux doco, Dark States: Heroin Town (9.35 Thursday), which the Daily Express said “explodes the myth of the American Dream” as it investigates the opioid epidemic in the US. “Mostly, it’s bleak as hell,” The Guardian said. “And it’s not just a bunch of junkies opening up their sad lives. It’s about how this happened – through prescription painkillers, and how the US’s love affair with them led to its worst ever drug epidemic” …

➢ TVNZ 2’s Neighbours will resume its 6.30 weeknight slot from January 22. Also returning for new episodes that week are Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway (TVNZ 2, 4.30 Saturday), Ready for Take Off (Prime, 7.30 Wednesday) and South Park (Duke, 8.30 Thursday) while ending their runs are Container Wars, Agatha Raisin and Father Brown …

➢ Appearing on January 26’s The Graham Norton Show (Three, 9.00) are Tom Hanks, Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams, professional boxer Anthony Joshua, and First Aid Kit …

➢ The only network movie premieres for the week starting January 20 are Hail, Caesar! (Three, 9.00 Saturday) and Chef (Prime, 8.30 Monday). Other HD coming attractions include:

• Hotel Transylvania (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Saturday)
• Men in Black (Three, 7.00 Saturday)
• Good Luck Chuck (TVNZ 2, 8,40 Saturday)
• Insidious: Chapter 2 (Duke, 8.55 Saturday)
• The Descendants (Three, 11.15 Saturday)
• Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (TVNZ 2, 5.20 Sunday)
• The Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King (TVNZ 1, 7.00 Sunday)
• Miss Congeniality (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Sunday)
• A Good Day to Die Hard (Three, 8.30 Sunday)
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith (TVNZ 2, 9.00 Sunday)
• Identity (TVNZ 2, 11.10 Sunday)
• Godzilla (Duke, 8.30 Monday)
• The Lake House (TVNZ 2, 9.00 Monday)
• Enemy of the State (Duke, 10.55 Monday)
• Batman Forever (Prime, 8.30 Wednesday)
• Wedding Crashers (TVNZ 2, 8.40 Wednesday)
• The Green Mile (Three, 8.45 Wednesday)
• Hanna (Three, 8.30 Thursday)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (TVNZ 2, 7.00 Friday)  
• Shanghai Noon (Duke, 8.30 Friday)
• Shanghai Knights (Duke, 10.30 Friday) …

➢ Harry Potter fans also won’t want to miss Prime’s Harry Potter: A History of Magic (January 23, 8.30). It goes behind the exhibits of the British Library’s boy wizard tribute to mark the 20th anniversary of JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter novel being published. Not only do Rowling and stars from the movie franchise feature but so, too, do “the world’s leading wizardry and witchcraft experts” …