HD Highlights: September 1

August 30, 2012 0 Comments

SoHo Highlight: Boss (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) Season premiere: Power consumes everyone as the award winning drama returns. Despite nearly losing his career, his family and his mind, Mayor Kane’s grip on Chicago is as powerful as ever. And so’s this intoxicating, Shakespearian, Kelsey Grammer sensation. “Season two pulls viewers back on board with intriguing plot twists, more light moments and strong performances,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says while the New York Post dubbed the premiere “pretty damned riveting“. And TV Guide reckons Boss has “sharpened this season (judging from the first five episodes) into a bolder, though still hardly subtle, urban melodrama of moral, political and sexual chicanery”. ✭✭✭✭✩

❑ Hyundai Country Calendar (TV One, 7.00) A former city slicker turns her back on suburbia to find a new life on the farm. ✭✭✭✭

❑ ITM Fishing Show (TV3, 7.00) A brief winter weather window finally allows Matt to head out wide in his Stabicraft to have a crack at catching a broadbill swordfish during the daytime. ✭✭✭

❑ CSI: New York (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) Hawkes gets caught up in a prison riot when he visits a Pennsylvania penitentiary to honour a death-row inmate’s final request. Guest star Edward Furlong returns as Shane Casey. ✭✭✭

❑ CSI: Miami (TV3 9.30, 5.1) A man is murdered shortly after getting into a fight at a singles bar, but the body disappears before the police arrive. ✭✭✭

Movie: Premonition (TV3, 10.25, 5.1, R) This was one of a slew of movies that cost Sandra Bullock critical and commercial credibility until her double-whammy with The Blind Side and The Proposition. She plays an unhappy housewife who wakes up the day after her husband’s death to find he’s still alive, only to discover the next day he’s still dead. The Wall Street Journal dubbed it “Groundhog Day without the laughs.” Nip/Tuck’s Julian McMahon co-stars; Bill Kelly (Enchanted, Blast From the Past) wrote the snooze of a screenplay. (2007) ✭✩

❑ Nothing Trivial (TV2, 11.05, R) Said Dominion Post critic Jane Clifton of the season premiere: “One of the absolute standout plot features is the handling of Mac’s marriage and custody woes. Anyone who has gone through a Family Court drama in real life will find this so resonant that it’s a bit hard to watch.” ✭✭✭

❑ Movie: Superman Returns (TV2, 12.05, 5.1, R) Look who’s back to save not only the world but also a movie franchise that seemed to have died long before the Man of Steel’s last incarnation, Christopher Reeve. A more strapping successor than Brandon Routh is hard to imagine, and co-writer/director Bryan Singer springs enough surprises to keep the usual suspects fresh but still truthful to the Superman way. Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth co-star. (2006) ✭✭✭✩

Sky Movies Greats: Hellboy II – The Golden Army (Sky 22, 8.30, 5.1) Superhero fantasies don’t get funnier or freakier than this sensational sequel. Hellboy II is less comic book-driven than the original, with eye-popping visuals and special effects that owe more to the unique, fairy tale signature of writer/director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth). The dazzling and inventive action revolves around a subterranean plot to take over the world but that’s merely the MacGuffin for del Toro to let loose his singular imagination. (2008) ✭✭✭✭