ScreenScribe

TV series dominate this week’s Blu-ray slate, with only Dr Seuss’ The Lorax being so fresh from the multiplex that its 2D and 3D discs go on sale here ahead of the US. But it deserves to hog the limelight if advance online reviews about its demo-worthiness are a guide. “This digital-to-digital transfer of the […]

Network Premiere: Get Him to the Greek  (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) Russell Brand’s rock star from Forgetting Sarah Marshall has an encore in this less memorable romp from that movie’s star and screenwriter, Jason Segel. Jonah Hill, who was the waiter in Marshall, plays a record industry flunky baby-sitting Brand’s fading celebrity en route from London to Los Angeles for a comeback […]

Sky Movies Premiere: Cars 2 (Sky 20, 4.20, 5.1) As co-director John Lasseter says in his cheerfully exhaustive Blu-ray commentary, Cars 2 isn’t just a “retread”. It relocates racing car Lightning McQueen and his tow-truck mate Mater to Europe for a World Grand Prix, where they become embroiled in a plot to sabotage alternative fuel’s prospects. The folksy, small-town […]

Network Premiere: Robin Hood (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) Ridley Scott’s entertaining but flawed take on the Sherwood Forest outlaw was his fourth consecutive collaboration with Russell Crowe. His visually impressive revisionism cloaks the 900-year-old legend within the guise of historical credibility but isn’t dark or Elizabeth-an enough to satisfy adults while being too sombre and complex for kids. If only […]

Series Premiere: Planet Dinosaur (TV One, 7.00) “This six-part series, narrated by John Hurt, is the most expensive and ambitious monsterfest since Walking with Dinosaurs, and it showcases these newly discovered beasts in all their snarling, thumping, flesh-tearing CGI glory,” said The Times. “Before the latest bone fragments were found, the biggest beast on the block was Tyrannosaurus rex, […]

TV One at last is getting with the HD programme and will roll out six new series in 1080i starting the week of June 16. The same week it will screen another movie-length NZ drama in HD and resume thrice-weekly screenings of Coronation Street, albeit still in SD. The pick of the new shows is […]