Square Eyes

Television Reviews

Movie of the week, 2001: A Space Odyssey, SBS, Sun, 9.30pm:

Kubrick's landmark sci-fi classic unfurls a little like a lost afternoon in Nimbin, but what an adventure - imagining the evolution of humanity. Released at the height of the space race, it's a non-verbal visual experience and features four episodes. Along the way, there's a paranoid homicidal computer, great classical music and imagination that stretches out like the space it's exploring.

Amnesia, ABC, Fri, 8.30pm:

Copper Mack Stone's (the excellent John Hannah from Rebus) life disintegrates when his wife disappears. Has she left him or was it foul play? This intriguing, taut, two-part psychological thriller has him trawling through missing persons lists, where he becomes obsessed by a man with amnesia, who may be a man who vanished when his wife and stepson died in a fire. It twists and turns with breathtaking speed.

Tru Calling, Prime, Fri, 9.30pm:

An offbeat drama series about Tru (Buffy's Eliza Dushku), a uni graduate who scores a job in the city morgue, where she has the supernatural power to wind the clock back a day and change the fate of her looming clients. Aussie Phil 'Rabbit Proof' Noyce directs.

Dunkirk, ABC, Sat, 7.30pm:

A three-part BBC drama-doco about the greatest maritime evacuation of history, saving trapped Allied soldiers in 1940. Using first-hand account, it tells the compelling and powerful story of people who were really in the thick of it and despite desperate circumstances, still doing extraordinary things.

Bell Rock Lighthouse, ABC, Sun, 7.30pm:

Another great choices from seven wonders of the industrial world - this reef, just below the surface, sunk 70 ships in 1799. Young engineer, Robert Stevenson, dreamed and achieved the impossible. The light shines to this day.

Shrek, NBN, Sun, 8.30pm:

It's a shame such a fun kid's movie is on so late on a Sunday. An ogre (voiced by Mike Myers) is miffed when a power-hungry Lord (John Lithgow) who's turned his swamp into a relocation camp for banished fairy-tale characters. To win back his peace, Shrek must rescue the Princess (Cameron Diaz) and convince her to marry the dodgy Lord. A loudmouth donkey (Eddie Murphy) tags along on his quest. It's a funny, fast-paced spoof of Disney cartoon cliches and fairy tales, with a sense of Monty Python absurdity and a moral message for kids.

Third World War: Al-Qaeda, ABC, Weds, 8.30pm:

Ten months before September 11, European intelligence agencies foiled a bomb plot in Strasbourg's Christmas market. Four Algerians were arrested. Alleged ringleader Salim Boukari lived in England for almost 10 years and he explains from his German jail cell how it all came about. Spooky stuff.