Square Eyes

Television Reviews

Movie of the week, Barry Lyndon, SBS, Weds, 10pm:

Stanley Kubrick's 30-year-old epic costume drama, adapted from Thackeray's English comedy of manners, is intelligent and lush. Barry (Ryan O'Neal) is a naive, headstrong chap keen to make his mark with marvellous adventures, then win the girl (Marisa Berenson). It's a beautiful, lavish, slowly rambling film, with much to enjoy, despite its 3-hour length.

Not Another Teen Movie, Ten, Fri, 10pm:

You need to have endured all those other teen movies to get many of the jokes in this spoof of a genre that was already a send up. It's a lot of scatological tosh, but if you don't mind its puerile obsessions, there's plenty to amuse, with references to two decades of films, from The Breakfast Club to American Pie.

The Art of War, SBS, Sat, 7.30pm:

Former National Gallery director Betty Churcher looks at the roll of the artist in war in this four-part series. They can tell a fascinating story, from Damien Parer's moving images of wounded diggers on the Kokoda Trail, to a Polish refugee whose sketches of the concentration camps remained hidden for 50 years until his death.

The Blues Brothers, Ten, Sat, 10.30pm:

Wow, is it really 25 years? It's funny, stupid slapstick, with great music and an infectious energy. Car chases, bad jokes, drug references, Cab Calloway and Aretha Franklin. What more could you want?

Revealing Gallipoli, ABC, Sun, 7.30pm:

A two-part look at what happened from both sides of the battle, telling how everything built up to this ill-feted moment, using first-hand accounts and computer-generated graphics to show things now buried under a crude road to keep politicians happy. The deep humanity in all involved in the frontline of this conflict is very moving. The excellent doco Love Letters from a War follows.

Dark Blue World, SBS, Sun, 8.30pm:

A Czech Pearl Harbour, promising an epic war story, but getting bogged down in a trite love triangle. Two Czech pilots in the RAF during WWII have a lot to prove. It's well crafted and beautifully filmed (though the dogfight footage is nicked from the 69 classic, Battle of Britain) and tells the story of coping with returning to their homeland.

Anzac Day March, ABC, Mon, 9am:

90 years later, there are no WWI diggers left. 60 years after WWII ended, those ranks are inexorably thinning. Even Vietnam's veterans of 30 to 40 years ago are now growing old. Yet these stories gain potency as they move inevitably from life to the history pages. At 12.30pm, there's a cross to the service in Gallipoli, where that famous Turkish road now makes it easier for politicians who battle from behind desks to wrap themselves in the reflected glow of military service.