Square Eyes

Television Reviews

Movie of the week: Feeling Sexy, SBS, Fri, 8.30pm

Queensland artist Davida Allen's 50-minute gem about an insouciant housewife's struggling marriage is a wonderful, striking combination of humour, both visual and verbal, and pain. Vicki's (Susie Porter) sexual and emotional frustrations from an isolated domestic life inspire fantasies that lead to an affair. It's visually poetic, whimsical and has a larrikin charm. It appeared around the time of Kubrick's epitaph, Eyes Wide Shut, and says much more about the complex intrigues of relationships in a third of the time.

Godzilla, Ten, Sat, 7.30pm

Four decades after a cranky Japanese man leapt around in a lizard suit, Hollywood turns the old holocaust allegory into a special effects romp in New York. It's dumb and silly - and that's just the bits starring Matthew Broderick - and sadly lacking the cult cheesiness of the originals.

Wild Things, NBN, Sun, 8.30pm

This is a subversive comedy dressed up as a melodramatic thriller about money, sex and revenge. A teacher (Matt Dillon) in Florida is accused of sexual assault by two students - one posh, the other trailer trash (Denise Richards and Neve Campbell). Kevin Bacon is a gun-happy detective and Bill Murray is the only lawyer prepared to defend Dillon. Everyone's lying to each other and the loose ends aren't tied up until the credits.

The Legend of Bagger Vance, Sun, 8.30pm

Robert Redford directs this fable about a has-been whose golfing career was cut short by WWI. After his return, he heads for the fairways reluctantly, when a mysterious caddy appears from nowhere, dispenses sage advice and promptly shoots through. How very sweet.

The Mayor of Casterbridge, ABC, Sun, 7.30pm

Thomas Hardy's bleak novel is given surprising levity - as well as remaining deeply moving - in yet another beautifully filmed costume drama. A drunken farm worker (Ciaran Hinds) sells his wife and daughter to a sailor, then sobers up, swears off the booze and slowly builds a respectable life, rising to become mayor. His former wife returns 20 years later, and romance blossoms between his daughter and a colleague.

Dreaming in Motion, SBS, Sun, 9.30pm

These five short indigenous films are surprising, funny and poignant. One stars the late dancer Russell Page in a moving yet amusing story of cousins who reunite for the last time. Another's about a yuppie (Sophie Lee) who buys aboriginal art without thinking, featuring David Gulpilil and Aaron Pederson.

Ascent of the red planet, ABC, Weds, 8.30pm

We haven't even figured out how to get to Mars yet, but already there's a mob training to climb its 21km high mountain. Funny ol' world...