I always enjoy watching Scottish actor James McAvoy. He can move from indie flick to period drama, and action and science fiction blockbuster to kid’s animation, all with ease and while oozing credibility. A little like his X-Men: First Class co-star Michael Fassbender.
I always enjoy watching Scottish actor James McAvoy. He can move from indie flick to period drama, and action to science fiction blockbuster to kid’s animation, all with ease and while oozing credibility. A little like his X-Men: First Class co-star Michael Fassbender.
It was announced early this year that McAvoy (as the young Charles Xavier) and Fassbender (Magneto), and The Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), will return to shoot the sequel of the X-Men prequel with director Matthew Vaughn, which is great news for fans of these mutant heroes. It’s also rumoured McAvoy will be going back (even further) in time to play King Arthur in Warner Bros. period action film Arthur and Lancelot.
This Saturday McAvoy pops up on Rialto Channel in The Conspirator (Saturday 7th April, 8.30pm), a drama set in 1865 post-civil war America where he plays Frederick Allen, a 28-year-old Union war-hero given the job of defending 42-year-old Mary Surratt. Surratt is charged with conspiring to kill American President Lincoln, the Vice President and the Secretary of State. It’s a thankless job for the young lawyer as he deals with a military court who has already decided Surratt’s fate, and McAvoy is perfectly suited to director Robert Redford’s earnest tone.
Redford’s gathered an impressive cast to work with McAvoy to bring this story to life, including Robin Wright, Kevin Kline, Rachel Evan Wood and Tom Wilkinson. The pacing varies and it’s a touch emotionally cold but it’s a fascinating topic, especially if you like American history and courtroom dramas.
My next highlight for this week couldn’t be more different. From Aussie documentary director Mark Hartley (Not Quite Hollywood) comes Machete Maidens Unleashed! (Thursday 5th April, 8.30pm). It’s a hilarious celebration of the exploitation-movie industry in the Philippines during the ‘70’s and ‘80’s.
When American film producers started coming to New Zealand to shoot television series like Hercules and Xena they fondly described local crews as “Mexicans with cell-phones”. We are nothing compared to the crazy locals the Americans encountered in the Philippines.
Producers, directors, actors, cult movie icons (such as John Landis), and critics talk honestly about a low budget B-grade industry that kept drive-ins in America busy with their terrible and repetitive stories, paper-mache monsters and gratuitous boob shots. The stories are priceless and the nudity is endless - really, you’ve got to see it to believe it.
And finally this week, I’d like to introduce new series Moving On playing throughout April in our British Theatre series on Monday evenings at 8.30pm.
This series features five stand alone contemporary dramas commissioned by the BBC, all connected by the common theme of a character who moves on after reaching a turning point in their life. The series was executive produced by BAFTA and Emmy award-winning writer and producer Jimmy McGovern (Cracker, The Street), who selected the stories and oversaw the final drafts. The series showcases the work of both experienced writers and new up-and-comers, and the casts are top notch. If you like curling up on the couch with some quality gripping British drama, then consider Monday nights sorted.
Enjoy.