Dominion Post

6 TV WEEK
THE DOMINION POST
You beauty
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2010
SCREEN TEST
Rob Berman is general manager of DVD rental
company Fatso.co.nz. When he’s not spending
time with his two young kids, he likes to play or
watch footy, catch a great flick or craft a great
tune in his home studio. Berman spent much of
his younger years travelling the globe – Europe,
Africa, Asia, Americas – and, since having
started Fatso, is passionate about all things
online.
H
AIR, FASHION, makeup . . .
and a houseload of
contestants. Yes, folks, it’s
another reality show, but this
time the prize isn’t just 15
minutes of fame but a scholarship
worth $18,000 to study at one of New
Zealand’s top beauty academies.
Maori Television is putting out the
call for people aged 18 and over with a
passion for hair, makeup, body art and
fashion, to compete in Make Up Stars,
where participants will undertake
various tasks as set by some of the
biggest names in the industry.
The last man – yes, blokes can enter
– or woman standing will walk away
with prizes that include a scholarship
from Cut Above Academy and six
weeks’ work experience. (See
maoritelevision.com for more
information. Applications close
November 30.)
Last night I watched: Michael Jackson’s This is
It on DVD. What a talent, what a genius, what
a tragedy, what a weirdo.
When I was a kid the best thing on television
was: Fantasy Island, the plane, the plane.
The best thing on television for kids these
days is: Imagination Movers – like The Wiggles,
only cool.
The highlight of my career so far has been:
Launching fatso.co.nz in 2004.
If I ran a TV station, I would programme
marathons of: Curb your Enthusiasm, The Wire,
Underbelly, Blackadder, Cold Feet.
When you’re on telly, you really can’t get
away with: High tackles.
I’d leap at the chance: To take a 10-day skiing
holiday at Vail, Colorado, without my beautiful
children whom, of course, I would miss terribly
– but sometimes you have to make sacrifices.
My momentary style obsession is: Number
zero razor cut.
And food fetish: Tapas San Sebastian-style.
I can’t get by without: My weekly Warriors fix.
If there’s one thing I regret . . . it’s not
thinking of Facebook first.
Party central is: Going to get pretty messy.
I’ve never told anyone else this, but: I could
grow my hair if I wanted to . . . really.
I would do a nude scene for: Quite a lot of
money.
My worst habit: Is interrupting . . . sorry, had
you finished?
At the end of the day: I love to put my feet up
and watch a great DVD.
➤ FREE DVDS
Fatso is offering Dominion Post
readers three weeks of FREE movies.
Simply go to fatso.co.nz/join and
enter the code w7dm to commence a
no-obligation free trial of Fatso for
three weeks. You’ll be receiving
movies in your letterbox in no time.
We want you
The good, bad and the tragic – TV Week
is compiling a list of the year’s hits and
misses for a special December double
issue, and we would like your feedback.
Let us know which programmes,
presenters and personalities you loved
and hated and why, and we will include
them in the lineup. Send suggestions to:
TV Week, Features Department, The
Dominion Post, PO Box 3741, Wellington
6140, or email [email protected] or
[email protected]. Please
include your name, and address.
HIT PIC
UNDER THE RADAR
If You Really Knew Me
The Blue Continent
MTV
Thursday, 7.30pm
Travel Channel
Saturday, 7.30pm
WHAT’S IT ABOUT? US high
schools aren’t much different
from the fictional representations we see of them; there
are jocks and cheerleaders who
are revered, and then there are
the ‘‘freaks and geeks’’ who get
picked on. This reality show
tries to end this inequality by
shaking up the cliques and
stereotypes like a good old
teenager cocktail so that students can see each other in a new light,
by using a method called Challenge Day.
WHO’S IN IT? The producers seem to have gone to some effort to
find a really diverse selection of high schools to pick on; from an
affluent Ohio school where cyber-bullying is rife to a school in Virginia
where even the homecoming queen has her own deer hunting
arsenal.
WHY WATCH IT? It’s easy to think teenagers are all about iPods and
Facebook and mood swings, but stripped of all that, there’s actually
a lot to feel positively about our yoof.
THE BEST THING ABOUT IT IS? Usually ends up in a great big warm
fuzzy group hug, and a new understanding of each other. Aww. Now
if only we could get the Israelis and Palestinians, or Osama bin Laden
and George Bush to do the same thing.
WHAT’S IT ABOUT? Camilla
Andersen travels the islands of the
Pacific, to find out whether those
perfect white sand beaches of
tourist brochures really exist, and
to meet the people who have made
the Pacific their home. She starts
in Papua New Guinea, one of the
most culturally diverse countries in
the world, where less than seven
million people speak 850
indigenous languages, and, incidentally, 10 pigs will get you a wife.
WHO’S IN IT? Camilla is an Aucklander via South Africa. She copresented Julian and Camilla’s World Odyssey, in which the two film
school grads travelled, talked their way into odd situations and partied
the world over, so she’s no stranger to roughing it on the less beaten
tracks.
WHY WATCH IT? This is gritty travel, with dead bugs stuck to sunblock,
impoverished villages and hordes of cute, cute children.
THE BEST THING ABOUT IT IS? Camilla’s not afraid to barrel up to a
crowd of possibly quite pissed men who’ve not seen a blonde for some
time. Fear doesn’t seem to be in her vocabulary.
Early Days Yet
TVNZ Heartland
Saturday, 6pm
WHAT’S IT ABOUT? The life
and work of Allen Curnow, one
of New Zealand’s most
celebrated poets. The poet talks
about his life and work, growing
up in New Zealand and where
the poems, such as The
Skeleton of Great Moa in the
Canterbury Museum,
Christchurch, came from.
WHO’S IN IT? Curnow reads his
poetry and talks about his work
and his life. Writers Bill Manhire,
C K Stead and Curnow’s wife,
Jeny, also reflect on the
importance of Curnow’s work.
WHY WATCH IT? Essential viewing for anyone interested in Curnow’s
work, or New Zealand literature.
THE BEST THING ABOUT IT IS? Watching Curnow tap away at his
Olivetti typewriter in his little Parnell kitchen. Bless him.
Meat and greet: Not 10 minutes before Eva
Longoria Parker appeared dressed as a ham
– or is that mutton as lamb? – at last
week’s MTV Awards in Madrid, she was
ogling a gaggle of likely lads in their
grundies. Some people get all the good jobs.
Photos: REUTERS
The Real Anne Lister
Documentary channel
Sunday 8.30pm
WHAT’S IT ABOUT? The life and
most unusual times of socialite,
mountaineer, landowner, secret
diary writer and lesbian Anne
Lister. Born in Halifax in 1791,
Lister might have lived in the
same era as the Bronte sisters,
but her penwomanship couldn’t
have been more different. Forget
Mr Darcy and Heathcliff – Lister’s
love life (outlined in a series of
elaborate and often coded diaries,
which ran to four million words and which her biographer later described
as ‘‘the Rosetta Stone of lesbian history’’) reads like something from a
far more emancipated world.
WHO’S IN IT? Writer, comedian and lesbian Sue Perkins (The
Supersizers Go . . . ) explores, with her usual dry wit, the story behind
this remarkable woman, visiting Lister’s ancestral home, talking to
several historians – who reveal Victorian society was considerably more
tolerant than most of us realise – and discussing the diaries with Helena
Whitehead, the biographer who spent 25 years cracking the books’ code
to reveal Lister’s journey from experimental youth to radical industrial
landowner.
WHY WATCH IT? Not only was Lister unusual for her unorthodox
personal affairs, but for the fact she did more things in her life than
most of us would do in two – including studying geology and
engineering, taking lessons in human dissection, climbing mountains in
Spain and Russia, and mining coal.
THE BEST THING ABOUT IT? Discovering Anne Lister.