Pay Tv - Wednesday, September 7
The Age
Thursday September 1, 2005
PAY TELEVISION REVIEWS: Selling Houses Special, Lifestyle, 7.30pm; Poirot: Death on the Nile, Hallmark, 7.30pm; Project Greenlight Australia, Movie Extra, 8pm
Selling Houses Special, Lifestyle, 7.30pmYou really wonder about some people. Ollie and Bella's flat has been on the Kent property market for nine months, potential buyers put off by its bland design, bad layout, lack of storage and shabby fittings. But the owners haven't even done the bare minimum to present their home attractively - like weeding the garden. Duh! In this three-part British series, real estate agent Andrew Winter and Matt James from City Gardener do a Trinny and Susannah on less-than-hot properties, showing that the rules of presentation are universal. Persuading the obstreperous Ollie (he's a French chef - what can I say?) to borrow a few thousand, they show that with a little money and a lot of elbow grease miracles can happen.Poirot: Death on the Nile, Hallmark, 7.30pm"Everybody who's anybody is in Egypt ce soir!" honks society matron Salome Otterbourne at Hercule Poirot (David Suchet). And at least one of them is a murderer. So 'ercules 'oliday doesn't last very long before 'es back in 'arness, solving 'omicide. In this glittering adaptation of Agatha Christie's whodunit, Poirot finds himself drawn into a desperate lovers' triangle. Bright young thing Jacqueline de Bellefort introduces her boyfriend, Simon, to her best friend, American heiress Linnet Ridgeway. "You'll adore him," she says, prophetically. When Linnet and Simon marry three months later, Jacqueline seeks revenge, stalking the happy couple on their honeymoon aboard a luxury Nile cruiser. But someone has murder in mind and the body count begins to rise. An exotic setting, a cast of fabulously overdressed, overindulged blue bloods and deliciously over-the-top dialogue combine to make Death on the Nile a jewel in the Queen of Crime's crown.Project Greenlight Australia, Movie Extra, 8pmCasting cuts both ways, as first-time feature film director Morgan O'Neill discovers when he tries to bring his winning script Solo to the screen. Tonight, he has his eye on certain actors - but what do they think of him? Colin Friels has clout. But will he be interested in doing a million-dollar movie under a novice director - and for peanuts? It can't hurt to ask, can it? Meanwhile, the location manager is tearing his hair out - what little is left. It's two weeks from the start of the shoot and major locations have yet to be found, including a Japanese restaurant that won't mind a car ploughing through its front window. Hope the movie is this dramatic.
© 2005 The Age
