Green Guide's Critical View - Tuesday

The Age

Tuesday January 22, 2008

Paul Kalina, Brad Newsome, Craig Mathieson

FREE TO AIR

2 Mums and a Dad

SBS, 7.30pm

KELLIE and Fiona are thirtysomething lesbians in a committed relationship who are keen to start a family. Darren, who knows the couple through work, is pushing 40 and wants to be a dad. Fiona becomes pregnant using Darren's sperm and a plastic syringe. The easy part is out of the way. Less easily resolved is the role that each will play in this new rainbow family. "We are rewriting how a family unit works," says Kellie with unbridled, but soon to be dashed, optimism at the outset of this documentary. The Melbourne-shot program is, as it promises, a fascinating insight into the new frontier of modern families, as increasing numbers of lesbian and gay couples take advantage of reproduction technologies. Writer and director Miranda Wills' film certainly stimulates and pushes buttons, although not always for the most edifying reasons. Much of it focuses on the tortured confrontations between the clingy and close-knit couple and the needy and fragile Darren. A healthy Marley is born, and with him comes hints that this atypical menage-a-trois may yet work things out. But it's far from certain. -- PAUL KALINA

The Madrid Connection

SBS, 8.30pm

ACCORDING to recent public service announcements, even tiny pieces of information from the public can protect Australia from terrorism. Anyone believing this will find little comfort in this look at the 2004 Madrid train bombings. The Madrid Connection is a tense countdown to the attack, the worst terrorist act on European soil that left 191 dead and 2000 injured, via two of the perpetrators. One was a mild-mannered and devout Muslim from Tunisia who was radicalised in the wake of the US invasion of Afghanistan; the other fled his native Morocco as a teenager and, under an assumed name, led an infamous life both inside and outside jail as a drug-trafficker, addict and pimp. With meticulous detail, this documentary traces the trajectories of the odd-couple pair whose paths finally crossed at a mosque in Madrid. The pair blew themselves up just as police closed in on them in the weeks after the bombings. With admirable restraint and objectivity, this Spanish/British/Danish co-production is a measured and sobering look at the putative masterminds of the attacks and the terrible human cost of their acts. -- PAUL KALINA

PAY TV

Snoop Dogg's Father Hood

E!, 10pm

TONIGHT'S episode of this sitcom masquerading as a reality show features Snoop Dogg's adorable little daughter, Cori, getting her thespian groove on as she searches high and low for her daddy, whose thumping music is making it impossible for her to study. Snoop is feeling stressed out, so he heads off to see the doctor. Turns out the tough-talking rapper is deathly afraid of needles, so to get him relaxed enough to supply a blood sample, the doctor sends him to a yoga class and - wait for it! - an acupuncturist. Luckily, the acupuncturist is blind, so Snoop manages to sneak out. Mildly amusing. -- BRAD NEWSOME

MOVIES

Under Suspicion (2000)

Channel Ten, midnight

THERE is a school of thought that prizes films purely for the match-up of their male leads, as if movies are a sporting contest. In Under Suspicion, the pairing is Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman. Hackman plays a wealthy lawyer called by a police inspector (Freeman) to explain discrepancies in his statement about finding a young woman's body. The pair brings obvious screen technique and an ability to cut back and forth across the interview room table, but it's in aid of a sparse story designed to house a twist as opposed to unfolding naturally. -- CRAIG MATHIESON

© 2008 The Age

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