Green Guide's Critical View

The Age

Wednesday May 7, 2008

Natalie Craig, Brad Newsome, Scott Murray

FREE TO AIR

UGLY BETTY

CHANNEL SEVEN, 7.30pm

UGLY Betty distinguishes itself by being a glossy, high-profile show with absolutely no reason for being. Unglamorous Betty (America Ferrera) is the daughter of an illegal Mexican immigrant who works at a fashion magazine called Mode. She wears glasses, is tubby and is therefore ugly, but she shows how beautiful she is on the inside by being amazingly positive and caring. Betty's superior, Wilhelmina (Vanessa Williams), tonight tussles with her fiance's ex-wife, Claire (Judith Light who, to me, will always be Angela from Who's the Boss?). Betty continues to mourn the loss of her ex-lover while caring for her sick boss, her sister who is grieving for her dead fiance, her wayward nephew and her recently deported father. Clearly, we are supposed to think that Betty is the very paradigm of feminine goodness, but she is in fact an irritating goody-two-shoes. Her need to be everything to everyone perpetuates the unattainable ideal of the superwoman. The patriarchy rears its ugly head and its name is Betty Suarez. -- NATALIE CRAIG

PAY TV

ROSS KEMP ON GANGS

CI, 9.30pm

FEW documentary series are as utterly gripping and tragic as this BAFTA-winning program in which British actor and journalist Ross Kemp meets the world's most murderous gangs. Tonight in Jamaica - where gang violence had claimed more than 250 lives in the previous six weeks - the courageous Kemp hits the streets with the police and with one of the gangs they're fighting. Next week: neo-Nazi soccer hooligans in Poland. -- BRAD NEWSOME

MOVIES

CHANGING LANES (2002)

CHANNEL SEVEN, NOON

GAVIN Banek (Ben Affleck) is a yuppie lawyer married to the senior partner's daughter. But then he has the day from hell: a car crash causes him to lose a legal file, which catalyses a downward spiral. The man whose car he hit, Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson), is a recovering alcoholic locked in a custody battle over his two kids. A battle of wills begins. Affleck is note perfect. -- SCOTT MURRAY

© 2008 The Age

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