Matthew Krouse Down the tube
Wet and worldly in the dreariest season. That’s the promise of M-Net’s winter line- up. There’s nothing local or of over- arching relevance on the pay channel in July – not that it’s criminal to propose ideology-free programming.
On the contrary. When one watches television a lot, one eventually tires of slogan-ridden, graphic interludes that punt a sanitised line. An easy target is SABC2’s mottled gray thing that comes up intermittently claiming, metaphorically, that the fabric of the channel is “made in Africa”. After seeing it umpteen times alongside such overstated, boring local programmes as Tarzan (Thursdays at 5pm) and 37 Honey Street (Wednesdays at 7.30pm) one wonders whether it wouldn’t be more appropriate to pretend that some things aren’t made on the continent.
M-Net’s cure for winter chills is to heat up the action. To start with, this reviewer hates action movies, but what the hell. Millions love them. This winter it’s time to snuggle up and suffer death from a testosterone overdose. Think of car chases, street fights, swat teams and, of course, busty babes who can’t resist a real man in a polo neck, wearing strong deodorant.
Here’s the list. Look out for M-Net’s Action Heroes Millennium Festival, which includes such corny classics as Crocodile Dundee, Highlander, Death Wish, Enter the Dragon, Beverly Hills Cop, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Dirty Harry.
On the same channel, and for those who enjoy their violence more refined, don’t miss the two stylish intrigues, LA Confidential and Face/Off.
One further gem worth mentioning is Wilde, the recent feature about the heyday and tragic demise of the 19th-century Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde. It was Wilde who said “marriage is a long, dull meal with dessert served at the beginning.” If one wants to discover why he thought so, turn to Stephen Fry’s portrayal of the man whom Victorian England misunderstood enough to imprison and then banish.
There’s more than just these on M-Net in July. While the programme bodes well for those with decoders, one has to quibble with the total absence of local content among its feature film highlights.
Again, on this note endless credit must go to the person or team at SABC2 who masterminded the ongoing season of African film, including last week’s showing of the Lionel Rogosin Fifties classic Come Back Africa.
But one niggling problem crops up time and again. The programming of African feature films is set apart from feature film programming in general. This raises the question: why, if M-Net is scheduling some corny old action classics, don’t they find a little space for the odd African oddity? Seventies filmmaking in Africa must have had some mad moments, good enough for a chuckle today.
M-Net’s viewers now span the length and breadth of the continent – surely viewers would benefit from an integrated approach to the world of cinema. Programming need not be ideologically bound, but it may benefit people to look back, to broaden the view of where we come from, in order to proceed.