Tue May 15
[ABC/8:00pm] Choir of Hard Knocks. Premiere. Take one musical director, and a group of homeless and disadvantaged people. Get them together once a week, and let them sing. The result is Choir of Hard Knocks - an inspirational five-part series that premieres on Tuesday May 15, 8pm on ABC TV. In this uplifting series ABC TV follows the journey of Jonathon Welch's Choir of Hard Knocks. Jonathon, a former Opera Australia tenor, will bring together those who have no voice in society, and get them to sing. In just six months they'll stage the performance of a lifetime. The choir, Jonathon hopes, will give a sense of purpose and opportunity to disordered lives, providing these choristers with the opportunity to give back to society. But most of all he hopes they will have fun! There are no humiliating auditions. Jonathon will work with whatever voices he gets. He wants the choir to be open to anyone who can describe themselves as homeless or disadvantaged and is willing to give it a go. The day of the first rehearsal dawns. Jonathon has no idea who, if anyone will turn up. He is delighted with the turnout, and although the singing is less than perfect, he's pleased because he can see he has raw talent to work with. But it will be an exhausting and emotional journey for these choristers.
[ABC/10:00pm] IOU: Robert Helpmann. IOU is a three-part series in which contemporary artists from a wide variety of disciplines pay homage to the influence of three towering creative luminaries. IOU explores the life and work of three major Australian artists - Robert Helpmann, Judith Wright and Robin Boyd. We examine each artist's legacy through their works and from accounts by contemporary artists. Sir Robert Helpmann (1909 - 1986): the great Australian dancer, actor, director and choreographer. As one of Australia's most flamboyant and controversial theatre figures, Helpmann's life and work are honoured in this documentary with interviews with Australian choreographers, ballet dancers, playwrights and actors who have been influenced by his work. In a career spanning 70 years, Helpmann achieved international fame for his Shakespearean roles at the Old Vic opposite the likes of Vivien Leigh and Katherine Hepburn. IOU: Robert Helpmann also pays tribute to Helpmann's role in two of the most exquisite ballet films ever made-The Red Shoes and Don Quixote. Renowned choreographer and Artistic Director of Sydney Dance Company, Graeme Murphy joined the Australian Ballet Company in 1968. After discovering the wealth of dance outside Australia, he left the company in 1971- but not before having had a colourful dose of Sir Robert Helpmann. "There were times when he was standing at the bar in very sheer tights right in front of you and….. with a very soft blue rinse through the hair and looking fabulous and I just thought I'm the luckiest person on earth because this is a piece of history. I knew then at 17 that this was a presence to be reckoned with." Graeme Murphy.Interviews also include: writer Justin Fleming, former ballerina Lucette Aldous, dancer Colin Peasley and actor Tyler Coppin.
[ABC/11:35pm] The Office Specials. Final. Tim's world is rocked when Dawn turns up at the office to say hello. David Brent secures the services of a dating agency. And, there are a few suprises in store at the Christmas party. CAST: Ricky Gervais, Martin Freeman. Rpt.
[Nine/7:30pm] 20 to 1. “Biffs and Blunders.”
[Nine/8:30pm] Two and a Half Men.
[Nine/10:35pm] Hell’s Kitchen. Premiere. Twelve wannabe chefs and restaurateurs compete to impress head chef Gordon Ramsay as he works to open a world-class restaurant in Los Angeles and discover the country's next culinary star. Frequent Coarse Language [L]
[Seven/7:30pm] It Takes Two. Live. Hosted by Larry Emdur while Grant Denyer fulfilled a previous engagement on a cruise ship overseas.
[Seven/9:30pm] All Saints. BALANCING ACT. Charlotte treats a man whose private parts get him into big trouble. Jack finds that justice comes at a cost. Frank takes drastic action when he realises Bart isn't coping. Guest starring SIMON BURKE.
[Seven/11:30pm] The Inside. New Series. THIEF OF HEARTS. When a body is found matching the MO of a serial killer Paul sent to prison, he re-lives the case and re-examines his relationship with Web. Starring RACHEL NICHOLS, JAY HARRINGTON, KATIE FINNERAN, ADAM BALDWIN, NELSAN ELLIS, PETER COYOTE, MICHELLE FORBES, FAY MASTERSON, NED VAUGHN, CASEY SIEMASZKO, TOM WRIGHT and MARISOL RAMIREZ.
[Seven/12:30am Wed] Mile High. Rpt.
[Ten/7:30pm] All New Simpsons. "Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Three Times"
[Ten/8:30pm] NCIS. “Friends and Lovers.” When a dead body of a sailor is found in an abandoned part of the town, all the evidence seems to point to a person who died from an unintentional drug overdose. But the investigation soon turns in a different direction.
[SBS/7:30pm] Insight - SBS Television's Australian current affairs program, presented by Jenny Brockie. (An SBS production, in English) CC WS
[SBS/8:30pm] Hot Politics. On SBS Television on Tuesday, 15 May in the Cutting Edge timeslot is Hot Politics. This documentary investigates the political decisions that have prevented the U.S. government from confronting what is one of the most serious problems humanity faces today. Hot Politics goes behind the scenes to examine the forces behind the U.S. government‘s failure to join in the climate change agreements that much of the rest of the world has chosen to adopt. It probes the impact of a well-financed energy industry campaign which challenged the broad scientific consensus on the human causes of climate change, in an effort to stall federal regulation of the carbon emissions that might impact their companies. Hot Politics details the frustrations of federal officials like Eileen Claussen, one of Clinton's chief international climate negotiators, who resigned from her position in 1997 as she felt the Clinton-Gore administration had dropped the ball by failing to push for Senate ratification of the Kyoto climate treaty. She says, I thought it was dishonest to go and negotiate a treaty that you had no hope of getting ratified in the Senate…Economist correspondent Vijay Vaitheeswaran reveals, by the time Bill Clinton's administration was finished, we saw greenhouse gases so much higher than they were at the beginning of the decade of any president. During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush outflanked his opponent, Al Gore, on the issue, promising to work toward a mandatory "carbon cap," or ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. Bush appointed former New Jersey governor Christie Todd Whitman, who also backed mandatory carbon caps, as his EPA administrator. But, as Hot Politics reveals, Whitman's efforts to implement the new caps were derailed at the White House, apparently at the insistence of Vice President Dick Cheney. Soon after, the Bush administration withdrew any U.S. support of the Kyoto protocols and then began a process of stifling the dissemination of key findings by government scientists about climate change. In my thirty-some years in the government, says top NASA climate scientist James Hansen, I've never seen constraints on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public as strong as they are now. In interviews with climate scientists, environmental activists, and political insiders including Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), former U.S. Senator Tim Wirth (D-Colo.), as well as Whitman, Claussen and others, Hot Politics investigates why the U.S. federal government lags so far behind the rest of the world in responding to global climate change.
[SBS/10:00pm] The Fog of War. Startlingly forceful – an extremely intimate, sympathetic and provocative personal biography, as well as an illuminative audit of human fallibility. One of 2003’s best films. Brett Simon. Sometimes dubbed the "architect" of the Vietnam War or “Mac the Knife”, Robert McNamara is shrewd, charismatic and self-assured when explaining the "fog" of ignorance and bogus strategies that surround war and blind the powers that be. Winner of the 2004 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, and boasting an original score by Philip Glass, Errol Morris’ The Fog Of War screens in the Hot Docs timeslot on SBS Television, Tuesday, May 15 at 10.00pm. It presents a disquieting account of the Red Scare period from US Defence Secretary, and Vietnam political chess master, Robert McNamara. With its meticulous film-making and montage, archival footage, stills and graphics; The Fog Of War is imbued with an eerie clarity and uncanny timeliness. Alarming facts are disclosed, including that, in the years from 1961 to 1968, the U.S. came "within a hair's breadth" of nuclear war with the USSR three times. McNamara also reveals that, while the CIA was convinced in October 1962 that Cuba had missiles but not warheads, Fidel Castro informed him 30 years later that, not only were there many nuclear warheads on the island at the time, but that he recommended that Khruschev use them, knowing full well that, as a result, Cuba would be wiped out. It emerges that the 1945 U.S. firebombing of Tokyo was so egregious that the 'brutal, belligerent' General Curtis LeMay conceded that, had the Americans lost the war, those responsible for the raid may have been vulnerable to war-criminal charges. Furthermore, he admits that, rather than being a potential seedbed for the spread of much-dreaded Communism, Vietnam, long occupied by the French, was actually fighting a war for the independence that had thus-far eluded it. The impediment to achieving peace in Vietnam was the legacy, which carried over from the '50s, and which considered Vietnam in strictly geopolitical Cold War terms. Reason, McNamara concludes, is not enough to create order in the world; emotions and human nature often supersede good sense. Resonating painfully with the current political climate, is his caveat that the U.S. should refrain from going into a war unilaterally.
[Showtime/8:30pm] Movie: Rent (US 2005)
[MovieExtra/11:30pm] Movie: Mysterious Skin
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