Entertainment picks: Love in the world's coldest climate

Movies

March of the Penguins is a great date movie. If you just ignore the bit where the male penguin leaves his mate after a year, there's a lot to be said for the romantic nature of Antarctica's Emperor tribe.

The daddy goes for four months without food to look after the baby so mummy can head off for dinner with the girls. The men aren't afraid to cuddle up close to the other men when it gets cold. And the couples don't seem to mind camera crews around when they're, y'know, making whoopee. No wonder it won an Oscar.

V for Vendetta, on the other hand, will give you and your date more to talk about than avian erotica. Like avian flu. And why star Natalie Portman looks like she's got it.

Based on Alan Moore's graphic novel, written by the Wachowski brothers and directed by first-timer James McTeigue, their assistant on The Matrix, it's set in futuristic Britain, an age familiar with terrorism, totalitarianism and trippy talk. As grim as that sounds, Hugo Weaving as the flamboyant terrorist V makes it thoroughly entertaining.

Also opening this week: Sharon Stone is still a dangerous slapper in Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction, as is Dame Judi Dench in Mrs Henderson Presents. Well, she's an eccentric old woman who buys a London theatre and starts a nude revue.

The Auckland Film Society presents 1964 favourite Diary of a Chambermaid (tomorrow, Rialto, Newmarket), followed by a presentation and audience discussion on the film's Spanish director Luis Bunuel. My, how civilised. See the Auckland Film Society website for details (see link below).

Music

Lock up your telephones, Russell Crowe and the Ordinary Fear of God are playing the SkyCity Theatre on Friday. And judging by his new album, it should come a cropper, mate.

Finnish metallers HIM play the St James on Tuesday, so prepare to worship at their soft-goth altar.

And Aussie folk-punk band the Go Set play the Grey Lynn Library Hall with the Rabble and guests at 4pm, and Kings Arms that night with Cobra Khan and Suicide Dogs. When you google their name you get a whole lot of information on breast pumps, so it is not advised.

The bigger, broader Titirangi Festival of Music kicks off on Friday with performances from (among others) Mahinarangi Tocker, Andrew Fagan, Te Vaka, Gahu, Dick Johnson, James Reid, Lucid 3, Dan Sperber and Ddub. There are music workshops at venues around the township until April 8.

Literature

Whether you're a book fan or you relate to a guy who ripped off his mates to pay for his cocaine habit, you'll appreciate An Hour with DBC Pierre (Thursday, Sapphire Room, Ascott Metropolis, 5pm).

DBC (Dirty but Clean, aka Peter Finlay) won the Man Booker prize in 2003 for his black comedy Vernon God Little, the wise-cracking hero of which has been called "the Huckleberry Finn of the Eminem generation". And he should have plenty of interesting yarns - the Aussie-born writer and cartoonist was brought up in Mexico, has lived a life of both luxury and drug abuse and seems to have a fascination with poo. Russell Brown MCs.

Art

The Disrupt Gallery's new show is called Little Pricks. Before you get your knickers in a knot, it's a tribute to the late Phill Matthias, founder of the Dermagraphic Tattoo Studio on College Hill, who died after a motor accident.

He was also president of the Ponsonby Business Association and chairman of the Arahura Trust, which provides support for people with mental health difficulties.

According to the organisers of this exhibition, "often he was a prick. But Little Pricks make lasting impressions."

Artists featured are Otis Frizzell, Darryl Thomson, Karla Hansen, Adam Craft, Xander, Sam Perkins, Jamie Thorburn, Merv O'Connor, Dr Damian Roberts, Natasha Simich and Inkd. It runs from Thursday until April 18.

TV

It's a good week to be young. TV2's new young person's period drama, The Lost Children (Saturday, 5.30pm), looks pretty good. Set in the 1860s, it's about a group of children washed ashore on the coast of Taranaki after a shipwreck.

The series stars Keisha's little bro, Rhys Castle Hughes, as a Maori boy who has been captured and made a slave, plus Tandi Wright (Shortland Street, Doves of War) and guest stars Nathaniel Lees (The Matrix) and Antonia Prebble (Outrageous Fortune).

Let's Get Inventin' (TV2, Sunday, 5pm), made by Sticky TV's Goober Brothers, looks even more fun. With its fast-paced editing, extreme athletes and racy soundtrack, its aim is to make science cool, and it gives kids the chance to see their inventions realised - and possibly patented.

Following at 5.30pm is the return of the Gilmore Girls, the fastest-talking, sassiest mother-daughter partnership in Connecticut.

Younger viewers might also get a kick out of Buggin' with Ruud (Animal Planet, tonight, 7.30), with Ruud Kleinpaste. Since talking his head off on Maggie's Garden Show, he has been making it big in the US, dropping scorpions into Jay Leno's lap, attaching killer bees to his face, that kind of thing.

Also on this week is Expose: Teen Species (TV One, tonight, 8.30), a three-part British documentary series about the ride through adolescence. Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby returns (TV One, tonight, 10.05pm). And there's the Steelmill metal show (C4, Saturday, 1am), programmed by the Herald's own Scott Kara. Crikey.