Entertainment picks: Salizzo sweetens your screen diet

TV
Former Sports Cafe host and producer Ric Salizzo has a new talk show.

The Sugar Shack (TV3, Thursday, 9.30pm) is set in a caravan and it's not about sport. It's about everything else that's happened during the week, Salizzo says.

"Whatever happens on Thursday, happens." The show's panel looks like a good mix of experience, knowledge and assertiveness, with Naked Samoan Dave Fane (Bolo in Sione's Wedding), radio host Noelle McCarthy, actress Kat Brown, and former TV host Peter Vegas (who was a Max TV presenter).

The show's full title is The Firestone Direct Sugar Shack.

Ugly isn't it. Sometimes you need sponsorship, but this show's blatant branding needs to go because The Sugar Shack sounds cool, kinda like a song by the Temptations or James Brown.

Also on this week is the first game in rugby league's State of Origin (live on Sky Sport 1, Wednesday, 9.30pm and then on Prime at 10.40pm), when Queensland take on New South Wales in Sydney.

More than likely there will be some punch-ups, lots of tries, and a see-saw battle.

This is state against state - and mate against mate, mate. And it's war.

New Zealand's last attempt at a cop show was Interrogation on Prime, and while it wasn't too flash, it was an ambitious approach to the genre.

The new TV One series Orange Roughies (Thursday, 9pm) takes a more flashy approach, following a border security task force, and it's sexy rather than gritty. It is shot at many locations around the Hauraki Gulf - and, hey, you can't go wrong with chicks in scuba gear.

However, the show does deal with provocative cases and this week's episode focuses on a bungled child sex-slave case. It's worth watching, so don't adopt a just-another-cop-show attitude.

Music
Singer/songwriter Ben Harper, who plays the St James tonight, was the first overseas musician I interviewed. That was in 1999 when he was promoting his album Burn To Shine. I wasn't a fan of that album but loved the earlier albums Fight For Your Mind and The Will To Live.

I had been slightly nervous - though enthusiastic and knowledgeable - heading for the interview. But for such a passionate man, Harper was - in the words of the late, great Kurt Cobain - a bit of a "negative creep". But we made it through the interview.

New Zealand loves Harper's music. He loves us, too, and has said he would live here if he had his way.

Harper is touring to promote his latest double album, Both Sides of the Gun. I have to say - not because of any ill-feeling - that it's a little hit and miss.

Elsewhere in music it's a busy time. Lowdown and dirty American rockers Nashville Pussy turn it up at the King's Arms on Thursday with the Sorecocks and the Rock and Roll Machine.

On Friday, Autozamm, the Tutts, and Motocade play the King's Arms, the Open Souls play at AUT's Vesbar (free for AUT students, others $5), and the monthly Turnaround is on at the Rising Sun. Two diverse gigs on Saturday worth checking out are breakbeat freaks Aquasky at the Fu Bar and Australian punks the Disables, with the City Newton Bombers (who have just released their self-titled album), at the Pinnacle Club.

Check out Metal Fest at the King's Arms on Saturday, with Wellington's Gomorrah and a few other Auckland acts. It will be beastly.

Movies
In the latest X-Men movie - with the original title X-Men 3 - a cure for the mutant X gene has been discovered, which threatens the existence of mutants that include Magneto and Professor X.

Oh no, what will they do? It sounds as though they should sort out their differences on how to deal with it first, because one wants a bloody revolution while the other wants to work with the government on a compromise.

I hope, for the sake of moviegoers throughout the world, that they go for revolution.

For a getting-back-to-nature trip, there's Grizzly Man, about self-taught naturalist Timothy Treadwell, who spent 12 summers living in the wilds of Alaska filming grizzly bears.

Treadwell gets so familiar with many of the bears that he names them like pets. Kind of like the Lion Man, except with bears.

In Last Holiday, Queen Latifah stars as Georgia Byrd, a shy cookware saleswoman who thinks she's dying of cancer. She decides to go to Europe on one last vacation. With nothing to lose she tries everything she's always wanted to do. You go, girl. The thing is, she should have asked for a second opinion.

Then there's On a Clear Day, about 55-year-old Frank Redmond who loses his job after decades of labouring as a shipbuilder in Glasgow. In an attempt to build his self-confidence the stubborn old fella plans on attempting the near impossible - swimming the English Channel.

The queer film festival Out Takes 2006 starts on Thursday night at Village Cinemas in Queen St with a screening of the nutty comedy, Queens. Besides going to the films themselves, check out the festival booklet - that's all I'm saying.