This Thursday on The Couch

• Performer Tamika Kasper sings for us
• Dr Jenny Brockis is back with another Brian Fit talking why we all need to Sleep well.
• Senator Mathias Cormann is back giving us his opinion on the May Budget
• Neesha Seth talks to the creator of  new website called Life Story Look Up for more info see www.lifestorylookup.com
• Tim Mayne from the RSPCA is back to promote Pet Adapotion and the Million Paws Walk coming up on the 20th May 2012 for more info go to www.millionpawswalk.com.au
• Perth’s The Voice contestant, Paula Parore comes in for a chat about being on The Voice TV Show .
• New Segment , New Gadgets with Tayla Divitini looking at great gift ideas and amazing gadgets that can make our lives easier
• Irna Rusche from Yorkeys Knob in QLD is this weeks Spin It To Win It Contetsant, see her win some great prizes
• We give you the chance to win a new Blackberry Playbook worth $600 thanks to Allphones.

THIS Finnish-German-Australian co-production, Iron Sky, was financed by international fans of the Star-Wreck website with its link to the film’s trailer. The first known movie so financed with numerous small community payments, that’s why it took six years to get to our screens. Iron Sky is a cheeky movie that pokes fun at many things American, and at the same time it’s an amusing history lesson. While it’s not a great movie, it’s not a bad movie, its crazy concept works to an extent, it has its moments, and it’s all a bit of harmless fun.

Written by Michael Kalesniko based on an original story by Johanna Sinisalo and Jarmo Puskala, and directed by Timo Vuorensola, the movie starts off as a satirical critique of the current political climate in America, and then becomes a satirical look at Hollywood’s sci-fi blockbusters. While is starts well, it later looses pace, and then picks up again with the final scenes with heavy dosed in pathos. Considering its low budget, the sci-fi action scenes don’t Hollywood’s, but are still quite an achievement.

At the end of World War II in 1945, the Nazi’s led by their new Führer, Wolfgang Kortzfliesch (Udo Kier), avoided elimination by utilising a secret Nazi space program that allowed them to leave Germany, and set-up a base on the dark side of the Moon. Here they built a large fortress which now houses a massive armada of flying saucers, ready to attack earth, and proclaim the return of the Fourth Reich.

Behind in the polls for her re-election, look-alike Sarah Palin US President (Stephanie Paul) and her press secretary Vivian Wagner (Peta Sergeant) decide another Moon landing could well lift the President in the polls. Landing on the Moon the first astronaut out of the capsule discovers a large open pit mining operation in front of him, but before he can return to the capsule to report his sighting he’s shot by a Nazi sentry. The Nazi’s are mining Helium 3 to fuel their nuclear reactor for their power supply. Hearing the shot, his colleague African-American James Washington (Christopher Kirby) hurries to see what’s going on. Finding his colleague dead he hides behind a rock, but is soon taken prisoner.

Grilled by the Nazi’s chief scientist, Doktor Richter (Tilo Prückner) who is amazed by Washington’s iPhone, a pocket sized computer more powerful than his massive mainframe computer. The Doktor’s daughter, schoolteacher Renate (Julia Dietze) teaches her students Nazi history, how victory in World War II was denied them, mainly by America, and it’s now time to avenge the situation.

Now Doktor Richter has made James Washington white, Klaus Adler (Götz Otto) a Nazi army officer who wants to overthrow Wolfgang Kortzfliesch, and become the next Führer, sets out with Washington to take a trip to America and negotiate with the US President for a new world order. Before take-off Renate smuggles herself aboard Alder’s (her fiancée) spaceship. Landing in America they dump Washington, who becomes a street bum, now a white African-American. Seeing the US President doesn’t work the way Adler thought it would. So on their return to the Moon Adler takes over as Führer, and launches a spacecraft attack on earth.

Watch the trailer

The Movie Hound’s Picks

• Dark Shadows (Three Stars – in cinemas now)

Two decades after his mother and father brought Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) as a child with them from England to America in 1752, they set up Collinsport, Maine. After their deaths Barnabas now the master of Collinwood Manor, is rich, powerful and a playboy, that is until he breaks the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) who is in love with him, for another. Angelique a witch in every sense of the word, puts a curse on him, turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is freed from his coffin by construction workers laying power cables, and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. Returning to Collinwood Manor he finds his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin, and the remnants of the Collins family have fared little better. Directed by Tim Burton, and with a fine cast, Johnny Depp gets some great lines, and Helena Bonham Carter gives a fine performance. This starts off well but soon looses it.

• Jiro Dreams of Sushi [G] (Four Stars – in cinemas now)

This documentary directed by David Gelb explores 85-year-old Jiro Ono’s amazing life, and his passion for running a famous Three Star Michelin sushi restaurant in Tokyo. At the heart of this film is Jiro’s incessant work ethic, something that has influenced his sons’ lives. Eldest son Yoshikazu is the heir apparent to the sushi empire, but Jiro is not ready to retire or to relinquish any of his responsibilities. With a famous father guiding and critiquing every decision, Yoshikazu is unable to reach his fullest potential. However, he is proud to learn from a true sushi master, and revealing the inner struggle of how a dutiful son shows reverence to his father, whilst controlling his own domain.

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• Local actor and musician David Lazarus performs for us. More info at davidlazarus.com.au
• The Voice contestant from WA Georgia Reed comes in to tell us about her experience on The Voice.
• Inspire Foundation WA boss Aram Hosie comes in to give us an insight into the work that the Reach Out program does for young Australians. For more info go to inspire.org.au
• Labor Senator Louise Pratt comes in and cooks a tasty Thai dish.
• Damon Lockwood and George Gayler from the new play “I (Honestly) Love You” at the Blue Room theatre come in for a chat. For more info go to blueroom.org.au
• Chloe checks out some new movies
• Cameron Lynch has all the Showbiz news
• Chris Morley from Victoria is our Spin it to Win it contestant this week
• We give away another Samsung Galaxy Tablet thanks to Allphones

AS a director who never makes the same film twice, English filmmaker Michael Winterbottom (The Trip; The Road to Quantanamo; A Cock and Bull Story) is one of the most creative filmmakers. In his latest, Trishna, is based on Thomas Hardy’s classic novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles but set in modern day rural Rajasthan and the teeming industrial metropolis of Mumbai, India. The tragic story of Indian woman of low birth who falls in love with rich young man.

Winterbottom has a liking for Hardy’s stories, an author many find difficult, his The Claim (2000) looks very much like it was based on another of Hardy’s classic novels, The Mayor of Casterbridg, but in this case the use of Hardy’s story is cleverly done and with a lot of meaning of modern India. Winterbottom seduces us with the realism of the sights and sound of modern India, its teeming cities, the congestion, not just cars and tuk-tuks, but the cows, goats and monkeys, the dancing girls and the human beasts of burden with huge loads. And then the rural villages where poverty, ignorance, superstition and social discrimination abounds.

When Jay Singh (Riz Ahmed), who is holidaying at an Indian hotel with some of his English friends sees 17-year-old Trishna (Freida Pinto) he’s smitten. While his friends are off back to England, Jay is staying behind to work in one of his father’s (Rothan Seth) Indian hotels to learn the business. But Jay has been spoilt and is not interested in learning the hotel business, he’s just a lazy rich playboy. After her father crashes his produce carrying vehicle, and is bedridden injured, Jay gets Trishna a job in the hotel as a waiter, a job that pays more money than even her father could earn. Now having fallen in love with him she lets him seduce her, upset by his advances she soon finds she’s pregnant. Hurriedly she returns home to her village, knowing that her grandmother will be able to organise a local backyard abortion for her. But it will come at an awful price, not in cash but to reputation and social standing.

Now Jay has left the hotel and is producing a Hollywood movie in Mumbai. Telling Trishna to come to Mumbai he sets them up in an apartment in Mumbai, where they live as equals, but when his father becomes very ill back in Britain, Jay and goes home to be with him. Left on her own, she moves in with a friend when the lease of the apartment runs out. So she goes and lives with a friend in a poor part of Mumbai, and goes with her friend who is attending dancing classes.

On Jay’s return from Britain, he moves into a good hotel and gets Trishna a job there. When she tells him she had an abortion, he is very annoyed and his attitude towards her changes dramatically. More than upset he starts to humiliate her, what was once a love affair, becomes one of a master and mistress, whenever he wants sex, she has to oblige him. As she becomes more upset with the whole affair, the tension builds and we know she’s about to break, but what action will she take?

Having done what she planned to do, she leaves the hotel and returns home to her family. But after her father’s rather pointed comments about her relationship, she takes the only action she thinks appropriate.

Trishna is in cinemas May 10

Watch the trailer

The Movie Hound’s Picks

• Safe [M] (Three and a Half Stars – in cinemas May 10)

Former NYPD cop Luke Wright (Jason Statham) is feeling low, some of his now corrupt old colleagues are gunning for him, as is a criminal gang. Standing on the platform in the New York subway he edges nearer to the edge of the platform as the train arrives, he wants to end it all, All of a sudden he sees a little Chinese girl Mei (Catherine Chan) hiding from what he knows are gangsters. Why, because she has escaped from them, it seems her gift of being able to remember very long numbers is the problem. His depression saved by Mei, Luke now has a reason for living. Like all Jason Statham movies there’s generally a high body count. In this smorgasbord of corrupt NYPD cops, Chinese and Italian gangsters the body count is extreme, it’s fun and entertaining, for the sort of movie it is.

• The Five Year Engagement [MA15+] (Three and a Half Stars – in cinemas now)

A year after Tom Solomon (Jason Segel) and Violet Barnes (Emily Blunt) meet a New Years Eve fancy dress party, they become engaged. He’s San Franciscan Sous chef under his best mate, chef Alex (Chris Pratt) with his Chef mate wanting to open his own restaurant, she’s a psychology graduate student. Next day she gets a letter telling she’s been accepted into the graduate school at Michigan University under Professor Winton Childs (Rhys Ifans). Moving to Michigan, Tom finds it difficult to get a job suited to his talents, but they make a lot of new friends. As years go by, and as their older relatives, who wanted to see them married, die off. Life becomes a series of funerals, and put off wedding plans. Well written by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, who also directs, with a great cast, this mature romantic comedy, is good fun but a little too long.

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