JAMIE LEE CURTIS: HOLLYWOOD CALL OF FREEDOM
8.40pm, Saturday, SBS
Having watched this French-made documentary on the career of Jamie Lee Curtis, I still have no idea what the title means.
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Initially I thought, the Call of Freedom might be another one of those odd medals the French give out to all sorts of people. You know, like the Legion of Honour, which has been bestowed on non-French people like Barbra Streisand, David Lynch, New Zealand politician Thomas Hislop, World War I nurse Annie Mistrick and Australian military leader John Monash.
What a motley crew that is. The only thing they all have in common is that they've won that medal.
But no, there does not seem to be anything called the Hollywood Call of Freedom. So who knows what this title means.
Curtis has shown admirable longevity in Hollywood, where female leads tend to get put out to pasture before they're 30; she certainly deserves a better overview of her career than this offering.
It's nothing more than a collection of clips from her movies spliced in with whatever interview footage they could find of Curtis talking.
It's all narrated with this weird, non-human breathy voice-over, like the makers decided to use sexy AI to create it.
As an aside, it wasn't a good sign when the narration made a big mistake in describing the villain of Halloween - a movie that was Curtis' big break - as wearing a hockey mask.
No, that wasn't Halloween's Michael Myers; Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th wore the hockey mask.
If they can't get their facts straight about Curtis' breakout movie, it doesn't instil confidence about the accuracy of the rest of this documentary.
HOW TO MAKE IT IN COMEDY
7.30pm, Wednesday, SBS
This isn't really a guide to succeeding in the world of stand-up. Instead it's quite an interesting look at the growth and change of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The festival was initially tacked onto the Edinburgh International Festival way back in 1947.
Since then it has overtaken that other festival to become the main gig in town - and one that comics flock to in the hope it will make them an overnight success.
Of course it's never really that easy, with some of the performers featured in this documentary having to go back year after year before finally making it big.
It's not all glowing words about the fringe; there are comments about the lack of racial and gender diversity onstage, the way corporations have taken hold, and how early performers don't like the new wave's view that you go there to become famous.
CHANGING ENDS
9pm, Wednesday, ABC
A semi-autobiographical story of the childhood of comedian Alan Carr, the worst thing in this show is Carr himself.
A co-writer, Carr regularly appears on camera and in voice-over, which is actually rather annoying.
It left me feeling he either didn't trust the narrative enough to let it tell the story unencumbered - or just wanted to make sure he appeared on camera.