Tara Ward: Too Much, Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story, Outrageous Fortune

Too Much  

Jessica, a New York workaholic is reeling from a broken relationship. She takes a job in London, where she plans to live like a Bronte sister. When she meets Felix, a walking series of red flags, their unusual connection is impossible to ignore (Netflix). 

 

Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story   

Interviews, outtakes and never-before-seen footage provide insight into the chaos and creativity behind the making of Steven Spielberg's legendary blockbuster “Jaws” (Disney+). 

 

Outrageous Fortune   

It’s 20 years this week since the classic New Zealand comedy-drama stormed onto our screens - and the series remains as entertaining as ever.   

The Wests are a one-family crime wave with a proud tradition in thievery, larceny and petty crime, until now... When patriarch Wolf is sent to jail, his wife Cheryl decides it's time for the family to go straight (TVNZ+, YouTube). 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to this Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from newstalk ZEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Jack Love your interview with Marion Morris. She's an absolute
favorite for me. Can't wait for a New Zealand shows
next year. I Thank you. Ninety two. Ninety two is
our text number if you want to send us a message.
This morning, it is screen time time on newstalks 'b.
Tara Award joins us at this time every week with
her three picks for shows to watch or stream at home.
Hey Tara, good morning. Let's begin this morning with the

(00:34):
show streaming on Netflix. From the creator of the series Girls,
tell Us About too Much.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
This is a new romantic comedy series and as you say,
created and directed by Lenna Dunham, who is best known
for her HBO series Girls, which was a series about
four women living in New York and it was a
very sharp, funny, brutal look female friendship. And now Lena
Dunham has taken that kind of sensibility to the rom
com This is about Jess, who is in her thirties.

(01:02):
She's living in New York and she takes a new
job in London to escape it breakup and she just
loves English rom coms, and so when she moves to
the UK, she expects her new life to be something
right out of notting Hill or love. Actually, she meets
a musician, they fall in love, and they have to
work through a lot of cultural clashes and expectations. And

(01:23):
the interesting thing about Hoo Much is that it's based
on Lena Dunham's own real life experience of moving to
the UK and falling in love with a musician who
she went on to marry. So there's quite a lot
of her own story woven through this, and it also
has this amazing cast Richard E. Grant, Jennifer Saunders, Naomi Watts,
Rita Wilson, Andrew Scott. She's pulled in some real superstar

(01:44):
power here. But don't go into this thinking it is
a Richard Curtis film. This is funny and there are
moments of sweetness, but it's also quite blunt at times,
and there's always a bit of an underlying bleakness to
Lena Dunnan's work, and the characters can be hard to
like sometimes and you can feel that here. But if
you want a rom com with a bit of a
bite to it, this is definitely worth.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
A look's okay, cool, that's too much. That's on Netflix,
on Disney plus Jaws at fifty.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah, it's fifty years since the movie Jaws was released,
and this is a really fascinating documentary about how Steven
Spielberg made this movie and how Jaws changed movies forever.
This was the first ever big budget American summer blockbuster.
It encouraged a real visceral experience for the audience, and
so the documentary talks to a lot of people who

(02:32):
were involved in the film, the actors and as well
as director Steven Spielberg, who looks back on what was
a really difficult film to make. It went millions of
a budget, it took longer to film than it was
supposed to. The boats sank while they were filming. The
shark didn't work eighty percent of the time. He thought
this was going to be the last movie he ever made.
It was considered to be a disaster until it became

(02:54):
a hit. And so it's amazing to look back from
where we are today, where we rely on CGI and
special effects, to see how they made this film and
how powerful the simplicity of it actually is. I don't
think I've ever seen all of Jaws. I think I
chickened out pretty early on, but I still really enjoyed this.
It's quite a niche, but it's a snapshot of time

(03:15):
about what was going on in American culture in the
nineteen seventies and the impact that the film had, particularly
on shark numbers. You know that shark hunting became a
huge thing after Jaws, and it was the first big
blockbuster movie that sort of changed everything for film. So,
you know, really interesting documentary.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, nice, Okay, looking forward to seeing that. It's Jaws
at fifty the Definitive Inside Stories on Disney Plus and
on TVNZ Plus and YouTube. Speaking of anniversaries, it is
twenty years since Outrageous Fortune hit our screens.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, twenty years today. This was Outrageous Fortune, the New
Zealand series that starred Robin Malcolm as the matriarch of
the West family, who were a career a family of
career criminals living in west Auckland who decided to go
straight and try and live an honest life. And it
was a lot harder than they thought it would be.
And Outrageous Fortune captured our hearts in a way that

(04:06):
no other New Zealand show had done before. We hadn't
made anything like it. It was deliberately in your face.
There was lots of sex and swearing and bad behavior,
but it also had these characters that we recognized and
fell in love with, and it was funny to It
made us laugh at ourselves in a way that we
hadn't before. And so I've been rewatching it again twenty
years on and it still holds up. I mean, there

(04:28):
are moments where you think, well, you know, I don't
know if that would pass today, or that might not
work in twenty twenty five. But at the core of it,
it's the story about a New Zealand family who are
trying to be good, trying to get ahead, and that
still resonates twenty years on. So all six seasons are
on TVZ plus. If you have friends and family outside
of New Zealand who want to watch SPP. South Pacific

(04:49):
Pictures have put all six seasons up on YouTube, so
every episode is up there. You can watch it wherever
you are in the world and just enjoy a bit
of classic New Zealand alibision.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, such a good recommendation, Thank you, Tara. So those shows,
once again, too Much is the one by Lena Dunham.
That's on Netflix or A Fifties on Disney Plus. Outrageous
Fortune is on TV and z Plus and YouTube for
anyone who's out of the country. All of those recommendations
will of course be on the Newstalk's EDB website.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks EDB from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.