This Australian documentary, from the team behind Young Einstein, is ostensibly about the world of fine French wine, although after 15 minutes or so of beautifully cinematic vistas of Bordeaux vineyards and lovingly lit shots of red wine, the focus shifts to matters of economy. In the first decade of the 2000s, the price of Bordeaux – long associated with kings and emperors and tied to the shifting fortunes of global economies – rose by more than 1000 per cent. The reason? The rise and rise of the Chinese economy (although this may now have changed; the film is concerned with the years between 2009-2011), and the shift of prestige wine from old-world European snobbery to a vulgar status symbol, often too valuable to even be drunk, of Chinese wealth. Unless you're particularly interested in the very specific areas of high-end wine and Chinese economics, this two-hour film is – pun intended – somewhat dry. KN
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Masterpiece Movies (pay TV), 8.30pm
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald writes: "Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away." (The two "and"s are genius; delete the first and the musicality and beauty are lost). Now, filmmakers usually have great difficulty adapting major novels to the screen – most are several times too long – but what can a director do with prose as sublime as Fitzgerald's? Nothing. But at least Fitzgerald's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is not a novel; it's a short story, about Benjamin Button, who looks 70 at birth and gets younger by the day. The story speculates on how such a challenge might affect one's memory and life's meaning. The film, from writer-director Eric Roth, uses six actors as Benjamin, and many sophisticated camera and computer effects. It is elegant and thoughtful, with one astonishing and very touching moment. It isn't as good as Fitzgerald, but it makes you want to read him all over again. SM
Ghosts of Shepherdstown
Sunday, TLC, 11.30pm (pay TV)
A little while back, tiresome ghost hunter Nick Groff (Paranormal Lockdown) brought a couple of other supernatural "experts" to tiny Shepherdstown, West Virginia, at the request of local police chief Mike King, a slightly odd fellow who appears to comb his hair with buttered toast. They would have us believe that they sorted out Shepherdstown's ghost problem in short order, but now they're back because surrounding towns have begun complaining of paranormal activity. Tonight they're off to Harpers Ferry, where in 1859 abolitionist John Brown tried to spark a slave revolt by taking over a federal arsenal. Inevitably, the ghost investigation centres on the wax museum dedicated to Brown's bloody raid and its aftermath (lots of hangings), but just when you think that the show is really going to be so horrible as to claim that one of those killed is haunting the place it suddenly changes tack. BN
