FRIDAY
AUGUST 1
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

TCM, 6:00 a.m. ET

Friday nights are good times to nestle into the couch and watch a good movie on TV – and August is the month when TCM devotes every day, as well as every night, to a single star or filmmaker, presenting a 24-hour marathon of related movies. This year, the celebration begins with Jane Fonda, and the party’s already begun (it started at 6 a.m. ET) with 1960’s Tall Story, the actress’ first movie, in which she played a cheerleader opposite star college basketball star Anthony Perkins. Other movies on the schedule today trace her very quick development: 1962’s Walk on the Wild Side (9:45 a.m. ET) gives her a role that morphs from sweet innocent to hardened prostitute; 1979’s The China Syndrome (5:45 p.m. ET) gives her a great role in a great movie, playing a fluff TV reporter determined to report on meatier stories, and stumbling into a nuclear power plant contamination story in an intense drama (Jack Lemmon is fabulous) that exploded in theaters just as Three Mile Island almost exploded in real life. And later tonight, there’s the giddy cowboy comedy Cat Ballou (9:15 p.m. ET), as well as Fonda’s first personal Oscar-winner, Klute (12:15 a.m. ET, pictured), in which she plays a high-priced prostitute who may be the key to murders investigated by Donald Sutherland. He’s the one named Klute by the way. She’s Bree.

 
  
 
 

Public Television, Check local listings

Bill Moyers doesn’t usually load his show with old-fashioned star power, but his latest installment does just that. The guest is John Lithgow, who’s currently starring in the title role in the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park free production of King Lear – and Moyers is set to ask him about the meaning and importance of free theater, and of acting… and, in this current, fast-moving century, of Shakespeare. For dates and times when this series runs in your area, check the Moyers & Company website. Check local listings.
 
  
 
 

PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET

There’s nothing like an outdoor Requiem Mass to make a summer night slip away – and for this particular evening of TV entertainment, Verdi’s Requiem is performed onstage at the cavernous Hollywood Bowl, featuring soprano Julianna Di Giacomo and those home-town faves, the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Given the participants and the material, expect this particular Great Performances offering to be Verdi good indeed. Check local listings.

 
  
 
 

Showtime, 9:00 p.m. ET

“Five Years” is the name of the opening track on David Bowie’s 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. This documentary, also called Five Years, looks at the pop icon’s development and reinvention by focusing on five years in Bowie’s life – his transmogrification into Ziggy Stardust being one of them.

 
  
 
 

HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET

MIDSEASON FINALE: For his final episode before his routine summer hiatus, Maher loads the deck on his comic talk show. Among the scheduled guests: Ralph Nader, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Chris Hardwick.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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David Bianculli

Founder / Editor

David Bianculli has been a TV critic since 1975, including a 14-year stint at the New York Daily News, and sees no reason to stop now. Currently, he's TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and is an occasional substitute host for that show. He's also an author and teaches TV and film history at New Jersey's Rowan University. His 2009 Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', has been purchased for film rights. His latest, The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to the Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific, is an effusive guidebook that plots the path from the 1950s’ Golden Age to today’s era of quality TV.