FRIDAY
AUGUST 15
2014

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Public Television, Check local listings

This second installment in a two-part special devoted to Maya Angelou provides excerpts from another of Moyers’ shows featuring her. This one is from 1988, in which he and Angelou, a childhood rape victim who was stunned into a five-year silence before poetry reawakened her spirit, attend a conference on “Facing Evil.” For dates and times when this series runs in your area, check the Moyers & Company website. Check local listings.
 
  
 
 

TCM, 3:30 p.m. ET

Today is Faye Dunaway day on TCM. And really, the lineup the channel is presenting of her films makes for one of the month’s strongest overall offerings. The morning movies are good enough, but starting with 1967’s influential Bonnie and Clyde, in which she starred opposite Warren Beatty, at 3:30 p.m. ET, it’s a five-film assault of dizzying creativity, spanning many different genres. At 5:30 p.m. ET, from 1970, it’s Little Big Man, a Western comedy of epic proportions starring Dustin Hoffman. At 8 p.m. ET, from 1973, it’s The Three Musketeers, a comedy swashbuckler. At 10 p.m. ET, from 1975, it’s Three Days of the Condor, a spy thriller starring Robert Redford. And at midnight ET, from 1974, it’s Chinatown, Jake, the seminal Roman Polanski period detective film starring Jack Nicholson. Great movies. Great leading men. And in all instances, great performances from Dunaway, all within an explosively fertile eight-year period.

 
  
 
 

Hub, 9:00 p.m. ET

Why devote some Friday night viewing time, and a Best Bet, to a 1978 episode of Happy Days? Because this particular episode of this nostalgic sitcom is the one that introduced Robin Williams as Mork, a fast-talking, freewheeling alien visitor from the planet Ork. The Hub network is repeating it tonight, as a special tribute to Williams – and the title of the episode is sly enough to nod to TV’s past. It’s called “My Favorite Orkan.” He was indeed.

 
  
 
 

Cinemax, 10:00 p.m. ET

In Episode 2 of The Knick, the characters deepen, the conflicts sharpen, and another trip into the operating theater proves just how intelligently this show intends to proceed. Clive Owen stars as a gifted but abrasive surgeon at the Knickerbocker Hospital in New York, in the pivotal year of 1900. For a full review, hear or read my report on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross website.
 
  
 
 

CNN, 10:00 p.m. ET

CNN devotes an hour to the memory, and pop-culture contributions, of Robin Williams, whose death has provoked lots of sadness, and just as much conversation.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.