HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET
Damien Chazelle wrote and directed this very affectionate homage to the movie musical – and tonight is a wonderful TV night to wallow in the form. One prominent option, of course, is this 2016 film, the most recent movie musical to convince Hollywood that maybe there’s life in this old form yet. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling play, respectively, an aspiring actress and a struggling jazz pianist, both of whom have dreams of success – among other dreams, including ones about one another.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
What an astounding one-two punch Betty Comden and Adolph Green delivered in movie musical history in the early Fifties. In 1952, they wrote Singin’ in the Rain, starring Gene Kelly, pretty much considered the best movie musical ever made. Then, a year later, they counter-punched with this 1953 classic, starring Fred Astaire. The Band Wagon, like its predecessor, is an absolutely deserving member of TCM’s “The Essentials” – and, also like its predecessor, is a very knowing satire of behind-the-scenes show business. Singin’ in the Rain was all about Hollywood’s transition from silent to sound movies. The Band Wagon is a musical comedy about a creative team’s efforts to mount a show and present it on Broadway. Astaire plays the former musical-comedy star hoping to mount a comeback, and Oscar Levant plays the pretentious director aiming to present an updated version of Faust. Nanette Fabray co-stars, and Cyd Charisse, pictured here with Astaire, is unforgettable as a ballerina hired to enhance the musical’s already lofty artistic pretensions.
Encore, 9:00 p.m. ET
If you’re not into musicals, here’s another movie worth watching on TV tonight. Based on the John Grisham novel, and directed by Sydney Pollack, this 1993 legal thriller stars Tom Cruise as a young attorney seduced into working for a sinister Southern law firm. It’s sort of like The Devil’s Advocate, only without the actual Devil. Jeanne Tripplehorn (pictured with Cruise) is featured as the young lawyer’s wife, as part of a supporting cast absolutely bursting with talent: Gene Hackman, Hal Holbrook, Wilford Brimley, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, and David Strathairn.
TCM, 10:15 p.m. ET
This 1971 music is written and directed by Ken Russell, a director famous for his visual excess – yet in this movie, about an understudy of a musical who achieves stardom, those impulses are put to wholly appropriate use. The understudy, played by waifish fashion model Twiggy, not only dreams of stardom, but has fantasies about it – fantasies envisioned through Russell’s particular vision, which here salutes everything from the vintage choreography of Busby Berkeley to some of Russell’s own trademark tricks. Tommy Tune co-stars.