TCM, 5:30 p.m. ET
There are good movies to watch today on TV, if you have the time and inclination. Let’s begin with Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi masterpiece, which begins in prehistoric times, ends in posthistoric ones, and surprises and confounds throughout. What a movie. More than 50 years later, it’s never been surpassed.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
How many times have I recommended this 1952 musical comedy already this year? Every time TCM has shown it, I’m guessing, because this Gene Kelly musical is so iconic, and so perfect. Arguably, with this 2001: A Space Odyssey and Singin’ in the Rain double feature, TCM is showing movies that represent the pinnacle achievements of their respective cinematic genres: the best sci-fi movie, and the best musical. And when Debbie Reynolds was tapped to co-star in Singin’ as the female romantic and singing-dancing lead, she was what? Nineteen years old? And the film just keeps inspiring: One song, “Make ‘em Laugh,” just figured in the finale of AMC’s Dispatches from Elsewhere.
Sundance, 10:30 p.m. ET
TCM is the best network at showing old movies, but it doesn’t have a monopoly on the concept. Tonight on Sundance, for example, that network presents a showing of 1970’s Kelly’s Heroes, a WWII comedy-drama starring Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland and Don Rickles (now there’s an odd quartet) as soldiers who recognize an opportunity to rob a Nazi bank of gold bars in the heat of battle.
NBC, 11:29 p.m. ET
Last weekend, I wrote about NBC’s scheduled repeat of SNL – recommending that viewers tune in even though it was a rerun from March 7, the last show televised before the pandemic changed the rules, at least for a while, about social gatherings in New York. Daniel Craig was the host, and the premiere of his latest James Bond film had just been postponed, one of the first artistic “victims” of COVID-19. I noted that the program, from only a month before, captured a world now gone, when artists and audiences could gather and mingle freely and without concern. But SNL threw us all a curve, and presented, for the second time since the pandemic began changing how we lived and interacted, a Saturday Night Live At Home edition. That first one was a defiant and inspirational burst of comedy – but last week’s unexpectedly appearing second edition, hosted by Brad Pitt as a disbelieving Dr. Fauci (pictured), was fabulous. So tonight, NBC tells us, the SNL crew will take a break, and will show us that Daniel Craig rerun after all. But who knows? Either way, it’s well worth tuning in…
