SATURDAY

SEPTEMBER 2

2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

It’s a spectacular night for watching classic movies from the 1960s and 1970s on TV. Between TCM and Cinemax, viewers tonight can choose from among All the President’s Men, The French Connection, and this Stanley Kubrick masterpiece from 1968 – still perhaps the best, most influential, and most audacious and ambitious science-fiction movie ever made. Whether you haven’t seen it in decades, or haven’t seen it all, you should tune in, and sing along with HAL. “Daisy, Daisy…” One of TCM's "The Essentials"? Absolutely.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Cinemax, 8:35 p.m. ET

Any film director planning a chase sequence still does so with this 1971 William Friedkin movie in mind, because it remains, all these decades later, the gold standard for location chase films. Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider star as New York detectives whose persistence is as indefatigable as their abrasiveness – and yet, for all their dedication and stubbornness, there’s a lot of 70s-era bleakness in The French Connection as well. Great movie – and the chop-shop sequence was honored, and somewhat recreated, recently in an extended sequence in AMC’s Better Call Saul. Watch for it.

WILD WEST

BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET

This three-part series, from some of the makers of Planet Earth II, concludes its look at the American West tonight with a look at “Restless Shores” – the Western half of the “sea to shining sea” part of the U.S.

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN

Cinemax, 10:20 p.m. ET

To say that this 1976 movie, based on the Watergate reporting by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (who are played, respectively, by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman), has a level of added resonance today because of current events would be to overstate the obvious. So I’ll say, instead, that this movie always has been one of my favorites – and is so well-acted, beautiful paced (the screenplay adaptation is by William Goldman), and moodily directed (by Alan J. Pakula) that it works any time, in any circumstances.

WESTWORLD

TCM, 10:45 p.m. ET

In the lineup of tonight’s movies from the era, 1973’s Westworld is a minor entry – but given the subsequent pop-culture impact by writer-director Michael Crichton, both on such other resonant theme-parks-gone-awry works as Jurassic Park and HBO’s current Westworld reimagining, this film, starring Richard Benjamin, James Brolin and an iconic Yul Brynner, is especially enjoyable to reassess in modern times.

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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.

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BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Cinemax, 8:35 p.m. ET

BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET

Cinemax, 10:20 p.m. ET

TCM, 10:45 p.m. ET

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