Sundance, 7:30 p.m. ET
This disturbing, defiant, utterly brilliant 1971 Stanley Kubrick sci-fi film, based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, is the work of art that made me want to become a critic. I was so thrown by this movie when it was released – rated X, initially, in a more conservative cultural climate – that I saw it many, many times in a single week, examining a different aspect of the movie each time. This was back in the pre-home video day when “binge viewing” meant returning, time and again, to the movie theater – but A Clockwork Orange was worth it. The music, the editing, the photography, the script, Malcolm McDowell’s star-making performance – all of it is utterly, disturbingly brilliant.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
TCM is launching an evening of spy-spoof movies, starting with this smartly satiric 1965 comedy – starring James Coburn as super-agent Derek Flint – which heavily inspired Mike Myers’ Austin Powers movies. (Even the sound of the top-secret phone in Myers’ movies comes directly from Flint.) After Our Man Flint, TCM presents two of Dean Martin’s lighter, less enjoyable but still genial 1966 Matt Helm spy spoofs, The Silencers (10 p.m. ET) and Murderers’ Row (11:45 p.m. ET, co-starring Ann-Margret). Then comes the British 1964 comedy Carry on Spying (at 1:45 a.m. ET), one of the first spoofs to hop on the James Bond craze. And, finally, TCM presents a pair of Vincent Price spy spoofs, in which he plays a villain playing world domination using robot women as his pawns. Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine , from 1965, is shown at 3:30 a.m. ET, followed at 5:15 a.m. ET by 1966’s Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs. Both films feature teen idols from the era: Frankie Avalon in the first movie, Fabian in the second.
PBS, 9:00 p.m. ET
Mel Brooks gets the
American Masters treatment, and a good one, in this 90-minute profile that manages, even without narration, to tell an understandable and entertaining tale of the life and works of this very talented filmmaker, TV writer, composer, Broadway record-setter, and satirist. The best tour guide: Brooks himself. For a full review, and a link to
my new interview with Brooks for NPR’s
Fresh Air with Terry Gross, see
Bianculli’s Blog. Check local listings.
A&E, 10:00 p.m. ET
SEASON FINALE: This uneven series has done a few things right while spinning its odd sort-of prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror masterpiece. One, it’s explained, and played well with, some of the formative influences of young Norman, including his voyeurism, his fascination with taxidermy, and his Oedipal issues. And two, it’s given Vera Farmiga – as Norma, Norman’s mother – a juicy role with which she’s managed to hit one home run after another.
Sundance, 10:00 p.m. ET
SEASON FINALE: The six-episode Rectify character study ends tonight, but only for the season. What could have been an abrupt finale is now just a pause: Sundance has renewed this haunting character study for next season. Good thing, too, because this is a character just at the start of a unique, challenging transition, from Death Row inmate to out-of-place free man.