AMC, 7:00 p.m. ET
After appearing in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, diminutive actor Warwick Davis went on to co-star in Labyrinth, portray the title role in Willow, and then, beginning with this light-hearted yet sometimes mean-spirited 1993 horror film, star in a series of Leprechaun movies, again playing the leading role. And he’s since appeared in several more recent Star Wars and Harry Potter films, and starred as an exaggerated version of himself, alongside series creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, in HBO’s Life’s Too Short. All of which proves the adage, once and for all, that there are no small parts – only small actors. And speaking of actors, check out the female lead in this original Leprechaun movie: It’s Jennifer Aniston, one year before she would take a co-starring role on a little NBC sitcom called Friends. Which proves there are no little sitcoms…
Comedy Central, 7:30 p.m. ET
This 2008 comedy has an outrageous and potentially awkward, if not downright insensitive, premise: A group of actors filming a war movie in Vietnam, including one white actor playing a black soldier, cross the paths of drug traders in the remote Vietnamese jungle, and must fight for their survival for real. It’s the cleverness of the acting that carries off this film’s high-concept conceit: Ben Stiller (who also directed) and Jack Black are very funny and very good, and Robert Downey Jr. (pictured), as the actor actually risking and donning blackface to play his part, is delightful.
FX, 8:00 p.m. ET
I note the appearance of this 2012 horror film not because I’m recommending it, but because it’s tied to this weekend’s release of the latest (and allegedly last) entry in the persistent Paranormal Activity franchise. Oh, and because FX is showing it twice in prime time, once at 8 p.m. ET and again at 10 ET, allowing me to point out that the resulting repetitive double feature is, in essence, a matched pair o’ Paranormal movies.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
This 1948 movie, based on the Broadway stage play, is about a Norwegian woman looking back fondly on her turn-of-the-century childhood as a loving member of a family of Norwegian immigrants. Irene Dunne (pictured) stars as Mama, and Barbara Bel Geddes – later to play the matriarch on TV’s Dallas – plays Katrin, the teen girl who would grow up to do all that remembering. Personally, I remember I Remember Mama, the movie, for one other distinction: It spawned a TV series called Mama a year later, in 1949, which starred Peggy Wood as Mama and Rosemary Rice as Katrin. Mama is the first TV series spun off from a movie – and tonight, TCM shows that movie.
BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET
Doctor Who began as a TV series in England in 1963 – and tonight, the Doctor returns to London, but in the year 1651. There’s a masked highwayman terrorizing the countryside, and the Doctor is on his trail… or vice versa. Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones continues her guest-starring role.