SATURDAY
NOVEMBER 25
2017

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Cinemax, 8:00 p.m. ET

Tonight in prime time, Cinemax presents a double feature by writer-director John Hughes, presenting two of his most famous teen films. The opener is 1985’s The Breakfast Club, a character study about a Saturday in high school detention with various familiar stereotypes: Ally Sheedy the outcast, Judd Nelson the rebel, Anthony Michael Hall the nerd, Emilio Estevez the jock, and Molly Ringwald the popular girl. The Breakfast Club peeks behind the stereotypes to find angst in everyone, and made the film a touchstone of sorts for its generation. And at 9:40 p.m. ET, that film is followed by one Hughes wrote and directed the previous year: Sixteen Candles, which also stars Ringwald and Hall.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

This 1941 film is a romantic, very funny movie by Preston Sturges, who directs and co-wrote this breezy story about card hustlers on a cruise ship who target an unsuspecting but wealthy herpetologist (that’s the study of snakes, not herpes). One of the hustlers is a fast-talking, faster-thinking woman who decides to target him more than once, and in more ways than by gambling. And the way she and this movie scores is by the casting: the hustler is played by Barbra Stanwyck, who’s perfect, and her intended victim by Henry Fonda, who turns flustered into an art form. No wonder this movie is one of TCM’s The Essentials. Watch, and enjoy. A lot.

 
  
 
 

AXS TV, 9:00 p.m. ET

This is an especially appropriate movie to show on Thanksgiving weekend, because this farewell concert by Robbie Robertson and The Band was staged, and filmed, on Thanksgiving night in 1976. The venue was Bill Graham’s Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, and the occasion was the final appearance by the original Band roster of Robertson, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, and Richard Manuel. The director is Martin Scorsese, whose corps of brilliant cinematographers included Vilmos Zsigmond (The Deer Hunter, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Deliverance, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Images), Laszlo Kovacs  (Paper Moon, Easy Rider, Ghostbusters), and Michael Chapman (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Fugitive). And, oh yeah, there are the guest performers appearing that night with The Band. Bob Dylan. Ringo Starr. Eric Clapton. Joni Mitchell. Neil Young. Van Morrison. Emmylou Harris. Dr. John. Paul Butterfield. Neil Diamond. Muddy Waters. Ron Wood. Ronnie Hawkins. The Staple Singers. And more…

 
  
 
 

BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET

Dirk and Todd are lost somewhere – and, more to the point, somewhen – in Wendimoor, where they’re up against evil knights, bad days, and a episode so weird, its title is “This Is Not Miami.” Given the accompanying photograph, no kidding.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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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.