Vice, 9:00 p.m. ET
Paul Thomas Anderson got a lot of attention, and for good reason, for writing and directing this 1997 period character study, which looked at the changing porn industry of the late 1970s and early 1980s. More than 20 years after this film was released, what is most impressive, in retrospect, is the bravery of the casting, and the performances, with a lot of actors given the opportunity to do great work here – and taking full advantage. Burt Reynolds, as a porn filmmaker with grandiose visions of his “art,” was given a meaty comeback role here, and nailed it. And the other players, oh my. John C. Reilly and William H. Macy. Julianne Moore and Don Cheadle. Mark Wahlberg and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Philip Baker Hall and Ricky Jay. And, of course, Heather Graham as Rollergirl.
getTV, 11:00 p.m. ET
Another treasure from the vaults of Tom and Dick Smothers. This Season 2 episode is from February 1968, and features the U.S. television debut of a little Australian rock group known as The Bee Gees. They sing their plaintive, slow song “Words” (“It’s only words / and words are all I have / to take your love away”), in a show that also features someone else whose TV debut was courtesy of the Smothers Brothers: Comedian Moms Mabley, making her second Comedy Hour appearance, and prime-time U.S. unveiling, after decades on the black vaudeville circuit. Oh, and Arthur Godfrey, the former radio star and TV pioneer, is here, too. In the early, early days of television, he had two different variety shows in the Top 10: Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, a precursor to America’s Got Talent that premiered on TV in 1948, and Arthur Godfrey and His Friends, which ran from 1950 to 1959. And now, back to our regularly scheduled TV century…
Starz!, 11:00 p.m. ET
Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed this 2019 movie about Hollywood at the end of the Sixties. Leonardo DiCaprio plays an actor, Brad Pitt his stunt double, and Margot Robbie plays ill-fated actress Sharon Tate. Pitt steals the show here, especially with a pair of intense showdown scenes in which he acts as singularly as Tarantino writes.