The Week’s Guide to What’s Worth Watching
Show of the week Planet in Peril CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and wildlife biologist Jeff Corwin visit 13 countries on four continents for this comprehensive—and unsettling—report on environmental change across the g
Monday, Oct. 22
After Hours (1985)
An uptight, uptown Manhattanite
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unwisely ventures
downtown in Martin Scorsese’s
comedy, starring
Griffin Dunne and Rosanna
Making sense of the week's political news, delivered every Wednesday
Arquette. 10:25 p.m., IFC
Tuesday
Enchanted April (1992)
Miranda Richardson won a
Golden Globe for this gentle
romantic comedy about four
London women vacationing in
Italy in the 1920s. 7:15 p.m.,
HBO Signature
Wednesday
Breaking the Waves (1996)
Emily Watson received an
Oscar nomination for Lars
von Trier’s unsettling drama
about a Scottish wife who
takes lovers at her paralyzed
husband’s behest. 10 p.m.,
Sundance
Thursday
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
This comedy about an eccentric
family’s odyssey to a child
beauty contest won Oscars
for its original screenplay and
Alan Arkin’s supporting performance.
6:30 p.m., Cinemax
Saturday
The Trial (1963)
Orson Welles considered his
adaptation of Kafka’s novel
about a clerk persecuted by a
nightmare bureaucracy to be
his best film. Anthony Perkins
stars. 11:45 p.m., TCM
Sunday
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
Luis Buñuel satirized upperclass
complacency in this tale
of a dinner party forestalled
by increasingly bizarre occurrences.
8 p.m., Flix
New on DVD
Home of the Brave (2006)
This earnest drama was
the first major Hollywood
release to address the
plight of veterans returning
home from the Iraq war.
Samuel L. Jackson and
Jessica Biel star. (R, $28)
The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching
A Summer in the Cage
This powerful feature-length documentary
chronicles a young man’s harrowing battle with
manic depression. Shot over seven years, it also
confronts the question of where a filmmaker’s personal
responsibility to his subject begins and ends.
Monday, Oct. 22, at 9 p.m., Sundance Channel
Frontline: Showdown With Iran
American efforts to create democracy in Iraq
have inadvertently strengthened neighboring
Iran’s position in the Middle East, according to
this Frontline investigation. Interviews with hardliners
in Iran’s government, as well as with such
key players as former Deputy Secretary of State
Richard Armitage and ex-U.N. Ambassador John
Bolton, trace the mounting tension in U.S.-Iran
relations since 9/11. Tuesday, Oct. 23, at 9 p.m.,
PBS; check local listings
Independent Lens: Please Vote for Me
Democracy in China gets a small-scale tryout in
the city of Wuhan, where cameras follow three
third-graders’ campaigns to be elected to the
previously appointed position of class monitor.
This Independent Lens documentary won a festival
award. Tuesday, Oct. 23, at 10 p.m., PBS;
check local listings
Iconoclasts
To open its third season of pairing practitioners
from different fields, this documentary series
chooses a natural matchup: best-selling author
Jon Krakauer and actor/director Sean Penn, who
adapted Krakauer’s Into the Wild into a film. As
they retrace the Alaska trek of Into the Wild’s
doomed Chris McCandless, the two men reveal
similar passions. Thursday, Oct. 25, at 10 p.m.,
Sundance Channel
Nature: Silence of the Bees
Honeybees do more than make honey—through
pollination, they are responsible for a third of the
food produced in the United States. Nature travels
the world to investigate the potential catastrophe
of colony collapse disorder: the recent mass disappearances
of honeybees. The high-def documentary
examines possible culprits and provides a
glimpse of a future without the bees. Sunday, Oct.
28, at 8 p.m., PBS; check local listings
Other highlights
Matters of Life & Dating
Ricki Lake portrays a single woman struggling to
return to dating after a mastectomy.
Monday, Oct. 22, at 9 p.m., Lifetime
Explorer: Heroin Crisis
This episode assesses the effect of the war in
Afghanistan on the world heroin trade. Tuesday,
Oct. 23, at 10 p.m., National Geographic Channel
CSI: NY
The investigation of a woman’s murder leads to
the Internet-based virtual environment Second
Life. Gary Sinise stars. Wednesday, Oct. 24,
at 10 p.m., CBS
All listings are Eastern time.
Show of the Week
PBS
Planet in Peril
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, medical correspondent
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and wildlife biologist
Jeff Corwin visit 13 countries on four continents
for this comprehensive—and unsettling—report
on environmental change across the globe. Their
destinations include Thailand and Cambodia,
where endangered species are trafficked in street
markets; Yellowstone National Park, where
wolves and other animals are being reintroduced
to the wild; Greenland, where melting ice reveals
one of the world’s newest islands; Brazil, where
“poacher police” raid illegal logging camps along
the Amazon River Basin; and Alaska, where the
polar bear is rapidly losing its habitat. Tuesday–
Wednesday, Oct. 23–24, at 9 p.m., CNN Watch out, frog
Show of the week
CNN