Diner (1982)--(Channel 5 Friday at 8 p.m.)Barry...

Diner (1982)--(Channel 5 Friday at 8 p.m.)

Barry Levinson’s fresh, honest recapturing of our past rescues our memories of the ‘50s and early ‘60s from the high gloss that TV has put on them and lets them stand, tender and real. The title comes from a Baltimore hangout where recent high school grads Steve Guttenberg, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon and Daniel Stern (married to Ellen Barkin) are beginning to feel an edge of desperation.

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987)--(TMC Wednesday at 10 a.m.)

Maggie Smith gives a complicated, gently shaded reading to her role as a spinster Dublin piano teacher with strength to resist the bottle and reasons enough to give in to it. A few excesses nearly--but don’t--destroy the film’s balances, and director Jack Clayton has given Smith grand co-actors, starting with Bob Hoskins as the object of her misapplied affection.