Advertisement

Airplane II: The Sequel (Channel 13 Sunday...

Share

Airplane II: The Sequel (Channel 13 Sunday at 6 p.m.) is the 1982 sequel to the original “Airplane!” and despite the fact that it was pilloried at the time of its release, it’s actually rather amusing for its first half. A different writer-director worked on this one, but the cast includes many repeat offenders from the original, including Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Lloyd Bridges and Peter Graves.

Saturn 3 (Channel 5 Sunday at 8 p.m.) is probably the strangest movie ever directed by Stanley Donen. Released in 1980, it stars Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett locked in outer space combat with Harvey Keitel and a lubricious robot. And it’s not a comedy -- and least not intentionally. Keitel’s dialogue was dubbed in part by another actor, which, alas, deprived the galaxies of its first taste of Brooklynese.

A lot of talented actors in the first flush of their movie careers show up in the 1983 The Lords of Discipline (Channel 13 Sunday at 8 p.m.), including Michael Biehn, David Keith, Robert Prosky and Judge Reinhold. Based on a Pat Conroy novel about the induction of the first black cadet into a South Carolina military school, it’s overwrought but occasionally powerful.

Advertisement

The Seagull (Arts & Entertainment cable Tuesday at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.), a 1968 adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s play, isn’t the masterpiece it should have been, but it’s still occasionally extraordinary, thanks to a cast that includes James Mason, Vanessa Redgrave and Simone Signoret (whose accent unfortunately jars with the Britishers).

Steve Martin has rarely been funnier than he is as the obsessed surgeon Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr in The Man With Two Brains (Channel 13 Tuesday at 8 p.m.), a 1983 Carl Reiner comedy co-starring Kathleen Turner. It’s a wonderfully loony piece of work, inexplicably neglected when it first opened.

Gardens of Stone (Channel 5 Wednesday at 8 p.m.) is about Arlington National Cemetery’s Home Guard during the height of the Vietnam War. Uneven, this 1987 movie is nevertheless the most impressive and moving of Francis Coppola’s post-”Apocalypse Now” films. James Caan stars, with Anjelica Huston, James Earl Jones and D.B. Sweeney.

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (Channel 13 Wednesday at 8 p.m.) sounds like a generic title and the film itself has a standardized sheen. It’s worth seeing for the early sequences in the jungle between the boy Tarzan and the apes; and for Ralph Richardson’s wonderful performance, his last, as the boy’s grandfather.

The Hollywood Knights (Channel 11 Friday at 8 p.m.), like “The Lords of Discipline,” features a terrific cast at an early point in their careers. Look for Michelle Pfeiffer, Tony Danza, Fran Drescher, and, in the lead, Robert Wuhl, who’s amazingly good. This 1980 film is nothing much more than an “American Graffiti”-style spree, but it’s surprisingly enjoyable.

In Ron Howard’s Night Shift (Channel 13 Saturday at 8 p.m.) Henry Winkler plays a morgue attendant who--surprise!--works the night shift. Michael Keaton’s appearance was so startling it made him a star. He’s demonically funny. Is it possible his performance influenced Jack Nicholson’s Joker?

Advertisement
Advertisement