Ironweed (KTLA Sunday at 8 p.m.), Hector...

Ironweed (KTLA Sunday at 8 p.m.), Hector Babenco’s eloquent, somber 1987 film of William Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set over several freezing days in 1938, is too reverent for its own good, letting the story become static when it should soar. Yet it is worth seeing for the unsparing performances of Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep as a derelict couple near the end of their tethers.

In Three Fugitives (ABC Sunday at 9 p.m.), Nick Nolte’s professional criminal and Martin Short’s desperate amateur crook make a frequently hilarious odd couple, but this 1989 comedy is marred by contrivance and heavy-handedness.

David Cronenberg’s 1981 Scanners (KTLA Tuesday at 8 p.m.) is a dark, intelligent and artful yet truly horrifying account of a small band of people whose ESP has developed into inhuman levels, thanks to a mood-changing drug gone amok.

In terms of simple, flat-out, roof-rattling fright, Steven Spielberg’s 1982 Poltergeist (KTLA Wednesday at 8 p.m.) gives full value, but it’s a case of a very slight, credibility-defying story weighed down by lavish special effects. Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams are an attractive, likable couple who move into a nice tract house with their kids only to be confronted with awesome supernatural horrors. (For true fans, the considerably lesser 1986 sequel, Poltergeist II: The Other Side airs on KTLA Thursday at 8 p.m.).

A handsome 1985 production, Cat’s Eye (KTLA Friday at 8 p.m.) is composed by three Stephen King tales linked by the wanderings of of an exceptionally intelligent and intrepid alley cat. The second and best sequence is a classic man-on-the-ledge suspense tale, and the third was written especially for the irrepressible Drew Barrymore.

Even though in substance Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (CBS Saturday at 8 p.m.) doesn’t match its great look, the 1987 film is entertaining, thanks largely to Sean Connery’s Oscar-winning portrayal of an Irish street cop who tries to wise up a lethally bland Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) as he takes on Al Capone (Robert De Niro).

Wanted: Dead or Alive (KTLA Saturday at 8 p.m.) is a taut, jagged-edged 1987 thriller with more twists and turns than a Ross Thomas novel and stars Rutger Hauer as a taciturn bounty hunter.

Movies to Tape

Tong Tana: A Journey to the Heart of Borneo (Cinemax Sunday at 4:30 p.m., Wednesday at 8:30 a.m.) As this splendid Swedish documentary takes us further and further into the misty, ethereally beautiful 160-million-year-old rain forest in the interior of Borneo we meet an extraordinary Swiss journalist, Bruno Manser, who is leading a resistance to the ceaseless logging operations which not only threaten the existence of the native population but also portend ecological disaster.

George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey (Disney Sunday at 9 p.m.). George Stevens Jr.’s 1984 documentary on the life and work of his father is the real stuff of drama, a deeply American life with a shadow of sadness over the last third and with much that is as profoundly moving at the best novels. Included is extraordinary color footage of D-Day and Dachau that Stevens shot as a member of Eisenhower’s special film unit in Europe.

Day for Night (KCET Saturday at 9 p.m.) and Shoot the Piano Player (KCET Saturday at 11 p.m.). Terrific Truffaut double feature, the first a compassionate insider’s look at those involved in trying to make a foolish movie; the second a kind of New Wave homage to Hollywood gangster movies, Raoul Walsh’s “High Sierra” in particular.