Amy Heckerling’s Look Who’s Talking (KABC Sunday...
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Amy Heckerling’s Look Who’s Talking (KABC Sunday at 9 p.m.), a comedy about unwed motherhood and potential step-fatherhood, with Kirstie Alley and John Travolta, tapped an unexpected box-office vein in 1989. It’s a sweet, but unexceptional entertainment, whose major gimmick--Bruce Willis as a wisecracking baby voice--is milked endlessly.
Born in East L. A. (KTLA Monday at 8 p.m.) is a scabrously funny Cheech Marin comedy--he wrote, directed and starred--about Latino L.A. and immigration nightmares.
Even before “Wayne’s World,” there was a market for, like, really excellent dudes who lived to party hearty and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (KTTV Monday at 8 p.m.), directed by Stephen Herek and starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter as B. & T.--found it. It’s a good movie... not.
In James Cameron’s 1984 The Terminator (KCOP Monday at 8 p.m.), an indestructible cyborg from the future (Arnold Schwarzenegger, the last word in mechanistic macho) mercilessly tracks a woman whose child holds the key to the future, while another time traveler tries desperately to save her. This relentless fable-thriller keeps building and building to a mind-bending climax; it out-thrills and out-shocks its more expensive, and ballyhooed, 1991 sequel.
First Blood (KCOP Tuesday at 8 p.m.) which, in 1982, introduced us to Sylvester Stallone’s dour superman John Rambo--is better than its sequels, too. This time out, Rambo is merely battling a whole Northwestern city police force--instead of whole armies and countries. Ted Kotcheff directs; Brian Dennehy was a memorable antagonist.
Based on Carlos Fuentes’ novel, Old Gringo (KCOP Thursday at 8 p.m.), a Mexican revolutionepic has become prettily overstuffed. But writer-director Luis Puenzo, and stars Jane Fonda, Jimmy Smits and Gregory Peck (as Ambrose Bierce) win some victories along the way.
Full Moon in Blue Water (KTLA Friday at 8 p.m.), offers a a good ensemble (Gene Hackman, Teri Garr, Burgess Meredith), in a variable serio-comedy/drama set in a Texas pier bar.
Michael Cimino’s super-Western, Heaven’s Gate (KTLA Saturday at 7 p.m.), with Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert, and the Johnson County wars, doesn’t deserve its reputation as a Gargantuan flop. It’s ambitious, lyrical, exciting, expansive--and worth a look.
The Green Berets (KCOP Saturday at 8 p.m.) was director-star John Wayne’s lethargic, paunchy, jingoistic 1968 look at the Vietnam War. As Howard (“Red River”) Hawks commented: (It’s) pretty bad ... Duke is a much better actor than director.”
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