Even before “Wayne’s World” there was a...
Even before “Wayne’s World” there was a market for, like, really excellent dudes who lived to party hearty. The 1989 Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (KTLA Sunday at 6 p.m.), directed by Stephen Herek and starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter as B. & T., found it. But it’s a good movie ... not.
The 1991 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (NBC Sunday at 9 p.m.) is a thinly veiled allegory about the breakup of the Soviet Union. Here we find the crew of the starship Enterprise rescuing Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) and Bones McCoy (DeForest Kelley) from a murder trial.
As Peyton Flanders, the demented nanny of te 1992 hit The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (ABC Sunday at 9 p.m.), Rebecca De Mornay has a picture-perfect prettiness; the only time you register a real person ticking behind the mask is when her eyes glaze over in rapt, crazed calculation. She craves the perfect All-American family so much she’s willing to kill for it. At its best, the film is a bright, nasty psychological thriller with a joker up its sleeve, but its overall design is predictable.
Overboard (KTLA Monday at 8 p.m.) is a 1987 Hollywood reworking of Italian director Lina Wertmuller’s nifty “Swept Away.” Goldie Hawn is cast as a rich harridan who gets her comeuppance from hambone sexy proletarian Kurt Russell.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (KTLA Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.), the extravagant 1981 Spielberg-Lucas salute to the Saturday matinee serials stars Harrison Ford, of course, as Indiana Jones.
With its predictable city-slicker vs. Southern-cracker shenanigans, the 1992 My Cousin Vinny (Fox Tuesday at 8 p.m.) takes off when Joe Pesci, in the title role as a swaggering New York lawyer who only recently passed the bar on his sixth try, shows up to defend his cousin and his friend in a mistaken-identity case. Marisa Tomei won an Oscar as Vinnie’s sharp, svelte girlfriend.
Gone With the Wind, the most beloved Hollywood classic of them all, airs on KTLA in two parts: Wednesday at 7 p.m. and Thursday at 8 p.m.
Willow (KTLA Friday at 7:30 p.m.) is an agreeable enough 1988 adventure-fantasy in which the children of a little person (Warwick Davis) discover a baby girl who, according to prophecy, will bring down Jean Marsh’s evil queen. Directed by Ron Howard and based on a story by George Lucas.
KCET’s Saturday night double feature is composed of two of Carole Lombard’s best: Twentieth Century (at 9 p.m.) and Nothing Sacred (at 10:30 p.m.).
More to Read
Only good movies
Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.