What’s on TV This Week: ‘9to5: The Story of a Movement’ and ‘The Equalizer’
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat’s on TV This Week: ‘9to5: The Story of a Movement’ and ‘The Equalizer’A new documentary on PBS looks at the roots of a women’s rights organization. And Queen Latifah stars in a reboot of “The Equalizer” on CBS.“9to5: The Story of a Movement” revisits an organization that fought for better treatment of women in the workplace.Credit…Richard BermackFeb. 1, 2021, 1:00 a.m. ETBetween network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Feb. 1-7. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: 9TO5 — THE STORY OF A MOVEMENT 10 p.m. on PBS. The filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar (“American Factory”), co-directed this new documentary about the founding of 9to5, National Association of Working Women. The organization was started by a group of secretaries in Boston in the 1970s. The documentary revisits its roots, and the larger groundswell of feminist activism from which it grew. It includes interviews with the organization’s founders and others related to the movement — including Jane Fonda, who starred alongside Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton in the 1980 farce “Nine to Five,” which took inspiration from the organization’s back story.TuesdayA scene from “Fake Famous.”Credit…HBOFAKE FAMOUS (2021) 9 p.m. on HBO. Nick Bilton, a journalist who has written extensively about technology for publications including Vanity Fair and The New York Times, is the director of this new documentary. The film follows Bilton as he gathers a trio of relatively unknown young people — an actress, a real-estate professional and a fashion designer — and helps them try to become “famous” social-media influencers. He uses a variety of artificial tactics to do that, like setting up photo shoots that make the subjects’ lifestyles appear lavish, and helping them purchase fake Instagram followers. The documentary includes at least one scene in which one of its subjects drives a car while holding two smartphones.GROUNDHOG DAY (1993) 8 p.m. on AMC. Real-life Groundhog Day is on Tuesday, so naturally AMC is showing this classic comedy about an ornery weatherman (Bill Murray) reliving the same day over and over and over. You can also see it at 10 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 3 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. (seriously).WednesdayA RAISIN IN THE SUN (1961) 10 p.m. on TCM. The first week of Black History Month is a fitting time to revisit “A Raisin in the Sun.” Lorraine Hansberry made history with it in 1959, when she became the first Black woman with a play produced on Broadway. The original Broadway cast — including Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Claudia McNeil — later starred in this classic film version. Its screenplay, which Hansberry adapted from her original play, retells the story of the Youngers, a Black family that has to decide what to do with a large insurance payment, and faces relentless discrimination when its members try to buy a home in a fictional white neighborhood in Chicago.ThursdayCynda Williams and Denzel Washington in “Mo’ Better Blues.”Credit…David Lee/Universal City StudiosMO’ BETTER BLUES (1990) 6:50 p.m. on Showtime. You can watch a trio of Spike Lee movies on Showtime on Thursday night, beginning with Lee’s 1994 Bed-Stuy coming-of-age story “Crooklyn” at 4:55 p.m., and ending with Lee’s 1989 opus “Do the Right Thing” at 9 p.m. In between those two, the network will show “Mo’ Better Blues,” Lee’s music-heavy comedy-drama about a jazz trumpeter, Bleek Gilliam (Denzel Washington). The music in the movie is largely by Lee’s father, the jazz bassist and composer Bill Lee; its plot involves Bleek’s complicated love life and his band’s financial issues, which are driven by their gambling-addicted manager (Lee), and which raise questions about the relationship between art and money. “An artist has to be a businessman today,” Lee explained in an interview with The Times in 1990. “Money means a lot. It equals power. If my films did not make the money they make, I couldn’t make the demands I make. A studio knows I’ll have final cut.”FridayBADLANDS (1973) 6:15 p.m. on TCM. Terrence Malick took inspiration from a brief, bloody real-life episode for this, his directorial debut. Based loosely on a string of murders committed in the 1950s, “Badlands” casts Martin Sheen as a 25-year-old Midwestern garbage collector and Sissy Spacek as an underage girl who runs off with him. The two take a murderous road trip across the Midwest. The film, Vincent Canby wrote in his review for The Times in 1973, is “ferociously American.”SaturdayRose Byrne and Steve Carell in “Irresistible,” a satire about a political operative.Credit…Daniel Mcfadden/Focus FeaturesIRRESISTIBLE (2020) 8 p.m. on HBO. After years of staying away from the social media center of couch commentary, Jon Stewart finally joined Twitter last week, weighing in on — of all things — the internet-fueled stock market kerfuffle revolving around the video-game retailer GameStop. Stewart’s voice has largely been absent from the political-commentary realm since he stopped hosting the “Daily Show” in 2015, but he dipped his toe back into it last year with “Irresistible,” a satire about a savvy political consultant in Washington, D.C., named Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell), who swoops into a small Wisconsin town to run a mayoral campaign. Gary’s quest to get his candidate — a farmer and retired Marine played by Chris Cooper — elected is complicated by the arrival of a Republican adversary (Rose Byrne). The result is a film that feels like “a stale corn chip trampled into Party-convention carpeting,” Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in her review for The Times. But, she notes, Byrne “gives Faith a bitingly droll politesse that tells us she has Gary’s number: She knows he’s as comfortable with his privilege as she is with hers.”SundayIn “The Equalizer,” Queen Latifah stars as a fresh version of the show’s fleet-footed vigilante.Credit…Barbara Nitke/CBSTHE EQUALIZER 10 p.m. on CBS. The 1980s action series “The Equalizer” got a pair of ultraviolent film adaptations during the 2010s, with Denzel Washington taking over for the original series’s star, Edward Woodward, on laying-waste-to-bad-guys duty. The franchise comes full-circle with this new TV reboot, which stars Queen Latifah as a fresh version of the show’s fleet-footed vigilante. CBS clearly has high hopes for the new series; they’re airing it right after the Super Bowl, which begins on the network at 7 p.m.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
