Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Television

      Late Night Suggests a Few New Names for Facebook

      by

      Stephen Colbert proposed names like “Aunt Brenda’s Three-Paragraph Rant-a-torium” or “Best Fun Times America Website.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Extreme MakeoverLate night hosts couldn’t resist needling Facebook on Wednesday with news of the company’s impending name change.“They’re still facing accusations of endangering teens, spreading misinformation and destroying democracy. So they’re doing the right thing: rebranding the company with a new name,” Stephen Colbert said.“But that new name is a closely guarded secret that’s not widely known, even among Facebook senior leadership. Well, that’s surprising. Facebook has leadership?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Just in case they haven’t settled on one yet, we here at ‘The Late Show’ have come up with a few appropriate names, like Pinsurrectionist, DikTok, Aunt Brenda’s Three-Paragraph Rant-a-torium, Best Fun Times America Website and the Washington Football Team.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yeah, the website will still be Facebook but the company is going to have a new name. And I don’t know if this is a good idea. I mean, Facebook is one of those iconic brands like Hiroshima and Ted Bundy — do you really want to lose that name recognition?” — TREVOR NOAH“But I’m excited to find out what the new name is going to be. Like you know, I don’t know, maybe they’ll go with Myspace. I mean they already took everything else from them, might as well finish the job. Killed my friend Tom!” — TREVOR NOAH“And here’s the craziest part, I don’t know if it’s been announced yet. The new name — the new name for Facebook? Steven.” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Replacebook Edition)“Moving on, Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name. This comes as the company continues to expand its services beyond traditional social media. Facebook’s aim with the rebrand is to, quote, ‘confuse the [expletive] out of everybody’s parents.’” — JAMES CORDEN“Facebook is planning to rebrand the company. They’ve been plagued with scandals around misinformation, hate groups, selling people’s data, but they’re like ‘Yeah, we’ll change the name. That’s the problem, the name.’” — JAMES CORDEN“First, I don’t think the name is really the problem that people have with Facebook. Society is like ‘Yo, you are destroying democracy’ and Facebook is like ‘We hear you — what if we went by Bookface?’” — TREVOR NOAH“Second, if you want to change your image, I don’t think you should trust Mark Zuckerberg to do that. I mean, have you seen this man’s haircut? It looks like he goes to the barber and asks him to give him the colonial child. You trust him with your makeover?” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingIssa Rae described how she felt the pressure to please fans with the fifth and final season of “Insecure.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday Night“Dune” stars Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya will appear on Thursday’s “Late Night.”Also, Check This OutTimothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides and Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica in “Dune.” Paul is considerably less complicated and conflicted onscreen than he is on the page, our critic writes.Chia Bella James/Warner Bros.Speaking of Chalamet, Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of “Dune” is a sweeping and intimate take on Frank Herbert’s future-shock epic. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      Netflix Employees Walk Out to Protest Dave Chappelle's Special

      by

      Amid cheers and chants of “Team trans!,” dozens of Netflix employees walked out of a company office building in Los Angeles on Wednesday to protest a recent Dave Chappelle stand-up special, in one of the most visible signs of worker unrest in the history of the streaming service.Critics inside and outside the company have said that Mr. Chappelle’s show, “The Closer,” promotes bigotry against transgender people. The protest put the tech company directly at the center of broader cultural debates about transphobia, free speech and employee activism. Throughout the day, #NetflixWalkOut was a top trending topic on Twitter.Carrying signs that read “Hey Netflix: Do Better” and “Transphobia Is Not a Joke,” the employees joined more than a hundred supporters and activists who had begun rallying a couple of hours before. In addition to the scene in Los Angeles, some Netflix staffers working remotely shut their laptops and called off work for the day at noon. It’s unclear how many at Netflix, which had more than 9,000 full-time employees globally at the end of last year, participated in the virtual walkout.Netflix has found itself directly at the center of broader cultural debates about transphobia, free speech and employee activism.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesAt the protest in Los Angeles, Joey Soloway, the creator of the Amazon Prime comedy series “Transparent,” urged Netflix executives to add a transgender person to its corporate board “this week,” and pushed the entertainment industry as a whole to begin hiring significantly more transgender people, adding: “I want to pitch to a trans person. I would love to have a trans person give me notes on my story. I want a trans agent. I want a trans manager. I want so many trans critics at newspapers.”Under bright skies, activists and supporters vastly outnumbered a small group of counterprotesters who carried signs that read “Jokes Are Funny” and “Netflix, Don’t Cancel Free Speech.” There were a few minor skirmishes, but the atmosphere was mostly peaceful, with supporters chanting, “We want accountability. When do we want it? Now!” and, “Trans lives matter.”One of the organizers of the protest was Ashlee Marie Preston, who was featured in the Netflix documentary “Disclosure,” about Hollywood’s impact on the transgender community. In an interview, Ms. Preston said she was there because Netflix employees have to be “very careful” about speaking to the news media. Ashlee Marie Preston, who was featured in the Netflix documentary “Disclosure,” about Hollywood’s impact on the transgender community, helped organize the rally.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesB. Pagels-Minor, who is transgender and was fired last week from their job as a program manager at Netflix, read a list of demands that employees had for the company. Among them were hiring more transgender people and including disclaimers for content that is criticized for being transphobic. Netflix has said Mx. Pagels-Minor was fired for sharing sensitive documents outside the company; a lawyer for the former employee denied that her client shared information with the news media.One employee, Gabrielle Korn, wrote on Twitter: “We aren’t fighting WITH Netflix. We’re fighting FOR Netflix. We all know how great it can be and that it’s not there yet.”Though Mr. Chappelle’s special has come under fire, there are some who have defended him, including the comic Damon Wayans, who told TMZ last week, “We were slaves to P.C. culture and he just, you know — as an artist, he’s van Gogh. He cut his ear off. He’s trying to tell us it’s OK.”The rally attracted counterprotesters, including one who was pushed and asked to leave the premises.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesAmid the rolling public relations crisis, Netflix executives have begun to adopt a conciliatory tone while still remaining supportive of Mr. Chappelle.Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-chief executive, gave several interviews on Tuesday in which he said that he had “screwed up” communication with employees after the outcry and that he should have discussed the controversy with more “humanity.” Mr. Sarandos also conceded that shows, series and movies on Netflix did have an impact on the real world, something he denied in an initial statement.Similarly, hours before Wednesday’s protest, the company said in a statement that it supported the walkout.“We value our trans colleagues and allies and understand the deep hurt that’s been caused,” Netflix said in a statement. “We respect the decision of any employee who chooses to walk out and recognize we have much more work to do both within Netflix and in our content.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      R. Kelly to Face Another Trial in Chicago, Next August

      by

      The R&B star was convicted last month in Brooklyn of sex trafficking and racketeering charges after decades of sexual abuse allegations.R. Kelly, the R&B superstar who was convicted last month in Brooklyn on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges, has been scheduled to stand trial again starting on Aug. 1 in Chicago.In this case, Mr. Kelly faces charges that he produced child pornography, enticed children into sex acts and that he and two former employees conspired to fix his 2008 criminal trial in Illinois by paying off witnesses and victims in an effort to get them to change their stories.Judge Harry Leinenweber of U.S. District Court set the date of Mr. Kelly’s trial for three months after he is scheduled to be sentenced in the Brooklyn case, where he faces 10 years to life in prison after a jury found him guilty of all nine counts against him, including eight violations of an anti-sex trafficking law known as the Mann Act. The Chicago trial has been postponed several times because of the pandemic and the Brooklyn case.The federal charges in Chicago came six months after Mr. Kelly, 54, became the focus of scrutiny from law enforcement following the release of the documentary “Surviving R. Kelly,” which included testimony from several women who accused the singer of abuse dating back to the 1990s.The conviction in Brooklyn was Mr. Kelly’s first criminal punishment despite a long history of sexual abuse allegations.In 2008, Mr. Kelly was tried in Illinois on 14 counts of child pornography and was ultimately acquitted. According to the federal indictment in the Chicago case, which was filed in July 2019, Mr. Kelly and others paid a witness about $170,000 in 2008 to cancel a news conference at which he planned to announce that he possessed video evidence of Mr. Kelly engaging in sex acts with minors. The indictment also alleged that Mr. Kelly instructed his victims to deny to a grand jury a sexual relationship with the singer.Mr. Kelly’s acquittal in 2008 allowed his music career to flourish, and at the trial in Brooklyn, witnesses said his escape from a conviction emboldened him, describing his behavior as increasingly more disturbing in the following years.Mr. Kelly will later face state sex crime charges in Illinois and Minnesota. More

    • 50 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      Trevor Noah Talks ‘Striketober’

      by

      “The Daily Show” host joked that jobs are “how Americans prove that they deserve health care.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Working One OverOn Tuesday night’s “Daily Show,” Trevor Noah looked into ‘Striketober,’ where workers at companies like Kellogg’s and John Deere are striking for things like bigger pensions and getting part of the profits.Noah referred to jobs as “how Americans prove that they deserve health care.”“With more job openings than ever and more people quitting than ever, workers suddenly find themselves with a lot of leverage, and they’re using it to demand things like better pay, more flexible hours and canceling the annual company ‘Squid Game.’” — TREVOR NOAH“And right now, workers from so many different industries are striking — although, it’s none of the bad industries that you wish would go on strike. Like, have you ever noticed how the people who collect student loans, they never go on strike. Or telemarketers? Come on, you guys deserve better pay!” — TREVOR NOAH“Now, going on strike is not a step that workers take lightly. It’s a major decision, you know? You risk your jobs. You lose out on pay. You have to protest in front of your workplace, but you can’t go in to pee.” — TREVOR NOAH“Yeah, I’m not going to lie: When I heard how brutal these hours were, I was shocked. Like, what the hell, Kellogg’s? You shouldn’t be working people to the bone for cereal. We can all eat a pancake once in a while.” — TREVOR NOAH“And it’s not just inhumane to treat employees this way; it totally goes against the Kellogg’s brand image of cheerful colorful cartoon mascots, you know? If Kellogg’s keeps this up, those games on the back of the box are going to start getting a lot less cheerful.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Mix-and-Match Edition)“Let’s kick things off with the topic on everyone’s mind: vaccine booster shots. They’re like a butt lift for your immune system.” — TREVOR NOAH“And one thing people are wondering about is whether they should mix and match their shots, because maybe vaccines are like superheroes. Sure, Iron Man can save your life, but if you follow him up with Captain America, now you have the Avengers.” — TREVOR NOAH“It will spice up all those vaccine conversations a little bit: ‘What shot did you get?’ ‘Pfiderna.’” — JAMES CORDEN“This is kind of like mixing alcoholic beverages — you can do it, but should you? Just remember the rule of thumb: Moderna before Pfizer, always wiser. Pfizer before Moderna, some concern-a.” — JAMES CORDEN“And where it really gets complicated is with the Johnson & Johnson shot, which is basically Hawkeye: You know it’s better than nothing, but, come on, huh?” — TREVOR NOAH“The government is careful to say they would not recommend one shot over another. They’re like parents talking to their kids about college: ‘Hey, pick whatever major makes you happy, as long as it’s not poetry or Johnson & Johnson.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Clearly, someone at the company has to be held accountable for this. Personally, I blame Johnson. Then again, maybe it was Johnson I should blame? No, no, it’s definitely Johnson.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingNick Offerman shared some sweet tidbits about his bromance with Wilco’s frontman, Jeff Tweedy, and the writer George Saunders while on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightIssa Rae will talk about the end of her HBO hit “Insecure” on Wednesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This Out Calla Kessler/The New York TimesBilly Porter’s new memoir, “Unprotected,” details his early introduction to musical theater and the emotional trajectory that followed. More

    • 63 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Netflix Earnings Results: Q3 2021

      by

      It’s been a tale of two Netflixes over the last few weeks, as a long-anticipated Dave Chappelle special drew sharp condemnations from staffers and critics alike and as the South Korean sleeper hit “Squid Game” became a global sensation, making it the streamer’s most-watched series to date. (Both detail a grim view of the world.)Neither contributed much to the company’s results in the third quarter, which ran through Sept. 30 (“Squid Game” debuted in the last week of September and Mr. Chappelle’s special became available in October), but Netflix gained 4.4 million new subscribers in the period, beating its own estimate of 3.5 million. Netflix now has 222 million customers, about 67 million of them in the United States. The company booked $7.5 billion in revenue and $1.4 billion in profit, slightly better than expectations.Both shows do matter to the company’s current quarter, for which Netflix anticipates adding 8.5 million new customers, one of the biggest quarterly forecasts in the company’s history. Netflix also said it expected to generate $365 million in profit on $7.7 billion in sales. In other words, as far as Wall Street is concerned, what controversy?Mr. Chappelle’s show became a rare public relations nightmare for Netflix as critics saw it as a hostile invective toward the transgender community rather than the boundary-pushing stand-up routine that Ted Sarandos, the company’s co-chief executive, defended it as. Employees have threatened to walk out in protest on Wednesday, and some in the creative community have called out Mr. Sarandos.Jaclyn Moore, the head producer for the Netflix series “Dear White People,” said she would no longer work for the company if “they continue to put out and profit from blatantly and dangerously transphobic content.”Then there’s “Squid Game.” The dystopian series pits indebted citizens against each other in a set of children’s games where losers die and the winner walks away with millions in cash. The show has stormed the globe and has become one of Netflix’s most valuable new franchises, inspiring memes and costumes just in time for Halloween.“A mind-boggling” 142 million accounts watched at least the first two minutes of the show in its first month, making it the No. 1 program in 94 countries, including the United States, the company said. “The breadth of ‘Squid Game’s’ popularity is truly amazing.”A set of leaked internal documents revealed that “Squid Game,” which cost $21 million to make, is worth at least $891 million by one Netflix metric, according to a recent report in Bloomberg News. The story revealed for the first time how Netflix determines the value of its programming, a mystery that has long frustrated Hollywood’s producers.Unlike traditional television, where economics are governed by ratings and cable licensing fees, Netflix has a completely different set of financial goals. It has no live programming, no commercials, no prime time. Unlike network TV, Netflix doesn’t make more money when viewers watch more hours of programming. It makes more money when people sign up.The company can estimate whether subscribers joined to watch a specific show or even if a program kept customers from leaving. Based in part on that data, Netflix ascribes an “efficiency” metric to a show based on the value of each viewer, according to the documents leaked to Bloomberg. “Squid Game” has a very high “efficiency” rating, akin to a profit measure.Netflix’s share of the streaming pie has continued to shrink as competitors like Disney+, AppleTV+ and HBO Max have entered the market. The company’s “demand interest” — a measure of the popularity of shows and streaming services created by Parrot Analytics and a key barometer of how many new subscribers services are likely to attract — has started to fall. Netflix’s share of interest dropped 2.5 percentage points to 45.8 percent in the third quarter, while Disney+ and AppleTV+ gained in market share, the measurement firm said.Netflix said it would start disclosing different data points on viewership such as hours viewed and would no longer report the number of accounts watching a particular program.Netflix is looking for new ways to keep customers glued to its service and has started experimenting with games. The company recently acquired Night School Studio, the producer of the story-based game Oxenfree.“It remains very early days for this initiative and, like other content categories we’ve expanded into, we plan to try different types of games, learn from our members and improve our game library,” Netflix said on Tuesday. More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Television

      Betty Lynn, Thelma Lou on ‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ Dies at 95

      by

      She played Deputy Barney Fife’s girlfriend on the long-running sitcom and was remembered by fans with fondness more than 50 years later.Betty Lynn, who portrayed Thelma Lou, the patient girlfriend of Barney Fife, the bumbling deputy sheriff of the homespun town of Mayberry in the long-running 1960s sitcom “The Andy Griffith Show,” died on Saturday in Mount Airy, N.C. She was 95.The death was announced by the Andy Griffith Museum in Mount Airy, Mr. Griffith’s hometown and the inspiration for fictional Mayberry.Ms. Lynn joined the cast of the show in 1961, late in the first season, for an episode in which Sheriff Andy Taylor (Mr. Griffith) plays matchmaker between Barney and Thelma Lou.Thelma Lou’s occupation through 26 episodes remained a mystery, as did her surname. Although Barney (Don Knotts) had an occasional telephone flirtation with Juanita, a diner waitress who was never seen, it was clear that Thelma Lou was Barney’s steady girl. But in a 1966 episode, after Mr. Knotts departed as a series regular, Barney returned for a high school reunion to learn that Thelma Lou had gotten married.Still, all was not lost for him. When much of the cast reunited in 1986 for a two-hour television movie, “Return to Mayberry,” Thelma Lou had gotten divorced. She and Barney married in the film.Ms. Lynn moved from West Hollywood to a retirement community in Mount Airy in 2007. In addition to the Griffith museum, the town offers recreations of familiar Mayberry haunts like Floyd’s barber shop. Ms. Lynn became a nostalgic lure to tourists, who would stand in line once a month to get her autograph, to give her a kiss or to chat about the series.“I think God’s blessed me,” she told The Associated Press in 2015. “He brought me to a sweet town, wonderful people, and just said, ‘Now, that’s for you, Betty.’”Elizabeth Ann Theresa Lynn was born on Aug. 29, 1926, in Kansas City, Mo. Her mother, Elizabeth, was a singer, organist and church choir director who raised Betty with her parents. By 14, Betty was singing in local supper clubs and at 18 began performing in U.S.O. shows. After the war, she had small roles in the Broadway musicals “Park Avenue” and “Oklahoma!”She appeared in films like “Sitting Pretty” and “June Bride” in 1948 and “Cheaper by the Dozen” in 1950. On television, she acted in anthology series, westerns and sitcoms, including “Family Affair and “My Three Sons.” In 1986, she played Mr. Griffith’s secretary on four episodes of his dramatic series, “Matlock,” in which he played a lawyer.Ms. Lynn never married and did not leave any immediate survivors. Among regular cast members of “The Andy Griffith Show,” only the director Ron Howard, who played Opie, Sheriff Taylor’s son, is still alive.Ms. Lynn said that she could have stayed with the series, which ended in 1968, had she accepted the producers’ offer to make her the owner of a hairdressing salon. But Mr. Knotts was gone, having moved on to a film career.Without Barney, she told The A.P. in 2007, “I didn’t think Thelma Lou made much sense.” More

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Television

      Stephen Colbert Can’t Take Christopher Steele’s Purported Tape

      by

      “I’m warning you, Steele. If this turns out to be a false report again, ‘urine’ trouble,’” Colbert said.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.‘Urine’ TroubleStephen Colbert just can’t quit talking about reports about the existence of a tape rumored to show Donald J. Trump in a compromising position in a Moscow hotel room. On Monday, he bemoaned a recent assertion by Christopher Steele, a British ex-spy, that such a tape “probably exists.”“No! No, Chris Steele, you will not get my hopes up again. I have moved on — my heart cannot take this!” Colbert said. “This show had an official last pee-pee tape joke on January 25th. You cannot get me to talk about this until the actual tape has been released — or at least streamed.”“I’m warning you, Steele. If this turns out to be a false report again, ‘urine’ trouble.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Another Shot Edition)“And here’s a big story, especially if you got the Johnson & Johnson one-and-done vaccine. Dr. Anthony Fauci is now saying that FDA data shows the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should have been two shots. I mean, come on — it was right there in the name.” — JAMES CORDEN“For both Pfizer and Moderna, the recommendation is that after six months, people over the age of 65 or who have pre-existing conditions should get a booster. But for Johnson & Johnson, the panel recommends boosters for people 18 and older, and it can be given two months after the first shot. Cool! Hey, you know when that information would have come in handy? Two months after the first shot!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The name itself has two doses: ‘Johnson & Johnson.’ Just like — just like how we’re getting ‘Mo’ derna. That’s — that’s science.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“In related news, the F.D.A. has asked Johnson & Johnson to rename its ‘No More Tears’ shampoo to ‘Legally Speaking, Probably a Few Tears.’” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingOn “The Daily Show,” Jordan Klepper spoke with Trump supporters at the former president’s recent Iowa rally about why they still believe he won the election.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightColdplay will continue its weekly residency on Tuesday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutJamie Loftus has branched out into podcasting partly out of fear that her comedy shows were pigeonholing her as “Gross Woman.”Matt Cosby for The New York TimesThe comedian Jamie Loftus revisits the “Cathy” comic strip in her podcast, “Aack Cast.” More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ and ‘Queens’

      by

      Season 11 of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” begins on HBO. And a new musical drama series debuts on ABC.Between 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, Oct. 18-24. Details and times are subject to change.MondayPOV: LA CASA DE MAMA ICHA 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Decades after emigrating to the United States, a 93-year-old woman returns to Colombia in this new documentary. It’s a bittersweet journey chronicled with intimacy by the Colombian filmmaker ​​Óscar Molina, in his feature debut.TuesdayAMERICAN MASTERS: BECOMING HELEN KELLER 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). This new documentary, which revisits Keller’s life and legacy, has a secret weapon in the actress Cherry Jones, who reads written work by Helen Keller. Jones’s readings are paired with archival film and photographs, plus contemporary interviews with historians, scholars and disability rights advocates.Eve in “Queens,” a new musical drama.Kim Simms/ABCQUEENS 10 p.m. on ABC. Zahir McGhee, a producer of “Scandal,” is behind this new musical drama. The plot kicks off with the reunion of four women who were part of a hip-hop group in the 1990s, and who hope to stage a present-day comeback. (It has no relation to the Peacock series “Girls5Eva,” also about a musical reunion.) Naturi Naughton, Nadine Velazquez and the performers Eve and Brandy star. Tuesday’s debut episode was directed by the filmmaker Tim Story (“Barbershop”), who is an executive producer of the series.WednesdayFOUR HOURS AT THE CAPITOL (2021) 9 p.m. on HBO. This feature-length documentary, a presentation of HBO and the BBC, looks at the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. It uses footage from the actual event to chart out how the violence escalated, and includes interviews with lawmakers, members of law enforcement and others who were at the Capitol that day.ThursdayZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP (2019) 5:30 p.m. on FX. There are plenty of straightforward horror movies to choose from on TV this month. But if you prefer that your monsters be sacrificed in service of comedy, consider turning to this goofy “Zombieland” sequel. The movie reunites the quartet from the original “Zombieland” — Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Abigail Breslin and Emma Stone — for another riff on post-apocalyptic horror. If you actually want to be scared, you can stick around for HALLOWEEN (2018), which FX is showing afterward, at 7:30 p.m.FridayFrancesca Annis and Kyle MacLachlan in “Dune.”Universal PicturesDUNE (1984) 9:30 p.m. on HBO 2. Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” hits theaters this weekend. Any new sci-fi movie from Villeneuve, the director of “Arrival” and “Blade Runner 2049,” would be eagerly anticipated, but “Dune” brings an added layer of suspense in the form of a question: Could Villeneuve finally — finally — have made a successful movie out of Frank Herbert’s novel? That question is in part a product of this 1984 attempt. Directed by David Lynch (who has since called the experience “a nightmare”), the 1984 movie gilds Herbert’s novel, originally published in 1965, with Hollywood money, an enormous ensemble (Kyle MacLachlan; Patrick Stewart and Sting are among the supporting players), and a soundtrack composed primarily by Toto. The “ornate affair,” Janet Maslin wrote in her 1984 review for The New York Times, is “awash in the kind of marble, mosaics, wood paneling, leather tufting and gilt trim more suitable to moguls’ offices than to far-flung planets in the year 10191.” Several characters, Maslin noted, “are psychic, which puts them in the unique position of being able to understand what goes on in the movie.”HARLAN COUNTY, USA (1976) 10 p.m. on TCM. The documentarian Barbara Kopple won an Academy Award for this chronicle of a coal miners’ strike in eastern Kentucky. In his 1976 review for The New York Times, Richard Eder called the film “a fascinating and moving work.” Just don’t expect neutrality: The documentary is “forthrightly an effort to see the struggle through the miners’ own eyes,” Eder wrote.SaturdayYeri Han and Steven Yeun in “Minari.”Josh Ethan Johnson/A24MINARI (2020) 9 p.m. on Showtime. The filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung tells a semi-autobiographical American immigrant story in this warm heartland drama. The actors Steven Yeun and Yeri Han play young parents who move to rural Arkansas with the idea of opening a vegetable farm. The challenges that spring from that pursuit — interpersonal and irrigational — put a strain on the household, and provide much of the drama. But there are a lot of laughs, too, thanks in no small part to a standout performance from the veteran Korean star Yuh-Jung Youn, who plays a nervy grandmother. “The chronicle of an immigrant family, often told through the eyes of a child, is a staple of American literature and popular culture,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times. “But every family — every family member, for that matter — has a distinct set of experiences and memories, and the fidelity to those is what makes ‘Minari,’ in its circumspect, gentle way, moving and downright revelatory.”SundayCURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM 10:40 p.m. on HBO. “I’m not an Everyman,” Larry David says in the new season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” That may be true, but David’s idiosyncrasies — a more fitting label for him might be Easily Irritated Man — are much of what sets this show apart, so it’s probably good that he’s no Charlie Brown (at least as far as ratings are concerned). The show’s new, 11th season includes appearances from Jon Hamm, Lucy Liu, Seth Rogen, Vince Vaughn and Patton Oswalt. It’s slated to debut on Sunday night, after INSECURE, another Los Angeles comedy with a writer-producer-performer (Issa Rae also plays a fictional version of herself). That show will air the debut episode of its fifth and final season at 10 p.m. More