Monday: Beverly Hills, 90210 Marathon
We regularly tune in to SoapNet—yes, if you didn’t know, there is a cable channel devoted to soaps—on weekend mornings for reruns of Beverly Hills, 90210, that life-lesson-teaching teen drama that accompanied us through high school and college. This has us uniquely prepared for the CW remake (see Tuesday), which will pick up the story lines of at least a few of the original cast members. If you need a refresher course, today is your lucky day: SoapNet’s got a 24-hour-marathon going on. Try to tune in for the one when Brandon gets drunk and totals his car. [SoapNet, All Day]
Tuesday: Beverly Hills, 90210 Premiere
Since the CW wouldn’t give out screeners, we can’t tell you too much about the new 90210 except that we feel particularly qualified to tell you about the awesomeness of two of its stars, Shenae Grimes and Tristan Wilds. Ms. Grimes has spent the last few seasons playing super hot, super Christian cheerleader Darcy on Degrassi: The Next Generation, the Canadian teen show. The role’s actually prepared her well for what’s next; as Darcy, she made money selling sexy photos of herself on the internet (Hey! It wasn’t having sex or anything!) and falsely accused a teacher of abusing her. As for Mr. Wilds, we know him from The Wire, where he played Michael, a gorgeous, underprivileged kid in Baltimore who goes to the dark side in order to support his little brother and best friend. We expect his role here to be rather different. And of course, Brenda and Kelly will be back, which is enough to get us to tune in. [CW, 8 p.m.]
Wednesday: No Reservations
No, seriously. Since this movie is in constant rotation on HBO, we finally watched it over the weekend and … it’s cute! It’s a remake of the German film Mostly Martha (and yeah, we don’t totally understand remaking movies just so they’re in English and have Hollywood stars, but whatever), and features a luminous Catherine Zeta-Jones playing a top N.Y.C. chef who finds her life turned upside down when she must take guardianship of her niece (Abigail Breslin) and must also contend with another cook in the kitchen (Aaron Eckhart). We won’t say any more, but there’s a happy ending, and how often do we get that? [HBO, 12:30 p.m.]
Thursday: Young Frankenstein
This is probably the funniest movie we can remember from our youth (seconded by Haunted Honeymoon … but we’ll save that for another week). Gene Wilder plays the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein, who decides to re-create his grandfather’s experiment after inheriting his castle. Madeline Kahn shows up, with the best hairstyle ever; Teri Garr looks gorgeous as assistant Inga; and grumpy old man Peter Boyle (rest his soul) has one of the best comedic moments ever as the Monster, dancing to "Puttin’ On the Ritz." They really don’t make them like this anymore. [Fox Movie Channel, 6 p.m.]
Friday: Bodies, Rest & Motion
Oh, Eric Stoltz! We can hardly wait for your Battlestar Galactica prequel. But until then, we have to re-watch some of your older movies, like this one, which we loved when we were 18. You play a stoner guy who paints apartments. Tim Roth is a television salesman who gets fired and wants to move to Montana with Bridget Fonda. Phoebe Cates is there, too, but you fall in love with Bridget. Nothing really happens in this movie, which is what makes it such a perfect early ’90s film. At some point, you guys all get high. Man, the ’90s. Miss them. [Sundance, 5:20 p.m.]
