Watching The Witches of Eastwick (ABC Sunday... - Los Angeles Times
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Watching The Witches of Eastwick (ABC Sunday...

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Watching The Witches of Eastwick (ABC Sunday at 8:30 p.m.) is enough to make you believe that Jack Nicholson was born to play the devil come to present-day Rhode Island. Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer, all previously married, all currently single, decide over their ritual Thursday-night martinis that “a tall, dark prince traveling under a curse†might be just what they need to shake up their single life. The curse of this 1987 movie is that playwright Michael Cristofer’s botched and bandaged script turns John Updike’s novel inside out and upside down.

Luckily, the 1990 Heart Condition (KTLA Monday at 8 p.m.) slips out of most of the traps built into its own high-concept gimmick: a goofy-sounding notion about a racist haunted by his black heart-transplant donor. This buddy-from-beyond marketing hook may sound like an albatross but Bob Hoskins and Denzel Washington (as the ghost donor) manage to pry it loose.

Robert Resnikoff, in his 1990 directorial debut feature, The First Power (KTLA Tuesday at 8 p.m.) reveals a dynamic flair for action, but the extreme violence Resnikoff as writer puts into this sleek but grisly supernatural thriller is hard to justify. Lou Diamond Phillips stars as a hotshot LAPD homicide detective who captures a serial killer (Jeff Kober) whose San Quentin execution releases his evil spirit.

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A lot has been made of the fact that with Blue Steel (KTLA Thursday at 8 p.m., again Saturday at 6 p.m.). director Kathryn Bigelow invaded the men’s club of the bloody action-thriller with this 1990 film. Ron Silver is the upscale psycho who gets slack-jawed when he sees a woman cop (Jamie Lee Curtis in a strong portrayal) who can kill with the same cool he’d like to have. Although it’s nice to see a woman on the job, why should we be grateful that anyone wants to make such a film?

The 1985 Invasion U.S.A. (KTLA Saturday at 8 p.m.) is a brutal, one-note, sadistic affair in which director Joseph Zito and co-writer and star Chuck Norris offer a scenario for a terrorist assault on America: A motley band of Russians and Latinos sneak into Miami, machine-gunning a boatload of Cuban refugees and killing a cocaine czar. Their crazed leader (Richard Lynch) decides he must assassinate the one man he believes can foil his entire plan: an ex-CIA agent (Norris).

The 1934 Zou Zou (KCET Saturday at 9 p.m.) is a blatant rip-off of the Warner Bros.-Busby Berkeley backstage musicals, but it does have the legendary Josephine Baker, who has a great, boisterous presence that irradiates the screen, making it leap with arcs of eroticism and show-biz razzmatazz.

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