What’s on TV
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? (2018) 8 p.m. on HBO; stream on HBO platforms. You can’t make this stuff up: In the early 1990s, the biographer Lee Israel hit a bump in the road. Her latest book had failed to sell, and her agent told her to find another way of making a living. Then Israel stumbled upon a letter by the vaudeville comedian Fanny Brice and sold it to a bookshop. After learning that such writings would be worth more if they had meatier content, Israel went on to forge and sell roughly 400 missives by dead writers. Her crime spree is retold in this engrossing dramedy, based on Israel’s memoir. Melissa McCarthy stars as the crabby, whiskey-guzzling literary forger alongside Richard E. Grant, who plays her free-spirited drinking buddy and accomplice Jack Hock. Both actors earned Oscar nominations for their performances. And though the characters have questionable morals, they’re a joy to watch.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL on various networks. College football has officially returned. If you didn’t catch the first games of the season, don’t fret — dozens are airing all day Saturday. Watch Florida Atlantic and Ohio State face off at 12 p.m. on Fox. Alabama, last year’s runner-up, takes on Duke in Atlanta at 3:30 p.m. on ABC, and at 7:30 p.m., Oregon and Auburn go head-to-head for the first time since the 2011 B.C.S. National Championship.
What’s Streaming
THE JUNGLE BOOK (1942) Stream on Amazon or Criterion Channel; rent on iTunes. Rudyard Kipling’s classic collection of fables has spawned a growing Disney franchise of animated and live-action adaptations. This movie isn’t one of them. An independent feature by the Korda brothers, the adventure centers on the young hero Mowgli (Sabu), a boy who was raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. After he is captured by villagers and reunited with his mother, he tries to give life among human beings a try. That doesn’t go too well: Mowgli discovers the greed and violence that comes with civilization, and ultimately decides that he can’t live between both worlds. The film was nominated for four Oscars, including best cinematography and music.
PIRATE RADIO (2009) Stream on Amazon; rent on Google Play, iTunes, Vudu or YouTube. This rowdy comedy from Richard Curtis (“Love Actually”) revisits the mid-1960s, when, believe it or not, the British government all but banned rock music from the airwaves. Defying that censorship, a group of pirate D.J.s (led by Bill Nighy and Philip Seymour Hoffman) set up a radio station on an old tanker and broadcast their favorite hits to millions of listeners from the sea. In her review for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote: “Stuffed with playful character actors and carpeted with wall-to-wall tunes, the film makes for easy viewing and easier listening.”
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