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Sunday 08/30/09

7am IFC
Singh is Kinng (2008 IND): This silly piece of fluff follows the misadventures of Sikh villager Happy Singh (Akshay Kumar), sent by his neighbors on a mission of mercy to the Land Down Under. The locals have learned that one of their own, ne'er-do-well Lucky Singh (Sonu Sood), has taken up a life of crime in Australia, and they decide to dispatch Happy and wise elder Rangeela (Om Puri) to make him see the error of his ways. Alas, Lucky ends up mistakenly passing the crime boss torch to the clueless Happy, and moderately hilarious complications, not to mention song and dance, ensue. This is far from a great film, but Kumar is really quite excellent as the disingenuous hero, and there's a final-reel cameo appearance by Snoop Dogg!

9am HBO2
In Bruges (2007 GB): Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell make a terrific screen team in this very dark tragic-comedy about a pair of hired assassins sent to the medieval city of Bruges to lay low after a London assignment goes bad. Whilst awaiting further orders from nutcase boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes), the duo break bread with a film crew and befriend a cocaine-sniffing dwarf (Jordan Prentice), but things rapidly go pear-shaped, leading to a bloody finale that is as hilarious as it is harrowing. A brilliant character study from playwright Martin McDonagh, In Bruges earned the London-born scribe a well-deserved Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Monday 08/31/09

6pm HBO
Youth Knows No Pain (2009 USA): America's obsession with staying forever young is examined in this brand-new HBO original documentary. Directed by Mitch McCabe (herself the offspring of a cosmetic surgeon!), the film examines the $60 billion industry that vainly tries to apply the brakes to that which cannot be stopped: the aging process. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll get a nip-and-tuck, and then your face will be stuck in the tragic rictus grin of failed plastic surgery.

9pm Turner Classic Movies
80,000 Suspects (1963 GB): This awkwardly-titled hospital drama stars Richard Johnson as Dr. Steven Monks, a man struggling to save his marriage whilst stemming a looming smallpox epidemic. Wife Julie (Claire Bloom) no longer trusts her man, whose roaming eye has landed him in hot water, and by shocking coincidence the outbreak of pox is traced back to the very woman with whom Steven has strayed! How's THAT for poetic justice! Set in bucolic Bath, 80,000 Suspects may be melodramatic and overwrought, but makes its wide-screen television premiere tonight.

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