1) “Secrets of the Penguins,” 8-11 p.m. Sunday, National Geographic. Each year, near Earth Day (April 22), we get a superb James Cameron production. Previous ones eyed elephants, whales and octopuses. Now (shown here) comes the best yet. It ranges from the Arctic to a desert, from 4-foot-tall to two-foot. Young filmmaker Bertie Gregory captures rich, intimate detail. Read more…
1) The Ten Commandments” (1956), 7-11:44 p.m., ABC. It’s the annual showing of an epic (shown here) that won an Oscar for special effects and was nominated for six more, including best picture. The next morning (10:30 a.m. ET), it moves to UPtv and starts a Palm Sunday marathon. Read more…
TV is ready for its Easter splurge.
That started April 12, with Moses on the mountain top; it concludes eight days later with an Easter Day surge of movies, music (including Handel’s “Messiah”) and more. In between, it has dramas (shown here is “The Chosen”) and even a stage musical.
Some of this is fueled by the era when audiences (and movie studios) savored Biblical epics. During the 1950s, four of the annual box-office champions were Biblical. All of them will be rerun this year — “Quo Vadis,” “The Ten Commandments” and “Ben-Hur” (each an Oscar-nominee for best picture) plus “The Robe.”) Read more…
