HBO puts Tina Turner in its spotlight
“Tina” (8 p.m. Saturday, HBO, TV-MA) arrives to remind us of Tina Turner’s long career and her tale of pain and reinvention. Not unlike the recent HBO documentary “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” it may introduce a catalog of great songs to young viewers and remind us old fogeys of just how many hits Turner delivered over so many years.
While we can certainly root for Turner’s mid-career triumph, it’s impossible not to see “Tina” as a kind of anticlimax. To be blunt, most of the good, make that great, music in the film occurs during Turner’s suffering years. We all know, from Turner’s talks with the press, her best-selling memoir “I, Tina” and its 1993 film adaptation “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” that Ike Turner was a controlling, violent monster of a husband. So we’re glad, as human beings, that she moved on.
But that doesn’t make the song “Private Dancer” better than her work with Ike and the Ikettes. Art often suffers when seen through the prism of biography. We all know that Ike Turner and Phil Spector (producer of Ike & Tina Turner’s “River Deep — Mountain High”) were capable of the worst behavior. They also brought out the best in her music. Tina 2.0 triumphed in a world made safe for People magazine, Oprah Winfrey and MTV. Biography trumps artistry in this case. It’s interesting to hear Tina Turner lend her unique voice to the Buddhist chants that bring her serenity. Is it wicked of us to prefer “A Fool in Love”?
› Discovery+ streams “Francesco,” a profile of Pope Francis directed by Oscar-nominated Evgeny Afineevsky (“Winter on Fire”).
Time was, a film featuring the pope airing on Palm Sunday would focus on the majesty of his office and the lessons of the season. “Francesco” focuses on Francis’ efforts to change the conversation about very temporal matters, most notably climate change and the global refugee crisis.
Francis argues that the two catastrophes are linked. Before Syria was plunged into civil war, it had been suffering from the worst drought in 900 years, forcing millions into cities that were then destroyed by war. He also looks at the American border woes as a result of environmental disaster in Central America.
In addition to such long-term, big-picture approaches to these ongoing problems, the pope insists on seeing the refugees as human. “Francesco” documents his visits to camps on Italian and Greek islands and his calls for humane treatment for the mothers and children huddled there.
“Francesco” includes interviews with the pope’s nephew as well as Benedict XVI, now serving in the unique position of pope emeritus.
› “City on a Hill” (10 p.m. Sunday, Showtime, TV-MA) returns for a second season. Set in Boston in the early 1990s, it offers a fictionalized account of crusading district attorney DeCourcy Ward (Aldis Hodge), bent on cleaning up a corrupt city and dragging it into a prosperous 21st century. Primary among his problems is the flagrantly crooked FBI agent Jackie Rohr (Kevin Bacon).
In the second season, Ward will work with housing activists to rid the projects of drug dealers, efforts thwarted by gang turf wars.