SATURDAY’S BEST PICKS
8 PM ( LIFE) MOVIE Sleeping With Danger Adapted from true crime stories by writer Ann Rule, this 2020 docudrama chronicles how flight attendant Kate Jewell (Elisabeth Rohm) quickly finds herself swept into a passionate affair with Paul Carter (Antonio Cupo) shortly after they meet. It’s not long before she discovers that Paul is subject to fits of jealous rage, however, and they culminate in a physical attack. Fearing for her life, Kate goes into hiding and tries to help police bring Paul to justice. Leslie Hendrix, Alison Araya and Mike Dopud also star. 8 PM ( HBO) MOVIE Jojo Rabbit Producer-director-cast member Taika Waititi won an Academy Award for also adapting a novel by Christine Leunens into one of 2019’s most audacious comedy-dramas, which was one of that year’s best picture nominees. Roman Griffin Davis stars as the title character Johannes “Jojo” Betzler, a member of Hitler Youth who is stunned to discover his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic. Oh, and he also has a playful Adolf Hitler (Waititi) as an imaginary friend. Rebel Wilson, Stephen Merchant and Sam Rockwell co-star. 8 PM ( TCM) MOVIE Ball of Fire Barbara Stanwyck earned an Oscar nomination as best actress for her performance in this 1941 screwball comedy directed by Howard Hawks and co-written by Billy Wilder. Stanwyck plays nightclub performer “Sugarpuss” O’Shea, whose colorful vocabulary catches the ear of a bachelor professor (Gary Cooper) who is working on a new dictionary. Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers, S.Z. Sakall and Dana Andrews also star in the film, which kicks off a lineup of Stanwyck films and opens TCM’s annual August “Summer Under the Stars” programming event.
8 PM ( BBCA) Earthflight British actor David Tennant narrates this visually stunning nature documentary series that shows a flight from a bird’s-eye view across six continents, showing some of the world’s most breathtaking natural spectacles from this unconventional perspective. Highlights in the premiere, “North America,” include a flock of geese on the flight north, being hunted by bald eagles; pelicans gliding along under San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and, later, looking down on devil rays performing somersaults; and California gulls feasting on swarming alkali flies over Mono Lake. 9 PM ( HALL) MOVIE Romance in the Air Depressed to discover her marketing job is hanging by a thread, Eden (Cindy Busby) takes a mental health break and returns to Lake Tahoe, where she spent happy summers growing up. Planning to recharge her batteries so she can throw herself back into work more fully, Eden is surprised to discover Riley (Torrance Coombs, “Reign”), a childhood friend and sweetheart, still is living next door. He welcomes her help with his struggling hot air balloon business and old feelings soon begin to resurface in this new 2020 romance.
10 PM ( TRAV) Hotel Paranormal It’s never pleasant trying to sleep in a space that is undergoing renovations, but in the new episode “Territorial Spirits,” some intrusive remodeling work stirs up the fury of already restless spirits at an infamous Arizona hotel. In other segments, a woman staying at a historic inn has a close encounter with a dead teenager, while a porter is attacked by the specter of a bloodthirsty pirate. Dan Aykroyd is the narrator.