NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (2004)
Sunday, 8 p.m., Comedy Central
Original to the point of brilliant, this offbeat comedy is like nothing you’ve ever seen. Napoleon (Jon Heder) a high school student with bizarre social skills, lives with his grandma and his 32-year-old brother, Kip (Aaron Ruell), in Preston, Idaho. You will laugh and go bug-eyed when you see what Napoleon does to help his geek friend, Pedro (Efren Ramirez), win the class presidency.
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999)
Wednesday, 12 p.m., Showtime
Scary! Very scary and very original movie about three student filmmakers who went into the woods outside Burkittsville, MD, in 1994, with a camcorder and 16mm camera and were never seen again. A year later their footage was found and a cult was born. Or so it seemed – in this clever, tremendously exciting movie-within-a-movie. The real stars are the writer/filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez.
HESTER STREET (1975)
Friday, 8 p.m., Flixe
Joan Micklin Silver’s first film is a loving look at turn-of-the-last century Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side. Carol Kane is a wife who unexpectedly joins her Americanized husband (Steven Keats) in New York. He’s so embarrassed by her Old World ways that she turns to his friend, Jake (Mel Howard), for comfort. A simple yet haunting performance earned Kane an Oscar nomination. COLLATERAL (2004)
Friday, 8 p.m., ABC
Michael Mann’s sleek thriller is often far-fetched, sure, but it’s still such a good ride, it’s worth the price of the fare to get into Jamie Foxx’s cab when he discovers that his passenger (Tom Cruise) is actually a contract killer on a tight schedule. The movie features equally good turns by Jada Pinkett Smith and Mark Ruffalo.