February 19, 2013 by Adam W. Kepler
10:40 P.M. (Starz) KILL BILL: VOL. 1 (2003) Uma Thurman, above, is the Bride in this film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, and David Carradine is Bill, the man whose life she would like to bring to a premature end. Of course, that will have to wait until “Vol. 2.” First, she must battle two of his assassins (Lucy Liu and Vivica A. Fox) and a horde of masked samurai. Writing in The New York Times, A. O. Scott said that the film, “a densely referential pastiche of B-movie attitudes and situations, is above all an exercise in style.” He added, “But while being so relentlessly exposed to a filmmaker’s idiosyncratic turn-ons can be tedious and off-putting, the undeniable passion that drives ‘Kill Bill’ is fascinating, even, strange to say it, endearing.”
1 P.M. (AMC) TRAINING DAY(2001) Denzel Washington, right, won the best actor Oscar for his villainous turn as a Los Angeles police detective in this good cop, bad cop drama, directed by Antoine Fuqua. Ethan Hawke is the rookie assigned to follow him. “What makes ‘Training Day’ notable is Mr. Washington’s performance,” Elvis Mitchell wrote in The Times. “He smiles, cajoles and threatens all in the same sentence, and
Mr. Washington can use even his smile as a weapon."
4:45 P.M. (Cinemax) YOUR HIGHNESS (2011) The heroic Prince Fabious (James Franco) and his not-so-heroic brother, Thadeous (Danny McBride), set off on a quest to save Fabious’s one true love (Zooey Deschanel, above, with Mr. Franco) from the clutches of an evil warlock (Justin Theroux) in this fantasy comedy directed by David Gordon Green (“Pineapple Express”). A one-handed knight (Damian Lewis) and a fierce warrior (Natalie Portman) may or may not help them along the way. In The Times, Manohla Dargis wrote that “Mr. Franco, a natural funny guy (hey, he didn’t write that Oscar show), doesn’t so much slip into the role of hero as play it in quotation marks with exaggerated smiles and gestures, and an overall nice-dude vibe, pitching the performance close to Errol Flynn in swashbuckler mode, with flashes of Dudley Do-Right.”
8 P.M. (Fox Movie Channel) EASY A (2010) Emma Stone, left, plays Olive Penderghast, a good girl who pretends to be bad to improve her social standing in high school, as well as that of some persecuted class virgins, in this satire from Will
Gluck. But when her faked promiscuity generates an unexpected chain reaction, she sews a capital A on her clothes and parades around the school in suggestive outfits. Amanda Bynes is the leader of the Christian club that denounces Olive. Penn Badgley is Olive’s prince in waiting, and he’s not buying her act. “Whatever else it accomplishes, the sassy high school comedy ‘Easy A’ commands attention for the irresistible presence” of Ms. Stone, Stephen Holden wrote in The Times.
8:15 P.M. (Cinemax) WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER? (2011) Ally Darling (Anna Faris), a free spirit in her 30s who is still searching for Mr. Right, is upset to discover that she has tallied the highest number of lovers among her friends: 19. After reading a survey claiming that 96 percent of women who have slept with 20 or more men never marry, she enlists her dishy next-door neighbor, Colin Shea (Chris Evans), to help her track down the guys from her past, hoping that one might propose and keep her from hitting the dreaded 20. “Although the movie is a mere
wisp of an idea, sloppily developed, it is a serviceable platform for Ms. Faris’s zany, Fourth-of-July sparkler fizz and pop,” Stephen Holden wrote in The Times about this adaptation of Karyn Bosnak’s book “20 Times a Lady,” directed by Mark Mylod.
9 P.M. (Fox) NEW GIRL Schmidt (Max Greenfield) learns about the recent kiss between Jess (Zooey Deschanel) and Nick (Jake Johnson) as they decide who will get to use a prized parking spot. In “The Mindy Project,” at 9:30, Mindy (Mindy Kaling) prepares to host her own medical segment on the local news.
10 P.M. (FX) JUSTIFIED Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) finds himself caught up in the scheme of a grifter, while Boyd (Walton Goggins) and Ava (Joelle Carter) mix with the upper crust of Harlan at a party.
10:30 P.M. (Comedy Central) THE JESELNIK OFFENSIVE In this series premiere, no topic is off limits as the comedian Anthony Jeselnik recounts the latest news and headlines from the darker corners of the Internet.