Entertainment

Reel good

THE GRIFTERS 1990
Monday, 2:45 a.m., IFC

BLUE VALENTINE 2009
Tuesday, 2 a.m., Showtime

SALT 2010
Wednesday, 8 p.m, FX

SUNDAY IN NEW YORK 1963

Sunday, 6 p.m., TCM

“Is a girl who’s been going with around with a fella a reasonable amount of time supposed to go to bed with him or not?” asks “kooky” ingenue Jane Fonda in this dopey comedy that predates “Cat Ballou,” and seems prehistoric next to her classic movies “Klute” and “The China Syndrome.” So if you want to see how long a good actress has to wait for good material, feast your eyes on this bit of fluff, where hooking up on the Fifth Avenue bus is as easy as a gal getting her brooch attached to a guy’s lapel. Crazy! With Cliff Roberston, as Fonda’s brother, and Robert Culp and Rod Taylor, in the same year as he made ‘The Birds,” as the suitors.

THE GRIFTERS 1990

Monday, 2:45 a.m., IFC

A small-time con man (John Cusack) is torn between his estranged mama (Anjelica Huston), an aging con artist specializing in race-track odds, and his hot-ticket floozy girlfriend (Annette Bening). In this Stephen Frears film, everyone has their own angles to play and the person with the upper hand keeps shifting. Bening is smashing as the girlfriend, but Huston seems a little soft for the hard-boiled Lily (Gena Rowlands was busy?), but both were nominated for Oscars anyway, as Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress respectively. Based on the novel by Jim Thompson.

BLUE VALENTINE 2009

Tuesday, 2 a.m., Showtime

Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling received great notices for their performances in this melancholy drama about two star-crossed lovers who find each other–and then wreck each other. Cindy and Dean meet at the retirement home where her grandmother once lived and eventually fall in love. They marry and have a child, but as the film unfolds, we come to know the dark secret that’s at the heart of their relationship. Williams received an Oscar nomination and many people complained that Gosling did not.

SALT 2010

Wednesday, 8 p.m, FX

Angelina Jolie weighs about 110 pounds and in “Salt,” she takes on these big lugs from the FBI and CIA who outweigh her by at least 100 pounds and polishes them off without a single, muscle-tearing grunt or bead of sweat. Adrenaline junkies won’t notice, of course, that Jolie cuts a somewhat laughable figure as Evelyn Salt, a top CIA agent who goes on the run to clear her name from suspicion that she cavorts with Russian agents, because there is so much running and doing, jumping and shooting that reality never gets in the way. Co-starring Liev Schreiber and August Diehl. Directed by Philip Noyce.