ALTERNA-TV
If you're familiar with Roddy Doyle only from the exuberant screen adaptations of his novels The Commitments and The Snapper, then you're in for a rude shock with THE FAMILY (Sundance Channel, March 24-27, 8-9 p.m.). This bleak 1994 BBC miniseries--Doyle's first original script--has more in common with the kitchen-sink realism of Doyle's novels Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (the book it inspired) than with the lightly humorous aforementioned movies. Each episode takes the point of view of a different member of a dysfunctional Dublin clan: Charlo (Michael Collins' Sean McGinley), the philandering father; John Paul (Barry Ward), the miscreant 13-year-old son; Nicola (Neili Conroy), the steel-willed eldest daughter; and Paula (Ger Ryan), the eternally suffering mother. Starkly directed by Jude's Michael Winterbottom and brutally well acted, The Family is a depressing treat for those few lucky enough to get Robert Redford's upstart Sundance Channel. Stay tuned through the closing credits, as each episode concludes with an Elvis Costello song.
CHOICE RERUNS
Did Fargo leave you cold? Did you find Shine lackluster? Did The English Patient make you sick? Not to worry. Anyone underwhelmed by this year's Academy Award nominees can switch over to TCM's monthlong festival 31 DAYS OF OSCAR (TCM, March 25 and 27, starting at 8 p.m.) for marathons of Best Picture nominees past. The post-Oscar festivities kick off with a restored version of 1961's West Side Story, followed by 1960's The Apartment (10:45 p.m.), 1980's The Elephant Man (1 a.m.), and 1976's Network (3:30 a.m.). Two nights later, Woody Allen's Annie Hall leads off, followed by Dustin Hoffman in 1979's Kramer vs. Kramer (10 p.m.), Robert Redford's 1980 Ordinary People (12 a.m.), and Hoffman again in 1969's Midnight Cowboy (2:30 a.m.), the only X-rated movie to win Best Picture. Does Ted Turner know that one of his networks is showing this filth?
