What’s on TV This Week: ‘Grey Gardens’ and Billy Joel in Concert
For those who still haven’t cut the cord, here is a selection of cable and network TV shows, movies and specials that broadcast this week, April 8-14. Details and times are subject to change.
Monday
THE GREEN MILE (1999) 7 p.m. on AMC. Based on the 1999 Stephen King novel of the same name, this three-hour-plus film tells a somber tale of the death row warden Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) who meets an enigmatic inmate, John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) — a gentle giant with healing powers that border on the supernatural.
ELTON JOHN & BERNIE TAUPIN: THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GERSHWIN PRIZE FOR POPULAR SONG TRIBUTE CONCERT 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The songwriting duo of Elton John and Bernie Taupin are the recipients of the 2024 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, awarded by the Library of Congress. To honor their achievements, a tribute concert held in Washington D.C. will be held with performances by Metallica, Garth Brooks, Annie Lennox, Joni Mitchell — last year’s honoree — and more.
THE GOONIES (1985) 6 p.m. on E! When a band of misfit neighborhood kids finds a treasure map to the fabled treasure of an infamous pirate known as One-Eyed Willy, a zany adventure unfolds as they race to find gold to save their homes from foreclosure. Will the Goonies find what they’ve been searching for before the Fratellis, a crime family hot on their tail, get their grubby mitts on the priceless jewels? Will their coastal town be saved from destruction? Faced with treacherous traps, secret caves and no shortage of nail-biting moments, repeat after me: “Goonies never say die!”
Wednesday
THE GODFATHER (1972) 8 p.m. on TCM. “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Never has a string of words — spoken by Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) — weighed so heavily onscreen. Despite his age and jowls, the head of the Corleone family “remains a fearsome, rudely magnificent creature,” Vincent Canby wrote in his review for The New York Times. Family duty. Questionable honor. A son reluctant to take up the throne. This classic has it all, plus many more lines that linger in your ears: “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.”
GHOST ADVENTURES: HOUSE CALLS 10 p.m. on Discovery. Join an intrepid team of paranormal investigators, Zak Bagans, Aaron Goodwin, Jay Wasley and Billy Tolley, as they document the homes of people who claim they’re plagued with unwanted, unexplained paranormal activity.
Thursday
LADY MACBETH (2016) 7:15 p.m. on STARZ. Set in 19th-century rural England, a young woman (Florence Pugh) is sold into a loveless marriage and, after growing bored of being silenced and untouched, finds herself passionately enraptured in an affair with a young man (Cosmo Jarvis) on her husband’s estate. This adaptation of “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” an 1865 novella by Nikolai Leskov, exemplifies the power of newfound liberation as “carnal lust slips into bloodlust,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The Times.
THE ZONE OF INTEREST (2023) 8 p.m. on HBO. Summer 1943. German-occupied Poland. A mother of five, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), builds a dream home and life, as her husband, the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), reports to the camp that sits just beyond the garden wall. Loosely based on the 2014 novel by Martin Amis, this film creates an illusion of perfection and idyllic bliss, while unimaginable horrors unfold mere steps from the family’s front door. “The Zone of Interest” was awarded Best Sound and Best International Feature Film at the Oscars this year.
GREY GARDENS (1975) 10:30 p.m. on TCM. Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edith Bouvier Beale — otherwise known as Big and Little Edie — are the eccentric, reclusive duo who are the subjects of this documentary. Relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy, they live in Grey Gardens, a ramshackle mansion in East Hampton, where they show off their daily “costumes” and recount tales of lovers of years past. Cats and raccoons crawl across faded photographs and rotting floors, as memories pile high.
Sunday
THE 100TH: BILLY JOEL AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN 9 p.m. on CBS. Billy Joel will air his 100th consecutive performance at Madison Square Garden live. “I don’t think of myself as a singer,” he recently told The Times. “I’m a piano player.” His Garden series wraps in July 2024, with his 104th show, which will be his 150th lifetime performance at the celebrated venue.