NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)
8 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 24
AMC (Comcast Ch. 31)
Hordes of moaning zombies, lurching through darkness, looking for a release from the earthly plane. No, it’s not your relatives looking for a place to sleep off their post-Thanksgiving turkey stupor; it’s rather this landmark horror classic. Here, a band of holdouts try to defend a boarded-up farmhouse against the living dead. Though the whole zombies-returned-from-the-grave bit is old hat for moviegoers today, in 1968 it was the ultimate taboo, touching on fears of dead bodies, ghouls, ghosts and cannibalism. Shot in moody black and white and still genuinely scary after all these years, it’ll give Thanksgiving Day early risers something to be thankful for: that Grandma has the good sense to stay planted.
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: TUPPERWARE!
8 p.m. Monday, Nov 28
AETN (Comcast Ch. 3, Broadcast Ch. 2)
Admit it: Somewhere in your kitchen, you’ve got at least one piece of Tupperware. You know, that lid in the back of the silverware drawer? The one that doesn’t seem to fit anything? That’s the one. Developed by inventor Earl Tupper in 1945 using what were then space-age materials, Tupperware and the Tupperware parties where it was sold weren’t always the punch line they are today. For young families in the 1950s, it represented a way to make food go further. For millions of American women who sold Tupperware, it represented a vital outlet for their entrepreneurial drive, something closed off after women were exiled from factories and shipyards and expected to return to the kitchen after World War II. Kathy Bates narrates.
INDEPENDENT LENS: MAID IN AMERICA
9 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 29
AETN (Comcast Ch. 3, Broadcast Ch. 2)
In America today, illegal Latino workers provide the muscle behind millions of American businesses. Though male illegals have dozens of possible jobs they might be able to fit into, women’s options are more limited. One area of employment open to Latinas, however, is housekeeping and nannying. Often long, thankless drudgery, it can also allow employers and their employees to see each other’s lives in the most intimate terms. Here, “Independent Lens” follows the fortunes of three new female illegals in L.A. as they seek work as housekeepers and nannies. Through interviews with the women and their employers, the filmmakers hope to find a common ground.