What to Watch on TV this Weekend: Chloe's Guide

Aug. 26–28, 2016

Here are a few suggestions for what to watch on the upcoming weekend.

Selena (1997)

Friday, Aug. 26 - VH1 - 6 p.m.

I was introduced to the Selena Quintanilla biopic through a Spanish language class when I was a child an elementary school teacher's effort to nurture or otherwise inspire an interest in learning the mother tongue associated with half of my heritage. Such an appreciation eventually came to fruition, but this was not the accomplishment of Gregory Nava's screenplay. What the film succeeded in was rousing a sense of respect for Quintanilla's successes and prowess as a Spanish-English crossover songstress throughout her career in Tejano (Texas-Mexican) music.

Her songs — "I Could Fall in Love," "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom," "Dreaming of You" and "Como la Flor," to name a few — resonated with me for the dulcet tunes upon which their lyrics soared. I was captivated by then-breakout actress Jennifer Lopez's likeness to the late singer and empathized, at a young age, with the loves and losses illustrated within the 127-minute production. Lopez's eponymous role motivated the actress toward a music career of her own while simultaneously furthering Lopez's claim to fame within the film industry (Anaconda, The Cell, Enough).

Lucy (2014)

Saturday, Aug. 27 - HBOSignature - 11:15 a.m.

Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson in the titular role, emerges from the creative mind of one of my favorite directors, Luc Besson, known for crafting strong, female leads within highly visual settings and action-filled spectacles. Besson's cinematic mastery is seen throughout his 35-year career, demonstrated in notable films such as Nikita (1990), Léon: The Professional (1994), The Fifth Element (1997), Taxi (1998, 2004), the Transporter series, Unleashed (2005), Colombiana (2011) and the Taken trilogy.

His part-science fiction, part-action film, Lucy, follows an American woman (Johansson) living in Taiwan, tricked into working as a drug mule. The drug, CPH4, is described as a volatile substance produced in minute quantities by pregnant women to provide fetuses the energy to develop. Morgan Freeman plays Professor Samuel Norman, a scientist seen presenting on evolution throughout the film.

The production explores two principal themes: the nature of evolution as well as the capacity and potential of the human mind. The script also touches upon the "10 percent of the brain" proposal, which suggests that most or all humans make use of a mere 10 percent of their brains.

The Help (2011)

Sunday, Aug. 28 - CMT - 5:30 p.m.

The first time I watched Tate Taylor's The Help, I was on a five-hour flight from Dallas to Newark with neither book nor music playlist to pass the time. I selected The Help on a whim from a limited catalog of films. What began as the idlest of curiosities reshaped into a genuine interest in the film's premise, its main characters' individual stories and the arching plot, a journey that inspires empathy, sympathy and an ingenious peek into the lives of black maids during the Civil Rights era.

Viola Davis (Suicide Squad, How to Get Away with Murder) and Octavia Spencer star as maids with whom aspiring journalist Skeeter, played by Emma Stone (Birdman, The Amazing Spider-Man). Skeeter's path to understanding the pair is realized through a compassionate sense of moral obligation from the other side of the proverbial tracks in 1963 America. The Help earns its appeal not in its premise, but in the influences of its characters, whose lives are fraught with the symptoms of their setting.

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