Big screen

Opening Wednesday

Life of Pi (PG): Ang Lee ( Brokeback Mountain) adapts Yann Martel’s bestselling novel about the son of an Indian zookeeper who is stranded on a lifeboat with an assortment of wild animals, including a 450-pound Bengal tiger. The trailer is astonishing.

Red Dawn (PG-13): Long-delayed remake of the 1980s staple about a group of teens defending the United States from a foreign invasion. Chris Hemsworth, Adrianne Palicki, Josh Hutcherson and Josh Peck are among the young soldiers on the front line. Instead of Russia, the enemy is now North Korea.

Rise of the Guardians: (PG) Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and other legendary titans must join forces to fight off an evil spirit that threatens to spoil the innocence of children the world over. Chris Pine, Hugh Jackman, Alec Baldwin and Jude Law provide the voices.

Rene Rodriguez

Small screen

The Dust Bowl (8 p.m. Sunday, WPBT-PBS 2): Ken Burns, whose PBS documentaries have chronicled everything from the Civil War to baseball, turns his cameras on the Dust Bowl, the ecological disaster that nearly obliterated the American Midwest during the 1930s. The second part airs Monday at 8 p.m.

Lonesome Dove (8 p.m. Monday, Encore): Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones play retired Texas Rangers on a deadly cattle drive in this 1989 Western that revived the moribund miniseries format. The four episodes air Monday through Thursday at 8 p.m. — or watch ‘em all in one burst in a marathon that kicks off at 11:30 a.m. on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Ben-Hur (10 p.m. Saturday, AMC): This epic costume drama starring Charlton Heston as a renegade Israeli prince whose life is changed by chance encounters with Jesus has mostly faded from collective American memory. But it won 11 Oscars when it was released in 1959, a record that stood 28 years until matched by Titanic.

Glenn Garvin

Let Miami Herald TV critic Glenn Garvin program your TiVo! Just click on his best bets for the week at http://www3.tivo.com/tivo-tco/mix/index.do