SMALL SCREEN
Nanking (7 p.m. Tuesday, Cinemax) -- Germany's crimes during World War II have been endlessly documented, but Japan's much less so -- at least in the West. This documentary on the Japanese army's murderous 1937 conquest of the Chinese city of Nanking could change that. Using archival footage and first-person accounts read by actors such as Woody Harrelson and Mariel Hemingway, Nanking recounts how 20,000 civilians were killed and 20,000 women and children raped in a six-week orgy of violence and bloodlust.
Escape from Auschwitz (8 p.m. Wednesday, WPBT-PBS 2) -- War crimes get a different spin in this documentary that recounts the only known escape from the Nazi death camp. It tells the story of Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, a pair of Slovak Jews who broke out of Auschwitz in 1944 and provided the world with the first eyewitness account of the hundreds of thousands of executions taking place inside.
Farmer Wants a Wife (9 p.m. Thursday, The CW) -- Finally, a Bachelor for the yokels. In this reality series, a bunch of hot city-slicker chicks vie for the affections of a Missouri farmer. And why not? Tractor rides! Square dancing! Quilting bees! Slaughtering hogs and eating their steaming entrails! I haven't been this excited since Petticoat Junction.
-- GLENN GARVIN
BIG SCREENIron Man (PG-13) -- The summer movie season kicks off with this adaptation of the Marvel comics superhero Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.), the billionaire industrialist who dons a suit of metal armor that gives him superpowers. Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow co-star for director Jon Favreau.
Made of Honor (PG-13) -- Patrick Dempsey stars as a womanizing playboy who doesn't realize he's really in love with his best friend (Michele Monaghan) -- until she returns from a Scottish vacation and announces she's getting married and moving overseas. Let the wedding wrecking commence!
-- RENE RODRIGUEZ
