SMALL SCREENArmy Wives (10 p.m. Sunday, Lifetime) -- In the final scene of last summer's surprise hit, the air was full of smoke, screams and body parts as an explosion rocked the unfortunately named Hump Bar, where the show's characters hang out. As the second season kicks off Sunday, we learn if anybody survived or if the screen will just stay blank for 19 weeks in a row. Hey, David Chase tried it, and people are
still talking about the end of
The Sopranos.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (9 p.m. Monday, HBO) -- One of Hollywood's most audacious directors fled the country in 1977 after he was accused of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. Polanski has lived in France ever since, not daring to return, even to pick up the Oscar in 2003 for
The Pianist. This documentary, which includes an interview with the victim (now 45), is likely to prove unnervingly sympathetic to Polanski for some people's taste.
-- GLENN GARVIN
BIG SCREENThe Promotion (R) -- Two supermarket assistant managers (Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly) engage in a passive-aggressive battle while competing for a promotion. The directorial debut of Fort Lauderdale native Steven Conrad is just as funny, melancholy and astute about contemporary American life as 2005's
The Weather Man, which he wrote.
The Happening (R) -- After the critical drubbing of his last two films (
The Village and
Lady in the Water),
The Sixth Sense creator M. Night Shyamalan appears to be on the comeback trail -- at least judging by the film's eerie, tantalizing trailers. Shyamalan's first R-rated movie centers on a schoolteacher (Mark Wahlberg) who tries to figure out what is causing people to drop dead or commit suicide en masse.
The Incredible Hulk (PG-13) -- The iconic Marvel Comics superhero gets a second chance at big-screen glory, with Ed Norton as the volatile Dr. Bruce Banner, Liv Tyler as his squeeze and Tim Roth as the evil Abomination. But stories of creative discord between Norton and director Louis Leterrier -- along with the fact that the typically press-friendly Norton isn't doing any interviews -- have earned the film negative buzz. We'll find out soon enough.
The Children of Huang Shi (R) -- Fact-based story set in 1930s China about an English journalist (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an American nurse (Radha Mitchell) and a Chinese politician (Chow Yun-Fat) who team up to rescue 60 orphaned children.
-- RENE RODRIGUEZ