Best-bets for March 16: Awardees soar; Pac-10 crumbles

1) “NAACP Image Awards,” 8-10 p.m., CBS, BET and VH1. Queen Latiifah returns as host, with special honors for musicians (New Edition, Frankie Beverly), designer June Ambrose and 25-year-old poet Amanda Gorman. There are awards for TV, music, books and movies – with best-picture nominees “American Fiction,” “Rustin,” “Oppenheimer,” “They Cloned Tyrone” and the vibrant “The Color Purple” (shown here). Read more…

1) “NAACP Image Awards,” 8-10 p.m., CBS, BET and VH1. Queen Latiifah returns as host, with special honors for musicians (New Edition, Frankie Beverly), designer June Ambrose and 25-year-old poet Amanda Gorman. There are awards for TV, music, books and movies – with best-picture nominees “American Fiction,” “Rustin,” “Oppenheimer,” “They Cloned Tyrone” and the vibrant “The Color Purple” (shown here).

2) Pac-12 tournament championship, 9 p.m. ET, Fox. It’s the last basketball game for a conference that (under various names) used to dominate; UCLA won seven straight national championships,. Now teams are scattering, leaving only two (the Pac-2?). In a geographical anomaly, two California schools are joining the Atlantic Coast Conference.

3) More tourney finals. That iincludes games on ESPN2 at 11 a.m. (America East), 1 p.m. (MAC) and 11:30 p.m. (WAC); ESPN at 6 p.m. (Big 12) and 8:30 (ACC); Fox at 6:30 (Big East); ESPNU at 7:30 (MAAC); and CBS Sports Network at 8:30 (Conference USA). Five more conferences have their semi-finals, with the title games Sunday.

4) “Mulan” (2020), 5:30 p.m., FX; or “Jungle Cruise” (2021), 6:20 p.m., Freeform, During the pandemic, Disney had good movies that few people saw in theaters. “Mulan” has a few flaws – the boot-camp scenes are so-so – but director Niki Caro (“Whale Rider”) has made a gorgeous epic. “Jungle Cruise” gives Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt a pleasant mix of action and humor.

5) “The Go-Go’s” (2020), 8-10 p.m., CW. In 1982, the Go-Go’s made music history: This was the first all-female, instrument-playing band to reach No. 1 on the album chart. There were ups and downs afterward, for the group and (individually) for singer Belinda Carlile. Director Allison Ellwood traced the history, including a 2019 reunion.
— Mike Hughes, TV America

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