Shakes the Clown (Cinemax Monday at 8...

Shakes the Clown (Cinemax Monday at 8 p.m.) Although writer-director-star Bobcat Goldthwait 1991 film muffs a subversive notion with lots of potential, he does show us the dark side of clowning, the sleazy underbelly of American media sweetness and light. His central image--white-faced clowns with red-bulb noses sitting around a dingy barroom in full makeup, spouting obscenities and cynical cracks--mixes up the iconography of “The Iceman Cometh” with “Dumbo”; unfortunately, much of the plot is strictly high concept action-comedy.

Camille Claudel (Bravo Tuesday at 5 p.m.): Bruno Nuytten’s 1988 release is a romantic tragedy in the grand manner, a rich, darkly gorgeous film in which Isabelle Adjani won an Oscar nomination as the tormented sculptor lover of Auguste Rodin (Gerard Depardieu).

The Official Story (Cinemax Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.) is Luis Puenzo’s fervent 1985 study of the innocents caught in the wake of Argentina’s long dictatorship. The Oscar-winning film’s anger and sincerity sweep you up, as lead actress Norma Aleandro all but breaks your heart.