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Swithin

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Posts posted by Swithin

  1. Interesting post. The "movie fiction" part is something I didn't realize, meaning it would be difficult to discuss somewhat fact-based films such as JFK, Nixon, The Killing Fields, and even Goodnight and Good Luck. What if David Hare's play about Iraq (Stuff Happens) had been made into a film -- or was it? If this board existed in the Vietnam War era, imagine a discussion about Coming Home and The Deer Hunter! I thing the problem is not the focused discussion, it's the ease of being led astray into a real political argument.

     

  2. Somewhere along the line, we Americans got the wrong idea. The fact that the constitution says the government shall make no law prohibiting freedom of speech doesn't mean others can't control expression. I can throw you out of my house if I don't like something you say. TCM can throw you out of this board if you go beyond what they decide is acceptable.

     

  3. I'll never understand some of the technical issues of this board, I don't even know how to post photos!

     

    The book AA is even longer and more dense than the film. I agree with you -- though I never thought of it that way -- that Warner Brothers may have kept in the social issues that appealed to them.

     

    Steffi Duna does seethe with sexuality! I love all the character actors in the film. In the smaller roles, Rafaela Ottiano has a wonderful bit part. And one of my favorite lines is Gale Sondergaard's to Claude Rains: "You're so wise, and so clever, but I know something that would kill you, if you knew..." Gale of course won the first Oscar ever awarded for Best Supporting Actress for Anthony Adverse.

     

     

  4. Where did that piece about his MGM period come from? I didn't say that.

     

    I remember when AA was on Channel 4, I was very young, loved the film even then, and even wrote to NBC to say please put it on as a sort of Christmas present. They put it on two nights before Christmas that year, I was amazed that they responded!

     

    I think the scope of the film would not have worked as well at MGM, it would have been too slicked up. But I do find the theme of searching in some of LeRoy's films (also Random Harvest, etc.) very appealing.

     

  5. Republican spokespeople, the ones who usually defend everything.

     

    Just to be more specific: The Republican spokespeople I heard were saying that Mitt and Rubio gave good speeches but that the conversation tomorrow is going to be about Clint's performance. Someone who thought Romney's speech was great said "The Clint thing blew their final night, I can't believe they let that happen."

  6. I have faith that even more young people will come to classic films. When I was a child, I became interested because my mother watched classics on television. That's how I became interested, and I branched out on my own as I grew up. In grade school, they showed us movies once a month. When I got to college, film history classes were just coming in. Now, schools show old movies regularly, and nearly every college has a film study/history department which is in many cases on par with its literature department.

     

    So I think the future of the art form is secure in the hands of later generations.

     

  7.  

    I shouldn't have used the word "ridiculous."

     

    My favorite "classic" films are from the 1930s. I was not born in the 1930s. So I don't think all of us who love the "classics" are looking for screenings of the films of our youth. New generations will continue to discover and learn to love the films from the silent era through the end of the studio era, just as they learn to love novels of earlier eras. Not everyone will do this, but there will always be an influx of substantial numbers of young bloods who love old movies. I remember when I was "young blood," watching old movies, made a few decades before I was born, on Million Dollar Movie on Channel 9 in NYC, and on Shock Theater on Channel 7. I don't think it follows that as newer generations arise, the classic movie lovers among them will be more interested in the films of later decades. But classic films, or genre films, will continue to be made, to some extent, and I'm sure TCM will add them judiciously to their lineups over time.

     

    I don't know the metrics, but I assume TCM has a dedicated share of the market that no other network that shows movies has. FMC occasionally shows its classics, but it also shows so many of its later films, that I don't even have the patience to look at their schedule.

     

    So I think the hand-wringing is premature. Yes, Polaroid and other companies may have made bad decisions, but they were faced with desperate situations related to their survival. TCM is in an enviable position with an audience that I assume to be more dedicated than that of any other film network. I don't see anything that would indicate that they intend to change their mission. And with 24 hours of programming time, there's plenty of time for variety and diversity.

     

     

  8. Maybe I'm naive, but I think this is a ridiculous discussion. No corporation lucky enough to have a unique brand is going to damage that brand by becoming like other brand-less corporations. It would be really stupid business sense. TCM's brand brings viewers directly -- and in many cases solely -- to it. The other movie channels are interchangeable. No business plan could justify a change.

     

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