fxreyman
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Posts posted by fxreyman
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Yes, we are all assuming how the majority feel about something unless we have actual data.
So here I go with my assumption: I assume a majority of TCM viewers do NOT want content censored. That they are adults and they can handle it AND if there is a movie that has too much content they find offensive they can just avoid watching the movie. That there are FEW, if ANY people that have a preference for censored movies.
I feel you're the one overreacting here. It isn't that something is wrong at TCM. It is that TCM's programmers can do a better job with understanding the version of the film they are leasing before showing them. I don't think that is asking too much or being unreasonable.
So as always, I am overreacting here? That is what I do. Yeah, I get it. You are the voice of reason around here, right?
It is not being unreasonable, what it is - it is becoming rather boring that this topic keeps rearing it's ugly head whenever an edited film makes it way onto the schedule.
The main problem I have is reading threads like this one where to me there is complaining that exists from basically the same people over and over again when the programmers should be doing a better job. The main emphasis is to always blame the programming people at TCM.
"Oh, well its the programmers fault that this or that happened". Or,
"The programmers should be doing a better job at screening the films before they air".
What do think happens at TCM? Do you really think that there is a really big team there in their offices that are supposed to screen each and every film that TCM shows each month to verify whether or not the film is the original film or an altered one. Because I have to tell you, all of the conversations I have seen or read about is that TCM really has little control over the films they receive. And yet there are those that write on these pages who seem to think that TCM has an unlimited supply of time, resources and more importantly people whose only jobs each month is to screen all the movies they show.
Get real. I am amazed that they can get what they have on the channel each and every month. Plus all of the other good things they do for fans of the channel. From my conversation with Tabesh last year, they have a very small yet dedicated staff who tries to do their very best. Unfortunately around here people seem to think they have to be miracle workers.
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And right off the bat, you're wrong. I have no idea why you would think I assume that.
I speak for myself. I give my opinions. I ask my questions. What others feel or think is theirs, not mine.
Well, I hate to say this but you did write the following:
Then at least their reputation for showing movies unedited will not p!ss so many people off by their not living up to it. They openly transfer the blame to their supplier while allowing me to not waste my time with the thing.And yes this is your opinion. I am not arguing that. But, how did you arrive at this opinion? "So many people".
Did you take a poll of people who watch TCM? Did you compile a list of numbers of people who watch TCM but who have also complained about these errors from TCM?
Again I am not arguing. I am just saying that to me it would seem that the only people getting upset or at the very least concerned about how TCM "proofs" or "determines" whether or not films are edited before showing them, are the few folks like yourself and a few others here who complain about this.
And as I wrote TCM is operated by humans. Humans make mistakes. I would say cut them some slack. I mean lets face it. If you record a movie that you have not seen before and then you watch it for the first time, how are you going to know that the film that TCM has leased is an edited version unless they say so at the beginning? Is that so important to you and others here?
I could see if you saw a movie years ago and then it popped up on TCM and you decided to record the film and when you watched the film at a later time, you noticed based on your remembrance of seeing the film in the theater that the film was edited, then maybe there would be cause for you to be upset or just delete the film from your library.
To me if I could afford to get TCM and I recorded and then watched a film that I had never seen before, but afterwards found that the film I watched had been edited or that the film was an edited version of the film that had been released in the theaters, it is NOT going to be a detriment to me keeping it in my film library.
This is one of the reasons why I do not record movies anymore. For one thing I can not afford the channel tier that has TCM and to me it is a waste of time to record a film. If I want it badly enough then I will find a copy and purchase the film on DVD. It does not bother me, and yet I would rather purchase a film for my library than tape the film off of a movie channel. But that's just me. Others around here record every movie they see that they want and that is fine.
This is my opinion.
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Easy. Make up an announcement that can be used immediately before the movie begins. It can be used whenever they find that they've received an edited movie from the post-1970 period (pre-1970 is moot).
"The following movie has been found to be an edited-for-television copy which we received in error. We apologize for the inconvenience to those who had hoped to see the genuine version."
Then at least their reputation for showing movies unedited will not p!ss so many people off by their not living up to it. They openly transfer the blame to their supplier while allowing me to not waste my time with the thing.
Well there is the problem...
You are assuming that there are a lot of people upset with this. How do you know that there are that many upset people about this? Have you conducted a poll to see just how many subscribers are upset that these types of things go on at TCM?
What I think is going on is that we have a very, very, very small number of people who come on this message board and voice their concerns that somehow TCM is in the wrong and darn it, they should do something about it because it is hurting the channel.
Now you tell me. Do you honestly believe that there are thousands of disgruntled viewers of TCM out there who are really concerned about this, or would you not agree that the only people who are genuinely upset are those few who continue to voice their concerns about this on a message board where maybe there are tops thirty people participating each and every day?
I agree that there is a problem. But again what can TCM do? If they are not checking each and every film that comes to them and they decide not to do anything about it, what recourse do you have? Well I guess you could turn the channel to another channel, turn the TV off and go read a book or do what I do. Watch my own DVD collection or rent movies form any number of sources or like me, tonight watch House of Cards on Netflix.
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All we ask is that they be up front about it. If they're running an edited version, tell us so. Then we won't waste our time on it - we'll wait until the real version comes around.
I'll be erasing this rather than adding it to my collection. Disappointingly.
So how would you suggest they be up front about it? Let me ask you something. How many months out do you think TCM leases films to be shown for the 31 Days of Oscar or lets say any month?
I am sure that they leased this film and the other film this evening that had edits in it months ago. I do not know exactly how the deals are worked at TCM, but lets say for argumentative purposes the film arrives the month before the film is supposed to be shown. Most of these films are probably leased in a batch arrangement, that is to say that several films are batched together for a particular length of time to run on several occasions during the year on TCM. Possibly as few as one or two times depending on how popular a film is or isn't.
If TCM receives the film(s) a month out, does this give the TCM staff enough time to watch the film all the way through to see if it is an edited version? Or do they just wait and play the film indicating to the audience that it is the original theatrical production, uncut and unedited?
These days I am not so sure. I am going to guess that due to the recent budget cutbacks at Time Warner, TCM's staff could have been cut as well, so there isn't the level of scrutiny applied to the films as there were before. This is not an excuse but possibly could have been what happened. This is only speculative on my part.
But who knows? Maybe they had someone look at all of the films and they goofed and they showed two films that had edits in them. As markfp2 pointed out TCM is in a no win situation here. I am sure they try to do their best but they are only human and they ARE going to make mistakes sometimes.
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TCM's policy is to NEVER edit a film, but that doesn't mean that, now and then, a distributor doesn't send them an edited version, either by mistake or because that's the only version they have.
This has been discussed numerous times before. It's a no win situation for TCM. If they show the cut version, some people will complain, If they pull it from the schedule other folks will . In general, TCM usually runs the version that's sent to them and then attempts to get the correct version for a future showing. No matter what they do it won't please everybody.
Exactly.
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So those two books where NOT published prior to the writing of the screenplay? If that is the case, yea, very confusing.
Not confusing at all. In 1970, the Academy Awards presented the two Writing Awards like this:
Writing (Story and Screenplay--based on factual material or material not previously published or produced)
Winner
Patton
Francis Ford Coppola, Edmund H. North
Coppola and North based their screen story and screenplay on factual material from two sources:
Patton: Ordeal and triumph by Ladislas Farago, who published his book in 1963; and
A Soldier's Story by General Omar Bradley. >his book was published in 1953.
Nominees
Five Easy Pieces
Story by Bob Rafelson, Adrien Joyce; Screenplay by Adrien Joyce
Joe
Norman Wexler
Love Story
Erich Segal
My Night at Maud's
Eric Rohmer
Writing (Screenplay--based on material from another medium)
Winner
M*A*S*H
Ring Lardner, Jr.
Nominees
Airport
George Seaton
I Never Sang for My Father
Robert Anderson
Lovers and Other Strangers
Renee Taylor, Joseph Bologna, David Zelag Goodman
Women in Love
Larry Kramer
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Actor John Bernadino portrayed the uncredited character of Glen Cove Police Sergeant Emile Klinger in North By Northwest.
Bernadino is often mentioned as having appeared in the silent Our Gang comedies as a child actor but has not been identified as having appeared in any of those existing films. After attending college at USC where he played baseball, he went on to have a distinguished career playing second base and short stop for the St. Louis Browns, the Cleveland Indians, and the Pittsburgh Pirates. His baseball career was interrupted by serving in our armed forces during WWII.
After injuring his leg during 1952 while playing for the Pirates, he retired from baseball and took up acting again. Throughout the 1950's and early 1960's he appeared in many movies and television series often as a supporting character actor type of role. In 1963 he was offered the role of Dr. Steve Hardy in the daytime soap opera, General Hospital where he stayed until his death of cancer in 1996.
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OK you win, I'm done
He is just kidding you!
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I'm sorry. Not these days with so many sophisticated posters on the boards.
I have to be on my toes around here Fred.
Sorry I stepped on yours.
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So, whats your point?
That there are just so many other places a person can watch these films? I get that. You seem to want TCM to be the place where just pre-1960 or possibly pre-1970 films can be seen. Guess what? There aren't many other places where one can see a lot of 1970 films either.
You are right that there are many other channels where one can find those types of films. But are you willing to actually perform some hard research and look at the schedules of those other channels and see just how many 1970-era films ARE being broadcast?
If this is your point, a point you have been trying to make for some time, it is not my goal to sit here and debate you about this.
My goal was to simply state that your opinion was just that, an opinion that "most 1970s films are so bad, nobody wants to see them. NO DEMOGRAPHIC is interested in them."
I'd really like to know where you get your misplaced ideas? These are just your opinions based on what a few others around the message boards have written in the past? Because I have to tell you that I think and research proves this that many of the films during the 1970's are just as good if not better than many of the so-called Hollywood Studio Era produced films from the 1930's to the 1950's.
I'd say that there were many years from the early 1930's through the end of the 1950's where one would be hard pressed to find at least ten well made films from each year. Can you do that? Come up like I did with ten good films from each year of a decade? The 1930's, the 1940's, or the 1950's. I think you are going to be disappointed to find that many of those individual years will not produce that many good films.
But again this is simply an opinion not fact.
The devil is always in the details. Something some folks would rather not talk about.
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That 1973's "High Plains Drifter" wasn't on that long list puzzles me, too.
We just LIKE 'em! And, they DON'T have to be OLD for US to consider them "classics"!
I agree! You speaking of my long list? I decided to hold each year to ten films. I could have very easily added another ten or twenty for each year as well. But then that list would have ended up being twelve pages long. I am afraid Fred would have stopped after the first page.
The goal was to show to Fred that there were a lot of really fine movies made during the 1970's and that I was trying to debunk his comment about demographics.
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Has anyone else tasked themselves with watching all the film's listed in these books? I started about 8 years ago, adding the new titles added with each new edition. I have seen approx. 2/3rds so far, taping new titles when they're shown on one of the various movie channels or buying dvds or vhs tapes when I run across them. There are also several available via YouTube which is nice, especially for the short films.
I was well versed on the American films and genre films before I started, but the books have really pointed me toward the best in foreign and art house films that otherwise may have gone unnoticed.
There are only 2 silents on the list left for me to see: Napolean '27 and The Docks of New York '28.
3 left from the 30's: La Chienne '31, Land without Bread '33 and The Bakers Wife '38.
And only one left from the 40's: The Man in the Grey Suit '43
After the 40's though the number unseen grows much larger, mainly foreign films from the 60's through the 80's.
This is a very worthy cause you have taken upon yourself. If anything, it will be and has been a history lesson of viewing many movies that probably would have gone unseen by you. There are plenty of movie books out there that explore which films are the best, most and least appreciated, movies for men, movies for women, kid's movies, and so on. Then as it is here on the message boards under the Genre Forum you have separate categories for all of the film genre's. Have you visited any of those genre forum's?
Lots of discussions on each about a myriad of subjects for each category. You should check them out, there are really a lot of great discussions there.
But it does sound as if you have seen quite a few films and have enjoyed them as well. Good for you.
Many of us here on the message boards have our own video libraries where we can access favorites at anytime. My library used to be well over 1,000 films but last summer I decided to sell three volumes of 100 titled film collections. Never had enough time to watch them all. So I sold them to other interested parties. Hopefully they will get a kick out of seeing them.
Since I am out of work right now I have placed a moratorium on my purchasing ANY movie to add to my collection, at least until I am gainfully employed again. When I first started collecting back in the 1980's obviously I collected VHS movies. And almost all of the films I purchased were high quality releases. And then the DVD revolution happened and I started to purchase DVD's. I still have about 200 VHS tapes, both bought new and then taped off of movie channels.
At one time I had well over 800 VHS tapes. Almost all of them have been replaced by DVD's. But I have decided that in the future most of my purchases will be of the titles I still have on VHS. After that I can then add other more worthwhile films to my collection. It has been fun and at times frustrating.
You should check out my LISTS thread and FrankGrimes Torture thread over on the Favorites Forum. You will find pages upon pages of lists created by many people and on FrankGrimes thread many lists followed by detailed and elaborate discussions. You may be able to find some unseen gems there as well to add to your movie watching pleasure.
Good luck with your continued movie schedule and welcome to the boards!
Fxreyman
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Didn't I make myself clear enough?? Most 1970s films are so bad, nobody wants to see them. NO DEMOGRAPHIC is interested in them.
This is YOUR opinion Fred. Please consider stopping wasting your time trying to convince others about your feelings about any decade after the 1950's not having ANY well-made films. You can't do it. I bet if you were to really sit down and look at all of the films released during the 1970's you would suddenly realize that there were some really great films released back then. The only demographic that apparently does not like post 1960 films are those of you folks out there clinging to the belief that only pre 1960 films belong on TCM...
Here are ten films from each year that could easily be called some of the best of the 1970's:
1970
Diary of a Madhouse
Five Easy Pieces
The Great White Hope
I Never Sang for My Father
Julius Caesar
Little Big Man
MASH
Monte Walsh
Patton
Tora! Tora! Tora!
1971
The Andromeda Strain
A Clockwork Orange
Dirty Harry
The Emigrants
Fiddler on the Roof
The French Connection
Harold and Maude
The Hospital
Klute
The Last Picture Show
1972
'1776'
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Cabaret
The Candidate
Deliverance
The Godfather
Junior Bonner
The Poseidon Adventure
Sleuth
Sounder
1973
American Graffiti
Day for Night
The Day of the Jackal
Th Paper Chase
Papillon
Save the Tiger
Scenes From a Marriage
The Sting
The Three Musketeers
A Touch of Class
1974
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Blazing Saddles
Chinatown
The Conversation
The Four Musketeers
The Godfather, Part II
The Longest Yard
Murder on the Orient Express
A Woman Under the Influence
Young Frankenstein
1975
Bite the Bullet
The Day of the Locust
Dog Day Afternoon
Farewell, My Lovely
Jaws
The Man Who Would Be King
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Nashville
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Three Days of the Condor
1976
All the President’s Men
Bound for Glory
Marathon Man
Network
The Omen
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Robin and Marion
Rocky
The Shootist
Silver Streak
1977
Annie Hall
Black Sunday
A Bridge Too Far
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The Goodbye Girl
Julia
Opening Night
Saturday Night Fever
Star Wars
The Turning Point
1978
Autumn Sonata
Coming Home
The Deer Hunter
Go Tell the Spartans
Grease
Heaven Can Wait
Interiors
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Superman
An Unmarried Woman
1979
'10'
Being There
Breaking Away
The China Syndrome
Heartland
Kramer vs. Kramer
Manhattan
Nosferatu the Vampire
Starting Over
Time After Time
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That should be "most prolific posters"
Yes, some posters should know this about themselves.
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Happy Birthday, Rey! I hope you have a good time on your day.
Thanks Scott! Very nice of you to remember. The best time I can have on my b-day is to be notified that I have been hired by someone here in the Chicago area. But other than that I still have the message boards to return to. Hope all is well with you my old friend!!!
Rey
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I didn't notice "The Heiress" or "The More The Merrier" on the list, or am I going blind?
Yes, you are going blind!
The purpose of this thread was to see which Academy Award winning Best Picture would come in at number one through ten. Both of these films were nominated for Best Picture, but did not win Best Picture.
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Talk about much ado about nothing.....
So they advertise months in advance. Even weeks in advanced. The days leading up to the month. It is called advertising. Everyone does it. I am shocked to learn that some people around here think that TCM does self-promote itself.
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I don't know if this info will help but it looks like the issue you're referring to. I've Googled errors in television/TV/provider guide listings 7 ways to Sunday, this is all that came up.
http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/211
I say the problem is between the provider and the receiver TV/DVR/cable box or whatever displays the guide info. My Directv guide's only problem is once in a blue moon the wrong time (current time) is displayed. Example it might show 6:45 instead of 7:00.
This is good and useful-helpful information. Thank you for doing this.
But clearly does not resolve the issue Sepiatone is speaking to.
I checked. Thursday, January 29th the schedule had been changed by TCM to show a tribute to Rod Taylor. So whatever films that were scheduled before a decision was made to showcase a tribute to Taylor, were put off and or rescheduled for another night of viewing. TCM does this all the time, especially whenever anyone of significance passes away.
I am not a programming person, but I think what happened is that the programming guide that Sepiatone was referring to had not yet been updated or changed to reflect the TCM schedule change for that evening. I have often turned on my set to see a similar guide only to see something different being shown on the channel where I thought something else would be on.
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I am assuming the evening that you were going to watch the other movie, based on what you saw on the programming grid or whatever it is called... guide (?) was the evening TCM changed it's programming for a Rod Taylor tribute? I am not getting TCM now so I pay little attention to what is on unless it is something of value to discuss, beyond a film's showing on TCM.
If that was the case I am sure the cable guide on your tv was not updated in time to reflect this change. I am fairly sure that the guide is not updated as soon as everyone seems to think that it is.
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Very interesting to see 4 out of the top ten (11 with ties) being from post 1960.
40% ain't bad for such a poll like this. Should be interesting to see what kind of comments will be made because of this.
I am surprised to see Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven listed so high on this poll.
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Rey, I didn't say all the time. I said on the rare occasion when they program a slate of films so close together that they leave little to barely enough time in between each film for opening and closing comments. Somethings got to give and if it's the closing credits, well......
Does TCM really have no power over what they get? If the distributor has the only copy of a film in existence and that copy is butchered, perhaps you're right. But, does TCM always have only one distributor to turn to for any one title? I'll grant that I don't understand TCM's business practices, but if I was continually being shortchanged by someone I was doing business with I'd either try to resolve the problem or seek out another vendor. TCM is the distributors' customer after all and the customer is supposed to be always right. TCM has the power of the purse strings after all so why isn't it incumbent on the distributor to make TCM happy with their product?
Hey, I never wrote that you said "all the time". I was just responding to you with my own theory.
As far as the time between certain showings of certain films and the shorter amount of time between said films is concerned, I really do not believe that TCM is cutting anything. For one thing they have gone on record as saying that they do not edit films themselves. The other thing and I and several others have repeated this one often enough is that TCM probably does not have enough say in the running times of films they receive from whichever distributor has a movie or a batch of movies they lease or rent.
If they were to ask for and then receive No Way Out, the 1950 film with Richard Widmark and once it was shown you and several others were to point out that the ending credits were not shown, the first thing that would be written is that TCM cut the credits. Where as I think what happens is that TCM has no control over what the films edited nature was to begin with.
And since the cutbacks were announced last year from Time Warner affecting the staff at TCM, one could probably say that they don't have the staff to adequately monitor or search to see if the films match the original running time of said film or not.
Ultimately you are looking for an absolute resolution to what you perceive as some sort of wrongdoing or mistake made by whomever is involved. This is not the first time you have written something like this. It is almost as if you hold TCM so high up on a pedestal that when something is amiss you try and assign blame or here where you continue to write that the distributors should be held accountable for some sort of misdeed on their part.
Listen, this is a movie channel. They are going to make mistakes. They are not perfect. No one is. When Robert Osborne says something that is not entirely correct you would think that God has spoken wrongly. We are all human and we all are not perfect. So please stop with this over-reaching you are doing. It makes you seem to appear as some sort of unreasonable sort when we all know you are not.
Does something need to change? Yes and no. It depends on who you ask. Most people are happy with the films they show, with a few who go off their rocker the moment any edited film appears.
Again, TCM is not perfect. You trying to hold them up higher than most anything else is noble but also a time wasting effort.
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By characterizing Glenda Jackson's comments as "sour grapes," you were dismissing her remarks.
You really want to continue with this? Why don't we leave it be...
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Glenda Jackson's remarks were not sour grapes.
She was pointing out the effects of Thatcherism in the United Kingdom, especially in the big cities, and expressing hope for a future where people are valued more than things. The closing of the mental hospitals actually occurred. Glenda Jackson isn't making any of that up.
I never wrote that she did.
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The webmaster need to modify the site so the original thread title cannot be changed after the first reply. Reading changes in the title causes confusion, don't know what its about if one don't keep track or someone reads it by the 3rd title change.
New topic? Make new thread.
Although in this case member TopBilled chose to change the subject matter every few days or whenever the conversation petered out. Though I agree that another thread should be started instead of continuing on within one thread with multiple and separate conversations. His belief that there would be too many threads on this forum is silly. We have plenty of newer threads being created each day. An additional new thread about a different subject matter won't be a cause for alarm.
Heck, everyone else creates new threads each day.....
Running on Empty Not Uncensored
in General Discussions
Posted
Me get real??? Your kidding right???
It is not me who comes on here every single frickin’ time complaining about the same old crap that comes up whenever the programmers goof up. You get real and finally realize that these people are human, not super beings.
They are trying their level best at what I would think could be a very daunting task. Airing over 350 films each month. And yet that is not good enough for people like you and a few others around here. Oh no. The programmers are not allowed to make ANY mistake. Isn’t that right?
This is is all about their gaffes, right? Oh, yeah I am even sure every last one of you who do complain probably thinks you could do a better job than the programmers can do. Why don’t you get real and accept the fact that the programmers ARE human and YES they Do make mistakes from time to time. Accept that.
What do you expect? Perfection? I am sorry but TCM is a cable channel run by people who as I have written are trying to do the best they can within a certain amount of budgetary limits. Especially after the Time Warner budget cuts occurred late last year. I guess you forgot about that too, huh?