fxreyman

Infinite1: Gee Rey, it must feel really wonderful to feel so superior to us average crazy folk? fx: I am not superior to you or anyone else around here. I just don't expect the truth to be told from a corporate entity. At least NOT this entity. Infinite1: If it's, as you say, "so simple", what would be the harm if this was explained to the average TCM viewer? fx: Who is the average viewer? You? Me? TopBilled? Darko? dark blue? Anyone who writes here everyday or in the case of some people like you whenever you can gain access to a library computer? All I know is that many who do write on these pages are extremely talented folks who have a love for all kinds of movies, actors, directors, writers, photographers, composers, animators and so on and so on. And those of us like you and me and many others are here for what exactly? To uncover the truth behind how TCM operates or are we just here to write about and communicate with others our love for film? Infinite1: Just what is it that they are afraid of? Perhaps it's crushing that image they created and continue to perpetuate of TCM as this magical repository of Golden Age films, safely tucked away in some hidden underground vault and guarded by dwarves out of Tolkien's fairy stories. Of course they can't admit it's all make believe, why, they might lose their standing and respect in the classic film community of fans. The ticket sales to their festivals and cruises might drop off and horror of horrors, they might even have to start showing real commercials. No, nothing that serious would happen. The real reason is that they don't want to come off as lying buffoons. But, at the very least, the truth would cut down on the amount of us average crazy people pestering them for certain titles that will never see the light of day on TCM and the endless amount of repeats. We average crazy people will just turn the channel and watch the news, which is what we already do. fx: We have all been writing here for years. And what have we seen? We have never, ever really been given any reasons why TCM does what they do either for reasons as to why they select the kinds of films they select, that why are certain films played over and over again, and why does it seem that TCM can not find a suitable replacement for Robert Osborne. And it is going to continue simply because they do not have to tell us anything, ever. And to sit here like you and several others seem to do every few weeks or months, demanding answers, well you just aren't ever going to get any answers. TCM is not in any position to offer an explanation as to how they as a cable channel operates, or how they perform negotiations between themselves and media partners or distribution companies. And why should they? They are a private entity within a huge conglomerate. And I am going to assume that they will just keep towing a line that they have been using for years while at certain times of the year, like the film festival where people might be able to glean certain information from the power brokers at TCM some ins and outs of how they pilot the TCM ship through heavy seas. To admit anything else would be silly on their part and would only complicate matters for them. Will they lose viewers if they continue down this "we are not telling you anything about how we operate mentality"? Or will certain people just tire of what they show and move as you say onto other cable offerings? I have to tell you, I have been posting here since 2007 and I have yet to see any evidence except for those special occurrences where the TCM management gathers in one place to talk about what they do and provide a glimpse of the wizard behind the curtain. What I have seen in almost eight years is very little info coming from TCM that would allow me to understand how they operate except as I wrote earlier what has been gleaned from those informal sessions at the festival or when someone in the know appears on the channel with Osborne. Infinite1: So, you might ask, what's the point in having them admit it? Because it would give us an infinite amount of pleasure and satisfaction to hear them admit and eat crow that they've been lying to us all these years. At least it would to me. fx: To me it sounds as if you want TCM to admit that they have been lying to some of us all of these years and nothing short of a corporate capitulation is in order and people like you will not rest until that is accomplished. My thoughts? You are going to have to wait a very long time for that to happen.

Yep. You got it. Especially those here who often write and complain about this topic adinfinitum.

There is no company (TCM) library. The library that is often referred to is the library owned by Time Warner, of which TCM is a subsidiary of. That library is mention by Robert O and Ben M all the time. They are not going to sit there in those really comfortable leather chairs and start explaining to the average TCM viewer (and to a far lesser degree the visitor to the Message Boards) the ins and outs of how TCM must go through an acquistion process of leasing and or renting films from said library. It is that simple. And for those of you who still sit here in judgment of what Robert O and Ben M repeat each time they say that is bordering on lunacy. Who cares if they refer to a library of films? The only people I know of that complains about this are the very FEW folks on the message boards. Like some of you on this thread. I have never, ever heard anyone I know of that likes films to ever say to me: "Well what about that film library that the hosts on TCM are always talking about? Surely they have unlimited access to those films, right?? As William Shatner said on Saturday Night Live: "get a life people! Its just a little tv channel!"

Yes, I know all about how Robert O and Ben M continue referring to the that vast library. Well guess what? Do you really think that when they discuss that vast library, they are then going to sit there in front of the cameras and say the following: "Yes, we have access to the vast libraries but we also have to pay for the rights to play all those films." Ted Turner when he sold TCM to Time Warner, also sold his interest in those vast film libraries and now those libraries are owned by a different entity that TCM. You really think that the average viewer is going to understand this or will they be like most of the viewers here on the message board and accept that information rolling off the tips of their tongues? When Turner sold his company to Time Warner in 1996, TCM effectively lost “ownership” of those assets, and was required to license them, along with every other film they broadcast. As far as the lack of film masters, where should I begin? Just how many film masters of the older films that the studio libraries have do you think have been converted? You make it sound (in this case lets talk about Warner Brothers), that they have taken all of those older films and created new masters for them to be broadcast on cable tv. They haven't. What they have done is taken the older films nd custom burned those films onto new DVDs. They have NOT created new masters of the films to be shown on tv. That is what is needed to show these films on tv. This is two separate things. Yes, there are literally hundreds of titles available for purchase, but many of these films were copied or burned to newer dvds using whatever format they were in before they were copied and or burned to a new dvd. For all anyone knows, Warner takes older dvd's of average or bad looking prints and burns these older dvd's or tapes onto new dvd's. Thus the customer is not really getting high quality videos. Yes there are many dvds now available but TCM still has to purchase those films to be shown and many of those films have still not been converted and probably never will. The costs are staggering to convert older film into a digiatl format or in this case creating a digital master. Some figures have placed the cost of conversion to a digital file to be more than $12,000 per film. And that is without having to do any form of restoration. If any form of restoration is needed, then the costs start to skyrocket. According to the National Film Preservation Foundation, the laboratory work necessary to save a film is expensive. In 2010, making a new master and viewing print of a seven-reel black-and-white silent feature costs about $18,115, assuming that no special restoration work is required. Making a supervised digital video for public viewing adds another $3,000 to the total. Preserving a sound feature costs even more. So that is why many of the studios that have vaults of old cannisters have yet to start this process. Now if the film industry really cared about the past then they would take some of the money that they make on all the crap they are making now and put some of that money into restoration projects. Then possibly we could see even more features on TCM. But again, TCM must compete to pay for the films it shows on the channel. Even though Robert O and Ben M continue to peddle that often told tale about the film library they have access to. Here are some articles you should read that will shed some light on this sensitive subject: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2012/02/13/pandoras-digital-box-pix-and-pixels/ http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119431/how-digital-cinema-took-over-35mm-film And then there is this website: http://www.filmpreservation.org/

My wife Annie put this together the other day to send to friends. Her is hoping you all get a big laugh out of this. Merry Christmas and have a safe and happy 2015!!! https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http%3A//www.jibjab.com/view/cmDPwoKYR6GnCd6zvXWmbQ%3Futm_campaign%3DSharer+PopUp%26utm_content%3Dsled_race_2%26utm_medium%3DShare%26utm_source%3DFacebook%26utm_campaign%3DSharer+PopUp%26utm_content%3Dsled_race_2%26utm_medium%3DShare%26utm_source%3DFacebook

First of all, let me just wish everyone out there today a wonderful and merry Christmas!!! Not every film that is in a studio’s or distributer’s vaults are available to be leased or rented. There are literally thousands of films still sitting in their film canisters collecting dust that have not been opened in years. And there is simply not enough money being spent to make new digital masters of these older films and part of that is the economy and another part is that many of those in charge see no economic benefit to creating new digital masters. The simple fact of the matter is that while many here bemoan the idea that there are so many films available to be shown on TCM, why isn't TCM doing more about showing all of these wonderful older films? The reasons are complicated but they are also based in the economic reality we all live in today. Is there a market for these films and will people purchase these films if we (the studios and or distributors) can make a profit? Since switching over to digital a few years back digital masters are needed to show the films that are shown on TCM now. Back in early 2010, TCM online reported that of the 162,984 films listed in its database (based on the authoritative AFI Catalog), only 5,980 (3.67 percent) are available on home video. So what does this figure tell you? According to other folks like the late Kyle in Hollywood and lzcutter here at the message boards:

Hello and welcome to the boards! This is an often repeated topic here on the message boards. By performing a search on any topic, you should be able to locate a topic and or discussion about a particular subject by just searching for it at the top of the page. Yesterday this topic was once again given it's own thread by a poster named vic12. The title of that thread is the following: Why do you think there are so many of the same movies repeated so often recently? It is located right here on the General Discussions forum. I hope you enjoy the message boards but remember, there are many threads on many different forums here and if you would like to participate in any of those discussions, I suggest searching for a topic before starting a thread. This way the boards do not become cluttered with threads that are about the same subject. Good luck and welcome again to the boards!!! Hope you have a wonderful holiday! Rey aka fxreyman

I have already sent him a PM requesting that he seriously consider learning how to write a sentence/paragraph structure. That alone would go a long way to allowing folks to better understand what he is writing. I am hopeful he received my PM, but I do not think he wants to change his present style of writing...

I hate to think how much energy it takes for you to draw a breath, much less sign onto the message boards...

Sorry, not buying that response. The old thread was JUST five pages back under General Discussions. I think you are lazy, like so many others here.

What are you doing now, channeling Dargo? Is this actually the best you can do when answering my questions?? Someone who obviously has put a little thought into their posts and this is what you have come up with??? This gives me so much hope of what I can expect from you in the future.

Palmerin should be applauded for starting a discussion about film music and why or how it all started. I think this is one of the better threads to come along in a long while here on the message boards. But as with every thread that exists here somehow the thread has gone off in other directions and I think it is time to get it back on the rails. I will try and give Palmerin my take on the question without resorting to tried and true histrionics. I think if one goes back and does some basic research ( a common theme of mine ), they would find that many silent films DID have film scores that often used live orchestra’s while the film was being spooled. After the advent of the talking picture in 1927 with The Jazz Singer, filmmakers began to ponder how exactly could music help tell the story of the film they were producing. Could music add to the two-dimensional images appearing on the screen? And what if any result would occur that would help define the film, and make it popular with film audiences of the time. The other not so glamorous reason for using music was to mask the loud sounds of the projector’s noise as it was spooling the film. Silent film projectors were very noisy compared to the projectors used today. Back then, many film houses were not constructed well enough to mask out the film projector’s noises. Something had to be done, and one of those was music. Simplistic, huh? The first film composers in the new “talking pictures” era of Hollywood beginning in 1926 with Don Juan starring Lionel Barrymore and in 1927 with Al Jolsen’s The Jazz Singer were classically trained, mostly European immigrants, often escaping Nazi persecution. The Golden Age of Hollywood coincided with the great American songwriting period with the same composers. Irving Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, and Rodgers wrote songs and scores for music theater and movies when popular and classical musical styles were often conflicting. Europe’s loss was America’s cultural gain. And that really began to take shape with Max Steiner’s musical score for King Kong in 1933. He was Austrian born and though was not escaping Nazi Germany, he did come to the United States after becoming an enemy alien in England during World War One. After The Jazz Singer, movie directors and producers began to seek out ways to increase their film’s popularity, thus they often turned to film composers. Soon European composers became the norm in Hollywood. I am not exactly going really deep here but for whatever reason, many of these composers left their native lands either by luck or by the impending doom set up by Hitler in countries across Europe during the 1930’s. Korngold had already come to America in 1934 to compose A Midsummer Night’s Dream for film. He stayed in Hollywood for the next four years but did return to his native Austria to conduct operas. When Warner Brothers asked him to return to Hollywood in 1938 to compose the score for The Adventures of Robin Hood, he agreed and was here for just a brief time before the Anschluss took place: The German occupation of Austria. He was lucky. Franz Waxman (Wachsmann) also escaped Nazi Germany and eventually came to Hollywood. Bronislaw Kaper, Miklós Rózsa, Dmitri Tiomkin, Ernest Gold (Ernst Goldner), among other European composers all eventually came to Hollywood to compose for the film industry. Some came due to the Nazi’s others came due to other circumstances. For whatever reasons, Hollywood and America were ultimately the beneficiaries. What these wonderful European composers brought to Hollywood of the 1930’s was an approach to films that made the films seem more lavish and ultra-expensive. This type of film music existed in many of the period costume dramas and adventure films like The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, Gone With the Wind, The Sea Hawk, Lost Horizon, Stagecoach, and countless other films from the period. Their approach to scoring films was much more about creating an atmosphere where the score would support key elements within a film, allowing the dialogue within the movie to be heard. Background music with the occasional upward thrust of an exciting action piece at times to be followed by music that was for the most part in the background, but still propelling the movie forward. As was often the case with the way films were produced in Hollywood during the 1930s and 40’s using an almost assembly line-like production schedule, film scoring pretty much followed a similar production system. Work often began when the film was in a rough cut, and then was usually completed within a three to six week time period. The process usually would start by selecting spots within the film that needed music. Composers often worked with orchestrators and arrangers of songs to compose the music. In some instances the arranger would help compose the music. Eventually film composers established working relationships with orchestrators and arrangers they trusted. Some composers had the chance and privilege of conducting their own work, but often this fell to the studio’s music director who would then conduct the orchestra for the film. These were all very talented individuals who because of their own personal situations somehow managed to make their way to Hollywood eventually set the stage for future American composers to take the film scoring range. Long before John Williams there were a plethora of film composers who existed in Hollywood. Those included: Alfred Newman Victor Young Richard Hageman Aaron Copeland Johnny Green Bernard Hermann Roy Webb Frank Skinner Ray Heindorf Hugo Friedhofer David Raksin George Duning Morris Stoloff And then there were the great composers that got their start in the 1950’s through the mid 1960’s: Alex North Henry Mancini Elmer Bernstein Malcolm Arnold Jerome Moross André Previn Maurice Jarre Jerry Goldsmith Ennio Morricone John Addison Michel Legrand John Barry Lalo Schifrin Georges Delerue And then the late 1960s into the 1970’s: John Williams Jerry Fielding Marvin Hamlisch Jack Nitzsche Leonard Rosenman Dave Grusin Ralph Burns Quincy Jones And then into the 1980’s and beyond: Randy Newman George Fenton Michael Gore Bruce Broughton James Horner Hans Zimmer Alan Menken James Newton Howard Richard Robbins Mark Isham Alan Silvestri Thomas Newman Patrick Doyle Marc Shaiman Elliot Goldenthal Danny Elfman Gabriel Yared All because of the reasons stated above. The movies needed an extra something to help tell their stories and music provided them with that extra bump.

Why is Hollywood in Decline? Started by NipkowDisc, on November 13 2014, 11:55 AM dark blue posted the last post on November 27 2014, at 3:38 AM This was your first post on this subject which is very close in content to your new first post in this newer thread about Hollywood… Now I have to wonder why creating a new thread to what it seems to me to be some sort of continuation of the older thread reallymakes no sense to me. But I have to say that many people who regularly post on the message boards do the same thing. They somehow forget that they created a thread sometime in the past and they start up a new thread essentially about the same subject. Is this what happened? You forgot about your earlier thread where you took Hollywood to task about catering to younger audiences and blasting the younger studio executives and well, you get the idea….. My fear has been and continues to be the use of the message boards to just continue this age old practice of creating threads that were already created but for some reason stopped generating responses so the original creator of the the older thread comes back to the trough once again to reestablish “views” and comments where the other, older thread once thrived. Is that your goal here? Why not just pick up where you left off in your other thread? I mean just because the older thread stopped producing on November 27th should not indicate to you that it was a “done” deal. The thread could have remained active, it has over 160 responses, which is pretty good I think. Now we have to start this whole discussion on what Hollywood is like today using pretty much the same kind of descriptors that were used in that older thread. What do you think? My feeling is that you should ask the moderators to combine these two threads into one, or at least take the responses from this thread and place them in the other thread. You could do this simply by copying and pasting what has been written so far and then ask the moderators to merge the two threads or eliminate the new thread. The duplication of threads on the message boards causes the boards to become bogged down as far as I am concerned. One thread being about the decline of Hollywood and then starting yet another thread about Hollywood of today is to me the same thing.

Did not realize that thread/poll was removed. Geeze, I wonder who removed it?

Here is some advice I have received recently from a very dear friend. I think ALL OF US who have become engaged with the constant back and forth with TopBilled should appreciate and heed the following words of advice.... Regarding TopBilled, the answer to his threads may just be for everyone to stop viewing his threads and responding to his posts. He seems to thrive on being the center of attention and right now, everyone is making him that by talking about him in so many threads. Cut off his oxygen and he may just take his wagon and go somewhere else where he can dominate the conversation. Now these words of advice are from a close and dear friend of mine who shall remain secret. To write about who gave me this advice would be counter-productive. So I will just leave this advice for all of you to read and take for what it is. I AM, starting right now. We leave well enough alone and he just might go someplace else. And if he does not, we just continue to ignore him. That would seem easy enough to do don't you all think?

Yes, you can't let too many other people crowd out all of the great threads you create, now can you?

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Well I have to comment on this Top. If you really think that just because certain threads on one certain forum, in this case, the forum called General Discussions where we are now, “suggest that there is a lot of unrest and unpleasantness in various threads”, then I have to say that you do not visit many other forums here on the boards, nor do you comment on many of those other forums. To sit here and muse that you are surprised that not many have voted that the boards present a negative experience, causes my jaw to drop big time. You of all people should at least be somewhat aware of the somewhat negative aura emanating from you whenever anyone chooses to disagree with you, or has a different opinion than you have, or chooses to write somewhat nasty comments back to you when you have done the same to them, or whenever you decide that a poster needs a timeout or whenever you tell someone that what they are writing has resulted in nasty behavior, all the while not realizing that you too have engage in the same sort of nefarious behavior. Or the best one where you constantly complain about the fact that people are just downright nasty towards you or better yet where they are bullying you and you are left with no choice but to report them to the moderators. The biggest thing you miss with your statement from above is that you seem to want to indicate to almost everyone here that coming to the message boards is just filled with a lot of unrest and unpleasantness in various threads and you are surprised that others do not agree with that assessment. What about all the other forums that are here? You have the following forums: General Discussions TCM Programs Films and Filmmakers Information Please Games and Trivia Your Favorites Classic Film DVD Reviews TCM Program Challenges Archive Off-Topic Chit-Chat TCM Film Festival Forum General Discussion TCM Film Festival Q and A TCM Cruise Forum General Discussion TCM Film Cruise Q and A Kyle in Hollywood And then there are 19 Genre forums And 3 Technical Issues forums. On top of all of this then there are the ubiquitous threads everywhere. To me your statement IMHO, is really more about how totally surprised you are to find out with of course a very limited amount of voting that the message boards are a positive experience and not the negative experience you seem to feel it is in some areas. Is this a genuine feeling you have due to the supposed nastiness that you experience form time to time? Because I have to say that for about 99% of the time most threads in many forums are very benign and great places to share thoughts and viewpoints about any particular subject. I think (again MHO) where you feel slighted are the threads where you participate and sometimes find yourself the target of behavior that frankly you are not accustomed to seeing on other web-based communication sites. In other words you find yourself often having to fend off what might seem to you to be borderline negative behavior because it is quite possible that you have never encountered opinions and or thoughts that run contrary to what you believe or at least what your opinion is compared to someone who may have a totally different opinion than yours. I have read with amusement the past week or so the arguments appearing on the General Discussions Forum under the following threads where you have decided to go on the offensive again trying to subdue those who disagree with you. What if we got rid of General Discussions board altogether? RICH'S MADE-UP TCM MESSAGE BOARD POLLS Message board experience TopBilled's Classic Movie Star Recipes I'm a star now And now you have even gone as far to write back to Lavender Blue how rude she was with a comment she made to you in your Recipe thread. When is writing to others and telling them off going to stop? You act as if you are the only sane person writing on the boards and yet whenever anyone decides to challenge you or ask you to back up what you have written or argued about the first thing you do is go on the attack and eventually if things get out of hand you tell them you are reporting them to the moderators. The reasons why people have not participated as fully in some of your threads and or polls is the simple reason that they do not like you nor do they often agree with you. It is that simple. Now maybe you are right and that if you continue to create multiple threads on every forum then maybe you will eventually catch up to folks like Down With Frazier (Old Finance) or MissGoddess who have substantially larger post counts than you will ever have. If that is your goal. Or maybe your goal is simply to have as many of your threads with the highest view counts because you feel having the most view counts mean that more people are looking at your threads, when IMHO the most important number should be just how many people comment on your threads. Because as I have stated before to comment and engage on a thread is vitally more important than just reading a thread and not getting involved with others who write their thoughts and opinions there.

The following is definitely NOT the most irritating Christmas movie ever.... It is probably the finest Christmas movie ever produced. Television or film. Made for ABC television by Hanna-Barbera studios. Written by James Poe. The Gathering made in 1977 Here is a brief rundown of the plot from Wiki: Adam Thornton (Edward Asner), an ill-tempered executive who walked out on his family, learns that he only has a little time left to live. He decides that he wants to make peace with them and have one last reunion. He confides this information to his estranged wife, Kate (Maureen Stapleton). But when his doctor says that it won't be good for him to travel, she suggests that he call his four adult children and invite them all for Christmas. He agrees only with the provision that they not be told of his illness and imminent death. The only problem is that most of them are not exactly fond of him because he walked out on Kate and of his stubborn nature. Of them, he is most nervous about seeing Bud (Gregory Harrison), whom he hasn't spoken to since having an argument with him regarding the Vietnam War and his move to Canada several years before. Here is the brief scene from YouTube that shows a very tearful reunion:

So much for you reading my comments!

This is an interesting comment. Obviously CigarJoe feels that at times he feels threatened to come on here and post his thoughts about movies and or anything else he would like to post, but feels that he can at times gets slammed or even flamed whenever someone does not like what he writes. And anyway, why does it matter to you that he wanted to post something here he feels strong enough to post about in the first place? Nothing has ever stopped you from creating threads that to some of us mean absolutely nothing to accomplish... Right?

You know you do bring up some interesting points about what actually does go on around here. Especially the part about having TCM playing in the background like a radio and then turning around to watch something. I used to do that when we had TCM. As far as what you have written about being reluctant to write on the boards my suggestion is this: If you feel threatened or afraid of writing something because you feel people judge you harshly and then let you have it, but you still want to post here my suggestion would be to visit some of the other forums located here and post there. The Your Favorites forum has many different genre threads and other threads just waiting to hear from you. This forum has over the years been the scene of many knock-down, throw them under the bus type of conversations that at time can resemble a war zone. My suggestion then is to stay but visit other areas. Much, much less arguing goes on there. Please give it a try. And don't get too discouraged. You and Helen have many friends here who would be disappointed if you stopped writing.

Totally agree with darkblue's sentiments. Very well said Darkblue!!! Well for one thing Helen, we all miss your contributions. I think we also know of your past battles with certain posters here. But guess what? That will probably never change. There will always be a somewhat vocal and yet small group of posters who feel it is their duti to fend off anbody that has an opposing viewpoint than their own. I say please come back here full throtle and post what you want to post. That is why some of us are still here. And I like many others enjoy the way the messge boards were redesigned and how they wotk now as opposed to what it was like this time last year.

I do not blame you.... Another case of creating just another thread that bumps up his thread / post counts...

More like a new pope, since he is into blessings now.