sewhite2000
-
Posts
6,478 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
2
Posts posted by sewhite2000
-
-
I assume the James Bond films fall in the MGM/UA library Calvin mentioned, since TCM never shows them (one time, when Sean Connery was SOTM, TCM showed Dr. No and Goldfinger, I think, but that may the only Bond film airings in the network's history). And possibly all the Beatles films except A Hard Day's Night, which has somehow ended up under other ownership, and TCM has shown it a few times in the past couple of years.
-
The last time All Quiet on the Western Front aired on TCM was three years ago this month, also during 31 Days, and they showed the "silent" version that time, too. There was a thread about it then, too. Not really silent, as there's a soundtrack with all the appropriate accompanying noises, everything except for dialogue.
-
1
-
-
A few points:
They certainly don't have every MGM, UA and RKO film. They can't show It's a Wonderful Life, for example, whose convoluted history I probably don't completely understand, but it was an RKO release that maybe then reverted to Frank Capra's Liberty Films, then fell into the public domain, then got bought by Comcast/NBC/Universal, who will never let anybody else show it, ever. I may not be a hundred per cent accurate on that timeline - and surely someone won't hesitate to tell me how wrong and stupid I am - but it's something like that. There are plenty of UA films they don't have. UA being a distributor for independently produced films rather than a classic movie studio, there are many films they didn't retain the rights to beyond the initial distribution.
I tried to let another newbie know the basic parameters for what would be considered the TCM "library", which I believe I put in quotes on that thread, and another user immediately belittled me and advised me not to fool myself, because there's no such thing, that it's all about licensing agreements, which he claimed all usually last from five to seven years. Not saying this poster doesn't know more about this stuff than me. I do feel like some licensing agreements are shorter than that. There will be a Fox or Paramount or Universal movie TCM will show maybe three times in five months, and then you won't see it on TCM again for the next five years, so I don't know that all licensing agreements are as long term as he claims. Other films like North by Northwest, well, TCM must always renew its license the very day the previous one expires, because I don't know that it's ever unavailable for airing. However, I would argue there is certainly a group of films that TCM can either show for free or much less cost.
Anyway, why certain "library" films and not others? TopBilled once suggested TCM orients its programming decisions toward largely star-based material. Also, there are certain films that have largely come to be considered canonical or are maybe a little better known by the general public than others. I think TCM makes a lot of its decisions based on what they think both long-time viewers and newcomers might want to see. The films you mention just aren't as well-known as Meet Me in St. Louis, so it gets played more and usually gets the better time slot.
Your question where you mention a bunch of studios just left me lost. I don't understand what you're saying there. Are you asking why TCM shows movies from the studios at all if they're not part of the "library"? I think the answer to that is they're trying to be as comprehensive as they can. They are sort of bearing the mantle of the ultimate source of classic film, and so classic films from all studios. Someone noted on another thread that TCM was showing quite a few Columbia pictures right out of the gate, the first couple of weeks they were on the air. TCM has for its whole existence appeared to have a good business relationship with Sony. The relationship with other studios has waxed and waned. TCM used to show a lot more Paramounts (a 20-year stretch of which are owned by Universal) and Universals than they do now. On the other hand, they show way more Fox films now than they used to. And four times a year, there's a night devoted entirely to Disney programming. Yeah, Disney won't ever allow TCM to show Fantasia or Bambi, but there's some interesting stuff. Are you saying you don't want TCM to air this material?
-
2
-
1
-
-
There have been threads devoted to individual years, but I can't recall one covering the entire history of the Oscars before!
I want to play the game, but it will probably a few days before I can gather my thoughts together on that many years!
-
As Picnic is just beginning on TCM, I'm thinking I would have been okay with a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Susan Strasberg.
-
1
-
-
I took an introduction to film class my freshman year of college that I think is not an exaggeration to say changed my life. The instructors (it was co-taught by two assistant professors) usually showed a clip or two from some famous movie each class, and that's where I first saw that rain-drenched scene. I didn't know anything about studio era films before taking that class. You could count on two hands, maybe one, the number of pre-1965 movies (non-Disney, my local theater was always showing Disney reissues in my childhood) I'd seen before taking that class.
-
1
-
-
I stated in another thread I ended up being pleasantly surprised with Boyer's Star of the Month turn after entering it with only lukewarm enthusiasm. I saw several Boyer movies I'd never seen before. I give him credit for wanting to do Gaslight - not every romantic leading man would want to play a villain - and he has some really nice moments. I love the sexy banter between him and Angela Lansbury, for example. But on the whole, he wears me down in that film the same way he wears down Ingrid Bergman. It's a bit (or a lot) too broad. I recall one reviewer saying that when Bergman first mentions Sergius Bauer, or whatever the name is, you half-expect Boyer to crash down a menacing minor chord on the lowest reaches of the piano with his left hand. He's THAT kind of villain! That made me laugh.
-
I'm pretty unfamiliar with Walbrook, other than Colonel Blimp and The Red Shoes, and also La Ronde, which I saw for the first time during 31 Days last year. I didn't even know there WAS a British version of Gaslight released just four years before the version TCM plays seemingly on endless loop. I'll have to check MovieCollectorOH's database to see if that version has ever aired on TCM.
Edit: Yes, they have, quite a few times! Last airing was June of last year. I will keep my eyes open for it in the future.
-
2
-
-
Yes, please don't read the spoilers! I saw it in the theater, which I guess is still the only time I've seen it, so it's been 10 years now? So I've forgotten a lot of plot specifics, but I definitely remember the ending. I do remember, given the title, I was kind of on the edge of my seat the whole time, waiting for said blood! I may try to stay up late on Saturday night to watch it again, but I've been known to fall asleep in my chair sometimes, no matter how engrossing the movie is. I would say give it a try. It's definitely worth watching.
I've thought about starting a thread regarding Dave Karger, whom I feel is just giving away too damn much in his intros. He tends to devote 50 per cent or more of his intros to just describing the plot of a film, which is different in style from Ben, who usually gives a more vague, general impression of what a movie is going to be like. I'm thinking maybe this means Karger writes his own intros or has his own writers. It doesn't bother me personally, because 90 per cent of the films TCM is showing for 31 Days I've already seen, but if it was my first viewing ever of The Great Lie and The Three Faces of Eve, well, in both of those intros, Karger told you everything was going to happen in those movies except for maybe the final 15 minutes. Too much!
-
1
-
-
No choice, in my opinion. Fonda all the way. Hollywood lore would have you believe Academy voters felt guilty Stewart hadn't won the year before for Mr. Smith, but you know what? I just watched Goodbye, Mr. Chips again the other night for the first time in a while, and I have no issue with Robert Donat's win. He was terrific. Stewart is just fine in Philadelphia Story, though a little one-note as the cynical reporter who becomes a moon-eyed convert into the cult of Katharine Hepburn's "virgin goddess", unable to see that the real woman for him is right in front of him. He's fine, but certainly there were many other movies in his career for which he was more deserving of an Oscar. I mean, if you were going to nominate somebody for this movie, why not Cary Grant? There's the Academy's long-standing prejudice against comedic performances in play. Grant's only two nominations came for pretty heavy dramas, in which he was certainly good, but that's not why he's best remembered.
In any other year, I could certainly go for Chaplin playing multiple roles or Massey's decent and folksy but tortured Lincoln. Olivier is also compelling in a role that requires him to keep us guessing about his true feelings until near the end. Heck, the more I think about it, while Stewart is one of my all-time favorites, his may have been the WEAKEST of the five nominated performances that year!
But give me Fonda for bringing his characteristic world-weary wisdom and essential decency that he also used to great effect in films like The Ox-Bow Incident, My Darling Clementine, Young Mr. Lincoln (Fonda vs. Massey as Lincoln! Discuss!) and Mister Roberts. And add to it in this film a certain sense of menace largely absent from those other performances, like a cobra about to spring. We'd pretty much have to wait until Once Upon a Time in the West until we saw that side of Fonda again.
-
5
-
-
On 2/23/2018 at 6:57 AM, Sepiatone said:
Late to this party.....
When I think of the term "Audiophile", I think of those who are deeply involved with both the quality of the equipment used in the listening of music, and the quality of the recordings played on said equipment, which has nothing to do with the music per se, but rather the quality of the recording and pressing process used in the making of those recordings. And in THAT sense, I am an "audiophile".
That said, I really don't have many movie soundtracks. And in some I do have, there's noticeable(to me) MIA's . For a couple examples, in the soundtrack CD for 2001's "Ocean's Eleven" there's one piece of music, repeated often throughout the film, that's not included in the CD. Can't figure out why.
The soundtrack for O BROTHER, WHERE AT THOUGH is missing a couple of tunes too. Can't at this point say what they are, but.....
And on the soundtrack for THAT THING YOU DO, they left out the snappy jazz tune played by the trio at the "Blue Spot", a fictional jazz club the drummer of the Wonders goes to and meets up with his jazz "hero" Del Paxton( another fictional character). Nice lively little piece and excellently played by an unnamed trio.
I also have the soundtrack (on vinyl and CD) recording of CARMINE COPPOLA's excellent score for THE BLACK STALLION, and a recording of the music used for the soundtrack of ON THE WATERFRONT, conducted by it's composer LEONARD BERNSTEIN .
And since it too, is one of my wife's favorite movies, we have the soundtrack to GREASE in our rack. Most of the music from that "Giraffe" movie we too, already had on many other compilation discs, so we gave it a pass.
Sepiatone
Sepia, I'm no expert on this stuff, but obviously, negotiating for the use of a song in a film and for its use on any follow-up soundtrack "album" (whatever term we should use these days) are often two completely separate deals. Thus, sometimes songs appear on the former and not the latter.
A famous example of this is the song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones, which appears in the film The Big Chill, but not on the soundtrack album (which I owned on cassette when I was in college).
-
Tiki, he's obviously very loved generally! But on these message boards, opinions of him have been less favorable.
-
Of the "new" movies airing during 31 Days this year (23 years old ain't exactly "new", but for TCM it is, I guess), there was no hype or promotion for Dead Man Walking at all. While we see Daniel Day-Lewis delivering his "milkshake" line from Blood during both the long and short forms of the 31 Days promo, there's not a clip from Walking at all, nor is TCM showing its trailer. They just threw it on in the middle of the night without any fanfare, which TCM has done with other big films from time to time. I didn't stay up for it (though I find myself out of bed not long after it was over), but I've seen it before, and it's very powerful. Susan Sarandon won the Oscar, but Sean Penn is great, too. I was kind of wondering if he'd quietly retired from acting. It's been three years since his last live-action movie (he provided one of the voices for The Angry Birds Movie). But I see on imdb he has one theatrical film and two TV series currently in post-production.
-
1
-
1
-
-
I've been on this board for about 10 years, and every time the name of John Williams comes up, it's always a put-down or a brush-off. I can't recall anyone ever saying anything good about the man and his work. Part of me thinks he's a victim of his own success, and when someone or something becomes huge, there's always a crowd eager to let us know they just don't care for him/her/it (the Beatles, etc.). I'm probably being unfair. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, and I'm sure some people just generally dislike his work without there having to be some sort of underlying snobbery or whatever. Some of it may have to do with how old you were when he broke big. Or your gender. Most of the movies he scored, at least for a time, were geared to adolescent boys. For me, he is THE sound of my childhood and adolescence. The three Star Wars movies, Jaws, Superman: the Movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. Are you kidding me? You'll never hear me say anything bad about John Williams!
-
5
-
-
Completely forgot about Brokeback Mountain. Still hasn't been nominated for Best (Lead) Actor, however. I saw both Prisoners and Nightcrawler, as well, and he was great in both of those, too. Prisoners was probably his first movie that really got my attention, because it seemed all anyone was talking about when I went to see it was Hugh Jackman's performance, but I emerged from it having been blown away by Gyllenhall's more understated role.
Edit: Assuming your post is correct, I see I'm leaving an extra "a" out of his last name! Oops.
-
Scarface seems to be running away with it, so I guess I need to watch it again. It's the one I remember the least well of the three. My vote was going to be for The Public Enemy, which has a couple of absolutely iconic scenes (Cagney's mission of vengeance in a downpour, that ending!) and that lead performance by Cagney, I think every bit as revolutionary as all the stuff Brando would get so much praise for 20-plus years later. I feel Cagney with this film let us know just how great acting in the sound era could be. But James has a point: some of the other performances drag the movie down, including, surprisingly, Jean Harlow, who doesn't seem to have figured out her on-screen persona yet.
-
Every year, there are some very fine films that that end up not generating any Oscar buzz and subsequently don't get any nominations. There are only so many nominations to go around, I suppose, and the tendency of the Academy to "overnominate" a few films every year - when an All About Eve or Titanic or La La Land gets 14 nominations - means something else is going to get squeezed out altogether.
For the year just finished, I can immediately think of three very fine films that didn't get a single nomination and thus will never air during TCM's 31 Days (unless TCM makes another Battle of the Bulge mistake!):
Detroit - Gripping true-life story of a racially motivated incident of police brutality that took place during a race riot in the titular city in 1968. Directed with her characteristic intensity by Kathryn Bigelow, whose previous two films, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, were showered with nominations, the former getting her a Best Director win. This film is just as good as those two, but move the action back from the wars of the Middle East to the States, and the Academy just didn't give a crap.
Wind River - A murder mystery/suspense thriller in which something has caused a teenage girl in rural Alaska to flee barefoot into the wilderness in fear of her life and subsequently die from exposure. An animal tracker with a tragic backstory (Jeremy Renner) and an FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) team up to try to solve the case and very quickly end up in mortal jeopardy themselves.
Stronger - If he never ends up getting an Oscar nomination, someday Jake Gyllenhall will be looked back at with the same puzzlement we have over the likes of Edward G. Robinson, Myrna Loy, Donald Sutherland, Marilyn Monroe, etc.: how the heck was he never nominated for anything? He's great in everything he does. In this true-life film, he plays a survivor of the Boston Marathon bombing who loses both legs, but the road to recovery proves thornier than the typical movie of this genre: something of a man-child even before the attack, he can't handle being labeled a hero during all the "Boston Strong" PR campaign and spirals into a potentially ruinous whirlpool of self-pity and hate for everything else. Gyllenhall is so emotionally naked and raw, it's a tough watch sometimes, but a great performance.
-
Your post makes me think of The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, in which Betty Hutton seems to have a night consisting mostly of dancing with soldiers, and one of them says something about getting married, and she screams the word "MARRIED!!??", and it echoes like a hundred times, and then poof! she's pregnant. It was apparently very important to the filmmakers and perhaps the censors that no sex in this film took place outside of marriage.
Like any **** soldier on his final night of leave was going to waste valuable minutes or hours getting married to a girl he never intends to see again ....
Edit: Oops, should have known that word wouldn't be allowed. Okay, think "thorny" and take away the "t".
-
I saw 9 in the theater. I don't want to give away plot details, but for an animated film, which presumably largely draws in a crowd of kids, it has an incredibly dark premise, especially if you're a human being (which I think applies to most of us)!
I think The Matrix was pretty unique in the way it opens up with one perception of what reality is and then slowly lets us know what reality really is, then establishes the rules for how things work in the Matrix through the eyes of Neo. The movie also plays with our expectations in fun ways - when Neo accepts his destiny, suddenly the dark forces that have been menacing him the whole movie aren't so menacing anymore. And it's surely the most influential film in the last 20 years regarding the depiction of fight scenes in movies. I mean, my God, virtually every action movie made since The Matrix uses that fast-then-slow-then-fast-again dynamic in its fight scenes.
-
I also cast my vote for Scott. Jackie Gleason's great in the film, too, but Scott's performance really blows me away.
-
1
-
-
The Great Lie from 1941 was on last night, in which Bette Davis whisks Mary Astor off to Arizona to have a baby in secret, and there are scenes where Astor is seen in a very large overcoat that's supposed to imply pregnancy
-
1
-
-
I saw this posted while I was at work almost 10 hours ago, and I thought, "Well, somebody will surely respond to this before I get home", but no!
The TCM "library", from what I've gleaned from reading the rules for what's allowed in the Programming Challenge and from a couple of articles I've read about Ted Turner's original acquisition, at least originally consisted of, I think:
* Pretty much everything from MGM through 1986
* Everything that was controlled by United Artists when MGM bought them out around 1982
* Pretty much everything from Warner Bros. before 1948 or 1949 (always forget the year)
* Pretty much everything from RKO
* And while not officially in "the library", I guess, TCM theoretically can air any film that's fallen into the public domain any time they want.
There are individual film exceptions to all the above. For example, TCM doesn't appear to have the rights to Beyond the Forest, Bette Davis' final film for WB (until Baby Jane), in which she says "What a dump!" (supposedly - I've never actually seen it), which I think are controlled by the heirs of the novel from which it's adapted or something. I'm also wondering what the heck has happened to the 1938 WB film Angels with Dirty Faces, which TCM used to show multiple times each year but hasn't shown for eight years now. Maybe TCM's programmers have just forgotten about it, but when a film doesn't air for that long, I always wonder if there are some behind-the-scenes rights issues. On the flip side, I think they've added films to the original library over the years that don't necessarily conform to the above definitions. I think maybe The Iron Petticoat, a Cold War romantic comedy pairing Bob Hope and Katharine Hepburn that had been completely out of circulation for decades because of rights issues is something that's now in the TCM library.
I'm unaware that there's an existing list anywhere. TCM certainly doesn't provide us that information! If you go to one of the Programming Challenge threads (the newest one is usually pinned with a sticky to the top of his board), the first post or an early post in that thread provides links to databases of many of the films that are "in library".
Hope that helps!
-
1
-
-
After turning my TV off for a couple of hours, I turned it back on, and TCM seems to be working fine. It's in the middle of Mr. Roberts. I'll check again in the morning, and if everything's still okay, I suppose I'll cancel my appointment.
-
Connections seem to be okay. Hopefully that's something cable guy will look into and replace if necessary tomorrow. Ironically, I just threw away a couple of extra cables I had lying around yesterday, because they were taking up space and seemed unnecessary.
TCM Premieres
in General Discussions
Posted
The Best Actor winner that year was Nicolas Cage for Leaving Las Vegas.