cmovieviewer

I think it's interesting how the pundits tap dance around what the supposed benefits are to both the companies and the consumers for such deals. I've yet to hear any straightforward, logical statements that provide a compelling justification. Basically to me it sounds like the mobile phone carriers are trying to out-big each other and the only place left to go is to try to become large media conglomerates.

Although I am also skeptical of the value of an ATT - Time Warner merger, I'm not sure I understand the first point that the Forbes article author makes as far as Time Warner's current "13.8% market share." Since I believe Time Warner is now exclusively a content producer (the Time Warner cable company was split off several years ago and was recently acquired by Charter cable) I don't see how a content provider can have a market share. There are obviously many content providers and dozens of carriers with cable, satellite, and now internet streaming companies, so where is there a fixed market that Time Warner could have a percentage of? Time Warner includes HBO, CNN, and of course TCM, so they sell/license their programs to all of the major television providers. Similarly, I don't see a direct competition between Time Warner and Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc. as the author seems to imply, since a subscriber does not necessarily have to choose one such service over the other. (Thanks again to Jake for posting the link to the article.)

I try not to be too negative but Saturday night's primetime presentation was sad: - Another week without an Essentials discussion. I can't remember when the last one was. - Ron Perlman did the intros as if he wasn't sure he wanted to be there. - Accordingly he was dressed as if he just walked in off the street and someone gave him a sport coat to throw over whatever he happened to have on. - It seems clear that Mr. Perlman is just reading someone else's script and adds nothing of his own. - The first movie was Murphy's Romance. It would have been great to hear Sally Field discuss this with Robert and provide first-hand comments. Will we ever see either of them again? The entire evening just made me long for the past.

DavidST had a similar question in the other thread which is now locked, so I hope he sees the information here. The filmstruck.com web site says the service will support desktops and tablets (I'm assuming through regular web browser) as well as Amazon Fire TV (OS 5 and up), Apple TV 4th generation (Nov 2016), and 'Coming Soon' to Chromecast and Roku. So it looks like all of the main streaming devices will eventually be supported.

I know this is a matter of personal taste, but I have really enjoyed Michael Phillips as a host this month. I really appreciate his no-nonsense and respectful style and his experience as a film reviewer provides direct relevance. I also think his comments for the Gene Hackman films have been particularly good, as he has provided insight into both the films and the actor as a person. I will miss his intros in October and if Mr. Phillips is willing I hope TCM will arrange to bring him back in the future.

You may be aware of this already, but the last link may have a typo and jumped to the 26th instead of starting on the 22nd. Here is an earlier link with the missing days: http://www.tcm.com/schedule/weekly.html?tz=PST&sdate=2016-12-22 Thanks again to LawrenceA for posting the info.

Thank you for recommending this movie, as I am a fan of all things Jane Austen. In researching the film, I discovered a Blu-Ray set with NA together with 2 other similar British productions - a 1996 version of Emma starring Kate Beckinsale, and a 2007 production of Mansfield Park with Billie Piper, so I will have to check those out as well.

(deleted my comment, as not appropriate for this topic)

Since we all know these intros are recorded well ahead of time, I am disappointed that TCM chose to keep the guest host duties for September under wraps. (I have seen nothing on the channel or TCM.com or the facebook page.) I remember watching Michael Philips when he was joined by Tony Scott as the last hosts for the Siskel & Ebert descendant At the Movies, so I am also interested in hearing his take on the TCM films. Thanks Barton for letting us know.

I experienced the same on HD for both The Night Heaven Fell and the following movie And God Created Woman. Very disappointing since I remember this happening the last time The Night Heaven Fell was shown. To compound matters, the big premiere that evening was Naughty Girl, which was shown in a letterbox format for a widescreen movie, so you could read the complete subtitles but the image was greatly shrunk down and very low quality for HD. TCM could literally go out and purchase a $15 DVD for the movie with proper readable subtitles for a widescreen HD image and have far superior HD quality than what was shown. Sometimes I just don't get how TCM operates.

Has there been any word on other special hosts for September? The Slapstick series is taking up 2 days per week, but I'm not sure who all will be presenting.

For those who are interested in such things, here is an article discussing the restoration of the CinemaScope 55 versions of The King and I and Carousel films, work which was first done around 2004. https://www.theasc.com/magazine/june05/postfocus/page1.html I noticed this while looking into the Fathom events theatrical presentation of The King and I coming up on August 28. As a side note I also found a review of the Blu-Ray for The King and I which was first issued as part of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Collection back in 2014. Screen shots for this review show how disappointing the color looks in the Blu-Ray version, showing a bluish and brownish tint. http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-King-and-I-Blu-ray/47170/#Review The color in the TCM advertisement for the theatrical presentation of The King and I, however, looks very nice and is what we are used to seeing in the best Technicolor restorations of other such films shown on TCM. This should make for a very nice experience for those going to the theaters. Here's hoping that this version of the film will eventually make its way to a new Blu-Ray release as well.

Catherine Zeta-Jones has been added to the cast, playing Olivia de Havilland: http://www.tv.com/news/catherine-zeta-jones-is-returning-to-television-after-20-years-147138471400/ For those interested, here's another article on the production: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/ryan-murphy-anthology-feud-starring-890863

Sorry if I missed this somewhere else, but I don't think I understand what the rules are. In the past individual message board users would make a new thread such as "Hey everyone the January schedule just got posted" including the link and then we would all make comments on this schedule using the new thread. So are we not supposed to do that any more? The only reason I can think of for precluding such threads would be if there is a concern about repeatedly creating a similar thread every month when another new schedule is announced. Please let me know if this is correct or if there is anything else I am missing. I don't mean to step on anyone's toes or get anyone in trouble, just wanted to understand what the conventions are. Regardless, thanks for setting up an alternative means for discussing the topic.

I recently watched The Body Snatcher, which was shown on TCM back in April, and I was really surprised and impressed with Karloff's performance in this film. I found Karloff's portrayal of the title character to be at times charming, other times ruthless, and then again wickedly irritating towards his 'friend' Toddy. Although this is a horror film, I would say it is more of the psychological horror type and kudos to director Robert Wise for the way Karloff is featured in a substantial role. Would highly recommend it to those who have the time to catch some of the Karloff films on the 26th.

Spence, I think The Essentials is in a holding pattern while TCM waits for Robert Osborne's recovery (or decision to do something else), so for now Dave Karger is acting as a place holder for movie introductions on Friday and Saturday nights. In past seasons The Essential movies would have one rerun each complete with the introductions by Robert and the guest host, so I believe I read here that the plan was to have Robert and Sally Field come back and do the introductions for the second showings. Of course any such plans are fluid depending on when/if Robert is available, but for now the spot is being kept open for him.

Did anyone else watch Action in Arabia (shown Friday)? (* spoilers ahead *) I enjoyed the first 45 minutes or so - thought George Sanders was very good/charming and the foreign intrigue storyline had my interest. Then in the last 15-20 minutes everything went crazy and it was as if they had to wrap everything up and include all the “Action” within a fixed 75-minute runtime. Did I see George Sanders’ character shot in the back? (Perhaps I missed something.) But he recovers and is able to continue like nothing has happened, and even wears the same dinner jacket on the return flight home. It seems such a shame that the movie went off the rails at the end.

The movie shown on my cable system (Time Warner) had the complete 2h 16m runtime per IMDB and contained the Richard Gere scenes at the bar etc. discussed below. I do not think it was a failure on TCM's part.

Thanks for the notice and follow-up. I was late to begin watching Ride Lonesome, and it looked like that was a sparkling better-than-dvd version as well (not sure if they have shown this quality before). If only TCM could somehow present such information in the program listings...

Southpaw, I am a Time Warner Cable customer and I am also disappointed by this. Back in 2009, Time Warner Cable was spun off as a separate company from the Time Warner media company, so there was no longer any connection between the two when it came to working out carriage agreements. Time Warner Cable has been notorious for dragging their feet when it comes to supporting new media channels. You may have noticed that a deal to merge Time Warner Cable with Charter Communications was recently approved. One theory is that Time Warner Cable would not negotiate any new coverage commitments while they were waiting for merger approvals to go through. Since Charter Cable does currently support WatchTCM streaming, I am assuming that once the Time Warner Cable territories are combined with Charter, then the former Time Warner Cable customers will get the approval to use WatchTCM. Hopefully it won't be too long before this happens. (I can always dream.)

Interesting observation CaveGirl - the term 'prismatic' comes to mind. Reminds me of the way colors were used in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, as another example. I see where Criterion has included Lola with 2 other Fassbinder films, The Marriage of Maria Braun and Veronika Voss, in what they refer to as the BRD Trilogy, so I will be on the lookout for those as well.

Sunday evening I watched To the Last Man (1933) - part of the MoMA double feature. I know many of us were disappointed when Wild Girl (1932) was replaced on the schedule by this film. However, To the Last Man was also a TCM premiere (thanks mr6666) so I figured I better take advantage of what might be a rare opportunity to see it. I also have a soft spot in my heart for film restoration, so I do enjoy it when TCM has guests on that can discuss this topic. The film itself is an unusual Randolph Scott western which deals with a feud born in the hills of Kentucky that follows a family trying to settle in Nevada. Much of the story and dialog is typical of the standard westerns of the day, but there were a few aspects of the film which made it quite interesting, namely: - Esther Ralston playing the love interest. I can’t recall seeing Esther in a film before, but here she is wonderful as a backwoods girl who doesn’t take any cr*p from the men. It’s rather amazing to see such a strong female character who can ride a horse without a saddle and is willing to literally fight the bad guys right along with the men. - The violence from the bad guys is more realistically portrayed and was somewhat shocking to see for a film of this era. Sometimes you can become numb to standard Western action, but in this film the more realistic portrayal of the violence brings home the consequences of their actions. Overall I enjoyed the film very much. There was also some very nice outdoor scenery with trees and lakes (supposed to be Nevada but I’m not sure where it was actually shot) and it looked very good in the restored print shown on TCM. For those that missed it I do hope TCM will show it again, and to make everyone happy it would be great if they could also try for another go at Wild Girl.

Just from looking at IMDB, might it be The Toy Wife (1938)? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030887/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

I happily thought of this thread Saturday when Madeleine Stowe mentioned that Asta was a star in The Awful Truth. I had previously seen this movie and of course the Thin Man series, but had not realized that both featured the one and only.

I believe I've complained a couple times on the message board about one of my pet peeves - when Ben fills in for Bob during a "Bob's Picks" lineup of films and doesn't explain why Bob has made a particular selection. Imagine my surprise this evening when for multiple films Ben made a point of stating right up front why Robert selected the film! Can I take credit for this? Anyway, thanks to TCM for making my day, regardless of how it happened.