EricJ
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Posts posted by EricJ
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4 hours ago, NickAndNora34 said:
It's a comedy, but The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) is always fun.
When I was a kid, Knotts freaking out over the haunted organ was more scares than the '99 Haunting remake ever delivered. 😅
The Uninvited
I'd also tuned in our local random New York station for the last ten minutes of Ray Milland's attempt at being Cary Grant, and spent years trying to find the whole thing again. After thirty years, finally located it last month, on Criterion DVD at the library, and while....ehh, Val Lewton it's not (and distractingly has what the film experts call "subtext", for the villainous female doctor hiding the key secret), it's still creepy. Supposedly was the first 40's film to actually take haunting lore seriously, after years of Scooby-Doo "Old Dark House" plots in the 30's, and that gives it a bit of heft.
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22 hours ago, jamesjazzguitar said:
What isn't legit is not understanding the reasons WHY Hollywood did what they did. But I assume people that make such comments do understand the WHY, and if they don't they should, since they are at an 'old Hollywood' movie forum.
It's a distraction to the story, particularly if it isn't even in the same ballpark as the point that the filmmaker was trying to make--
Just recently I'd watched An Honest Liar (2014), the autobio-doc of skeptic-activist James Randi, in which he set out to surprise us after fifty years by not only publicly outing himself, but also revealing that he'd had a longtime partner relationship with the hunky Brazilian twink he'd hired for that "spirit-channeling" hoax in the 80's. (And that was reportedly only the beginning of the revelations, but I didn't stay around for those in the second half.)
In my growing-up years as a magic-hobby kid, I read Randi's books, and was always glued to seeing him do his lovably snarky Houdini-tribute exposures of psychic fakes on talk shows, even if his attempts to "push" an atheist agenda into it got a little occasionally overbearing. But getting the whole truth, and watching Randi complain about how "his father couldn't understand him" growing up, all I saw was one more self-indulgent Rainbow-Warrior, throwing one more tantrum against his parents, who'd blamed everything on religion and become one more Axe-Branding Atheist, trying to wage one more war against the Dim Gullible Populace (and now I'm starting to wonder what's going on with Penn & Teller), and even his trademark curmudgeonly snarkiness now just came off as petulant and immature. Way to ruin my childhood and my commitment to activism, Jimmy, almost respected you there for a few decades. 😢Yes, we've had some howlingly bad biopics (if you thought "Ed Wood" was a mess, just watch the makers of Hitchcock (2012) try to fan-copy it for Anthony Hopkins), but as far as mainstream-homogenized Not-Gay-Enough biographies go, sometimes the myth is better--Those who think straight people "deserve" to have their face rubbed in the truth for the crime of trying to "sweep it under the carpet" are fighting a battle that's a little too personal to take out onto the street. I'm sure we could probably make the same historical speculations about Errol Flynn, too, but in the words of Mark Linn-Baker from "My Favorite Year", I don't NEED Michaelangelos, James Randis and Errol Flynns life-size, I need them as big and professionally-dedicated to their achievements as I can get them. Save the gossip-dirt for later.
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22 hours ago, NickAndNora34 said:
SCROOGE (1970) *Score: 5/10*
I have been eyeing this one at my local library for a while now, and finally broke down and checked it out (despite the fact that the holiday season has long since vanished). The only person I recognized from this was Mr. Albert Finney (rest in peace, good sir).
I have been a fan of Leslie Bricusse's ever since rekindling my love for "Doctor Dolittle" (1967), and was excited to hear another good score, but this wasn't it.
Thought Finney was a little too "whiny" compared to Alastair Sim or George C. Scott, but it's still a good example of the early 70's musical when Newley & Bricusse were king. (Still trying to track down any trace, beyond YouTube fragments, of The Old Curiosity Shop (1975), their next and less successful musical Dickens follow-up.)
And it's a good adaptation, until the last half hour, when the adaptation slips its tethers and the whole story goes to hell...Literally. 😱
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36 minutes ago, jamesjazzguitar said:
Wow your post received a 'thanks' from the TCMModerator1. I don't recall ever seeing that.
Think it might be one of the ones that used to write for the blog. Very big on the "Censorship for tolerance!" issues.
QuoteAnyhow, I still don't know what "not gay enough" means in the context it was used it (but there was a 'wink' so it looked harmless enough to me).
When we have rages of "How DARE they depict a historical figure as straight, even in 50's-60's epics, when every good person knows the real truth!", someone's got issues that don't really have to do with film appreciation.
And five socially gender-outraged responses in a row to the same post is mild compared to some of CG's more personally-invested, er, slips of netiquette in the past. Youuuuu don't wanna know. 😓
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7 hours ago, Gershwin fan said:
The Leader- I finished this anime on the life of Marx and I have many thoughts on it.
If I watch anime, I'll stick to Kemono Friends, m'self. 😁
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11 hours ago, Michael Rennie said:
TBS was one of the REASONS cable wasn't cool.
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1 hour ago, Vautrin said:
They were probably closer to being a monopoly before the mid 1980s breakup.
Now they're just another bottom line corporation.
I remember in the early 80's when we had to move into a new place, and had to get a new phone:
Before the breakup, before you could go to your local Best Buy and buy any number of spiffy new landline phones (yes, we had those back then, too), you could only get a new phone from a licensed AT&T store. Each phone had its price listed either as the purchase price, or how much you could be billed extra every month for 3-6 months on your phone bill.
They owned the service, the hookup, and the devices...That's a monopoly.
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30 minutes ago, rosebette said:
On the other hand, ill-done bios can be real stinkers or even comical, for instance, Mickey Rooney collapsing in the rain in front of the shoe store that sells lifts in Words and Music. Except for the musical numbers, I can't sit through that one.
Rooney in Words and Music would also be another one of the OP's inexcusable examples of "Not gay enough".
(In fact, Hart reportedly did make it to the show uninvited, and tried to pal around the cast and crew backstage during the act break despite a few drinks, and generally embarrassed himself and Rodgers.)
Also, entire generations willingly believe Tim Burton completely at his word for Ed Wood, despite the fact that the entire script seemed to be written out of three pages of the Medveds' "Golden Turkey Awards", and completely erases Ed's producer/co-writer Alex B. Gordon from the story, who, in fact, was responsible for much of the backstage work.
And then, of course, where do we start with Danny Kaye in Hans Christian Andersen?--Who had to switch his tragic crush from an opera singer to a ballerina, because Sam Goldwyn always insisted on ballet numbers.
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1 hour ago, LawrenceA said:
I've read a few things about other channels, like potentially taking the programming that "works" from TBS and TNT and moving it to HBO, with the plan to make HBO their chief original-programming hub, mostly phasing out movies and focusing on series. TNT would be canceled outright, while TBS would be offered up for sale to potentially return to being an Atlanta-area syndicated channel.
The one thing that I never see mentioned is TCM. I don't know of that's a good thing or a bad thing.
So, basically turning HBO into AMC, then?
And TNT and TBS have essentially been zombie channels in the twenty years since reruns and local movies disappeared off of broadcast and cable--TNT in the 00's was trying to restructure itself as the "Glass-Ceiling Channel" for dramatic female-professional and psychotic-female-badass series, while TBS had its collection of sitcoms and Conan O'Brien and was trying to be a "Comedy" channel.
(Sigh 😥 ...I remember when TBS was the "Braves, Tom & Jerry and Andy Griffith" local-station-with-hubris that made Ted synonymous with the Goodwill Games in the cable 80's, and all the good classic movies and reruns were on the "classy" TNT.)
It is unnerving, that's for sure. On the one hand though, I could see TCM remaining as is because it shows plenty of WB owned titles (many of which are on DVD, and if the channel went down would not be considered viable to even release, which could be another coup...).
We KNOW by now that the Digital War is over, and out of three contenders, Digital was the one that lost.
Not sure if Warner knows that, though: They've abandoned their World Conquest to try and use DRM to wipe Blu-ray retail off the face of the earth, and doubled-down all-in on Streaming, but they still see cable as a "threat" to our having to get movies from them directly. If we see recent Warner movies, it'll be on their own streaming service, but old movies are banished to the Archive, and since they can't get another Archive channel going, TCM will remain the "brand name" for those. Remember, with Warner, it's All About the Brand Name...We're the Rabbit, Not the Mouse[tm].
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42 minutes ago, TikiSoo said:
Even as a woman, I find Ekberg a stunner.
And she remained an even, um....bigger star when Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni caught up with her in Intervista (1987): 😮
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Nope, Warner's hanging on to Cartoon Network and TCM, because those are the only two networks that are "useful" to them, namely in Warner's new full-time profession: Exploiting and cultivating Warner House-Franchise Brand-Names in lieu of actual product.
CN will take care of the Scooby-Doo, Tom & Jerry and Space Jam marketing, while TCM handles the Casablanca, Wizard of Oz and Robin Hood...Also, yes, they'll probably figure out a way of showing Willy Wonka and Beetlejuice on it, too. 😓
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4 hours ago, Sgt_Markoff said:
You remind me of a man. A man with the power of hoodoo.
...David Bowie??
Anyway, I take it that ThePetitionSite is the new 10's version of Change.org, which was the 00's version of PetitionOnline, which was...hoo-boy, ask one of the old folks from the birth-of-DVD days, and be prepared for some belly laughs?
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10 hours ago, TikiSoo said:
But I also agree "streaming" is television (Emmys) and theatrical release is a "movie" (Oscars) even though what is "screened" in a theater is actually streamed too. Like GGGGerald said, eventually all movies will either become one media or movie theaters will just cease to exist.
I'm trying to keep track of which Millennially-overcompensating tech-manifesto is which:
Pretty sure that the "The cineplex is dying! It's all superheroes and sequels!" comes from the last surviving MoviePass fans, still carrying a torch, and hoping that the service will get its act together and return to them someday, young, rejuvenated and free from bankruptcy... 😛And that the "Streaming is the new future! Access and quality entertainment to EVERYONE! Smash the brick and mortar idols!" comes from the Bingies, who claim we're in the, quote, "Golden Age of TV" right now (seriously??), because they just cancelled their cable subscription and bought an Amazon Fire.
...IOW, the folks new at this.
QuoteNo matter how large your TV, viewing movies at home will never be the same as viewing them at a theater, with an audience. It used to be the entire audience was involved, creating a communal experience. Nowadays, people see themselves so individually -as isolated beings- it makes little difference if there's another carbon blob sitting next to you.
I wonder if those CGI superhero movies and fantasy series like Star Wars/Harry Potter are so popular because they still fire up audience reaction & therefore a communal experience?
Yes. Also--although I don't approve of it--10's Hollywood has now so fixated its industry on making money on ONE weekend, rather than the month of traveling it would do in smaller three-screen theaters in the 80's, that catching a new Marvel or Harry Potter movie on the weekend audiences are "supposed" to has a rock-concert appeal: Who would go to a screaming cavernous drowned-out rock concert, when you can hear the song quality better on your iPod? People who want to leave the house on a certain be-there-or-miss-it date, and go to a place where they can be in the audience with other fans, all experiencing the movie at the same time, that's who.
For literally thirty-seven years, studios have tried to live their dream of making more money on an instant weekend by pursuing the quixotic dream of creating "A new PPV service where audiences can watch the movie at home, the same day it opens in theaters...Only $50-75!" And every time they've gone as far as actually trying it (once in '83 with "Pirates of Penzance", and once in '11 with "Tower Heist"), it's FLOPPED. First by theater chains boycotting the idea, and then discovering that the audience just wasn't there to come to their rescue--Home audiences, used to the idea of waiting a few months and renting the disk instead, just didn't want to pay premium prices to "replace the cineplex experience", whether it was "dying" or not.
The irony is, now we actually ARE debating the idea of "Movies that premiere at home instead of theaters", with an affordable, accessible technology that allows customers to do it at a more reasonable price point, and guess what?: The audience still doesn't want it! Because they're so used to seeing loser-indies surface on Netflix, they can't tell the "good Oscar-winning" premieres from the K-dramas or the Bollywoods or the Asylum knockoffs. The audience knows what a "TV-movie" is, they still "smell" a movie that's been "busted" to Netflix, and studios can beat their heads for another thirty-seven years hoping to persuade them otherwise.
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Troy (2004) - 👍
(I realize we have to post review scores, so I'm going with Siskel & Ebert's thumb approval/disapproval, rather than arbitrary 5 or 10-based scores. If I post a positive review, it's usually more a case of "...Just watch it, okay??")
Watched this one, floating all over streaming, mostly out of condescending curiosity, since the mid-00's market was glutted with CGI-heavy attempts at ancient period adventures, rife with CGI-restored ancient scenery, and digitally augmented hordes of ancient armies--The bigger studios were trying to figure out how to make "Gladiator" happen again, while the smaller studios were trying to cash in on the "Gods of War" movie that Brett Ratner was stalling his heels about making, and then two years later, they'd all try again twice as harder wondering where "300" had come from and trying to make that happen again. This one came out the same year as Oliver Stone's "Alexander", and Ridley Scott's Crusade-era "Kingdom of Heaven" would be the next year, and audience fatigue set in so instantly, it's hard to find anyone who remembers one film apart from the other. (Quick, who starred in "Alexander"?)
Troy is...rather good, though: If Warner couldn't get Ridley Scott, they'd yank their never-fail dog-leash of Wolfgang Petersen for more CGI epics (every time Petersen gets a big summer blockbuster, you can hear Warner execs saying "C'mon, c'mon, do another neat big wave, like you did in 'Perfect Storm'!"), who, to his credit, is a little more grounded and businesslike than Scott's artsy pretentions--The Hollywood Wolfgang Petersen is a long way from the German Wolfgang who gave us "Das Boot" and "The Neverending Story", but he still knows how to deliver a straight-on action story. Here, we get a straight, historically accurate (except for contemporary dialogue) non-mythological retelling of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War, with every 00's name character actor fit into every classic name: Brian Cox plays a detestably power-greedy Agamemnon, Orlando Bloom (every 00's sand-epic had to have Bloom, to keep from typecasting him as elves and pirates) plays a naive Paris, an aging Peter O'Toole redeems a few paycheck scenes as King Priam, and Sean Bean's greedy-unhinged expression from the LOTR movies is perfect for savvy horse-trader Odysseus. The star casting is for Brad Pitt, who, as in "The Assassination of Jesse James", realistically deconstructs another great mythological figure as a narcissistic self-centered jerk, playing warrior Achilles as a fame-obsessed war-diva, but gives Achilles' climactic battle with Hector a bit of emotional edginess that flesh out the stale Homerics, and a few HK-action moves that make ancient Greek combat look like serious business.
It's all straightforward for those who know the story, and pitched as homework-cheat for those who don't, but the appeal is in what Petersen doesn't do: There's no "artsy" touches, no missing-frame attempts to punch-up the battles, or any of the other vanity showoff excesses we'd have gotten if Ridley Scott had directed it--It's just the good 00's equivalent of a big 50's roadshow-epic, certainly less silly than many of the "Helen of Troy" stories we got of the era, and sticking to business gives it a bit of historical street credit that the big vintage Fox studio sandal-epics only thought they were going after.
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56 minutes ago, Dargo said:
Well, in MY case anyway, I'd just be happy if everyone knew that Bugs Bunny stole the line "You realize of course this means war" from Groucho Marx.
(...yep, and THEN I'd know all is right in this country again)
Elmer's Pet Rabbit (1941), and that's the only case where he (or at least that weird transitional Bugs who sounded like Jimmy Stewart) was imitating Groucho's "Night at the Opera" line.
After classic Bugs in "The Case of the Missing Hare" (1942), it became the nice, slow, vengeful "Of course you realize...."
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5 hours ago, Sgt_Markoff said:
Further slide down the slippery slope that started with the "let's expand the number of nominee slots" and then "Dark Knight should've won for its year" movement I applaud his reaction. The restriction should be implemented. Screw everything Netflix, they're the last outfit I'd ever want to see a movie from.
They don't allow plastic kazoos in symphony orchestras, right? If they did so, then eventually no one would even know what a symphony is; or how to tell when its being played correctly.
Also, it's the same complaint I had a few years ago about the analysts rhapsodizing about "the future of DIGITAL!", which turned out to be no future at all:
The loudest praises of "But made-for-streaming studios are the FUTURE, because everyone can see them!" seem to come from those who don't actually use it. And the most angry defenses of "You're just jealous of the change of a new century, and the new riches that are available to an audience through streaming!" usually come from those who just started streaming about five minutes ago.It's not "jealousy" or "Luddism" to say that we need to get over our tech honeymoons first before applying a few solid ground rules for establishing just what exactly merits getting the awards. Those who grew up watching network television, and knowing how a TV-movie used to differ from a theatrical movie know that if you release your movie on streaming, or you release it in theaters, you've forever made your choice about what category that movie will be perceived to have been made for--If you get enough 10's-TV hubris to think "It's good enough for the theaters", then maybe you can get an independent release, but tough beans, you're still a TV-movie, and so was "Killdozer". (Thanks, Lawrence, for reminding me of that one.
) If it was in the opposite direction, and Paramount decided they'd rather have a Best Animated nomination for "The Little Prince" after dumping it to Netflix instead of theaters at the last minute, the beans would be equally tough.
It's more a product of the rapidly and unstably expanding head of Reed Hastings, who's now lost control of his own creation as to what he thinks Netflix is, and if he doesn't get a handle on it soon, it won't be anything.
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14 hours ago, LawrenceA said:
Murder on Flight 502 (1975) - 6/10
All-star TV-movie answer to the Airport films. An airport security chief (George Maharis) receives an anonymous letter informing him of a series of murders about to be committed on a transatlantic flight. It's up to flight captain Robert Stack to try and stop the killings before they happen. Also featuring Hugh O'Brian, Farrah Fawcett, Walter Pidgeon, Molly Picon, Dane Clark, Laraine Day, Ralph Bellamy, Theodore Bikel, Danny Bonaduce, Brooke Adams, Fernando Lamas, Polly Bergen, Rosemarie Stack, Elizabeth Stack, Steve Franken, and Sonny Bono. This is cheesy and often laughable, but the old pros are worth seeing, with Pidgeon and Picon having a fun time. It's hard trying to take Stack seriously in an airplane movie after Airplane.
Or even Sonny Bono, after playing the bomber in Airplane II: the Sequel.
20 hours ago, kingrat said:Exactly. Part of the fun of re-reading or re-watching a Christie story is that now you appreciate exactly how and where the misdirection occurs.
Safe rule of thumb for most Christie stories:
If one of the suspects ALMOST dies or is attacked as the murderer's next victim for knowing too much, but recovers, thus seemingly taking themselves out of the running....they did it. -
The Curse of Frankenstein
(Never mind that Frankenstein was the doctor.)
20 hours ago, TopBilled said:LEONARD PART 6 (1987)...I don't think anyone ever found the first five installments. But maybe that's because the movie was such a bomb, nobody cared.
No, that was actually explained in the movie: See, Leonard was a secret agent, so the first five missions were TOP SECRET! (chuckle!)
.................Now I'm glad Bill's in jail.
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11 minutes ago, Sgt_Markoff said:
An earth day starts at 6am? Since when?
Since April 22, 1970, when Earth Day was first established as a national holiday.
And yes, looking at the current "Binge-fangirl" fan-mag version of TV Guide ("Special issue: Your guide to the season finales...Who ends up together and who dies!"), it's hard for younger folks to remember a time when our national sense of culture was defined by TV Guide:
https://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/07/july-29-2016-tv-activist-pt.html
(And as you can see, the listings actually began at 5am, with the sunrise, but apart from the farm report and "Sunrise Semester", there usually wasn't anything on at 5am to list.)
When they sold it to those new "100 Greatest Episodes" publishers, it was the beginning of the end. 😥
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1 hour ago, kingrat said:
And to all the Agatha Christie fans: I'm a huge fan of Agatha, too. No other mystery writer has had such a marvelous sense of how to play with the reader's expectations. Her characterizations are not necessarily deep, but she always gives us a character, not just a figure in a puzzle, and almost incidentally she gives us a clear view of certain aspects of British life as the years passed.
As a kid, I always liked to read up on stage magic, but I could never understand the concept of "Misdirection".
Until I started watching the David Suchet/Hercule Poirot and Geraldine McEwan/Miss Marple episodes, and realized that just about EVERY single Agatha Christie mystery solution is based on some form of magicians' misdirection--If there's a clue that's passed off as utterly meaningless side business, it'll usually turn out to be the clue, and the clue we're asked to focus our central theory on will nearly always turn out to be the wrong one.
For ex., "But we know the murder happened at 8, because that was when we heard the gunshot!", or "But she must have taken the drink that was meant for Lord Crommel...Who could be trying to poison him?", or "But it had to be Lady Ashley running away from the scene--I didn't see her face, but I recognized that big wide hat she always wears!" I'm sure that anyone sitting through the recent Kenneth Branagh "Murder on the Orient Express" was nodding along familiarly with our search for the "suspect".
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3 hours ago, Sgt_Markoff said:
Doesn't make any sense. Little early for an April Fool's joke isnt it? Sunset Boulevard is a movie which specifically works based on the handful of famous, still-surviving silent-era stars who were alive in the early 1950s. Any other way of doing it is moronic. On both sides of the camera.
Didn't we already post the Andrew Lloyd Webber clip from the Tony Awards (that is the version they're doing and why they're casting Glenn, just so y'know) the first time this headline came up? Eh, maybe you weren't here for that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8FlHiArWvk
4 hours ago, drednm said:Can nomination #8 be in the offing?
WHY do people immediately think any movie musical announced is A) going to have "Oscar buzz", B ) a shoo-in for (Meryl Streep or other actress) in the lead, and C) "guaranteed front runner" if it comes out in December?
The first two I could put down to traditional DNA memories of "Oliver" and "My Fair Lady" being Best Pictures and B ) a combination of gay/Golden Globes hype for "Into the Woods" and "Les Miz", but C) can only come from a generation that still doesn't know why "Chicago" won in '02 and is still superstitious.
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4 hours ago, David Guercio said:
Did everyone here the news? Maria is retiring after 44 years on Sesame Street or maybe she already has.
(I repeat, folks: I welcome theories that he's trolling us.)
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The Riddle of the Sands (1979)
Continuing my popcorn exploration of other "overlooked" late-70's Lord Grade epics that recently resurfaced on Amazon Prime, after barely raising a US blip in theaters: If the title is getting you stoked for Indiana Jones-style archeological adventures among the great Pyramids of Egypt...this isn't that film. That's probably one reason it was so difficult to market in the US, and didn't even show up until ITV had to salvage Rank Studios' last few big-budget productions.
What we do get is a classic British adventure novel about two 1900's Oxford chums on a boating expedition off the German seacoast islands, who ultimately stumble into a "39 Steps"-style nefarious German spy plot against the English coast, years before WWI. (The original novel's success even inspired Britain as a wakeup-call to renew its defenses against Europe, while there was still time against the Kaiser.) It's still a good cracking Steps-clone adventure, only with empty chases across moorish hillsides now replaced by long scenes of yacht-sailing off the north Atlantic. Michael York and Simon MacCorkindale are perfectly cast to play Georgian Brit-lit characters, and, this being a York film, Jenny Agutter gets the attractive duplicitous romantic-lead.
It's all good generic empty-calorie period boys'-book adventure, but plays itself earnestly straight, without descending into camp or irony, and moves along at a good clip. Good stuff came out of Britain in the late 70's, before they had PBS to make it for them.
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10 hours ago, MovieCollectorOH said:
Taking hotel guests hostage with a John 3:16 sign?
He claimed he wanted to stage a stunt that would get on the TV news. Even the police negotiators tried to tactfully suggest he was not well by that point.
12 hours ago, TomJH said:I don't think any person who seeks to get attention for himself by streaking on national television deserves to be murdered, and in the most cold blooded manner possible, at that.
More to the point that it wasn't so much a guy who tried to be goofy on national television, but that it was the outgrowth of an individual living a fairly self-indulgent lifestyle to begin with, and ultimately paid a price that came with it. Perhaps a little more gruesome than seeing the fan who runs out onto the field during the World Series be arrested by cops, but at least that fan wasn't headed for a worse end.
(In fact, Hart reportedly did make it to the show uninvited, and tried to pal around the cast and crew backstage during the act break despite a few drinks, and generally embarrassed himself and Rodgers.)
TCM has a new owner
in General Discussions
Posted
Now that the whole 10-year Avengers series is gearing up for their big finale this April, Marvel reportedly wants to use Captain Marvel's "twist" of coming in earlier in the timeline to jumpstart a new franchise, and...it ain't happening. Still going to see it, but I've jokingly referred to Captain Marvel as "Marvel's Fantastic Beasts"--An attempt to try and throw together Hit Franchise 2.0 out of spare parts, after their big culturally-prized showpiece finally made its long journey from A to Z, all the A-list actors were killed off or went home, and there's no epic story left to tell.
I feel like I've been Cassandra in warning that '20-'23 movies are going to face the prospect of Life Without Marvel, and the fact that studios for the last eight or nine years have been single-mindedly crafting their entire output to How Marvel Does It, without a Plan B, the sudden tapping-out of the gold mine is going to freak a few of them out for What to Do Next. I've had a prophetic dream of seven cows eating seven Groots, and the famine from here on in isn't going to be pretty.
And don't think Bob Iger hasn't TRIED, constantly forcing sequels down Pixar's throats for no other reasons than making announcements for the sake of marketing. I'll believe there's an earthly reason to make Toy Story 4 when I see it, and from what I hear, I'm holding off the bets.
But anyway: Warner and TCM--Like I said, TCM is too valuable a brandname for Warner to mess with, although everything else Turner is about to be shoveled into the furnace. After years of ignoring Cartoon Network for stoner Adult Swim marketing, Warner needs the "kids and YA" Cartoon Network in an attempt to jumpstart the Hanna-Barbera, Looney, Scooby and Tom & Jerry brandnames for the foreseeable future, just as much as they need "TCM" to be the brandname for other old films they can attach to Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, King Kong and The Searchers. Relax, we're too useful for the chop.