“I know that’s a
movie,” I cracked, “but what is that channel called?” I started to do a little hunting via the
Internets but before I could track the info down the channel went to a
commercial break. During that time, they
did a station I.D.—we were informed that we were watching MOVIES!
The good thing for me, however, is that because it’s a
digital substation I can pick it up on my bedroom TV with very little effort
(just like Antenna, Me-TV and INSP) and have it on in the background while I’m
working. I’m not able to get TCM at my work
area because those rat bastards at CharredHer told me in no uncertain terms
that we need an extra cable box for that…so I sent them a bucket of sand with
pounding instructions.
MOVIES! is by no means perfect—as I mentioned in the above
paragraph, there are commercial breaks…but I’ve become accustomed to that
folderol by now—and besides, they are not as numerous and interruptive as that
once-proud cable channel that now goes only by its initials (Ay Em Cee) because
they don’t show anything resembling an “American Movie Classic.” (This is a direct quote from my mother: “I
won’t watch AMC anymore. Their movies
are shitty.”) Before a showing of Hatari! (1962) this a.m., there was an
honest-to-my-grandma disclaimer that read: “This movie has not been time
formatted in order to show more commercials.”
(Prompting my father to ask: “What in the hell are you cheering about?”) They will, however, edit movies that have
naughty language or inappropriate nudity and/or sexual content—because there
are kids watching, ferchrissake!—but if you’re a classic movies aficionado this
shouldn’t matter a great deal.
The other nitpick about MOVIES! is that they don’t seem to
have a standard regarding the letterboxing of movies: the showing of Hatari! was the pan-and-scan version,
while last night’s Chinatown (1974)
presentation was letterboxed (again, some of the language was bleeped
out). Of course, I was only interested
in having Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation
(1939) on while I was completing a few tasks, so those two factors do not enter
into it. I noticed on their schedule that they’ve
also got Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938)
on this month; nice to see that there’s a place for the venerable sleuth since
there have been many protests about those classics being shown in the past.
If you click here, you can find out
if MOVIES! is available in your area—they’ve got just a handful of affiliates
right now, but I imagine that number will grow within the coming year. It’s not going to replace TCM, but for the
TCM-impaired it’s better than nothing.
With the positive buzz in sales on eBay—and if any member of
the TDOY faithful has purchased
anything, I thank you gigantically (I know my good friend Federal Operator 99 has)—and my
other outside assignments I know contributions have been spotty with regards to
the blog; hopefully I’ll be able to rectify this soon. I did want to give you a heads-up on a couple
of more upcoming blogathons…
…the first coming from our good friend Rick at the Classic Film & TV Café. It’s the Hammer Halloween Blogathon, which will get underway from October 21 through 25. The title is pretty self-explanatory: the movies to be covered will be those wonderful horror films that were sired in the stables of Britain’s Hammer Film Productions—Horror of Dracula (1958), Curse of the Werewolf (1961), etc. If you’re interested in participating, sashay on over to the Café for the rules and regs…but don’t tarry too long, since most of the good ones are being snapped up as I write.
And longtime TDOY compadre VP19 is going to expand on last year’s successful The Great Recasting (which was held from July 27-28 by Frankly, My Dear and In the Mood) by serving up The Great Silent Recasting (think of it as a prequel); a blogathon in which participants will take current box office hits and restyle them as entries from the silent era—sort of like this:
I found out about this at Movies, Silently by the way—I guess she had originally planned to co-host but has now dropped out in order to spend more time with her family. (Oh, stop it—it’s a political joke…) Again, if this is the sort of thing that stirs your creative juices (although I think there’s a state statute against that in Georgia) mosey on over to Carole & Co. and sign up.
In the meantime, here’s that wacky nephew of mine frolicking by a fountain to remind us that summer is slowly ebbing away and that soon fall will be upon us…well, except in Georgia (there’s a statute against that, too).
3 comments:
MOVIES! hasn't made it to my neck of the woods yet. Drat! But it is in Memphis, so it may pop up eventually here in the mid-state.
TCM is the only channel I truly miss, since we dropped cable tv and went to streaming and broadcast. I mean, Netflix and HuluPlus -- hmm, interesting: the in-line spell checker recognizes Netflix but not HuluPlus -- have lots of great stuff, but their catalog of classic films is rather spotty.
I dropped my satellite service when I moved recently, and for awhile was just subsisting on Netflix Instant Watch and Amazon Prime. The Netflix classic catalog is indeed spotty like everything else they stream, but there are some intriguing, rare titles, like British mysteries and noirs I've never seen before (no doubt costs Netflix nothing, or next to nothing, to license).
Recently got an decent indoor antenna, and to my joy and surprise discovered Movies!, Me-TV and Retro TV. I do miss TCM though. I suppose it would be prohibitively expensive for them to offer streaming on demand. Oh well...
Thanks for the plug on the blogathon! Find out more on "The Great Silent Recasting" -- plus three new promotional posters anyone can borrow -- at http://carole-and-co.livejournal.com/633198.html
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