What happened to TCM?

[Feraud]

how are you guys taping these? on vhs?? i don't have a vhs player anymore so i haven't taped anything from tcm. we do have a recordable dvd player, but i have yet to attempt to use that feature.

If your dvd has a record option, attempt to use it.
Our local cable provide has a dvr feature and we record shows for later viewing. I watch programs exclusively with this feature and eliminate any commercials.


I do not think TCM is going a different route. The non classic films (however you define them) are generally part of special programming.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Has TCM maintained the heavy advertising of that "TCM Underground" cult movie series? When I had TCM in those final months, it seemed as though they advertised that thing constantly.

As for post-1959 films, I'm all for TCM airing movies from the 1970s and beyond if the films in question are legitimately good films: Chinatown; Annie hall; Amadeus; Schindler's List; Dances With Wolves, etc.

Let HBO and Cinemax (are they still around?) air Rush Hour 2...

 

[Amy Jeanne]

It's just preference for me. Movies from the 50s-60s-70s are certainly "classic," but I prefer movies from the 20s and 30s and there once was a time then TCM showed LOTS of "off the beaten path" films from those decades. Now it is all just standardised and getting later and later in what it plays.

And TCM does have a niche audience. If they mostly played films from the 70s to today they would just be like all the other channels [huh]

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Tonight is a special case. It is the final night of a month long series on images of Asians in cinema.

-That- is why Rush Hour 2 was on....so fine...it isn't what -you- would chose as an example of images in Asians in cinema...but unless I missed it, none of us works for TCM......and for some reason or another, which I am fairly sure they covered in the -chats- during the breaks...they picked that film as an example of something.


Much ado about nothing if you ask me.

 

[John in Covina]

Classic Doldrums

I've noticed that TCM plays a lot less variety in their movies as well. They used to play more movies that were "off the beaten path." Now it seems they have their standard classics and stick to playing them over and over again. I can only watch Singin' In the Rain so many times!

*****************

Turner Classic Movies and classic rock radio will eventually slip into a selection of the lowest common denominator.

What is the movie equivalent of Boston's "More Than A Feeling" these days?

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Rush Hour" was shown as part of a month-long series on Asian images in film -- said series also having included a number of Charlie Chan pictures and Anna May Wong in "The Toll Of The Sea," so you really can't say they're abandoning the vintage product. What they do seem to be doing is going for more of an academic-hipster slant in their programming -- emphasising "FILMS" as opposed to "movies." Personally, I find this approach pretentious and condescending, but obviously they think that's where their market is now.

I knew the change was coming when they dropped the Edward Hopper-ish interstitials, and switched to those awful jerky-cam underground-film things. Because, you know, they're hip and all.

 

[BeBopBaby]

It's just preference for me. Movies from the 50s-60s-70s are certainly "classic," but I prefer movies from the 20s and 30s and there once was a time then TCM showed LOTS of "off the beaten path" films from those decades. Now it is all just standardised and getting later and later in what it plays.
[huh]

I miss those days of TCM - they used to play really great movies from the 30s during the day and I would videotape them to watch while I was at work. Now their programming reads just like a AFI top ten list with all the standard predictable "classics."

P.S. - Aftetr I typed my original message about not wanting to watch Singin' In the Rain again, I went to the TCM website and guess what's playing tonight - Singin' In the Rain. I wish I had that talent when it came to the lottery.

 

[Feraud]

The choice features are shown on the off hours. Early morning, afternoon, and late night.
If anyone has a the ability to record I suggest doing so.

The sky is not falling.
Here is tomorrow's schedule. There is plenty of old timey programming to satisfy the discerning palate.

28 Saturday
6:00 AM Mask of the Avenger (1951)
When his father is murdered, an Italian nobleman becomes an outlaw to avenge the crime. Cast: John Derek, Anthony Quinn, Jody Lawrance. Dir: Phil Karlson. C-83 mins, TV-G
7:30 AM Long Gray Line, The (1955)
An Irish immigrant becomes one of West Point's most beloved officers. Cast: Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara, Robert Francis. Dir: John Ford. C-137 mins, TV-G, Letterbox Format
10:00 AM Flying Deuces, The (1939)
Two bumblers join the Foreign Legion to forget a beautiful woman. Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Jean Parker. Dir: A. Edward Sutherland. BW-65 mins, TV-G
11:15 AM Saps at Sea (1940)
Two factory workers accidentally set sail with an escaped killer. Cast: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, James Finlayson. Dir: Gordon M. Douglas. BW-58 mins, TV-G
12:15 PM Count Three and Pray (1955)
A Westerner turns preacher to overcome his shady past. Cast: Van Heflin, Joanne Woodward, Philip Carey. Dir: George Sherman. C-102 mins, TV-G
2:15 PM Naked Prey, The (1966)
A captive hunter in Africa has one chance to survive, if he can outrun a native tribe. Cast: Cornel Wilde, Gert Van Den Berg, Ken Gampu. Dir: Cornel Wilde. C-96 mins, TV-14, Letterbox Format
4:00 PM Champion (1949)
An unscrupulous boxer claws his way to the top. Cast: Kirk Douglas, Arthur Kennedy, Ruth Roman. Dir: Mark Robson. BW-99 mins, TV-PG, CC
5:51 PM Short Film: Capital City Washington D.C., The (1940)
An installment of James A. Fitzpatrick's Travel Talks honoring Washington D.C. Cast: James A. Fitzpatrick C-9 mins,
6:00 PM Best Man, The (1964)
Two presidential hopefuls get caught up in the dirty side of politics. Cast: Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Lee Tracy. Dir: Franklin J. Schaffner. BW-102 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format
8:00 PM Spiral Staircase, The (1945)
A serial killer stalks a mute servant girl in a remote mansion. Cast: Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore. Dir: Robert Siodmak. BW-84 mins, TV-14, CC
9:30 PM Paradine Case, The (1947)
A married lawyer falls for the woman he's defending on murder charges. Cast: Gregory Peck, Alida Valli, Charles Laughton. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. BW-114 mins, TV-PG, CC
11:45 PM Farmer's Daughter, The (1947)
When she goes to work for a congressman, a Minnesota farm girl takes Washington by storm. Cast: Loretta Young, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore. Dir: H.C. Potter. BW-97 mins, TV-G, CC
1:30 AM None but the Lonely Heart (1944)
A young ne'er-do-well tries to get his life on track to help his ailing mother. Cast: Cary Grant, Ethel Barrymore, Barry Fitzgerald. Dir: Clifford Odets. BW-113 mins, TV-PG, CC
3:30 AM Portrait of Jennie (1948)
An artist discovers his gift when he falls for a beautiful ghost. Cast: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore. Dir: William Dieterle. BW-86 mins, TV-PG, CC
5:00 AM Haunted Gold (1932)
A cowboy and his girl fight bandits and a ghost over an abandoned mine. Cast: John Wayne, Sheila Terry, Slim Whitaker. Dir: Mack V. Wright. BW-58 mins, TV-G

 

[Rittmeister]

Given the obvious trend, all we can do is tape as much as possible now. One day TCM will hire a consultant who will do a focus group and tell them that there is no market for any movies made before 1960 unless it is in the AFI top 100 (which changes every year). Hopefully, before that happens broadband will be big enough that someone will begin running the older films on the Internet or making them available for reasonable download.

 

[jake_fink]

Oh look.... the world hasn't ended yet.

"Rush Hour" was shown as part of a month-long series on Asian images in film -- said series also having included a number of Charlie Chan pictures and Anna May Wong in "The Toll Of The Sea," so you really can't say they're abandoning the vintage product. What they do seem to be doing is going for more of an academic-hipster slant in their programming -- emphasising "FILMS" as opposed to "movies." Personally, I find this approach pretentious and condescending, but obviously they think that's where their market is now.

I knew the change was coming when they dropped the Edward Hopper-ish interstitials, and switched to those awful jerky-cam underground-film things. Because, you know, they're hip and all.

Rush Hour is a FILM and not a "movie", and is therefore - by extension - pretentious and condescending? Weird.

Rush Hour was listed as TBA in my guide so I'm guessing that it may not have been the first choice for that slot. In any case, the theme under consideration was Asians in Cinema and as neither Cinema nor Asians ceased to exist after 1950 it makes some amount of sense to look at more recent offerings to see how things may have changed or not. That's called context, and I like it; it's not the whole story but it is more interesting and informative than if there had been a cut-off date.

Perhaps the objection is really that the theme itself was too big... but this is a 24 hour film channel with a lot of opportunities to explore themes larger than "Cary Grant's Double Takes" or "James Stewarts Hats". I'd never seen most of those silent Anna May Wong films before, and thanks to TCM I've now had a chance to see them. So they were off base with Rush Hour - not the end of the world.

What does classic mean anyway? Is it a genre? a period? is it defined by audience or critic? Is it just a film everyone can name? (Is Star Wars a classic? Is L'Atlante?). AMC stopped buying "classics" you can find on dvd and started producing original drama like Mad Men and Breaking Bad. How is that wrong?

The tendency at TCM lately to reach a little beyond what they've already done multiple times without completely leaving behind the core focus is, I think, a very positive one. It demonstrates that TCM takes film and culture seriously and it is willing to treat its audience like adults rather than a bunch of squalling brats (But I waaaaaant it!). Maybe that's too "academic" - the greatest insult you can spit at someone in this forum - but it is rare and I think it's very valuable.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

We could start a letter-writing campaign (because phone calls and emails really count low as to what incenses their viewing audience) to Turner saying we like the older movies. Then periodically send follow-up letters to let them know we're still out here and watching. And that's hand-written or typed or computer-generated if you must -that's the hierarchy they "score" viewer contact on. Email's low man on the totem pole.

But as others mentioned, this was one of their monthly specials - nobody screamed when it was Sinatra last month and they played the two Tony Rome films and Ocean's Eleven, all from the 60's. Perhaps they were just using Joy Luck Club, Rush Hour and Mr. Baseball as examples of how Asians are represented in film, versus the earlier fiendish, opium-smoking white slavers of the earlier era, and how times have changed. Their core films are still classics, in one way or another. Mr. Baseball and Rush Hour perhaps not, but I think Joy Luck Club will stand the test of time as showing how the tide had turned.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Rush Hour is a FILM and not a "movie", and is therefore - by extension - pretentious and condescending? Weird.

In the rush to snark, you missed the point of what I was saying -- what I find pretentious and condescending is their attempts to justify showing particular pictures by surrounding them with ponderous Cultural Studies commentary. Doing so may be all well and good for those who enjoy such chin-stroking, but when I watch a movie, I want to simply settle back and be entertained. If that makes me a Philistine, well, so be it -- but when the talking heads come on, that's when I turn the channel. I'm perfectly capable of forming my own opinions on the cultural significance of movies without having them dished out to me.

 

[mike]

I'm going to play the devil's advocate here a bit but for one, the older fan base of the golden age of cinema is passing on and one great way to get a younger wider audience to flip to the channel is to play slightly more recent stuff, which may very well keep them not changing the channel and catching some wonderful rare older films afterward.
Great example of in my view, the mainstream state of affairs - I made both my roommates sit down and have a movie night with me the other day, I recorded Westward the Women, a fantastic film by William Wellman. Once the premise was set, my one roommate turned to me in excitement and said, "hey! this is like a reality show, cool! Getting a group of random women together to hike from Chicago to California! What a concept!" A REALITY SHOW?!?!?!?! It's called great drama!!!! But! Both roommates stuck around and really enjoyed the film from start to finish, which usually they can't sit still for even the Daily Show. There's something primal about a good story, all that needs to happen is the mainstream younger generation(s) need to turn on the channel and watch. Whatever gets them to that channel, fine by me!
Meanwhile, I'm still head over heels for the William Wellman month on TCM back in December so you're talking to a happy as a clam tcm'er still

 

[Spitfire]

You're only saying that, because they've been showing quite a few Sophia Loren films this week. lol I know, because I've been watching too.

When was that??????lol lol lol
I guesse TCM is not the same all over the world - or what?
I might have them comming. I hope.

 

[mtechthang]

But tonight we've got Mr. Baseball and the Joy Luck Club. :eusa_doh:

Eeeeeewwwwwww!!! :rage: Change channels immediately!!!

 

[mtechthang]

what I find pretentious and condescending is their attempts to package *movies* as FILM, by surrounding it with ponderous Cultural Studies commentary.

Hey, that's a very well argued point!! :eusa_clap I tell my film classes the same thing all the time. It is all well and good to "analyze the film content" or plot or script etc. But when we sit down we do tend to judge the film/movie based on whether we connect, are entertained, or are otherwise "transported" in some way- does it suspend disbelief. :cry: lol It is interesting that Hollywood pushes the artistic interpretations and trappings until you get them backed into a corner and they immediately retreat to, "But they are just entertainments!" (Odd word choice. But it is the one they use).

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I miss those days of TCM - they used to play really great movies from the 30s during the day and I would videotape them to watch while I was at work. Now their programming reads just like a AFI top ten list with all the standard predictable "classics."

P.S. - Aftetr I typed my original message about not wanting to watch Singin' In the Rain again, I went to the TCM website and guess what's playing tonight - Singin' In the Rain. I wish I had that talent when it came to the lottery.

I'm so glad I recorded all those movies all those years when I did! I doubt we'll ever see obscure films again like Men Are Like That (1930), The Matrimonial Bed (1930), and God's Gift To Women (1931) -- all WONDERFUL movies I taped over the years and now have transferred to DVD. I used to tape so many movies that I still have stuff from the 90s I haven't watched yet

Movies from the 20s and 30s mean a lot to me because they saved my life. They came at a time when things were horrible in my life. No, it's not the end of the world that TCM doesn't show rare pre-Code movies like they used to, but it is disappointing. I still hold them near and dear to my heart and they have great personal meaning to me. But I try to see it like this -- I have all the good ones recorded anyway

 

[=ritzy=]

I come home from work tonight and make bangers and potatoes, pop open a cider, turn on TCM .... and there's Rush Hour 2. Huh? I frantically flip through the channels thinking the cable company made a horrible and inexcusable error. Nope. They apparently meant to play that "film" ... probably just to alienate me. [huh]

hehehee..oh my that is funny.. really?? I havent seen that happen yet! Only that i have noticed that they have been playing a lot of 60's films lately..oh my, what a way to disturb your perfect evening...my sympathy to you.

 

[Selentino]

I agree anything after 59 and I'm out. That's what AMC is for. I was home on lunch and hit the record button for Public Enemy. Last week I watched so much Sophia Loren my wife started giving me the eye lol It's rare when they have a really good lineup. When they do I feel like stayng home with a bunch of popcorn all day.

 

[FourKingTwenty]

I know many of you will disagree, but I think TCM is doing a good job.

As was stated before, "Rush Hour 2" was shown as part of TCM's month-long "Asians Images In Film" series. The series of films was shown in chronological order, so the month ended with contemporary films. It should be noted, that they showed "The Killing Fields" in addition to "The Joy Luck Club" and "Mr. Baseball."

As was also stated before, the the month's featured actor/actress was Sophia Loren. Therefore, they played many of her movies. The movies they played reflected the broad range of films she's been in. It went from her earlier films like "Too Bad She's Bad," "Boy on a Dolphin," and "The Key." They played "The Millionairess," and "Two Women." They also played her big-budget mainstream action films like "Operation: Crossbow," "The Cassandra Crossing," and "Brass Target." That's a wide variety of films.

I know some of you may be upset with TCM because many of those films are post-1960. I know some of you may be upset with TCM because some of those films aren't very good. But I like the idea of playing a wide variety of films with a connecting theme. I like the celebrity guest programmers.

Compare that with Fox Movie Channel. You want an "Asians Images In Film?" How about "Rising Sun" three times in a row? You want Sophia Loren? How about "Prêt-à-Porter" three times in a row? While TCM plays many older films and a few contemporary films, FMC plays many contemporary films, and a few older films.

Don't even get me started on AMC. They've gone commercial. They play movies edited for commercial breaks and FCC-compliant content. I will give them credit for not cutting "Hustle" the same way A&E and BBC America cut up "Spooks/MI-5." I will also give them some credit for original programs like "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad."

I also like TCM Underground. I like them showing the cult films and the films that are just plain awful. If it wasn't for TCM Underground, I wouldn't have seen "The Apple" and "Roller Boogie." I didn't know movies that bad existed.

I just finished watching "The Fifth Horseman Is Fear," and I would like to thank TCM for showing me what the Sundance Channel, IFC, and a college cinema class didn't. The Czech New Wave is more than just "Closely Watched Trains."

There are fewer and fewer places to watch films. The late shows and weekend movies on broadcast television have been replaced with infomercials.

What would you have TCM do? Would you have them sit on the archives they have access to? I think TCM should play the films you would never consider putting in your Netflix queue. They should play the films that FMC, IFC, and Sundance Channel can't or won't play. I hope the people at TCM feel, as I do, that "classic" doesn't mean "old." I hope they feel that cinema is an art form, and everybody has a different opinion about it. I hope they feel that showing us a bad film can help us appreciate the good ones. TCM plays movies uncut and commercial free 24 hous a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That should be enough time satisfy the people who live in an anachronistic bubble and want to watch black and white films filled with fedoras, and the people who would like to see an interesting movie that they otherwise wouldn't have seen.