Tomorrow begins a great month of viewing for classic film novices and aficionados alike, despite the fact that for the first time in memory the channel is not honoring Greta Garbo’s birthday on September 18th.  Instead, we get “the wavishing Kay Fwancis”, who is Star of the Month.  However, other than the fact that they’re [...]

It was a different era when Hollywood’s studios also owned theaters and had to crank out new features weekly to fill them.  Star power wasn’t really any different than it is today – the biggest ones would all but guarantee a decent box office – except that the studios (vs. the actors themselves) controlled their [...]

I recently joined a group of 34 other similarly committed individuals on a 19 month ‘quest’ (more on this in a future post). While getting to know one another we shared our backgrounds, interests and hobbies etc., and when I told one of them that I wrote for TCM’s blog he asked “what classic movies [...]

We recently moved out of our home of seventeen years to trim our various commutes by getting closer to where we spend most of our time – school(s) and work.  Since we made this decision independent of the most recent upward spike in gasoline prices, any monthly fuel cost savings are gravy.  In any case, [...]

A compelling date for those of us who are ‘into’ numbers; it also marks the beginning of the XXIX (29th) Olympiad, the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China this Friday.  I love the Olympics and (four years ago) it was a quite a challenge to balance my TCM viewing with NBC’s coverage during the [...]

In last year’s Academy Award winning Best Picture No Country for Old Men (2007), there’s a chilling exchange between the serial killer (Oscar winner Javier Bardem) and an owner/operator of a remote roadside service station in the desert during which a coin toss determines the life or death of a man.  Known for their love and paeans to the classics in their films, the Coen brothers paid their own brand of cinematic tribute to the romantic idea of these types of outposts, before they shattered the illusion of their serenity and security with this sequence.

Part of the American Dream (and I’m not talking about our freedoms and opportunities, or even Dusty Rhodes here) is homeownership; more than two thirds of us live in homes that we own.  There is something magical about looking at houses, picturing ourselves living in a particular place, and the people that work in the housing industry know it. Did anyone see Strangers When We Meet (1960) on TCM the other night?  But purchasing a resale, especially an older ‘fixer upper’, is fraught with much greater risk, and filmmakers have utilized this fact to simultaneously frighten and amuse us.

I caught a snippet of the 1998 remake of The Shop Around the Corner (1940) the other day while channel surfing and wondered – “how many romantic comedies did Tom Hanks make with Meg Ryan anyway?”  (The answer is three.)  During the studio era, non-sequel and non-marital related onscreen pairings were quite common among actors and actresses.  Collaborations between actors on 3 different films were not unusual, and those that exceeded this number were something very special:  a chemistry to be exploited for the public’s consumption.

Surprisingly, the very first motion picture to win the Academy Award for Best Picture Unique and Artistic Production (the only one, in fact) is not readily available on DVD.  Luckily for us it’s airing on TCM tonight as this month’s first Sunday silent … and that’s just one of my picks for April.