tcm alert thread (Jun '23 - tcm alert: dead)

Heard about but didn't watch yet.

xps Love the VOD feature of TCM. Their Roku/Fire Stick box app is spartan, but it works. That said i'm always distracted by a million other things and use it maybe once or twice a year, but it's definitely super great.

I tried to watch the Dick Tracy interview from 10 years ago, couldn't make it past like 10 minutes. Can't imagine how bad a newer, Zoom version would be

I have had kind of an unfortunate mini-obssession with that guy's love life, feel that was his real art, his film's were just something to pay the bills.

Films. Damn these eyes!

TCM's app consistently logs me out about once every three days. Other than that, great stuff

Anyway, starting to up my game with respect to using the on demand feature. Do other people make extensive use of this?

― The Windows of the URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, February 12, 2023 12:03 PM

Yeah, I use the FireTV app two or three times a week. Everything has its own end date, though, so if you add a couple films to your watchlist one might expire in a month and the other in five days, so when you come back it's a mystery what might still be there waiting.

Sorry for the random q: I’ve been wanting to see Kiss Me Deadly (1955), but the only expeditious way to watch it seems to be purchasing the Criterion BD for ~$27 (…even library doesn’t have it). Is it worth it?

Oh hell yes, most definitely

Thx – ordered

personally, i love it. it's pretty crazy for... so many reasons.

it's a masterpiece.

Psyched to see it! Don't know how it's slipped thru the cracks for me all these years...

Hard to think of a pulp noir with a better opening ... or ending

our hack for TCM is to blindly record things and rewatch at our leisure. a lotta good/weird stuff we wouldn't consider at 9PM is great on a rainy saturday at 2PM

TCM often runs their coolest/grindhouse/genre shit like at 2 am on a Saturday night or something

I tried taping those TCM Underground showings for a little while, but couldn’t really get into watching them later. I’m sure I’ll cycle back around to making time for that kind of thing…

Well, Kiss Me Deadly was pretty crazy indeed. Something about it feels not totally "right," as you watch it... like it has this kind of grim, relentless momentum, without any "comfortable" scene (or "relatable" character) to ground you. The acting isn't terrific, in a conventional sense (Cloris Leachman probably best) – and a lot of what happens doesn't quite make sense or fit together - but all this (slight) artificiality somehow adds to the overall uncanny atmosphere.

I can see how these elements may have seeped into David Lynch's work (it was the Wikipedia page for Lost Highway that put this film back on my radar, although I was aware of it before).

The ending, of course, is totally f'd up and disturbing! The noise made by the open box may be the creepiest sound effect I've ever heard. (Beyond the obvious tributes paid by Repo Man, I wonder if Alex Cox chose a Chevy "Malibu" as a hat-tip to the beach house...)

Did it just play? There is some weird trivia thing about it that the actress was Jerry Leiber's (First) wife, I think.

Gaby Rodgers.

Jerry apparently used her name as a pseudonym for his song-doctoring credit on "Jackson"!

WIkipedia also sez: the great-niece of the philosopher Edmund Husserl

(It didn't just play... I bought it 'cuz I really wanted to see it, and there were no upcoming TCM showings & it's not streaming.)

I did just pick another one up from the library – Pick-Up on South Street (pleased to find that it's also a Criterion BD). Do we have a thread where we discuss old flicks like this generally, without the TCM hook?

Film noir: your favourites

Yes, that is the correct thread. Also, I believe it was you who first alerted me to JustWatch, so I would like to thank you for that.

...and I was hipped to it here by sic!

Thanks, sic! It's great. For instance, I just went to see if Gentleman Jim had expired yet, from TCM, but it seemed to still be there so I clicked on the link and hit play. See you in one hour and forty four minutes!
https://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/titles/617

I might even start posting those links for other stuff.

Bedazzled link is still there but it has expired. So there is a tiny lag but not much.

Oh shit… one of the supplements on this Blu-ray is “Director Alex Cox on Kiss Me Deadly”(!)

TCM often runs their coolest/grindhouse/genre shit like at 2 am on a Saturday night or something

― Nhex, Wednesday, February 15, 2023 4:33 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I tried taping those TCM Underground showings for a little while, but couldn’t really get into watching them later. I’m sure I’ll cycle back around to making time for that kind of thing…

― unknown blues singer (morrisp), Wednesday, February 15, 2023 4:42 AM

The TCM Underground programmer was recently fired due to Warner/Discovery downsizing.

that should be a federal crime.

Ugh

aw man, didn't know

Pick Up on South Street is another favorite, and part of my ideal Richard Widmark is the ultimate anti-hero double feature with Night and the City, my favorite noir, or movie, ever.

Cool – if I'm so inspired after watching, I'll hit up the other thread with my Bosley Crowther–isms (I know I've seen Night and the City, but it's been ages).

Another ILX0r recommended the calendar-searching approach a while back: Indian films on TCM

many xposts re TCM Underground programmer (her name is Millie de Chirico)

if you wanna support her:

She just recently published a TCM Underground book with Quatoiyah Murray “TCM Underground: 50 Must-See Films from the World of Classic Cult and Late-Night Cinema” https://a.co/d/6hHgact

Millie cohosts a great movie podcast called I Saw What You Did (it rules, fyi)
https://www.exactlyrightmedia.com/i-saw-what-you-did

She is awesome, I hope she finds a cool job again soon

What’s with all the Ann Sothern Maisie movies?

Pick Up on South Street is another favorite, and part of my ideal Richard Widmark is the ultimate anti-hero double feature with Night and the City, my favorite noir, or movie, ever.

― dan selzer, Friday, February 17, 2023

aw

I didn't enjoy Pickup too much, even though it was well made and had some good performances (primarily, I just couldn't "buy" the movie's affection for the Widmark character, or the idea that Jean Peters would fall for him). Glad I saw it, though. The Blu-ray had a good talking-head analysis in the extras, that made me appreciate it a little more.

Listen here mister
When you come in
You seen an old clock running down

Listen here mister
When you come in
You seen an old clock running down

One of the great Thelma Ritter roles

Yeah, she was good (Thelma Ritter). The movie also has an great opening scene (set in a cramped subway car), and an unusually realistic fistfight (in a subway station) at the end.

Commies.. I just don't like 'em!

pic.twitter.com/Pfc3MEWEFf

— TCM Underground (@TCMUnderground) February 22, 2023

How long before they start airing commercial breaks during movies?

Wow, that's a long run for something like that... cool it lasted as long as it did.

There's just no way TCM will make it through this era of corporate conglomeration without severe mission drift. It's a miracle they've been able to maintain their identity as long as they have.

Yeah, they're still basically the same channel they've been for nearly 3 decades, and it's hard not to presume that it's about to end that run