TCM's new intro

TCM have been running a promo between movies claiming that we bloggers and other social networking types can embed our favorite movie clips on our sites thanks to the TCM Media Room. With TCM finally having introduced a new primetime introduction, I figure that now would be a good time to try it out. If it works, you should see a link to the new intro.

As for the intro itself, I'm a bit ambivalent about it. The onld one with the fanfare was almost iconic, and elegant, harkening back to the days of the movie palaces in a way the new one doesn't really do. But the new one looks fresh and in keeping with the rest of the new graphics package, which isn't too bad. The new look for the trailers, in which the "screen" showing the trailer is a head-on view, is much better than the previous one, which used billboards that were at an angle.

I could go either way on the afternoon opening. TCM's previous intro during the afternoons was of a band box, which frankly didn't have all that much to do with the movies. The new one doesn't have much to do with the movies either, with people on an el train not necessarily going home to watch movies.

And as for the morning promo, TCM used to have "The Sunny Side of Life" as the theme. It was memorable, although in some ways not entirely appropriate: do you really want to play Look for the silver lining.... before a movie like The Lost Weekend? The new intro in the mornings has a big advantage in that it's acrually evocative of mornings, in its montage of daybreak and heading into work. On the other hand, the bluesy music does not, at least in my opinion, fit in as well with the early morning.

I wonder how long it will be until TCM change the montage of clips that open Silent Sunday Nights.