Some of you may get tomorrow off for the Martin Luther King Day holiday. As always, it's a time for TCM to show a bunch of movies with black leading actors or movies that otherwise look at the black experience in America.
For better or worse, the daytime part of the schedule means seven films all starring Sidney Poitier. Now, Poitier was a fine actor, but sometimes it feels like that there's little enough that TCM has access too, especially considering that Hollywood didn't offer many opportunities for blacks to get good leading roles until relatively recently, so among the studio-era movies, there isn't much choice.
Instead, it's in prime time that things get more interesting. This year sees several documentaries; although I think they've all been run before, they show up infrequently enough that they're more worth mentioning. I couldn't find any mention on the TCM site if somebody like Donald Bogle is coming in to present the movies alongside Ben Mankiewicz, or whether it's a regular TCM host like Jacqueline Stewart who, after all, is professor of film studies and perfectly qualified to present the movies.
The full lineup in prime time is: 8:00 PM You Got to Move -- Stories of Change in the South 9:45 PM Freedom on My Mind Midnight Say Amen, Somebody 2:00 AM Jazz on a Summer's Day 3:30 AM No Maps on My Taps 4:45 AM The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins and 5:30 AM Crisis.
FXM certainly isn't doing anything special for the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment