Briefs for Dec. 17-18, 2021

Apparently the National Film Registry selections were announced recently. TCM had had a blank spot on its schedule for tonight in prime time, which I figured was going to be for some films selected to the registry, although it seemed odd to me that the announcement would be made on a Friday since that's normally a day government dumps news they don't want people to hear. But sometime yesterday, there were movies put into that slot. Some of the movies on the schedule surprised me, mostly because I would have guessed they'd already been selected for the Registry. But a quick look on Wikipedia shows the pages have recently been edited to point out they were selected to the Registry in 2021. Anyhow, tonight's films are:

8:00 PM Sounder (1972), in which Cicely Tyson tries to keep her family together in 1930s Louisiana;
10:00 PM Chicana (1979), a new-to-me short;
10:30 PM Strangers on a Train (1951), in which Robert Walker makes Farley Granger switch crimes with him;
12:30 AM The Watermelon Woman (1997), about a black lesbian filmmaker who tries to find out what happened to a black lesbian film icon of the 1930s; and
2:15 AM What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (1962), with Joan Crawford and Bette Davis going at each other hammer and tongs and then some.

Speaking of Bette Davis, you've got a chance to catch her over on FXM in one of her best roles, that of Margo Channing in All About Eve, at 9:15 AM Saturday. Considering how FXM has started adding more recent stuff to the FXM Retro part of the lineup, I'm surprised that this one is in the rotation.

The Saturday matinee slot is back to showing the Bowery Boys. Shortly after the Popeye cartoon at 10:00 AM comes Bowery Bombshell, which if I remember is the first of the Bowery Boys movies, at least under that incarnation since the boys had appeared together in support of other actors in feature films, and under names like the Dead End Kids and the East Side Kids.

There haven't been any notable deaths in the last week, at least from a movie perspective. Last week I probably should have Italian director Lina Wertmüller, although I haven't actually seen any of her movies. There was also Cara Williams, who earned an Oscar nomination for her role in The Defiant Ones, and former Monkee Michael Nesmith. More surprisingly, as far as I can tell the TCM Remembers recap for 2021 hasn't been released yet. I haven't seen it; it's not on TCM's Youtube page; and the folks on the TCM boards haven't mentioned it yet.