Briefs for Oct. 2-3, 2022

Yesterday was the first full day of a new month, something I mentioned back on Friday when I talked about the movies showing up on FXM for the first time in a while. But it also means some new themes on TCM. However, it's also October, which means Halloween comes up at the end of the month and we get a lot of horror. One of the things this means is that we're going to get another horror-themed Star of the Month. Or, have already gotten it as the "star" of the month is the robots that have graced science fiction and horror movies over the years. Those movies show up in the first half of the evening on Saturdays, before Noir Alley.

One holdover theme, at least for the next two Sundays, is the look at the contributions of Hispanics to Hollywood cinema. Hispanic Heritage Month is a bit different from some of the other months in that it runs from September 15 to October October 15, rather than a calendar month, so the look at Hispanic Heritage Month started in the middle of September on TCM. This week on TCM sees a movie that I recorded some time back and watched over the summer while my father was recuperating: Dime With a Halo. The premise is an American boy (Roger Mobley) who goes with his adult sister (Barbara Luna) to Tijuana and falls in with some Mexican street kids who buy a horse-racing ticket every week. They finally pick a winner, but need an adult to catch it. Frankly, I found the portrayal of the kids to be so phony and Hollywood obnoxious that it completely turned me off the movie. It comes up at 10:00 PM tonight, so perhaps you'll want to watch and judge for yourself.

I never got around to doing a post on the death of Oscar-winning actress Louise Fletcher. She most memorably played Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the role which won her that Oscar. However, she also played the dying researcher who records her own death in Brainstorm, which is better known as Natalie Wood's final film. Fletcher was 88.

I don't think I've mentioned recently movies showing up on StarzEncore Westerns that I blogged about well in the past. For today and tomorrow, that includes No Name on the Bullet, a fine Audie Murphy psychological western that you can see at 6:42 PM this evening as well as 6:07 AM tomorrow. Later tomorrow, there's One Foot in Hell, at 10:49 AM and 11:40 PM. This one stars Alan Ladd as a man out for vengeance after his pregnant wife is killed by negligence.