New Year's programming briefs

It's hard to believe that another year has come to an end, and that it's about a month until the blog celebrates its 15th anniversary. This year saw fewer posts than usual, largely because I took a break over the summer after my father fractured his hip and was laid up. I won't be surprised if there's another smaller break in 2023, since we've been trying to move to a smaller house in a more accessible area, and it's looking as if that move is finally going to take place in a few months. I'm probably going to lose whatever is on my DVR and have to start over with whichever cable provider we end up going with, if we don't cut the cord entirely. I'm intending to put up a full-length review later in the day, which should be the 300th and final post for 2022.

But, programming still goes on. TCM is doing two programming ideas for the New Year's Eve holiday that it's done quite a few times before. First, starting at 11:00 AM, they've got all of the That's Entertainment! movies, along with That's Dancing. Then, for prime time, we get all six of the Thin Man movies, probably because the first one is set in the Christmas/New Year's season.

I'm always astonished by how long the FXM Retro programming block has trundled along, and it looks as though that's continuing into 2023. There are, it looks like, a couple of movies coming up in the first week of 2023 that I don't think were part of the previous programming rotation at the beginning of October. There's a Three Stooges movie I hadn't heard of, Soup to Nuts on at 6:00 AM on January 3. The following day, we get Sink the Bismarck!, a pretty good British co-production about the World War II attempt to find the German battleship. And somebody had the good though to string together The House on 92nd Street, House of Strangers, and The House on Telegraph Hill on Thursday, January 5.

I've mentioned quite a few times how I'm a soccer fan, so of course I noticed the passing of Pelé. But of course, he also had a movie connection, in the fun if messy movie Victory (also known as Escape to Victory, about a group of World War II POWs playing a game of soccer against the Germans: