Sunday, January 18, 2015

Repeated shorts on TCM

I've stated quite a few times how I enjoy the shorts that pop up between the movies on TCM. For better or worse, a lot of them are things that I've seen multiple times to the point that I've blogged about them here. On the other hand, it makes it easier to compile a list post when several of them are showing up in a short period of time. Also, with tomorrow being Martin Luther King Day, TCM is showing a lot of the same race-relation themed films that get shown every year on the day. But there's also a fair bit of space for shorts, and quite a few will be airing tomorrow.

Decade For Decision airs overnight at about 3:43 AM, in between the two TCM Imports. It's an interesting look at what is now the University of Buffalo, part of the SUNY system, as it was back in 1957 when it was thought that there was a huge need for colleges to churn out science and technology graduates to keep up with the Soviets. Indeed, there's still some relevance today in that there's a belief that STEM (the E and M of course standing for Engineering and Mathematics) courses are more needed than low-demand things like puppeteering or "media studies", whatever the latter is. Probably what I do on the blog, and nobody's giving me a Ph.D. for it.

Lionpower From MGM can be seen at 7:29 AM tomorrow, or just after Intruder in the Dust, which as you can see I blogged about after seeing on MLK Day back in 2012. I still get a chuckle thinking about the breathless tone the narrator uses in describing the several seasons of "Lionpower" that lead to the movies mentioned being released.

It's only been a couple of months since I wrote a post on King of the Duplicators, which you can catch at 9:40 AM tomorrow, following ...Tick ...Tick ...Tick at 8:00 AM. This is a feature I actually haven't seen before. The short, though, is well worth a watch if you haven't seen it.

There's a short or two I haven't mentioned before. First is Salar, the Leaper, at 11:50 AM tomorrow. This is one of the RKO Sportscope, about fishing in New Brunswick. It really would have benefited from a tighter focus and Technicolor photography.

Another short that needed to be in color is The Car That Became a Star at 1:49 PM tomorrow. This is a promotional short for The Yellow Rolls Royce, looking at the vintage car that plays the title role. Well, that's only half of the short; the other half is a brief fashion show looking at fashions "inspired by" the car. Yeah, whatever. The car, the scenery, and the fashions all would have looked better in color, and the fashion show part looks pointlessly tacked on.

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