Wednesday, January 31, 2018

It's almost time for 31 Days of Oscar again

We're in the last day of January, which means that tomorrow is the start of 31 Days of Oscar again, in which TCM only runs movies nominated for at least one Oscar. More on that later in the day, as I plan another post on that.

It seems to be a thing for a couple of years now for TCM to spend the night of January 31 looking at the Governors' Awards, the honorary awards the Academy hands out in a ceremony separate from the one we normally think of when we watch the Academy Awards on TV. (Well, if we watch them.) This year there were four honorees, and with ten hours of programming in TCM's nighttime lineup, it means we get time for five movies and a second film from one of the honorees:

First up at 8:00 PM is independent black filmmaker Charles Burnett, with his film My Brother's Wedding at 8:00 PM. This is one of the two, along with Killer of Sheep, that TCM always seems to bring out whenever they need to honor Burnett for something or other.
Then, at 10:00 PM, we get cinematographer Owen Roizman, and his work on Straight Time, a movie that I have to admit I haven't seen before.
Donald Sutherland never won a competitive Oscar. I'm not certain if he was ever even nominated. He got one of the honorary awards, and TCM is showing him in Klute at 12:15 AM.
Finally, it's pioneering French New Wave director Agnès Varda, who is the one to get two films. Cleo de 5 à 7 at 2:30 AM may be her most famous; the other is Le Bonheur at 4:15 AM.

Oh, and there are several shorts during the night too, although none of those deal with tonight's honorees.

No comments: