Briefs for April 5, 2019

I mentioned that Carnival in Flanders was going to be on TCM the other day, and that it doesn't seem to be on DVD in North America. For those of you who have the Watch TCM app, it is there if you want to watch it, at least for a couple more days. I didn't check to see when it expires, just to see if it was there.

Some days don't have a lot of birth anniversaries of famous people; others do. Today is one of the latter days. TCM has been honoring Spencer Tracy today; he's #6 on TCM's popularity list behind Bette Davis and Gregory Peck, and three relatively current people. Further down the list are James Bond producer Cubby Broccoli and Oscar-winning supporting actors Melvyn Douglas and Walter Huston. Director Roger Corman, too, but I don't think he ever won an Oscar. ;-)

I don't know what the deal is with the Justice Department's anti-trust letter to the Academy. I think I might have mentioned in the run-up to the Oscars that there was a kerfuffle over the Academy's rules for how long a movie had to show in theaters before going to other platforms if it wanted to be Oscar-eligible. Frankly, I don't get why anybody would think the Academy can't set its own rules and if people don't want to follow them, that's their business. I'll admit that I tend to favor far less intervention in business than even people would accuse Republicans of, but even as the current laws stand I don't see how it's anti-trust.