Friday, February 12, 2021

Programming notice for Valentine's Day Weekend

Sunday is Feburary 14, which means Valentine's Day is coming up. It's supposed to be a time for romance, although with governments still trying to use a virus to oppress everyone, how much romance is there? At least you can probably find some on the TV channels, which have no such constraints.

TCM is spending most of the next 72 hours with romances, starting sometime Friday morning (or during prime time Thursday night) depending on your view. There's romance in Rear Window at 6:15 AM that's secondary to the plot, so I'd argue the marathon really kicks off at 8:15 AM with High Society, which is the remake of The Philadelphia Story (Feb. 14 at 2:15 AM).

But the real purpose in bringing up TCM's romance marathon is to point out that some of the traditional programming won't show up this weekend. There's no Saturday matinee block, and there's no Noir Alley. At least, I assume nobody considers The Goodbye Girl (12:15 AM Sunday) or Wuthering Heights (9:45 AM Sunday) to be noirs. Silent Sunday Nights and TCM Imports will be on at more or less their normal times with movies that fit the romantic theme (City Lights and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg respectively).

As for FXM, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of romance until Sunday morning, when there's a four-film block starting at 7:45 AM with The Model and the Marriage Broker. I'm assuming this is purely coincidental, or else they would have programmed something other than The Man Who Never Was at 6:00 AM on Valentine's Day. A movie returning to FXM is Von Ryan's Express, tomorrow at 4:00 AM with another showing on Saturday.

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