Briefs not really having to do with Christmas Eve

Since I only had a short post about Christmas programming up for the 24th, part of my plan was to do a second post on the day, maybe a birthday salute because I hadn't done one in a while. Probably the biggest birthday on Christmas Eve would be director Michael Curtiz. Instead I decided to go in a different direction.

I finally caught this year's TCM Remembers tribute on, I think, the 19th. I'm not certain if this was the original version or if it was edited after, but it includes a couple of people who died fairly recently, including Ryan O'Neal and movie writer Cari Beauchamp. For some reason, I thought Beauchamp was behind the documentary on the Mary Astor custody trial, but that was actually Alexa Foreman. Beauchamp wrote the book on trailblazing female screenwriter Frances Marion, which also got turned into a documentary, since I know I saw that one on TCM at some point along the way.

The Library of Congress announced the 2023 National Film Registry selections last week. Interestingly, there's a bit more in the way of classic film this year than last, when I think the oldest thing selected was the 1950 Cyrano de Bergerac. This year there's Dinner at Eight, which to me is a bit surprising that it hadn't been selected before. Another movie that I was surprised to see hadn't yet been selected was Home Alone. Since movies are eligible 10 years after release, that means it's been over 20 years since Home Alone was first eligible.

I noticed about a week ago just after the Saturday matinee while watching to see if they'd have TCM Remembers then that there was a continuity announcer giving us the lineup, something there hadn't been in quite a few years. I wondered if maybe it was something that was only part of the Saturday matinee, but when I watched Miracle on Main Street on Monday night there was a continuity announcer giving the lineup after that one too. Nice to see that back.

I'm not certain what to make of the merger talks between Warner Bros. and Paramount. Getting David Zaslav away from TCM could only be a positive, however.