So we've reached the beginning of February. In previous years when the Oscars were awarded in February, that meant Feb. 1 was the first day of TCM's annual 31 Days of Oscar programming salute, in which every movie was either an Oscar-winner or nominated for at least one Oscar. I don't remember the first year TCM did 31 Days of Oscar, although dollars to doughnuts it was at a time when the ceremony was still held in March, hence the 31 Days name. (My educated guess is that TCM got the rights to use "Oscar" only in conjunction with "31 Days of Oscar", which would explain why it's remained that even when it's been run in a month without 31 days.
Last year, the Oscars were held in the second week of March, so TCM tried something different, which was to have the programming run mid-month to mid-month, with the final day being the same day as the Oscars ceremony. Unfortunately, this year, the Oscars are being awarded on Sunday, March 2, which means that if that were day 31, the first day would have been Jan. 31. So TCM decided to start the programming on Feb. 1, and run it to one day after the awards are handed out, which is I suppose not unreasonable.
In any case, the programming this time around seems to have daytime centering around individual awards, with prime time being done thematically. Also somewhat surprisingly, there's a small handful of older movies airing this month that I haven't blogged about before, and that are sitting on my DVR, surprising because this includes a couple of older movies. TCM does run more recent, at least as in having been relased after the founding of the channel back in 1994, and one of the posts will be on such a more recent movie. One such more recent movie that I have blogged about before and which, as far as I know, is a TCM premiere is The Madness of King George, at 12:30 AM in the overnight between Feb. 5 and Feb. 6, as part of a night of films on British monarchs.
In any case, I'll also point out that the month is starting with a couple of movies that are on my DVR and that I've already watched to blog about. Today at 2:00 PM there's Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which actually aired not that long ago. Tomorrow at noon you can watch A Passage to India, and at 8:00 AM on Monday is the 1940 MGM version of Pride and Prejudice.
Note, of course, that all of this means that the regular programming features like Noir Alley or Silent Sunday Nights are taking the month off and will return in March.
I haven't watched any of this year's Oscar-nominated pictures, so I can't say much about them or what might/might not be worthy of getting the statuettes.
