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TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel


mariah23
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36 minutes ago, AuntiePam said:

So the writers have decided that everyone will just speak English but we're supposed to believe the Sioux are speaking Sioux and Steiger is speaking Sioux when he's with the Sioux.  At least I think that's what happened.

The movie itself sounds strange for sure (now I wish I'd caught it!), but what's described there is how language works in any movie set in a non-English-speaking environment. They speak their own language (German in Amadeus; whatever-they-speak-in-that-galaxy-far-far-away in the Star Wars series), and we hear English. Sometimes a movie switches between scenes from English to Other-as-English, and that's a standard convention too.

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3 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

The movie itself sounds strange for sure (now I wish I'd caught it!), but what's described there is how language works in any movie set in a non-English-speaking environment. They speak their own language (German in Amadeus; whatever-they-speak-in-that-galaxy-far-far-away in the Star Wars series), and we hear English. Sometimes a movie switches between scenes from English to Other-as-English, and that's a standard convention too.

That's true, I hadn't thought of it that way.  The difference is that with westerns, there are usually scenes where we see the characters overcoming the language barrier.  Sometimes there'll be a scout who knows both languages, or something explaining why they can communicate.  Here, it happened so quickly. 

I think if Steiger's first encounter had been with someone who looked remotely Native American, it wouldn't have been so discombobulating.  Jay C. Flippen? 

If it's on again, it's worth watching.  Steiger does a fine Scots-Irish accent, and the theme of "where do I belong?" is done thoughtfully. 

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Wait Until Dark is on tonight? Such a good film!! I first saw a reference to it in Stephen King’s nonfiction book Danse Macabre, where he calls Alan Arkin’s Harry Roat, Jr. one of the best villains in film history. But I didn’t watch it until a few years later when my sister checked it out of the video store and insisted we watch it in the darkened basement with all the lights out. She kept her eye on me and was very pleased to see me leap out of my chair at the appropriate moment. (I introduced the film to a college friend a few years later in exactly the same way, with the exact same reaction from her at the same minute.) 

Seeing Arkin in The In-Laws is such a huge contrast to his turn here.

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Forgot to add (regarding Run of the Arrow), Steiger's mother is played by Olive Carey (Mrs. Jorgenson in The Searchers).  The movie also has Ralph Meeker, Brian Keith, and Charles Bronson.  The movie poster on the IMdB page is atrocious -- a Native American woman wearing a very short leather dress and holding up two arrows in a war-like stance.  Steiger's Sioux wife was not at all like that.

And the movie was directed by Samuel Fuller, who knows how to do a war movie.

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2 hours ago, AuntiePam said:

The movie also has Ralph Meeker, Brian Keith, and Charles Bronson. 

It does?!? Why didn't my DVR grab it for me? It's under orders to find whatever Ralph Meeker it can. (Recently it gave me Paths of Glory, The Naked Spur (unexpectedly good), and an episode each of Route 66 and The Green Hornet.) I've been on a bit of a Ralph Meeker kick lately, after seeing the clip of the original stage cast of Picnic that's on YouTube. (He and Janice Rule were so right for the main roles, it made me hungry for more.) I don't know... maybe it did show up on the DVR and I thoughtlessly trashed it. Thanks for the good descriptions of it, in any case.

Edited by Rinaldo
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On ‎8‎/‎17‎/‎2019 at 6:56 PM, AuntiePam said:

My Name is Nobody is my favorite, but Fistful is a solid #2, especially for Steiger's performance.  What a great character. 

"Once Upon a Time in the West" is my favorite.  It's one of those movies that if I run across it I have to keep watching.  All of Sergio Leone's movies are very watchable (even "The Colossus of Rhodes," one of the better peplums).  "Duck ,You Sucker" is interesting because it is more of a comedy, not what one would expect from Leone, though he had comic moments in other films.

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6 hours ago, Tom Holmberg said:

Once Upon a Time in the West is my favorite.  It's one of those movies that if I run across it I have to keep watching.

Once Upon a Time in the West is my favorite too. (Although I don't know if I could reliably keep watching if I stumbled on it -- that's nearly a 3-hour commitment!!) I saw it under memorable circumstances too: It had achieved nearly mythic status among American movie buffs in the early 1970s, after its heavily cut US release had failed, so that few here had seen it and those few in a mutilated form, even as we heard how highly it was regarded in Europe.

Then in my summer of 1973 in Europe (paid for with my army discharge money), I spent four days in Amsterdam and saw that OUaTitW was playing at full length, in English (unlike Germany, the Netherlands didn't have a big enough audience to justify making dubbed versions). I got walking directions from the hostel desk and made my way there, to enjoy it in the midst of an otherwise Dutch audience. What an experience. The operatic space and time of it (aided by Ennio Morricone's music) and particularly -- everyone says it, I know, but it's true -- seeing Henry Fonda as an irredeemable monster, for the only time in his career. Just a great experience all around.

Edited by Rinaldo
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26 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

Once Upon a Time in the West is my favorite too. (Although I don't know if I could reliably keep watching if I stumbled on it -- that's nearly a 3-hour commitment!!)

Yes, it's a curse!  I have the same reaction when  I stumble upon "Godfather II", I get sucked into watching it.

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Just watched In the Good Old Summertime (1949). Pretty good remake of The Shop Around the Corner. I expected it to be slight, but I enjoyed it for the most part. The original's better of course.

One thing about the original that always bothered me is the way Margaret Sullivan was so overly rude to Jimmy Stewart all the time- way more than he was to her. Then it's explained by her saying at the end that she was trying to mimic a character from a book she read or something, but I kinda think the audience should have been let it on that sooner, because she really does come across as hating him for no real reason that we can see. This one lets us know earlier that Judy Garland does actually have a thing for Van Johnson too.

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Ruby24, I'm so glad that you've discovered one of my favorites, Margaret Sullavan -- but please note the spelling (as Ogden Nash did): 

"... The fairest of sights, in twinkling lights / Is Sullavan with an a.”

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As recording secretary of the Ramon Novarro Fan Club, I'm part of a tiny corner of silent film fans here (possibly I am the whole corner).  But I'm running in anyway to recommend Peter Bogdanovich's The Great Buster: A Celebration.

It's **completely charming.  He loves film and filmmakers, and this is always to be found in his collected interviews and docs on the subject.  

The first half is more or less bio, tracking Buster Keaton's entire film career, punctuated by THs (mostly fellow comedians who idolized him).  The second half is analyses of his ten greatest silent pictures.

The middle features a sequence of the TV ads he made -- frickin' genius -- and an appearance on "Candid Camera" as a hapless diner customer.  I laughed my ass right off.

There's an encore performance after Sherlock Jr.  Catch it if you can.

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Thanks for the rec, @voiceover. I'll add the encore to my DVR's tasks for the (already overloaded) day.

As I've sometimes had trouble finding silent comedy as hilarious as I'm supposed to, I've taken Gary Giddins up on his suggestions (in his book Warning Shadows about DVD reissues of old movies). He endorses the greatness of The General but finds it more beautiful than funny. To him, the funniest Buster Keaton films are Sherlock Jr., Seven Chances, and The Navigator. All four are yet to come on the schedule, and I'm recording all four.

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On 8/17/2019 at 6:42 PM, Rinaldo said:

There's also...a late appearance in a Bogdanovich movie, They All Laughed, which doesn't do much for her, but it's a rarity (I bet TCM has never shown it).

Audrey Hepburn spoke to me!

I was staying at The Plaza on business, in town for a commercial shoot. That's where Bogdanovich shot part of They All Laughed, and probably where he and the stars were staying. I was walking through the portion of the lobby that passed by The Palm Court when suddenly Audrey Hepburn approached me. "Do you know where Peter is?" she asked. I knew exactly who she meant, because I knew the film was shooting there. I must have looked like I was connected with the production, which was quite plausible, since I was a person connected with film production, just not that one. I smiled and replied, "No I don't, I'm sorry, I'm not with the film." And we went on our way. Except that I was on Cloud Nine.

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4 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Audrey Hepburn spoke to me!

I was staying at The Plaza on business, in town for a commercial shoot. That's where Bogdanovich shot part of They All Laughed, and probably where he and the stars were staying. I was walking through the portion of the lobby that passed by The Palm Court when suddenly Audrey Hepburn approached me. "Do you know where Peter is?" she asked. I knew exactly who she meant, because I knew the film was shooting there. I must have looked like I was connected with the production, which was quite plausible, since I was a person connected with film production, just not that one. I smiled and replied, "No I don't, I'm sorry, I'm not with the film." And we went on our way. Except that I was on Cloud Nine.

I would be too!

I finally watched Charade tonight. Cary Grant is not my cup of tea but Audrey made it work, as always. The banter was top-notch. I also laughed at the end when it turns out he's part of the embassy or whatever all along.

Edited by Spartan Girl
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5 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

Susan Slade is showing at 5:45pm est if anyone wants to watch the cheesy terribleness.

Such angst and overacting!  One of dozens of that plotline during that era.  None of them groundbreaking or earth shaking in any way.  I'm guessing the genre was super titillating for the teenagers at the drive-in movies.

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13 hours ago, MikaelaArsenault said:

TCM is also doing Summer Under The Stars with movies starring Fred Astaire, Shirley MacLaine, and Dustin Hoffman later on this week.

I was kind of hoping Shirley's day would include Martin and Lewis' Artists and Models (Tashlin). She was a force of nature as The Bat Lady.

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Today (Wednesday) is Joel McCrea day. He doesn't seem seem to be one of the immortals among male stars from his period, as Gable, Fonda, Tracy, Grant, Cooper, etc., are, but he deserves to be: he always acted well and in a style that hasn't become dated, had good chemistry with his costars, got his laughs (when appropriate), and in short is always worth watching. Of today's varied roster, I'll pick out my top three favorites:

  • The Palm Beach Story (6:30 pm ET): The best side of Preston Sturges (Sullivan's Travels also turns up today, and some love it, but to me it's pretentious and obvious): fast, funny, surrealistic (be sure to catch it from the very beginning!), lightly satirical, and full of wacky side trips like The Weenie King!
  • The More the Merrier (9:45 pm): Housing overcrowding in WWII DC! He's subletting from Charles Coburn who's subletting from Jean Arthur, all together in one apartment, and the atmosphere is full of both mischief and (unspoken) sexual tension. All brought off with a light touch.
  • Ride the High Country (2:15 am): I'm not a fan of Westerns as a genre, but there are 4 or 5 really outstanding examples, and this one is top of my list. Still-unknown Sam Peckinpah directed McCrea and Randolph Scott (both at or near the end of their careers) as two old-timers hired to transport gold. Along the way they're joined by luminous Mariette Hartley (here "introduced" at age 21) and events develop in unexpected directions. The very last shot moves me eery time and is a fitting way to remember Joel McCrea.
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13 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

Today (Wednesday) is Joel McCrea day. He doesn't seem seem to be one of the immortals among male stars from his period, as Gable, Fonda, Tracy, Grant, Cooper, etc., are, but he deserves to be: he always acted well and in a style that hasn't become dated, had good chemistry with his costars, got his laughs (when appropriate), and in short is always worth watching. Of today's varied roster, I'll pick out my top three favorites:

  • The Palm Beach Story (6:30 pm ET): The best side of Preston Sturges (Sullivan's Travels also turns up today, and some love it, but to me it's pretentious and obvious): fast, funny, surrealistic (be sure to catch it from the very beginning!), lightly satirical, and full of wacky side trips like The Weenie King!
  • The More the Merrier (9:45 pm): Housing overcrowding in WWII DC! He's subletting from Charles Coburn who's subletting from Jean Arthur, all together in one apartment, and the atmosphere is full of both mischief and (unspoken) sexual tension. All brought off with a light touch.
  • Ride the High Country (2:15 am): I'm not a fan of Westerns as a genre, but there are 4 or 5 really outstanding examples, and this one is top of my list. Still-unknown Sam Peckinpah directed McCrea and Randolph Scott (both at or near the end of their careers) as two old-timers hired to transport gold. Along the way they're joined by luminous Mariette Hartley (here "introduced" at age 21) and events develop in unexpected directions. The very last shot moves me eery time and is a fitting way to remember Joel McCrea.

I confess that Joel McCrea is not my cup of tea (for all the crap Nelson Eddy gets for being "stiff" and "dull", I think McCrea is much worse), but I do adore The Palm Beach Story. He's a good straight man for all the goofy antics. I love how deliriously fast-paced the movie is, and there's a surreal, cartoonish edge that makes it all the more hilarious. 

As long as I'm throwing McCrea a bone, I'll admit he's also pretty decent in These Three (it's really Miriam Hopkins and Merle Oberon's movie, anyway) and Colorado Territory (a solid remake of High Sierra).

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45 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

Speaking of The Palm Beach Story, did Mary Astor ever give another performance as hilarious as the one she gives in this movie? If so I haven't seen it.

She's pretty awesome in Midnight, but that was 3 years prior to The Palm Beach Story.

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I love Joel McCrea, he is a favorite of mine and I'll add more later but I'm going out.  I did want to make sure to draw your attention to the last film in his day, the little-remembered Stars In My Crown, which is fascinating and was one of his own favorites.  McCrea plays a preacher who takes a ministry in a small Southern town ten years or so after the Civil War and among the problems he faces is the local Ku Klux Klan, and its harassment of an old tenant farmer played by the great Juano Hernandez.  I believe it's the only American classic film other than Birth of a Nation to feature the Klan under that name (as opposed to some Klan-like group), complete with robes and cross-burnings.  I also believe that this film was a direct influence on To Kill A Mockingbird (if you watch it, I think you'll see why I think so).  Directed by the greatly admired Jacques Tourneur - which you'd think would be enough just by itself to make it better known.

A quiet, and quietly excellent little film.

Edited by ratgirlagogo
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28 minutes ago, graybrown bird said:

I love Joel McRae, too. His voice is kind, and he has a dry, straightforward way with lines that makes him utterly believable. 

He’s also a hottie.

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One of the things I love about The Palm Beach Story each time I see it is its succinctness. In so many comedies one gets a feel for the rhythm of the overall story, the underlying three-act structure (which has nothing to do with derivation from the stage), and it can feel deflating to think "OK, we're now 2/3 through the plot, we're at maximum complexity and still have the unraveling and conclusion to get through," but in TPBS, when we arrive at that point, everybody just talks to each other and it's wrapped up in 2 minutes and done! In that surrealistic way belonging to this movie alone.

Also, McCrea. (No disrespect intended -- it's an unusually tricky name to spell, and I have to double-check it every time, myself.)

Edited by Rinaldo
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Yes, Joel McCrea -- thanks for the spelling correction.  The least I can do is spell his name right.

I have watched Ride the High Country many times.  So much goodness in his performance. I guess the scriptwriter, the cameraman and the director deserve much credit, too, but those final ravishing seconds are enriched by all the work McCrea has done building the character to reach that final moment onscreen.

Edited by graybrown bird
Spelling, darnit!
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Freaks is on now. It's my first time watching, and I honestly don't get why they call this horror. The "freaks" were perfectly nice people who were more than justified in going after Cleopatra and Hercules for trying to kill Hans. But standards for horror were different back then.

Did you know that the actors playing Hans and Frida were actually siblings? And yet they were cast as a couple. It's not like they had any PDA in the movie, but still...

Because they're the worst, The Simpsons did a spoof of this for one of the Halloween episodes and they totally watered it down since God forbid Princess Saint Marge can't ever be the villain. Ugh. It wouldn't shock me if Hollywood remade this at some point.

One of us, one of us, Gooble gobble gooble gobble...

Edited by Spartan Girl
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10 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

One of the things I love about The Palm Beach Story each time I see it is its succinctness. In so many comedies one gets a feel for the rhythm of the overall story, the underlying three-act structure (which has nothing to do with derivation from the stage), and it can feel deflating to think "OK, we're now 2/3 through the plot, we're at maximum complexity and still have the unraveling and conclusion to get through," but in TPBS, when we arrive at that point, everybody just talks to each other and it's wrapped up in 2 minutes and done! In that surrealistic way belonging to this movie alone.

I definitely agree that it belongs to Sturges alone, but I feel like there's at least one other of his movies that resolves as quickly--Unfaithfully Yours. (But I'm going from memory.)

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You know maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to remake Freaks. Hear me out: the original got cut up so much that we didn't get to see the original ending of Hercules being castrated because of the oh-so-delicate sensibilities back then. Plus, more doors are open for little people and disabled actors now. A remake could get rid of the subplot of the "nice" normal people and focus more on the "freaks." That wouldn't be bad...

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I don't think I said it was unique (just rather unusual), or unique to Sturges. But I do agree that Unfaithfully Yours -- my other top-favorite Sturges (I own both DVDs) -- wraps up with similar swiftness. I'll admit that it always disappointments me slightly that such a funny movie closes with an overripe romantic line ("A thousand poets dreamed a thousand years, then you were born, my love!") rather than a witty one. But that mixture is an essential part of Sturges's makeup, I guess, and if it's a flaw it's only a tiny one in an otherwise magnificent movie.

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7 hours ago, ruby24 said:

Nothing beats that climactic "Never Gonna Dance" dance in Swing Time. Nothing. Sublime. I could watch it over and over again.

have  watched it over and over again. Sublime indeed. And the first number in the movie, "Pick Yourself Up," is of equal quality in its different vein. And the very end of the movie, after the scene that wonderfully knits together the central metaphor of Fred & Ginger ("There isn't going to be any wedding" after all the instances of "There isn't going to be any dance" because dance = perfect romantic partnership), where he and she sing together in counterpoint for the only time ever... and we discover that the two big love songs, "The Way You Look Tonight" and "A Fine Romance," fit together perfectly.... This movie is their supreme achievement.

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Today is Shirley MacLaine Day, and no doubt everyone has their own favorites. But let me put in a plug for Gambit from 1967 (6:00 pm ET). This has one of those nifty structures that I've often confessed being a sucker for. In fact it's a bit similar to Unfaithfully Yours, which we were just talking about: we see the same action carried out more than once, under different premises. (We also see her cast as Eurasian again, as in Around the World in 80 Days; so swallow that one in advance.) She, Michael Caine, and Herbert Mom are fun, and this sort of twisty narrative always delights me. 

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2 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

But let me put in a plug for Gambit from 1967 (6:00 pm ET). This has one of those nifty structures that I've often confessed being a sucker for. 

Yes, I love this one too.  One of the best of the caper movies and one of the funniest. 

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Really enjoyed Seven Chances (1925). I see that in the documentary, Peter Bogdanovich said he didn't think it was one of Keaton's best, but I thought it was really funny. 

And I watched Don't Bother to Knock (1952) tonight. It was a pretty effective little thriller I always like Richard Widmark in anything, and Marilyn Monroe's vulnerable childlike persona actually plays pretty well for someone who's supposed to be crazy. You believe it.

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Watched The Lieutenant Wore Skirts from the DVR, because I'd never seen it and I'm a Tashlin fan.

I have a question, for anyone as attuned to movie scoring as I am.

The movie, starring Tom Ewell and Sheree North, has lots of echoes of The Seven Year Itch, including a very meta piece of dialog from Rita Moreno in which she refers to having seen a movie that clearly fits the description. But in addition to that, I was haunted by a particular theme in the soundtrack score that I knew I'd heard before. (It was one of those themes, like Alfred Newman's "Street Scene," that Fox used and reused many times.) A chromatic melody in the strings with wide descending intervals. And I wondered--was this theme originally used in The Seven Year Itch, and is that yet another of the film's in-jokes?

Edited by Milburn Stone
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2 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

So....am I the only one not comfortable with a Dustin Hoffman Day in light of MeToo?

I haven't watched anything of his since the accusations came out and the way he mishandled them in the John Oliver interview made it even worse, if possible.

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2 hours ago, wilsie said:

I haven't watched anything of his since the accusations came out and the way he mishandled them in the John Oliver interview made it even worse, if possible.

I know what you mean. Dustin Hoffman was one of the ones that hurt -- really hurt.  All that talk about understanding how women feel when he made Tootsie...and that was a fucking lie.

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6 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

I know what you mean. Dustin Hoffman was one of the ones that hurt -- really hurt.  All that talk about understanding how women feel when he made Tootsie...and that was a fucking lie.

I really thought Dustin was better than that.  Sadly, reading about the days of Classic Hollywood, the harassment was more the norm than the exception.  I mean I love watching Errol Flynn, but the man wouldn't have a career in today's world if his statutory rape case happened in the 2010s!

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35 minutes ago, mariah23 said:

I really thought Dustin was better than that.  Sadly, reading about the days of Classic Hollywood, the harassment was more the norm than the exception.  I mean I love watching Errol Flynn, but the man wouldn't have a career in today's world if his statutory rape case happened in the 2010s!

So true. When I first heard about the Errol Flynn story (I listened to the You Remember This podcast episode about his life), I was startled at just how horrible a guy he was. I can honestly not see him the same either.

And yeah, the Dustin Hoffman stuff really hurt. Particularly because I love SO many of his movies. And I haven't just seen them once or twice- The Graduate, All the President's Men, Midnight Cowboy, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Tootsie are some of my favorite movies of all time. And he's a huge part of why those movies are so great, they don't just happen to have him in it. And I don't know if I can just get rid of those movies from my life, they mean too much to me (especially Tootsie- god that's a a great movie).

I don't know what the answer is though. You can't get rid of these classics just because they had bad people in them or in some cases were made by bad people (like Roman Polanski or Woody Allen for example). They're part of history. Do you not show them anymore? Even though I'm appalled by Errol Flynn, there are still some movies he was in that are on my list to see eventually.

I don't think the movies themselves should be erased. But giving these guys a "Star of the Month" celebration maybe ought to be re-considered? Maybe show the movies as part of a different theme night or something, depending on the content of the film.

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