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TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel


mariah23
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On 9/25/2019 at 6:32 PM, MikaelaArsenault said:

The Birdcage is a really unfunny movie in my opinion, but my mom loves it though.

On 9/25/2019 at 6:39 PM, Rinaldo said:

I agree with you, but (to quote GB Shaw), who are you and I against so many?

You two are not alone.  I attempted to watch it on DVD after its theatrical run and did not laugh.  I kept wondering why people called it hilarious.

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I didn't love The Birdcage, but one thing that was classic comedy to me--at the time--was the "comeuppance" received by the homophobic Gene Hackman character having no choice but to get himself up in drag. This may have played better in 1996 than it does in 2019. 

I use "classic comedy" not in the sense that it was one of the greatest comedic moments in all film history, but in the sense that the villain receiving a particularly apt comeuppance is a classic comic trope, and the movie executed it well.

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It's A Dog's Life, 1955, with the wonderful Edmund Gwenn.  It's set in the early 1900's and is narrated by Wildfire, a bull terrier.  I missed the first few minutes so don't know how Wildfire, who turns out to be the son of a champion show dog, ends up pit-fighting in the Bowery.  We don't see any actual fighting but that part is still hard to watch, because we know how those fights turned out in real life.  Wildfire gets in a pitch for the ASPCA and the Humane Society as sort of an apology, I guess.

I love movies with dogs and cats, and this one was excellent, funny and heart-warming but not too smarmy.  Sometimes the trainer is evident, because you'll see the dog looking off-camera for direction.  Not here -- it was easy to believe that Wildfire was just responding to the story, like any other actor.

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2 hours ago, AuntiePam said:

I love movies with dogs and cats, and this one was excellent, funny and heart-warming but not too smarmy. 

Am I crazy?  Even though I watch plenty of old movies where the entire cast is now gone, I find it very hard to watch a movie more than 15 or 20 years old that features cats or dogs, knowing they are all gone.

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5 hours ago, meowmommy said:

Am I crazy?  Even though I watch plenty of old movies where the entire cast is now gone, I find it very hard to watch a movie more than 15 or 20 years old that features cats or dogs, knowing they are all gone.

Nope, not crazy.  I do the same thing.  Maybe the reason we're more sad about the animals is because they're forgotten -- the actors are remembered.  And we know the actors are remembered, because most of them had families who are keeping their memories alive.  Some of them might not be remembered so much by the public, but their descendants remember them. 

But the cats and dogs -- there's no one to mourn them. 

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14 hours ago, meowmommy said:

Am I crazy?  Even though I watch plenty of old movies where the entire cast is now gone, I find it very hard to watch a movie more than 15 or 20 years old that features cats or dogs, knowing they are all gone.

This is an equally odd take I suppose - but I love watching animals in really old films because unlike the humans, they are always EXACTLY like the cats and dogs and horses and pigs and bears and monkeys of today.  You have a Mack Sennett film with these extremely 1917 looking people (brilliant people of course) and 1917 cars and streetcars and houses and then you have Teddy the dog and Pepper the cat  looking and acting so contemporary  that  it's as though they'd beamed in from the present.

As with everything else STAR animals are better remembered than character animals.  Trigger, Lassie, and Rin-Tin-Tin have active fan clubs.  Of course there were the Patsy Awards:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-glorious-30year-starstudded-past-of-the-oscars-for-animals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATSY_Award

And there are film animal fan pages.  I like this one, about film cats:

https://catsonfilm.net/

Honestly I"ve never really delved that deeply  into the film animal fan pages.  I know there are a lot.

Edited by ratgirlagogo
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Eeeeeuuuueeeewwwww!!!!

I flipped over to Silent Sunday Nights about halfway through tonight's screening (I've already seen this Cleopatra several times), and suddenly my *ears, of all things, were assaulted by some kind of bizarro Enya/CW channel-vocal playing over the scene.

I've heard some terrific new orchestrations laid down as soundtracks for silent films I love, but this stuff is just...no.  It's the silent cinema form of colorizing.  It's crap and I hate it!!!

I'm veryvery upset right now.  So I'm going to soothe my scalded heart with the first hour of Student Prince and the last twenty minutes of Son of the Sheik.

<sniffles off in search of a tissue>

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1 hour ago, voiceover said:

Eeeeeuuuueeeewwwww!!!!

I flipped over to Silent Sunday Nights about halfway through tonight's screening (I've already seen this Cleopatra several times), and suddenly my *ears, of all things, were assaulted by some kind of bizarro Enya/CW channel-vocal playing over the scene.

I've heard some terrific new orchestrations laid down as soundtracks for silent films I love, but this stuff is just...no.  It's the silent cinema form of colorizing.  It's crap and I hate it!!!

Oh, voiceover, how I feel your pain.  I've seen and heard this Cleopatra  on TCM before and I just shut off the sound.  You are correct -it is wildly distracting and just kind of awful.  Having contemporary musicians score silent films is a thing these days, and wow is it ever a mixed bag.  I saw one in a Williamsburg theater (NIghthawks) some years back (The Black Pirate with Douglas  Fairbanks) and although it definitely had a kind of Downtown Improviser feel to it, it was actually very well done and meshed beautifully with the film.  On the other hand I went to a program another time at the Astoria Museum of the Moving Image where some joker was stinking up a bunch of Krazy Kat cartoons with his modern musical stylings- beyond horrible.

Edited by ratgirlagogo
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With time & TCM, One Way Passage has worked its way into my All-Time Top 20.   Even at a tidy 69 minutes (one of the things I love about it), I always find something new to marvel over, or appreciate further.

Today it was Kay Francis's wardrobe.  Adore every single dress, gown, and hat.  

Then there's that goodbye to William Powell at the gangplank.  She looks so effortlessly cheery, so radiant; it hurts my heart to know it's all a lie.

Finally, a toast to Frank McHugh in the movie's closing scene.  He's dropped his comic Irish lush cartoon, and let us see his pain as he broods over a drink he's barely touched.  Unexpected and a bit of a gut-punch.

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On 10/1/2019 at 10:10 AM, MikaelaArsenault said:

This stinks. TCM is being removed from our Comcast lineup and is being moved to their Sports & Entertainment package.

Does anyone know if that effects accessing the Watch TCM app?

Edited by chitowngirl
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15 minutes ago, chitowngirl said:

Then what’s the point of the app if it can only access something I already have? 🤷‍♀️

That's true for most of the network apps (I access mine through Roku).  If the original product requires cable or a direct subscription, the app does, too.  The app just gives you on-demand capability.

Edited by meowmommy
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I really appreciate Watch TCM, as I didn't have it for a long time until my cable provider changed hands.  I don't usually ride herd on the TCM schedule, so I can easily miss something I'd want to catch or record.  The app has a lot more selections to stream than my cable provider's On Demand feature for TCM. 

Yesterday's schedule was full of short pre-code movies, the TCM Spotlight for October on short running times.  And I can catch up on some of them on Watch TCM. One I did catch was Side Streets.  A couple occasions here I wrote about Aline MacMahon, familiar from many supporting roles, getting a crack at a lead in Heat Lightning, a dandy little melodrama, and delivering big time.  Side Streets gave her another lead, which I hadn't seen.  It's not as satisfying as Heat Lightning--it's a creaky and soapy tale of an independent, if lonely,  woman getting taken in by a no-good man, though he tries to do better.  But of course Ms. MacMahon is excellent. The male lead, Paul Kelly, is just right, too, managing to suggest why women would be drawn to him instead of running to the hills.  I wasn't familiar with him--he started as a child in silents and also did stage and TV work until he died at 57. He won a Tony Award and originated the role of the actor in The Country Girl played in the movie by Bing Crosby,  He had done prison time in the 1920s for manslaughter  but was able to resume his career after release.

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Speaking of Watch TCM, does anyone else have this problem? Just about every time I want to watch the portal on my Apple TV, I have to log in again. Most other portals (notably Netflix and Hulu) retain the log-in information. It's a pain in the butt to have to log in to Watch TCM every friggin' time. (You have to go to a separate device, visit their "activate" web page, verify your cable service, type in the new alpha-numeric code, etc.) 

If anyone else has encountered this, did you discover a solution? You'd think TCM would want to fix this, since currently the problem is a huge disincentive to even use the portal.

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On September 27, 2019 at 9:18 PM, AuntiePam said:

Nope, not crazy.  I do the same thing.  Maybe the reason we're more sad about the animals is because they're forgotten -- the actors are remembered.  And we know the actors are remembered, because most of them had families who are keeping their memories alive.  Some of them might not be remembered so much by the public, but their descendants remember them. 

But the cats and dogs -- there's no one to mourn them. 

Yeah I'm watching Lassie Come Home and having a hard time for that reason. When I was a little kid I watched the TV show all the time, and I wanted a collie so bad. Never got one, but I'm only 32. Never know what the future holds...

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15 hours ago, Charlie Baker said:

RIP to a master of title design.

.Wayne Fitzgerald

That was a great obit (complete with clips and links--I'd never seen the awesome titles of Total Recall before). Thank you.

Until now, when I thought "amazing titles," I only thought about Saul Bass and Maurice Binder. I guess that's because Fitzgerald toiled in anonymity so long at Pacific Title. But now I know.

Edited by Milburn Stone
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I'm here with another mention of the TCM Import on Sunday night.  This time, it's another Wong Kar-Wai movie--In the Mood for Love.  I think it's more accessible than Days of Being Wild.  It's about two people who figure out their spouses are having an affair, and the question is whether they will, too.  It's incredibly atmospheric (cinematography by Christopher Doyle again), with lots of cramped spaces, and it has a wonderful score.  If nothing else, it's a treat to spend a couple of hours in the company of two impossibly beautiful people--Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung.

Before that is Irma Vep, which also stars Maggie Cheung and is directed by Olivier Assayas (they got married, and divorced, after the movie).  I can't say much about the movie because the only time I ever saw it was at the Telluride Film Festival, and I was like, "What the hell is going on??" and later found out that they'd gotten the reels out of order.  I do remember Maggie Cheung in a leather catsuit, which is reason enough to give it a look.

But back to Wong Kar-Wai, I found on my DVR a couple of previous WKW movies on TCM, introduced by Ben Mankiewicz.  In both, he correctly used "Wong" as WKW's "surname," although on the older one (Chungking Express), he pronounced the "Kar-Wai" as if "kar" and "wai" both rhymed with "why."  So instead of "kar" he was saying "kye."  Don't know the reason for that, although Bill Maher used to (and may still) always pronounce Sonia Sotomayor as if it rhymed Golda Meir--so-to-my-eer.  Drove me nuts.

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I watched the original, Japanese version of Godzilla last night. It's too bad most people consider the franchise either a bunch of camp or (more recently) a huge action spectacle.

I remember watching Siskel and Ebert back in the nineties when they gave an enthusiastic thumbs up to this version. Having only seen the version with Aaron Burr, I was skeptical, but seeing the original changed my mind.

Over time, I have come to appreciate the context ot the film. At one point, one of the characters said she survived the US nuclear bombing of Nagasaki. I don't know if the actress actually did, but it is entirely plausible considering the movie was filmed less than ten years after the bomb was dropped. 

There are no "big damn heroes" just a nation of individuals struggling to fight a force of nature. I always think of the faceless fire fighters who jump into action despite the fact that the situation appears hopeless. And the doctor who comes up with the weapon that defeats Godzilla is truly conflicted about using it. Mirroring the ethical debate about the US development of the atomic bomb.

And the score is great. (The best part of the recent US blockbuster is when they use it in their score.)

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17 minutes ago, xaxat said:

I watched the original, Japanese version of Godzilla last night. It's too bad most people consider the franchise either a bunch of camp or (more recently) a huge action spectacle.

...

And the score is great. (The best part of the recent US blockbuster is when they use it in their score.)

That score is out of this world.  It is crazy when it comes to time signature, which is probably one reason it's so effective.  Nobody's going to be idly tapping their toes along to that

I've never seen any of the U.S. remakes, but did see a Japanese one called Shin Godzilla a couple of years ago.  I liked it because it's not just a monster thrashing about, and based on your comments, you might appreciate it, too.  The first few user reviews at IMDB convey what I'm talking about. 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4262980/reviews?ref_=tt_urv

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On 10/4/2019 at 7:50 PM, Charlie Baker said:

RIP to a master of title design.

.Wayne Fitzgerald

8 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

That was a great obit (complete with clips and links--I'd never seen the awesome titles of Total Recall before). Thank you.

Until now, when I thought "amazing titles," I only thought about Saul Bass and Maurice Binder. I guess that's because Fitzgerald toiled in anonymity so long at Pacific Title. But now I know.

I knew of Wayne Fitzgerald and Pacific Title because I was friendly with Dan Perri way back about 35+ years ago and started religiously noticing who the title designer was and seeing Mr. Fitzgerald's name come up far more frequently than Dan's did.  

RIP Mr. Fitzgerald and thanks for your artistry. 

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19 hours ago, ebk57 said:

I knew of Wayne Fitzgerald and Pacific Title because I was friendly with Dan Perri way back about 35+ years ago and started religiously noticing who the title designer was and seeing Mr. Fitzgerald's name come up far more frequently than Dan's did.  

RIP Mr. Fitzgerald and thanks for your artistry. 

I remember seeing the credit for Pacific Title on a ton of TV shows in the sixties. I associate it with CBS shows, for some reason. I wonder if Fitzgerald did the amazing highly stylized graphic opening for Perry Mason that they used one year. (Big bold swaths of black that ended in a Lady Justice figure.) I bet he did.

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On 10/5/2019 at 6:08 PM, xaxat said:

. At one point, one of the characters said she survived the US nuclear bombing of Nagasaki. I don't know if the actress actually did, but it is entirely plausible considering the movie was filmed less than ten years after the bomb was dropped. 

Well, she was an actress so  it doesn't matter whether that was literally true since since this was not a documentary.   The line as I remember it was "I survived Hiroshima (or Nagasaki, don't remember), and damn I'm going to survive Gojira too."

I first saw this version of Gojira I guess in the late 90's early oughts? at the Film Forum in NYC  and it was a revelation to me and my friends, who were in tears.  Godzilla and friends was so firmly in my fun monster zone that I had not even quite realized, for example,  that Dr. Yamane was played by Takashi Shimura, who played the heartbreaking lead in the great Ikiru.  I just had never watched it that carefully until then.   It was great how TCM showed the original version and followed it with the Raymond Burr version.

Edited by ratgirlagogo
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23 hours ago, ruby24 said:

I watched One Way Passage today (1932). What a lovely, bittersweet movie. So different in tone from Jewel Robbery. 

Absolutely.  A favorite of mine and to quote myself from (months) earlier in the thread:

".....One Way Passage, which I saw about a year ago when it was a viewer choice. It would have made a great film for New Year's Eve.   It's not just that they don't  make romances like this any more - for the most part even back then,  they never did.  Thank god they made this one.  Watch it, and get ready to laugh and cry.  William Powell, Kay Francis, Frank McHugh, Aline McMahon. Essential, and I'm still trying to figure out what's in a Paradise Cocktail."

Edited by ratgirlagogo
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3 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

As someone who is probably in the Central division, can I get a little more clarity on something? Is Comcast dumping TCM altogether? Or just from certain packages?

Comcast isn't dropping TCM altogether, but it's only the Central division who are losing it because it's being moved to their Sports & Entertainment package.

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I don't know if this was posted before or not but the Comcast forum makes interesting reading. It really blew up yesterday when a LOT of customers myself included, found that TCM was actually gone. Chicago is obviously in the Central Division.

https://forums.xfinity.com/t5/Channels-and-Programming/WHY-IS-COMCAST-CHANGING-TURNER-CLASSIC-MOVIES-TO-SPORTS/td-p/3256093

Several bits of irony that add insult to injury... at the top of each page right before the title of the thread, Comcast has added the word SOLVED. NO, you S'sOB's, it's not solved. It's just ignored which is Comcast's way of "managing" cutomer complaints. Bastards.

The thread includes a reply from a Comcast employee from September 6:

ComcastAlly

ComcastAlly

Official Employee

‎09-06-2019 01:13 PM

Re: WHY IS COMCAST CHANGING TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES TO SPORTS PACKAGE IN OCTOBER?

Hello, xxxxx. Thank you for reaching out. 

Every month, Comcast pays programmers like networks, local TV station owners and others, for the ability to bring their programming to you. We regularly review our programming and sometimes make changes to ensure we're offering a wide variety of programming at the best value. We look at a variety of factors, including customer viewership and programming costs when making these decisions. Viewership of TCM is low, as over 90% of our customers watch less than two movies per month. Given this and contractual limitations on offering TCM a la carte, we decided to move TCM to the Sports Entertainment Package, which will help us manage programming costs that are passed on to our customers while continuing to make the channel available to those who want to watch it.

I am an Official Comcast Employee.
Official Employees are from multiple teams within Comcast: CARE, Product, Leadership. We ask that you post publicly so people with similar questions may benefit from the conversation.
Was your question answered? Mark the post as Best Answer!

And just added some time today:

We sincerely appreciate all the feedback we have received in regards to this change. This thread has now been locked from receiving new replies. (bolding is mine)

Way to go, Comcast Cowards. When questions and comments become embarrassing, lock the thread. That's also led tocomments in different threads by other posters.

FrustratedViewr

New Poster

‎10-11-2019 02:16 PM

TCM move to Sports Package

Well, they have locked the thread about TCM moving to the Sports Package.  I guess to Xfinity, they think that the issue has been resolved.  Maybe an email to their Chief Customer Experience Office might get better attention to this.

Primary Contact
Charlie Herrin
Chief Customer Experience Office
1701 JFK Blvd
Comcast Center
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Charlie_Herrin@Comcast.com

and

10-11-2019 05:10 PM

COMCAST HAS LOCKED THE TCM THREAD

YES, Comcast has locked the thread about "CHANGING TCM" so that no additional comments can be posted.

I tried to post on another thread, and that thread disappeared while I was typing.  Then I started a new thread to post a message, and, in less than 1 hour, that thread is GONE.  There was nothing offensive in there that should have required removal.  Therefore, I will post it again.  We'll see how long it lasts. 

What's wrong Comcast, don't like what you're seeing and hearing???

Well, we don't like what you're doing.  So now we're even. 

GET USED TO IT!!

Time to consider my options.

1 minute ago, Hyacinth B said:

I don't know if this was posted before or not but the Comcast forum makes interesting reading. It really blew up yesterday when a LOT of customers myself included, found that TCM was actually gone. Chicago is obviously in the Central Division.

https://forums.xfinity.com/t5/Channels-and-Programming/WHY-IS-COMCAST-CHANGING-TURNER-CLASSIC-MOVIES-TO-SPORTS/td-p/3256093

Several bits of irony that add insult to injury... at the top of each page right before the title of the thread, Comcast has added the word SOLVED. NO, you S'sOB's, it's not solved. It's just ignored which is Comcast's way of "managing" cutomer complaints. Bastards.

The thread includes a reply from a Comcast employee from September 6:

ComcastAlly

ComcastAlly

Official Employee

‎09-06-2019 01:13 PM

Re: WHY IS COMCAST CHANGING TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES TO SPORTS PACKAGE IN OCTOBER?

Hello, xxxxx. Thank you for reaching out. 

Every month, Comcast pays programmers like networks, local TV station owners and others, for the ability to bring their programming to you. We regularly review our programming and sometimes make changes to ensure we're offering a wide variety of programming at the best value. We look at a variety of factors, including customer viewership and programming costs when making these decisions. Viewership of TCM is low, as over 90% of our customers watch less than two movies per month. Given this and contractual limitations on offering TCM a la carte, we decided to move TCM to the Sports Entertainment Package, which will help us manage programming costs that are passed on to our customers while continuing to make the channel available to those who want to watch it.

I am an Official Comcast Employee.
Official Employees are from multiple teams within Comcast: CARE, Product, Leadership. We ask that you post publicly so people with similar questions may benefit from the conversation.
Was your question answered? Mark the post as Best Answer!

And just added some time today:

We sincerely appreciate all the feedback we have received in regards to this change. This thread has now been locked from receiving new replies. (bolding is mine)

Way to go, Comcast Cowards. When questions and comments become embarrassing, lock the thread. That's also led to comments in different threads by other posters:

FrustratedViewr

New Poster

‎10-11-2019 02:16 PM

TCM move to Sports Package

Well, they have locked the thread about TCM moving to the Sports Package.  I guess to Xfinity, they think that the issue has been resolved.  Maybe an email to their Chief Customer Experience Office might get better attention to this.

Primary Contact
Charlie Herrin
Chief Customer Experience Office
1701 JFK Blvd
Comcast Center
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Charlie_Herrin@Comcast.com

and

10-11-2019 05:10 PM

COMCAST HAS LOCKED THE TCM THREAD

YES, Comcast has locked the thread about "CHANGING TCM" so that no additional comments can be posted.

I tried to post on another thread, and that thread disappeared while I was typing.  Then I started a new thread to post a message, and, in less than 1 hour, that thread is GONE.  There was nothing offensive in there that should have required removal.  Therefore, I will post it again.  We'll see how long it lasts. 

What's wrong Comcast, don't like what you're seeing and hearing???

Well, we don't like what you're doing.  So now we're even. 

GET USED TO IT!!

Time to consider my options.

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8 hours ago, wilsie said:

https://www.google.com/search?q=is+there+a+streaming+service+that+offers+tcm&rlz=1C1KMZB_enUS519US588&oq=is+there+a+streaming+service+that+offers+tcm&aqs=chrome..69i57j33.13927j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8  I found this when I was checking to see if TCM was available through something other than Comcast or FIOS since I'll be cancelling FIOS in a few days.  I hope this is a help.

Have you tried a streaming service like Hulu, Direct tv, or youtube tv? I ditched comcast over a year ago because they were too freakin' expensive. I'm pretty sure all of those services offer TCM.

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1 hour ago, xaxat said:

YouTube tv does.

I've been very happy with YouTube TV (even if it is owned by Google).  TCM is also definitely available on Hulu and on Sling as a $5* add-on.  

*For the $5, you also get Sundance, Reelz, HD Net, and Film Detective.

Edited by harrie
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Well, TCM went away from my Xfinity as of tonight in Chicago. When I tune to the channel, I get a message saying I can get the channel back by going to the Xfinity website and choosing Shop/Upgrade. I guess I'll check that out tomorrow and compare the cost to the Hulu and YouTube TV options.

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