Merry Crassness

This time of year I feel compelled to correct some notions that keep getting repeated in the media regarding holiday movies on television. Even now, some writers think that Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is still running on stations everywhere during the season. The truth is that the movie, after being in murky public domain status from 1974 - 1994, allowing it to be broadcast again and again, basically for free, by any station who obtained a print, is now under exclusive contract to NBC. The public domain situation was resolved by IaWL's original distributor, at least to the point where nobody else wanted to risk getting sued, and so everybody else stopped running it. Since 1994 NBC has had the sole rights to broadcast the movie, and does so, twice per year, and that's it. Not "incessantly" as this writer claims, or even frequently. Just twice.

And as It's a Wonderful Life's re-run star has dimmed, A Christmas Story stepped in to replace it as the modern Christmas classic, and that's due in large part to my efforts when, deprived of IaWL, which actually used to get decent ratings, TNT Programming proposed taking the 1983 incipient classic and running it for 24 hours straight. We had played it before many times, but in a Christmas ratings dark week, a crazy marathon seemed like the perfect gimmick and a wonderful treat for viewers. "Who wants to watch it twelve times?" skeptics would ask. Well, nobody, of course, but that's not the point of a holiday marathon. It was the movie equivalent of the old WOR yule log which did nothing else but do a slow video burn for 24 hours, and it was a hell of a lot more entertaining. At that time, A Christmas Story was one of the movies that people loved in isolation, but with the marathon the tide of affection for the movie swelled. Anyway, it was a hit, getting great ratings and also propelling a critically-praised but just-on-the-cusp of general popularity movie into a genuine icon of the season. Unfortunately, when you're a prescient programmer you can't take your good ideas with you, which is why TNT is still featuring the marathon every year. No good idea goes unexploited!

The take-away on this is that though It's a Wonderful Life is now all legal and everything, and somebody made a million bucks licensing it to a big broadcast network, the movie has in large part fallen out of the mainstream consciousness and that's a shame. The gazillions of yearly plays only made people love the movie more. Familiarity not only didn't breed contempt, it bred delight and goodwill, and we're all the poorer for not being able to tune it in again and again. Perhaps IaWL's TV balkanization was inevitable, as old movies are now pretty well relegated to just a handful of stations, and black and white movies most of all, but I think it did Americans good to have a movie from 1947 shoved into their faces again and again, until they fell in love with it.

Best choice of all is to rent or buy both these movies and turn your back on the commercials forever; that would be the best gift you could give yourself this or any future season. Bah humbug!



Lest you think I'm making all this up, check out this article from 1997 regarding TNT's annual airings of A Christmas Story.

And Roger Ebert's nice appreciation of It's a Wonderful Life explains a little bit about the public domain thing.

And here's a rather melancholy recap of the entire IaWL situation from Wikipedia, and it's dead on.

 
Ring-a-Ding-Ding


For those of you who haven’t sat through the latest LOTR installment, I offer my short synopsis. Believe me, it will save you a lot of time.

As we begin the movie, Frugal Bagboy, the Hotpot lad, journeys with his faithful companion Samsclub and the craven creature Gallstone, who’s really a guy named Smegma who was turned into a scrawny psycho-midget (or is it just bad posture?) through the power of the magic RingDing. Frugal’s friends Merely and Pipsqueak are off traveling with wizard Grandmal and end up at the ruins of a tower where evil wizard Sarupuss (Christopher Lee, on the cutting-room floor) once lived.

The rest of the Fellowship, consisting of the handsome warrior Heirapparent, the long-haired elf archer Landolakes, and the crabby dwarf Gimlet try like hell to enlist some human cannon fodder for the big battle that will end the trilogy. Meanwhile, Whereorwhen, the elf beauty and future Mrs. Heirapparent (if she has any say in it), reassures her father Elrondhubbard that her heart will go on, and so, thankfully, will his career, since he hedged his bets and didn't put all his acting eggs into the Matrix basket.

Gallstone throws some elven hardtack over a cliff, Frugal and Samsclub fight a giant spider named Shebop (and may I say I think Grant Williams did better with a pair of scissors and a piece of cake in The Incredible Shrinking Man), and everybody goes a little crazy. All this time, the giant glowing evil eye of Calgon watches over the land.

Back in the land of GoneThere, the loony StewedOne of GoneThere tries to burn his son Farandnear alive, p.o.ed because his favorite son Boredofhere died in battle. Get over it. And on the female front, Grrrlladyelf, the pale regal elf queen (or something) helps Frugal recover from his wounds; Lady Yowzah, the niece of King TheoKojack of SlowHand, kills a hooded bad guy who has no face, and Whereorwhen does get her man, after all.

Heirapparent gets the throne of GoneThere, too. Frugal throws Gallstone and the RingDing into the lava on Mount Shroom, and all is well.

Finally, Frugal takes his elderly uncle Boffo Bagboy to catch the last elf boat out, and finds out that he’s going too, along with his old wizard protector Grandmal. Much man-hugging ensues between Samsclub, Merely and Pipsqueak, and tears are shed, mostly because the audience is just about ready to burst from needing to use the toilet.


Really, the movie isn’t half bad.

For more information on the LOTR characters, check out the official website.

 
Timely Threat Matrix Tonight

In case you hadn't noticed, the nation's threat level has gone up to orange, presaging nothing good, and I'd say that makes this a pretty pertinent time to ponder ABC's excellent and frequently chilling drama Threat Matrix. TM, which regularly airs on Thursdays at 8pm -- the toughest time slot out there -- but in a vote of confidence from ABC has been encoring on Mondays before football, has turned out to be a very serious and satisfying hour, a fast-moving procedural with a scope far beyond most of what's out there today. Tonight's episode is a great repeat that's equal parts courtroom action and countdown to an assassination attempt, the catalyst for both a Guantanamo detainee who dies during interrogation by Frankie (Kelly Rutherford).

Threat Matrix is short on bullshit and grandstanding and long on solid story structure, with a forward moving pace that takes no prisoners and a level of discourse that doesn't insult the grey matter. If you've never had the chance to sample the show, tonight's episode won't disappoint you. Highly recommended!

Check out ABC's Threat Matrix website for background info on the show.