Withnail & I is finally getting play on TCM (Turner Classic Movies), courtesy of guest programmer Tracey Ullman this Saturday night! (Withnail fans may have recognized the quote in the thread title as a twist on a line from the movie.)
I’m rather enjoying the guest programmers so far, even though that appreciation doesn’t extend to all the movies they’ve chosen, because on the whole it represents a breakaway from the usual TCM scheduling logic, which leans a tad too heavily on the classic standard favorites. I haven’t enjoyed the channel this much since their Louis Malle mini-marathon a month ago.
I’ve two questions to put out there: what delightful discoveries have you made this month, and what would be your three- or four-film slate if you were invited to be a guest programmer?
Favorite discoveries so far: That Hamilton Woman, Shampoo, Escape, Point Blank, and Blow-Up. Keep 'em coming, GPs!
My selections would be: The Magic Christian, Withnail & I, The Wicker Man [1973], and Holiday (even though that is one of those classics in heavy rotation generally). In that order. There’s a theme there, about '60’s counterculture and being marginalized or alienated from the cultural mainstream, and taking a piss-take at bourgeois conformity and morals, and how some of that is prefigured even at the tail end of the Great Depression.
They’re also wickedly funny movies. Okay, your turn!