Filed under: TV, arts, cinema, film, hollywood, literature, movies | Tags: graham greene; TCM; brighton rock; the third man;
My TV is rarely tuned to any other channel (save for CNN and BBC) and tonight is just another in the long ledger of reasons why life is simply better with TCM in one’s life. Tonight their lineup features the work of one of the 20th centuries most important writers, Graham Green. Author, screenwriter, playwright and critic, Greene’s work explored (or should I say, exposed) the depths of human morality and spirituality with the sort of remorseless chill and tightly wound plots that proved irresistible to both critics and the masses alike. George Orwell, in my opinion, put it best when he said that Green “appears to share the idea, which has been floating around ever since Baudelaire, that there is something rather distingué in being damned; Hell is a sort of high-class nightclub, entry to which is reserved for Catholics only.”
And so tonight, on what would have been Greene’s 104th birthday, TCM salutes Greene with his best screenplays (his magnificent The Third Man) as well as adaptations of his finest novels (Brighton Rock). Turn on the fireplace, make some coco or coffee or pour yourself a scotch and soda and enter Greene’s world, starting at 5PM eastern time with Brighton Rock (1947), followed by The Fallen Idol (1948), The Quiet American (1957), The End of the Affair (1955), The Third Man (1949) and Our Man in Havana (1959).
Filed under: MP3, music, pop music, rock music | Tags: MP3 downloads; beatles; iTunes; copyright; our daily beatles;, NRK
It was, of course, too good to be true.
Yesterday we were thrilled with the exciting news that Norwegian broadcaster NRK had legally released Beatles songs for download. Today our shoulders are shrugged and all we can say is, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
NRK has had to pull its archive of 212 legal MP3s from their site. From BoingBoing, the reason is as follows:
“Our new agreement with rights holder TONO gives us rights to publish radio and TV shows we aired a long time ago. But the agreement NRK has with rights holders IFPI and FONO only allows us to publish shows that has been aired the last four weeks. And since “Our daily Beatles” was aired in 2007, we have to pull it from the podcast .”
FOILED yet again!
Filed under: cinema, entertainment, film review, movies, nostalgia, preservation, vintage | Tags: 1939; will hay; ask a policeman; British cinema; slapstick;, film review
January 6, 1939: Ask a Policeman. Directed by Vincent Marcel and owned completely by actor Will Hay, this classic (and in my opinion, eponymous)British comedy was released 70 years ago today, January 6 1939. Hay worked the Karno comedy circuit in early 1900s England with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel and it is this 1939 role as Sgt. Dudfoot that has immortalized him. The plot is simple enough: a policeforce is 
suffering in a sleepy English town that hasn’t seen a lick of crime for over a decade. In an attempt to stir things up by staging a crime, Sgt. Dufoot and his colorful cohorts uncover the genuine article: a smuggling ring…and a headless horseman.
Monty Python? Fawlty Towers? Little Britain? Remove thy hats in due respect.
