……………………………………………………………………………………………….
BY BILLY SUTER
FEBRUARY is Oscars month and DStv’s TCM channel is pulling out all the stops to celebrate by screening some past Academy Award-winning double features every Sunday night in February, up until the big night itself on February 26.
Also, TCM will be showing a scene-setting documentary on February 12 and 19, titled And the Oscar Goes to…, directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman.
The documentary is the result of exclusive permission given by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences to TCM to access its entire ceremony archive.
This nostalgic journey gives movie buffs a behind-scenes view into the hallowed halls of the academy and winners from by-gone eras and recent times …and may just give viewers the edge in making their winner predictions.
The documentary also includes behind-scenes ceremony footage from the archives of Hollywood Newsreel, much of it never shown on television before. Special treats include Michael Moore talking about his controversial speech for his Oscar for Bowling for Columbine and interviews with George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, Whoopi Goldberg and Benicio del Toro.
Academy stalwart, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, says: “We’ve been thrilled to work with TCM on this amazing documentary, which will take the public through 85 years of Oscar history.”
The TCM Oscar movie line-up on Sunday, February 12, includes 1985’s Out of Africa at 5.20pm and the 2009 success, Inglourious Basterds, at 8pm.
On Sunday, February 19, first up, at 6.05pm, will be Steven Spielberg’s 1982 hit, ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, followed at 8pm by the 1998 success, Shakespeare in Love.
A marathon session of Oscar-winners fills the February 26 schedule, the fun beginning at 2.10am with 1965’s The Sound of Music (1965), followed at 5am by 1963’s Cleopatra, then at 8.55am by ET: The Extra-Terrestrial.
At 10.50am that day, TCM will show 1997’s The Full Monty, followed by 2004’s Ray at 12.20pm and Inglourious Basterds at 2.50pm.
Out of Africa follows at 2.,50pm, then comes 1998’s Born on the Fourth of July at 8pm, Shakespeare in Love at 10.20pm and 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at 20 minutes past midnight.
TCM has long been loved as the channel for cult cinematic classics. In 2015 it shook up its somewhat ‘dusty movie house’ image to celebrate a wider range of film eras and become the home of the American blockbuster.
TCM is now part of all DStv packages, growing a wider audience of appreciators of this artistic form and the cultural nuances and generational realities best expressed through film.
.....SoSuterBill..... 