February Is For Movies (NO SIGNAL)

Yesterday Turner Classic Movies began their annual 31 Days of Oscar marathon - a full month's (and then some) worth of Oscar-nominated and award winning films. This is the month where the DVR really gets a run for its money, and a chance for me to catch up on tons of films that either aren't released on DVD yet or I just haven't gotten around to seeing for whatever reason. I think I read there was going to be 91 films making their TCM premiere this month, so there's lots to get excited about...as long as the channel doesn't experience any "technical difficulties."

Last night I was dancing around like a young school-girl because one of my favorite Westerns was coming on as part of the "Oscar Nominated Directors" night to kick off the marathon. It was THE PROFESSIONALS, starring Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Jack Palance, Woody Strode, and Robert Ryan, who I've recently been exposing the Missus to via some of the Film Noir series being released by Warner Bros. We've watched THE SET UP, CROSSFIRE, and the other night watched ON DANGEROUS GROUND. So when I saw THE PROFESSIONALS was on, I jumped up and down giggling and explaining to my wife why Woody Strode is one of the coolest-looking guys to ever appear in movies, and that this was a must-see.

So of course not 2 minutes into the film I get this black screen and the words NO SIGNAL flashing across the screen. I have satellite, and since yesterday was a blustery day, I thought "Okay, maybe the satellite got knocked about a bit. It'll come back in a second."

I checked around the other stations. Everything worked fine, including the HD channels which are usually the first to get knocked out in a storm.

Back over at lovely channel 256, the NO SIGNAL was still going strong.

TCM, I don't know what happened with you, but c'mon...let's get it together, man! I know I can easily pick up THE PROFESSIONALS on DVD, but you know how you'll buy a movie and never watch it until that one time it comes on at 2:30 in the afternoon and you have chores to do but you can't turn your eyes away from it?

That's how I wanted to be last night. And instead you forced me to watch ROB-B-HOOD, which was good, but it wasn't THE PROFESSIONALS good.

There's some great stuff tonight, including FUNNY FACE, which I've never seen, and BLACK NARCISSUS, which I've also never seen. Stuff like this is on all month long, so make sure to set some time aside for great movie watching.

In the meantime, I'll wistfully dream of what could have been last night, and maybe stop by the video store to see if I can snag a copy for the weekend.