Worth Watching Twice

Sadly, I don't get Turner Classic Movies as part of my basic cable. I'd be watching it all the time if I had it, so it's probably just as well!

But, TCM has recently moved from Digital Cable to Basic Cable here so check it out when you have time. You just might have it.

Golly, that's too bad -- I'm recording a lot of movies this month off off TCM because it's their Oscar traversal of the nominated and winning films. "The Great Ziegfeld" is going onto a DVD even though I taped it long ago (the quality now looks so poor in comparison I'm probably unloading all my VHS tapes rather than dubbing them to DVD, although I can actually get two to three films on one disk with no discernable loss of picture quality -- sure improves the storage problem!)

Lightwizard. Thanks for the reminder. I missed an hour of The Great Ziegfeld, but am watching it now. The number that's on now which is A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody(Dennis Morgan), combines Un Bel Di, Humorosque, Rhapsody in Blue, a Straus Waltz and several more. Yes, they're all performed in the same number.

what are you using to get from VHS to DVD? I'm interested.

I have the Panasonic DMR (Digital Media Recorder) which have come way down in price. Well, $509.00 from shopping around. It records, like TIVO on a hard drive only using VCR Plus and manual timer recording) off of any open cable channel (you need another cable tuner to record off off premium or the higher numbered digital networks), dub from any source including VHS, and will burn DVD Ram discs (rewritable) or DVD R which can be "finalized" to play on any other DVD player (although a word of warning that one may experience an incomatibility with some DVD players). Most new DVD players will also play DVD R and DVD Ram. They offer speeds way low enough to get six movies on one disc albeit with quality not much better than VCR EP speed. The lower quality looks a bit different than the slower VCR speeds as they're is no "streaking," just less detail (less pixels). I don't remember the Model No. off hand as I'm at the gallery right now but if you'd like to have it, it's the 80 GB hard drive model. BTW, you can record directly to a DVD, rewritable or not, instead of going through the hard drive but that eliminates the editing capability. I'd record to the hard drive then to a DVD. However, in dubbing VHS to DVD, I'd go burn directly to the disc. It will allow for room on the disc by slowing down the speed if you are running out of room but I'd use this judiciously as one might not like the deterioration of quality. I tried out the slower speed on the new "Absolutely Fabulous" and did notice a slight loss of quality. It also will record at a "super" speed which gives one the best picture but will not record Hi Def. That is coming so I suppose my unit will be outmoded in the next few years (they are still battling out the blue laser as opposed to other high definition DVD systems).

My list is pretty long, so I'll just list the ones I can think of right now.

Bringing up Baby
Mr. Blanding's Dream House
My Favorite Wife
Roman Holiday
Dr. Strangelove
Gone With the Wind
Annie Hall
Manhattan
Bananas
Hard Day's Night
The Wizard of Oz

Some of mine, written on the fly:
Grapes of Wrath
The Ox-Bow Incident
Titanic
Dr Strangelove
Marat/Sade
M*A*S*H*
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Searchers
Gone With the Wind
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Good the Bad the Ugly
Ben Hur
Cyrano de Bergerac (Jose Ferrer)
My Fair Lady
Jesse James and The Return of Frank James

Hey Edgar and Swimp.

Edgar, which Titanic?

Swimp, The Wizard of Oz, of course.

I failed to mention Babe. The best part of that delightful movie was John Cromwell dancing an Irish jig to cheer up the ailing Babe. That man is a fine actor. I was surprised to find that the setting for the movie was in Australia.

Lord have mercy, Mr. Wizard. Thanks for all those very explicit instructions. Like I could follow them. Hope Husker can.

Still enjoy watching O Brother Where Art Thou.

It's a wee more complicated than a VCR but the elimination of tape is well worth it. It's menu is arranged just like windows but with a jog device and enter button, of course. You can title each program you record which is a bit inconvenient to jog and select each letter -- when they accept a keyboard it will be great. They have married the computer to TV but the hardware and software are not quite there yet to be user friendly for everyone. Well, unless they pass a law that a computer and TV can't get married.

Wiz
Is it a USB cable to the Computer? Do you have the model#

The newest Titanic. I thought the original a bit staid.

edgar, I'm thinking of a song right now...won't sing it..not exactly politically correct...

I was pretty young when I saw the first Titanic. I might have a different opinion today.

Well, my goodness, edgar. What was the first one..There have been quite a few..A Night to Remember?

A Night To Remember is the film I was thinking of. I didn't think too much of it. The only other Titanic I recall offhand was Raise the Titanic, which I only partially watched.

I've seen"ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW" over 100 times.
'ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKESTEIN almost everytime it's on.
CANNERY ROW about 12 times, why, I don't know
THE FORBIDDEN ZONE
all of the Marx Brothers films at least once a year
THEM
WAGES OF FEAR
THAT MAN FROM RIO
all of Hope and Crosby's Road pictures
CHARLIE CHAN movies
SHERLOCK HOLMES movies with Basil Rathbone
Errol Flynn swashbucklers
and I guess I could go on all night

thiefoflight, Welcome to A2K. You have the same avatar as McTag, so it threw me a bit for a minute. Have seen most of the ones on your list..can't remember when, though.

Have I mentioned Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier? Lawerence Olivier and Joan Fontaine..Even my kids liked that one.

and how many actors have played Jekyll and Hyde? The last one I saw was with Jack Palance.

I think John Malkovich in the film Mary Reilly was the most recent Jekyll/Hyde. I'd watch that one again.

I like the Spencer Tracy Jeckyll/Hyde. He made the transition between Jeckyll and Hyde without even changing his makeup.