I received a packet by mail from a public relations firm that represents Turner Classic Movies, the TCM Channel. It's all about an upcoming documentary series called Edge Of Outside. The rep, who had decided to contact me based on my dubious Woody Allen/Terminator parody, asked me to volunteer to write a blog review about this series. She put me under no obligation - so this sense of obligation I'm feeling must come from myself. Heh.
Well, let me tell you what I learned. TCM is kicking off a month-long tribute to filmakers who have dared to work on "the edges of Hollywood". Tonight (July 5, 8 p.m. ET) is the first installment. The feature is on John Cassavetes and his 1968 movie, Faces.
Interesting story! This guy scraped together his own money to make his first film, called Shadows. It received critical acclaim, and Cassavetes started to get job offers from the big studios. But after a few efforts, he got so disgusted with the experience that he vowed to only make independent films.
Faces itself is scheduled after tonight's documentary. In fact, three of Cassavetes' films will air tonight. TCM does not mention if it plans to air all of the movies showcased in this series. One would hope so, because in my experience, these older, non-mainstream movies are sometimes hard to find on Netflix or other usual places. But the documentaries themselves should be really good. A complete series schedule is available here. Check them out and TiVo accordingly. I'm particularly looking forward to the installment on Arthur Penn, which will air July 26. Bonnie and Clyde!!
Stumble it!
It's a unique series b/c it really does give some modern perspective to independent films and how they've been around for a long time...and some of the film makers we know well (like scorsese) fall right into this catagory.
--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com
Posted by: RC of strangeculture | July 05, 2006 at 03:09 PM