TCM Celebrates Chuck Jones on Mar 24th

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GeorgeC

TCM Celebrates Chuck Jones on Mar 24th

Post by GeorgeC » March 19th, 2009, 1:36 pm

http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=218721


Turner Classic Movies (the movie channel) is having a day of remembrance for Chuck Jones.

A new half-hour documentary entitled, "Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood," has been produced for the occasion by John Canemaker and Peggy Stern. In addition to running this documentary three times through the night, 11 classic shorts directed by Jones as well as the feature "The Phantom Tollbooth" will be run.

The event runs from 8 PM March 24th to 4:30/5:00 AM on March 25th.

Get your VCRs and DVR/DVD Recorders ready!

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » March 19th, 2009, 1:43 pm

Seriously,

Post this on the front page already, guys! :D

I realize that not everybody gets TCM but darn a bunch of classic shorts are getting highlighted for the first time in years on TV!

And there's a new documentary to boot that will probably be seen by more people on that channel than whatever gets shown at festivals...

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Post by gaastra » March 19th, 2009, 6:28 pm

Thanks for posting this. I'll watch. They are also airing the rare mr magoo animated movie 1001 arabian nights and the phantom tollbooth!

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Post by eddievalient » March 19th, 2009, 8:16 pm

For those of you who haven't seen Phantom Tollbooth, take my advice, skip it. PT is probably my favorite book of all time and I had thought that a Chuck Jones-directed movie version would be great, given his reputation. Unfortunately, it was a massive letdown. He only kept about a third of the book's plot and made the rest up. The stuff from the book was poorly done and the stuff he made up isn't nearly as good as what Norton Juster originally came up with. It's a bad movie by any measure and if Chuck Jones had to fail somewhere, it is truly a shame that it had to be here.
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GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » March 19th, 2009, 8:47 pm

I'm going to have to chime in and agree with Eddie here.

There are people born to make short films, and then there are people born to make long-form films.

Chuck Jones was a short-form filmmaker... Among the best that ever directed 7-minute shorts, but he was definitely not a great feature film director.

There are reasons besides distribution and visibility for why the better-known animated features are generally Disney films.

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Post by Ben » March 20th, 2009, 9:18 am

I think, for those who haven't seen it, Tollbooth is an <I>interesting</I> film to see at least once in your life, even if it is a disappointement.

As a feature-length symposium of the kind Jones did much of in his later years, it warrants seeing for true animation aficionados even if it's just to say "yep, I've seen it".

I'm not saying it's a great film, and somewhat agree that Jones was a shorts director, but as something that was a major departure from the mainstream animated movies of the time, it's an important film for that alone.

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Post by Daniel » March 20th, 2009, 4:29 pm

gaastra wrote:They are also airing the rare mr magoo animated movie 1001 arabian nights
Yep, definitely one to record. Sony owns the film and it's not on DVD and may never be - of course with something possibly new on the horizon for Magoo, they could un vault it and release this little treasure... :idea:

Goes without saying, but yes I'll be tuning in! Lots of goodies and a new documentary only entices it more. Can't wait!

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