Laura's Miscellaneous Musings: TCM Classic Film Festival Update

Monday, January 15, 2024

TCM Classic Film Festival Update

The TCM Classic Film Festival made a couple of new announcements at the end of last week.

This year's festival will include tributes to Billy Dee Williams and makeup artist Lois Burwell.

I wonder if there's any chance the festival will show THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) as part of the Williams tribute? Granted, he only appears late in the film, but he's terrific and it would certainly be fun to see it again with an audience.

The most significant announcement for me was the news that the great film historian Jeanine Basinger will be the recipient of the 2024 Robert Osborne Award.

Basinger will be the fifth person to be honored with the award, following in the footsteps of Kevin Brownlow, Leonard Maltin, Martin Scorsese, and Donald Bogle.

Throughout my life, Basinger's writing has been a significant influence for me, beginning with her Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies paperbacks on Shirley Temple, Lana Turner, and Gene Kelly. I was only 12 when I was given her book on Temple, so that's a good indicator of how long her books have been part of my life.

Since then she's written many more books, including A WOMAN'S VIEW, I DO AND I DON'T, ANTHONY MANN, SILENT STARS, and my favorite, THE STAR MACHINE.

Basinger has a conversational style which engenders reader enthusiasm to track down and view the movies she describes; I always end up jotting down pages of "to watch" movie titles when I read her books!