The Kansas City Star’s Jeneé Osterheldt has a great column with the solution for television fans suffering from writers’ strike doldrums: go to Turner Classic Movies and enjoy the classics. When Martin Scorsese met with the Museum of the Moving Image film critics group last year, he told us he keeps TCM going much of the time he is in his office, often calling in the staff to see a great shot or scene. And this is the best time of year on TCM, when they salute the Oscars with a fabulous array of classics featuring films honored with nominations, not just for acting and directing but for costume design, screenplay, and score. Osterheldt has a terrific list of recommended classics, not just, to quote that most quotable of movies, “the usual suspects.” And she quotes my dad, Newton Minow, who called television a vast wasteland, as a reminder that even without the strike, it can be a challenge to find something worth watching. Let’s hope the strike is settled soon. But in the meantime, Osterheldt reminds us that we’ll always have Paris, I mean we’ll always have TCM, Netflix, and Amazon. (more…)