Why is it that certain TV channels feel it necessary to mess with a perfectly good movie?
After hemming and hawing about whether or not to go out and run errands, I opted to stay home, and work on the sweetie's Christmas present.
Truth be told, the thought of the masses of people in the stores made me want to go back to bed. I have a tough time dealing with crowds at the best of time, so the possibility of being crushed in with all the other shoppers, latte in one hand and packages in the other, decided things for me. Today I did not feel like being a cliche.
So there I was on the couch, snoring cat by my side, knitting in hand. Outside the weather was cold and dry and sunny in that way that takes you by surprise by the sheer gall of it.
I needed background noise, preferably in the form of a light-hearted, fluffy bit of nothing. The operatic caterwalling favoured on the afternoon CBC radio programs is NOT for me, so I checked the TV listings, scanning for something suitable. And there it was in the TBS movie listing. "You've Got Mail" was about to start.
Perfect.
I like Meg, I like Tom, I like books. Bonus points for throwing in a very young and feathered-hair Steve Zahn and a well-preserved but surgically unenhanced Jean Stapleton.
The movie starts, and there staring up at me from a blue screen, are three short words.
"Edited for Content"
What the hell? This is "You've Got Mail"! It's Nora Ephron! What the heck could be offensive about this movie? The cutesy conversational voice-overs? The 2D characters? The fact that the plot is so thin it's see-through? The DOG? What?
Really and truly I don't understand. The movie is silly and syrupy and all those other s-words that have few syllables and end in 'y'. So. What is it?
I decide to log on to TBS's website to find out what their guidelines are for this sort of thing, and spend the better part of 15 minutes checking out different areas (these guys don't believe in a site map, it seems). Nothing. Although I do know they show Sex and The City now, twice a week, presumably NOT edited for content, as they'd have nothing to show except the occasional shoe shopping experience. Except for that one episode where Charlotte is given free shoes by the man with the fetish. That would be 40+ odd minutes of the dead air...
If anyone can cast light on this, I'd love to know.
2 comments:
I hate it when they do that too. I seldon watch the edited movies, but when I do, I usually sit and say the bad words in my mind, or into thin air! LOL!
LOL. Glad I'm not the only one to do that! I usually don't bother with movies on TV either (much prefer the extensive DVD collection) but I was genuinely surprised by this particular edit.
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