MGM HD, Ion Put Eastwood On Their Thanksgiving Menus
Leone, Clint Marathon On MGM HD; Ion Follows With 'Feastwood' Film Event
Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 11/17/2009 3:25:00 PM
If you prefer Clint Eastwood to football, then MGM HD is your TV dressing on Thanksgiving.
And then Ion will keep the action coming with its "Feastwood" film event over the balance of the holiday weekend.
The high-definition network will serve up a Turkey Day feast with Sergio Leone's classic "The Man With No Name" Trilogy -- A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly -- in 1080i HD.
Starring Clint Eastwood, the fully remastered films exemplify Leone's unique "vision of the West," which redefined the genre with sweeping panoramas of landscapes, morally complex characters and inventive use of Ennio Morricone's music. The films will screen in HD and the original 16:9 aspect ratio.
MGM HD will also explore the role that catapulted Clint Eastwood from TV actor to movie star in Craft: Clint Eastwood. Featuring rare, behind-the-scenes photography and classic clips, this MGM HD original mini-documentary explores Eastwood's unlikely path to stardom as "The Man With No Name." Craft will air during the marathon, which begins at 9 a.m. (ET) and 5 p.m. Thursday, November 26, with repeat airings over the weekend.
According to network officials, the special event emanated from the popularity of the channel's weekly "Visions of the West" franchise, which airs a wide spectrum of Western films every Sunday at high noon.
Sneak-peek clips, production stills, and the schedule can be found at www.mgmhd.com/TheManWithNoName.
MGM HD officials said the network plans to deliver more themed specials in 2010, drawing from its library of 4,100 modern films.
Ion's "Feastwood" event begins on Friday Nov. 27 at 6:30 p.m. with Pale Rider, where Eastwood is a mysterious preacher who comes to a gold mining camp to save the miners from a ruthless landowner who wants their land. (It encores at Nov. 28 at 6 p.m.)
For fans of Dirty Harry, Eastwood puts the character on the trail of vigilante cops who are not above going beyond the law to kill the city's undesirables in Magnum Force on Nov. 28 at 3:30 p.m..
The Clint-festival moves into high gear with The Rookie on Nov. 28 at 8:30 p.m., when he teams with Charlie Sheen as they play a mismatched veteran cop-rookie cop duo (there's an encore on Nov. 29 at 5:30 p.m.)
On Sunday, two additional films could make your day: Eastwood reprises Dirty Harry at 3:30 p.m. in The Enforcer as he must foil a terrorist organization made up of disgruntled Vietnam veterans. Finally at 8 p.m. in The Outlaw Josey Wales, Eastwood portrays a Missouri farmer who joins a Confederate guerilla unit and winds up on the run from the Union soldiers who murdered his family.
"Thanksgiving weekend for most is packed with meals and activities, so this year Ion Television is packed with 'Feastwood,' " said Ion Media Networks executive vice president of programming Leslie Chesloff in a statement. "While Clint supplies the non-stop action on screen, all viewers have to do is kick back and be ‘positively entertained.' "
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