‘Ratatouille’ director Brad Bird joins TCM’s ‘Essentials’
LOS ANGELES » Turner Classic Movies has enlisted “Ratatouille” and “The Iron Giant” director Brad Bird to program the latest 20-episode season of “The Essentials,” the channel said.
Bird’s selections run the gamut of classic film offerings. There are musicals like “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Guys and Dolls” and “The Music Man,” Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger masterpieces “The Red Shoes” and “A Matter of Life and Death,” some Stanley Kubrick fare, including “2001: A Space Odyssey,” epics, comedies, westerns and a few film noirs, too.
Bird will help TCM host Ben Mankiewicz introduce each film as well as offer commentary and reflections every Saturday starting this week at 8 p.m.
BERKELEY, CALIF. » Netflix picked up nearly 16 million global subscribers during the first three months of the year, helping cement its status as one of the world’s most essential services in times of isolation or crisis.
The quarter spanned the beginning of stay-at-home orders in the U.S. and around the world, a response to the coronavirus pandemic that apparently led millions to latch onto Netflix for entertainment and comfort when most had nowhere to be but home.
Netflix more than doubled the quarterly growth it predicted in January, well before the COVID-19 outbreak began to shut down many major economies. It was the biggest three-month gain in the 13-year history of Netflix’s streaming service.
The numbers — released this week as part of Netflix’s first-quarter earnings report — support a growing belief that video streaming is likely to thrive even as the overall U.S. economy sinks into its first recession in more than a decade.
“Our small contribution to these difficult times is to make home confinement a little more bearable,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said while speaking to investors during a video call from a bedroom.
Investor optimism about Netflix’s prospects propelled the company’s stock to new highs recently, a sharp contrast with the decline in the broader market.
Netflix’s shares initially surged in after-hours trading after the first-quarter report came out, although they soon fell back. One reason: The strengthening U.S. dollar will likely depress the company’s revenue from outside the U.S., which could dampen gains from some of its fastest growing markets.
Currency effects also limited Netflix revenue growth to 17%, for a total of $5.8 billion, even though the company ended March with nearly 183 million worldwide subscribers, a 23% increase from the same time last year. Netflix earned $709 million in the first quarter, nearly tripling its profit from last year.