I thought it was supposed to be the American Movie Classics channel? Tonight I tune in to find Dudley Do-Right. C’mon, even if we stretch the term classic, we can’t fit this movie in…
AMC stopped being AMC several years ago when it discovered that its entire audience had deserted it for Turner Movie Classics.
It gave up on old movies, started running commercials, and became indistinguishable from fifty other similar cable channels. But it’s still in business.
The moral of the story appears to be that there is an audience for exactly one old movie channel. Just be glad there’s still one, and that it’s as good as TMC.
Turner Classic Movies, not Turner Movie Classics.
Part of the problem with AMC was always the selection of movies available to it. Turner restricted a lot of its catalog for the obvious reason of wanting the movies for its own stations (both TCM and the other Turner channels). Then FOX started up its own movie channel and IIRC AMC depended very heavily on the Fox library.
Personally I stopped watching any movies on AMC when they started editing for content. Every once in a while they’ll have some documentary or special that I’ll watch if I happen to catch it but I don’t bother with it otherwise.
Sad really. There were a few movies AMC used to show regularly that I was always happy to watch (The Virgin Queen and The Prince and the Showgirl spring to mind) that haven’t that I’ve seen turned up on other channels. Along with TCM, some of the Starz! channels will show movies older than a decade or so on a fairly regular basis.
I want the AMC series REMEMBER WENN back. Anyone else?
AMC, when it first switched formats or whatever you want to call it, was walking an acceptable balance between it’s older and younger audiences.
If you ask me, there is room for great movies made in the 90’s or 80’s or 70’s or whenever. I can handle the switch from the Thin Man movies to Platoon no problemo. Because, hey, just because Spencer Tracy or George Raft starred in some movie that was mediocre when it was made, doesn’t mean I really want to sit through it. At the same time, I like watching movies by Paul Mazursky or Blake Edwards, and AMC wasn’t doing a very good job of getting them on the air.
However, it has gotten totally ridiculous, I agree. Dudley-fuckin-Do Right.
Remember WENN is the greatest sitcom nobody (but us special few) ever saw. Pure brilliance, with a wonderful cast.
And it was conceived and (almost) entirely written by Rupert Holmes*, an earlier example than Sports Night or Buffy or The Practice of how one single mind can create a unified world and its inhabitants. The British understand that, but no network would give Remember WENN a chance. The fools. I would have said it was impossible for a modern-day writer to get the tone and flavor of any style of 40s radio program exactly right, let alone effortlessly throw them off by the dozen, but he managed. The show got a bit choppy because he never could be sure the actors would be available instead of off making real money, but it remains the one DVD I wish they would make available.
Hard to imagine AMC running it now.
And yes, to be sure, TCM, not TMC. Sorry.
*No Pina Colada Song jokes allowed here.
I liked when over the course of Halloween they have attempted to claim that Halloween 4 and 5 are somehow “classic”. Very sad. In fact AMC made me wonder the other day if it’s reasonable for a station to say “we give up” and just close down.
Not just that—I read in TV Guide their ratings have actually improved since making that change.
I have most of it on VHS - I’d buy the DVDs in a second…
It ended with a triple cliff-hanger, and then was mercilessly cancelled. Stupid AMC… I pretty much stopped watching them then. (Of course, that’s also when their catalog went to hell, they started showing commercials, etc. It was just a huge downfall.) I cannot believe that they’re getting better ratings now…
the world is strange.
Well, I guess that there is a precedent in as much as MTV stopped showing music videos years and years ago…
I happened to see the beginning of D.O.A. tonight on AMC, became hooked, and ended up watching the whole thing. The commercials suck and so does the editing. I do remember the good old days when neither of those were an issue…
Discussing the showing of the orginal version of “Cheaper by the Dozen” a coworker saw the other night…I said AMC stands for All our Movies are Crap.
Oh no you didn’t just dis the only version of CBTD (that travesty with Steve Martin does not exist, do you hear? Does not exist).