# When did AMC become so horrible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 21, 2010, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821 "2010-04-21T02:50:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/21 "2010-04-21T15:48:36Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > From the archives (so to speak): > [Eve’s obit](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=114405) for AMC. Well, hi, **myrnalene**! Why don’t I know you? We have the same movie tastes! _Design for Living_! ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/22 "2010-04-21T15:49:42Z")
I’ve sneered at AMC for showing utter crap, complete with commercials, for years and braying that ‘Rambo’ and ‘Predator’ and ‘Top Gun’, etc. are NEW CLASSICS. I suppose for 12 year olds with short attention spans who know squat about movies and can’t get their minds around the concept of black and white movies. Well, Ted Turner did buy up all the good ones, and as long as there is TCM I don’t care if AMC runs Three Stooges marathons. Which it does! Cable TV covers something for every demographic…But then they went and made Mad Men, and Breaking Bad, and it is as if a 12 year old with a short attention span who lived next door to you all of a sudden started playing Mozart and Debussey on his mom’s piano. You hear it, can’t believe it. You see MM or BB on a channel famous for showing Westerns all weekend long, see it, can’t believe it. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/23 "2010-04-21T15:49:45Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Every time I channel surf across them recently they’re playing _Top Gun_. _You’ll never say hello to you Until you get it on the red line overload You’ll never know what you can do Until you get it up as high as you can go_How is that not an American classic movie? Fucking Chekov, I tell you. Like _The Seagull_ on afterburner. Maybe after being injested through the intake, but whatever. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![ProfessorX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@ProfessorX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ProfessorX)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/24 "2010-04-21T16:44:57Z")
I’ve noticed a lot of things on air that aren’t “classics” at all recently. It’s really disapointing, because there are some awesome classic movies out there, but they instead show “Executive Decision” and stuff like that… ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/25 "2010-04-21T17:05:44Z")
If you check your hoity-toity ideas at the door. Top Gun, Rambo, Pulp Fiction are NEW CLASSICS. 20 years from now more people are going to watching and studying these movies more than “Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind” and “Grand Prix” (just googled what TCM was showing right now). But nobody- I mean nobody- is going to watch Catwoman. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/26 "2010-04-21T17:08:24Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > _You’ll never say hello to you > Until you get it on the red line overload > You’ll never know what you can do > Until you get it up as high as you can go_How is that not an American classic movie? Fucking Chekov, I tell you. Like _The Seagull_ on afterburner. Maybe after being injested through the intake, but whatever. > > Stranger Many American movies made before, say, 1965 are classics. What they aren’t, any longer, is relatably _American._ We’ve changed. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/27 "2010-04-21T17:18:28Z")
There was a period last year when it seemed like they were showing Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II at least once a week, and not just during the month of October either. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/28 "2010-04-21T18:33:15Z")
They are owned by the Dolan family which owns Cablevision, New York Knicks, Rangers, Newsday and The Wiz electronics store (before it went bankrupt). Mediocrity is as inevitable as the sunrise. Really went downhill in 2002 when they added commercials, claiming they couldn’t get enough revenue from cable operators. ---
**Author:** ![Kelby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@Kelby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kelby)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/29 "2010-04-21T18:51:55Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > They are owned by the Dolan family which owns Cablevision, New York Knicks, Rangers, Newsday and The Wiz electronics store (before it went bankrupt). Mediocrity is as inevitable as the sunrise. > > Really went downhill in 2002 when they added commercials, claiming they couldn’t get enough revenue from cable operators. They used to be a very attractive TV viewing option because they were one of the few channels that didn’t have commercials at the time. Now they have reasonable intervals between ads at the beginning of the movie, but the breaks become pretty much intolerable towards the end of a flick. The coninuity of the movie can be totally destroyed. Now I won’t watch a movie on AMC without DVRing it first. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/30 "2010-04-21T18:55:12Z")
> [@gwendee](#): > > My understanding is that’s the problem. Ted Turner (or some corporate entity backed by him) bought the rights to several studios worth of movies to create the channel leaving AMC to struggle with the definition of _classic_. > > Please don’t ask for a cite. All I can give you is my mom’s phone number. > > **Oakminster** , my fist car was a '71 Gremlin. I had a .5 second flash of thinking the same thing. Turner actually bought MGM/UA Studios in 1986, eight years before the launch of TCM in 1994. He had cash-flow problems shortly thereafter, and sold off parts of the film studio, but kept MGM and UA’s film library. He also held RKO Radio’s film library, the pre-1950 Warner brothers library, and the Famous Studios and Fleischer Popeye library. He actually used these acquisitions to start TNT in 1988, with the first film shown being _Gone With the Wind._ In 1996, Turner Broadcasting merged with Time-Warner. That gave TCM access to the rest of the Warner brothers library. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/31 "2010-04-21T18:56:50Z")
Well, there’s always IFC. AFAICT, it’s the one channel I get on my basic DIRECTV plan that shows movies commercial free and uncensored (though I think they do show commercials in between the movies). ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2010, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/32 "2010-04-22T02:08:44Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Am I the only one that thought this thread would be about [cars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Motors)? > [@maladroit](#): > > I was thinking All My Children 🙂 Or the AMC Theater chain. > [@joebuck20](#): > > Well, there’s always IFC. AFAICT, it’s the one channel I get on my basic DIRECTV plan that shows movies commercial free and uncensored (though I think they do show commercials in between the movies). That’s weird. On Comcast it’s part of some premium package, definitely not basic cable. I don’t think it’s like a full on HBO type dealie, more like Encore, where if you actually buy HBO or Showtime or whatever, it gets thrown in for free. Turner Classic Movies is basic here, and they do show things commercial free and uncensored. I was watching the original Clash of the Titans on there a few weeks ago, and the boobs and ass shots were completely intact. ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f08c70/32.png) [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Brother_Walker)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2010, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821/33 "2010-04-22T03:15:05Z")
Well, I’d just as soon have my “classics” seem more so. Like \*Shawshank \*or maybe \*American Beauty. \*Not _Rambo._ Hell, I’ll even take _Reservoir Dogs_, or _Se7en_. Let’s have some class, shall we? …although I know I’m putting my foot into that one, eh? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-amc-become-so-horrible/536821.md?page=1)