The Delta House

Have you noticed how some things that start out great eventually become less than average?

And why? Because no one can ever leave "well enough" alone. We all feel the need to build a better mouse trap or reinvent the wheel, or whatever other cliché that you want to use. It's in our nature.

So what am I pissed at today?

American Movie Classics.

Do you remember about five years ago when you turned on AMC, you would find movies starring Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Clarke Gable, Gary Cooper, Katherine Hepburn, or Cary Grant? You could also find Larry, Moe, Curly, Shemp, & Curly Joe. Even Buckwheat, Spanky and all of the He Man Woman Hater's Club were there. For the most part the films were all black and white, and they were all shown with no commercial interruptions.

If you liked old movies and television, this was Valhalla.

Then something horrible happened. They reinvented the wheel.

In October, 2002, AMC changed its format from a classic movie channel to a broader-based movie network to appeal to a larger audience, including younger folks.

So now when you flip on AMC, you might see Hollywood royalty like Steve Guttenberg, Rae Dawn Chong, Jeff Goldblum, and Sharon Stone. By definition, if the name "Steven Segal" appears in your movie credits, it is not a "classic". The movie of the month is Cocoon people!

As if that weren't bad enough, they added commercials. To a cable channel!

By adding advertising to our schedule, AMC generates additional revenue that enables us to provide a broader range of movies and original programming to our viewers. AMC carries among the fewest commercials per hour of any basic cable channel.

So now, not only do I get to watch classics like Slapshot 2: Breaking the Ice, a film so great that it never graced the big screen and went straight to video, but I get to drag out its 104 minute run time over 135 minutes. That's 31 minutes of commercials if you're keeping score. (Side Note: Slap Shot, starring Paul Newman is a classic.)

All I can say is thank God for Turner Classic Movies.

// posted by flounder @ 11:34 AM