Digital Joe #32

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Something struck me very early Sunday morning as I was still browsing for programs to add to my TiVO Season Pass. There is an amazing lack of shows devoted to the making of movies. I´m not talking about info-tainment programs like "Access Hollywood" or "Entertainment Tonight", but things like AMC´s old "Backstory" series. When I think of movie programs, I think of this one. Consisting of 74 episodes, it detailed the behind-the-scenes exploits on all sorts of movies, from "All About Eve" to "Cleopatra" to "There´s Something About Mary". Some episodes were longer than others; the "Cleopatra" segment was roughly two hours and spilled all sorts of stories about the making of the movie.

Where have these programs gone? There used to be a time when there were behind the scenes and making of shows on every channel. The 1980s HBO series "Standby: Lights! Camera! Action!" was something I couldn´t get enough of. I can remember Leonard Nimoy telling us about movies like "Krull" and "Conan", showing us on-set interviews and video from the set. It was a small kids dream.

Then…nothing. The show went off the air in 1986 and I was forced to turn to the print media to get my movie fix. Starlog, Cinefantastique…those were my new outlets. I can´t tell you how many times I read the issue (green cover, Denise Crosby on the cover) about Tasha Yar´s death on "Star Trek: The Next Generation". I poured over every word in the hopes of reading between the lines and finding some new tidbit of information.

The progression, naturally, was to Sci Fi Universe magazine for a brief time. For some reason, when I started college, I dropped all these publications. It wasn´t because of the internet-I didn´t officially get online until my sophomore year of college. One Saturday night, though, I turned on AMC. I had always bypassed the station for any number of reasons. But the "Planet of the Apes" program caught my eye. I was entranced. (It is available in the new "Apes" boxset as well as in a standalone 2-disc set.) Everything about the process fascinated me.

But outside of a couple shows on the tube today, they´re all but gone. Sure, there´s the "E! True Hollywood Story", AMC´s "Sunday Morning Shootout" and the occasional special on one of the movie channels, there´s a lack of good movie-related programming.

It makes perfect sense that in this day of instantaneous news via the internet that any production delving behind the scenes on any theatrical experience is going to be behind the times. But these programs, I feel, are crucial to understanding the films on our shelves, in our history and on our television. Why was "Peyton Place" such a controversial movie when it was released? How did "Cleopatra" very nearly bankrupt Fox and usher in a new era of movie making?

We´ve come close recently with the "Empire of Dreams" documentary that aired on A&E around the time the "original" "Star Wars" trilogy was released on DVD. It was a great start, but should be followed up by whatever network that wants to invest in these programs. While most of the "Backstory" episodes were on Fox films, a channel like A&E would be able to do pieces on movies from all different studios. It would require each studio to be willing to lend whatever support they deemed necessary. In return, though, they would be able to license the documentary for DVD release for a lesser fee than it would otherwise be available.

Why not create an all-encompassing documentary for one of the best movies in the last ten years, "American History X"? I understand director Tony Kay and Edward Norton aren´t exactly buddies, but I´m sure they would contribute to the story of the film—separately, if they had to. Give me a three hour examination of "Gangs of New York". Why didn´t Martin Scorsese get it made in the 1980s? Why did so many big name stars come together to work on it? The current DVD has a couple on set featurettes and loads of material on the real history of the story. There´s gotta be a story of two in there somewhere. Why not an expansive documentary on "Jurassic Park", a movie that revolutionized the way movies are made? The current DVD´s are jokes.

Make a "movie of the month" feature. Show the film and then the documentary on it. Examine why it´s culturally, technologically or intellectually significant. I´ve never understood why, with all the options out there on satellite TV, why there is not one station devoted to DVD´s. These in-depth docs would be right at home there. But no. We´re treated to the thirteen thousandth airing of "Jaws: The Revenge"…totally cut and butchered for AMC broadcast. Turner Classic Movies does get a pass since they present their films without commercials, in their proper aspect ratios and without being cut. They also have Robert Osborne introducing all their films; sometimes, the things he has to say are more substantive than can be found in any documentary.

There was the incredibly short-lived Bravo show "Situation: Comedy" (detailing the process of getting a sitcom written and produced). And, also on Bravo, was "Project: Greenlight" which followed a movie from script to screen (with a little help from Ben Affleck and Matt Damon). There´s a "movie channel" called the Independent Film Channel. It´s on premium cable, I assume, since I don´t get it. But we don´t need a new channel to give us these kinds of programs. TCM and AMC, with their studio pedigrees should be at the forefront of this programming.

For better or worse (mostly worse), AMC has strayed from its tagline. "Movies for movie people." Sorry to break it to everyone, but "movie people" don´t want to see the same flick ten times. "Movie people" don´t want to see any movie originally filmed in widescreen chopped to fill the screen. "Movie people" don´t want their movies interrupted every ten seconds with a commercial break. What part of that is so hard to understand?

That station is catering to the "dumbed down" movie people. To be completely fair, though, they do have a fair share of movie specials, such as Republicans in Hollywood, Disaster Movies and the aforementioned Movies 101 and Sunday Morning Shootout. But for the countless hours of content they air in any given week, some original programming about the movies they show can´t be that out of the question.

The point is this: movie programs need to come back. The logical choices for these shows are the basic cable movie networks like AMC and TCM. I can´t tell you how unintentionally hilarious it would be to get some stories from the participants of "Jaws: The Revenge". Someone was on something real good during the production of that turkey.

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