Off topic AMC rant

[Deej]

Someone tell me what the hell happened to AMC..They used to play nothing but the best in classic film. Occasionally, they'd play a real good old scifi or horror flick, and late at night, you could count on some turgid grade-z potboilers and melodrama from the 30's. Now it's like watching TBS. Except TBS is better. They were playing Chain Reaction(1996) the other day. And before that, some tripe from the 80's. What happened to the classics? Even the bad old movies were good. Someone tell me please.

[Squishy]

Money money money money money. American Movie Classics--although what they showed was often neither "American" nor "classic" and sometimes barely a "movie"--wasn't bringing in enough bucky. Now AMC ("We do chicken right!"--oh wait, that's KFC) still shows B-grade stuff (usually "Fear Fridays"), but surrounded by commercials and yuck like "Chain Reaction." Did they buy exclusive rights to "Chain Reaction?" Maybe they don't want to make money after all.

[StatCat]

AMC went down the drain obviously. They use to be pretty decent but its all because of money and I'm pretty sure the people running it are neo nazis who believe its your American duty to watch commercials (I believe the guy in charge of the channel actually said this once, not kidding either) Forget his name but basically its not even worth turning on now.

[frannie]

they played Short Circuit the other day.  didn't realize that was a classic movie till i saw the little logo in the corner

[JohnL]

>Did they buy exclusive rights to "Chain Reaction?"

I doubt it, FX was showing it a couple months ago.

>who believe its your American duty to watch commercials (I believe the guy in
>charge of the channel actually said this once, not kidding either)

I recall hearing this, but I forget who said it. I thought maybe it was Ted Turner.

[Squishy]

Well, they do need to be profitable. Turning AMC into "HBO Lite" is not (IMOHO) the way to go, but the old way evidently wasn't cutting it. I've seen worse moves at FOX ("Futurama" spiked way up in the ratings last week! Pre-empt it for the next two months!!") and SciFi ("Cancel everything everyone's watching and order more crap like "Crossing Over With The Biggest Douche In The Universe" and "Dream Team!")...

Side notes: "Futurama" is kicking ass over on CartoonNetwork--possibly because they actually PROMOTE it--and SciFi's going to be sorry they ever let MST3K and "Farscape" go. "No, no, we'll be okay--we bought exclusive rights to the "Dragon Fighter" franchise! It's gonna be HUGE!!"

Unrelated joke:
Q: What's the difference between an Oakland Raiders fan and a dressed-for-a-convention Trekkie?
A: The Trekkie gets laid more often.

[kriegerg69]

It boils down to the Almighty Dollar. They figured by running more recent movies and adding the damned commercials every 7 minutes, they'll do better.

WRONG!!

I don't watch AMC anymore....and frankly, I'm really sick and tired of seeing movies like the Indiana Jones films two or three times in a row in a single evening, and 50 damn times during a month. I like the Indy films, for example, but I do NOT want to see them for a very long time because they're on every cable channel a zillion times every week.

AMC truly sucks big hairy testes right now....stick with TCM. They're heads and tails above American Money Crapola.

[JohnL]

Anyone wanna bet how long it will be before AMC changes its name to American Movie Channel?

[kriegerg69]

JohnL wrote:
>
> Anyone wanna bet how long it will be before AMC changes its
> name to American Movie Channel?

I still think "American Money Crapola" is a better name. :-)

[Scott]

Yea, they aren't doing as well as before. AMC was really on a role for about 2 years by showing lots of black and white Sci-Fi/Horror films. Now they are becoming like Encore or something.

[Deej]

I understand the whole money thing. But AMC used to be doing what TCM is doing now. TCM seems to be doing fine, and they don't interrupt the movies for commercials. DAMMIT, and I don't get TCM where I live. Oh, the humanity!

[Pete B6K]

"they played Short Circuit the other day. didn't realize that was a classic movie till i saw the little logo in the corner"

Huh? Short Circuit IS a classic, no contest.

Pete

"Hey, Laserlips! Your mama was a snowblower!"

[Vermin Boy]

I went to that amcfeedback.com place they keep advertising, and said pretty much the same thing everyone's been saying around here. I figure if they keep running ads saying "Tell us what you think!" then they can't be totally married to the changes. Tell 'em what you think, maybe, just maybe, they'll decide to stop sucking.

I can't believe it was just a couple of years ago that I was shocked they were playing something as recent as Superman: The Movie.

[ad]

Who are AMC? I live in the UK I dunno what AMC stands for.

[kriegerg69]

....or so they used to be, according to the word "classics" in their name. NOW they just run crap.

Do you have a similar channel in the U.K. that runs British film classics? Always wondered if there was such a channel or station.