AMC: Best channel on television

Many television channels lose their bite as the years go on. Channels that once begin with integrity and purpose slowly become hollow shells of themselves. TLC was once the learning channel, now it is devoted to reality shows about huge families or dwarfism (I am sure the fine people at TLC are just waiting for a dwarf family with seventeen kids). Court TV was once the O.J. Simpson network and now it is nothing but derivative reality shows. The list of sold out channels goes on with Syfy Channel, G4, TV Guide Network and MTV. For evidence of a channel currently going through this transformation look no further then The History Channel; which is becoming less about Hitler and more about white trash.

This qualifies as being on the History Channel?

There is, however, one channel that has grown into itself beautifully. It has become the best network on television today. With its original television department still in its infancy, the channel has not only managed to win the best awards in the business but has also dominated them. Through its bravery in creating programing and ability to retain excellence, AMC is the best place to go on television.

AMC (an acronym for American Movie Classics) never seemed like anything else but the poor man's TCM. AMC realized that they could never compete with the amount of class TCM has (Robert Osbourne has to be one of the coolest people ever) and decided to be more broad with their definition of movie classics. No longer showing films of the silver screen, AMC moved more into 80s action film territories. If TCM had the market cornered on timeless classics then AMC will be the "new classic" station.

In 2005 AMC experimented further by broadcasting the show Hustle. Hustle was a BBC program about a group of nicely dressed con artists who help dispense their own brand of justice (the kind of nice guy con artists that you never meet anywhere else but prime time television). Hustle, with all of it's polish, was an interesting choice because it contradicts the whole basis of the channel. Hustle, being a contemporary British program, is neither American, a movie, or a classic by any definition. What it showed was that AMC was interested in televising something besides movies and that AMC had balls enough to put whatever they wanted in their slots.

In 2007 a show would premiere that would become a critical darling and give AMC the class it so desperately wanted. The show was Mad Men and it is as awesome as you have heard. A unflinching and not kitschy look at 1960s America through the prism of advertising and, more specifically, the character of Don Draper. Yes, Don Draper is as cool as you have heard. Don Draper is cooler then you will ever be.

Don Draper: Every man's man-crush.

In the three years that Mad Men has been in the Emmy Awards it has already accumulated 13 wins. Out of those wins are three consecutive Best Drama Awards in a row. Even with a relatively weak season they still managed to beat out Lost in their last season (suck it, Lost). Mad Men has dominated Best Drama ever since it's premiered. While shows such as The West Wing have also won three years in a row, it is important to mention the fact that AMC is a cable network. Cable has never gotten as much respect as networks or pay channels. With pay channels you get the freedom of having whatever content you want and with networks you get guaranteed audiences (in theory). Cable has always been the bastard child of the two, never having the freedom or the popularity of other channels.

Also sweeping the Emmys three years in a row is Bryan Cranston for Best Actor in a Drama series. Dexter fanboys may be crying foul that Michael C. Hall never gets to win. However anyone that has seen Bryan Cranston on Breaking Bad will realize how much he deserves this recognition. Also Dexter is overrated. Playing a cancer ridden, high school science teacher who decides one day to cook meth; Cranston explores a realm of human drama that few people could dream of. Not only does he succeed in this but seeing his work is astonishing. Yes, the dad from Malcolm in the Middle is the best actor today.

Frankie Muniz grew up to race cars in a 20-year-old mid-life crisis. He also has a big head.

AMC also has Rubicon which just recently premiered. As underwhelming as Rubicon is, it still makes for a good show and is better than most other television. Having two out of three masterpieces is still not too shabby. Premiering on Halloween is a new show for AMC called The Walking Dead. Based on a critically acclaimed comic book series, Walking Dead deals with a zombie outbreak in America and how people cope with it. Yes, AMC is making a zombie television series and it is going to be awesome. How am I so sure? Awesome source material plus fearless network plus the adaption being created by Frank Darabont equals what is going to be the best television ever. Frank Darabont helped directed Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and The Mist. This man has helped create some of the best movies in recent memory and you don't even know who he is. Shame on you.

There is no accounting for taste, I know that. I also understand the fact that Emmys are not the best gauge towards how good television is. The fact that The Wire has not only never won an Emmy but has also barely been nominated shows how faulty the awards can be (this is, of course, a topic for later discussion). Forget the Emmys then and see for yourself why these shows are the best around and deserve all the recognition they can get.

It's a damn shame The Wire never won.

Top 5 most disturbing movies from my childhood

I loved watching movies growing up. There was nothing I enjoyed more than putting a tape through the old turbo-rewinder (to make sure it was rewound all the way) and popping it into my VCR. When it came to fixing the tracking I was a child prodigy, knowing which knobs to twist in the exact way to make sure there were no lines on the screen. I have my mother to thank for introducing me to a lot of movies over the years and for illegally taping them off of cable. There were always those movies that made you wince though. The kind where you wonder what the creators were thinking. Why do these filmmakers hate kids so much to put these scenes in the movie? The following is a top five based on movies i saw during my own childhood. Three out of five of these films were made in the 80s so maybe that has something to do with it. People hated children in the 80's. Just because these movies are on the list doesn't mean I don't like them, because to be honest, these are some of my favorite movies to watch as a kid. Even now I enjoy watching them. I can't wait for the day I can finally pass these movies onto my kids and scare the living hell out of them. If you would like, dear reader, please feel free to include your own movies from your childhood.

5. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory:
Two words: Tunnel Scene. It wasn't the Oompa Loompa slave labor, the kids meeting their doom storyline or even the creepiness that is Slugworth. No, the scene most fast-forwarded by children everywhere (aside from the "Cheer-up Charlie" song. God that one sucked) is the infamous tunnel scene. It's like the writers were saying "Hey this is a pretty cheerful movie so far; let's give people nightmares for no reason whatsoever."

I quote this movie daily.

4. Pee-Wee's Big Adventure:
Believe it or not this was the first full-length movie Tim Burton directed (one day I may explain to you why Tim Burton sucks). A story about a person (to this day I don't know what Pee-Wee's age is suppose to be) and his beloved bicycle. The movie is insanely quotable and a lot of fun. Yes, I know Paul Reubens would be arrested six years after making this movie but he was caught whacking-off in a porn theater. It's hardly unheard of and it doesn't make him a crazy pervert. Anyway, this movie was awesome except for a scene where Pee-Wee has a nightmare about his bike complete with horrifying clowns and Satan himself (Note: the actor who played the villain Francis/Satan would go on to play John Wayne Gacy in a crappy movie. Adds another level of disturbing).

Maybe not as scary now but as a kid this was torture.

Perhaps even more frightening than that was the Large Marge scene. Picked-up by an intimidating woman truck driver, the aforementioned lady tells Pee-Wee about an accident that occurred that very same night years ago. The punchline to this story is two frames of horror that never seemed to end.

"Tell em Large Marge sent ya."

3. Little Monsters:

I loved the last two movies mentioned and watched them every chance I could. This movie I haven't seen as much but it left enough of an impact on me to fear the very mention of it. The movie stars Fred Savage as a misunderstood boy and Howie Mandel as the monster under his bed. (back when his stand-up act involved him putting gloves on his head. This was back when he could actually shake hands). The film also has Marv from Home Alone as Fred's father and Ben Savage, Fred's real life younger brother and future Boy Meets World actor, as the annoying little brother. The film was about adventures in a monster-world underneath every boy's bed. The problem is that if you stayed in the monster-world for too long you became a monster, making all the fun of mischief and junk food not as worth it. The monsters' one weakness was light, which made their faces melt in a way that makes Raider's of the Lost Ark jealous. All of the ingredients of being trapped as a monster, the dark world of the monsters, and the face melting made the movie pretty scarring.

Did I mention face melting?

2. The Brave Little Toaster:

The poster should of been the first clue.

It's a cute animated-musical film about sentient appliances and their search for their master. Think like Toy Story only about junk (a toaster, a vacuum, a lamp, a radio and an electric blanket). To sum up how scary this movie is in one paragraph would not do it justice. I stress the fact that every scene and song involves something putting the appliance gang in danger and scaring any poor kid who expected a normal Disney movie. I recommend this movie only to see how messed-up it is. With danger of death, nightmares, scary clowns and antagonist everywhere it's amazing how anybody would think it's okay for kids. Fritz the Cat is more child friendly than Brave Little Toaster. So please watch it and see for yourself, words cannot describe.

I rest my case.

1. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang:

Not as fun as it looks.

In all honesty, Brave Little Toaster should take the top spot. This is more a personal grudge towards Chitty Chitty Bang Bang than anything else. It was one of my mom's favorite movies growing up, she even had the lunchbox in elementary school. Imagine her excitement to finally share her childhood memories with her kids. It starts out innocently enough with Dick Van Dyke as the world's worst dad. Van Dyke plays a crackpot inventor who lives with his kids whose mother died a long time ago. Along comes a lady named Truly Scrumptious who finds his kids skipping school and steals their father's heart. The first half is innocent enough with wacky inventions, a plot involving candy and an old car. This is all fine and dandy until the second half of the story begins involving a German like country where children are outlawed (those wacky Germans). The two adults then spend the rest of the story trying to find the kids and rescue them from the evil aristocracy. Now a plot line involving kidnapping kids and putting them in dungeons is bad enough. The truly disturbing part is the introduction of the most vile character of all time: the Child Catcher.

That's the man's whole responsibility: to kidnap children.

He sniffs out children where ever they are hiding and lures them with promises of candy and ice cream. You'd think with the smallest amount of stranger-danger knowledge the children would know not to follow the creepy old man promising candy. I guess Dick was too busy inventing a flying car to teach them.

Jeff Bridges doesn't like greenscreen

I live in a house of crappy magazine subscriptions. Found on top of my cistern are trashy publications such as People (how I loathe thee) and Redbook (the Cosmo for moms). The only magazine of some interest to me is Entertainment Weekly. The last issue, August 20th, was the annual film preview for the fall season. In it was a quote from Jeff Bridges, who was once the coolest actor to of never won an Oscar (now that he has won an Academy Award he doesn't seem as cool).

Sorry Dude.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly about working on Tron: Legacy, Bridges had some things to say about working with green screen technology. "I had to get past some of the frustrations of not having what I enjoy as an actor—costumes, the set, another actor—and get with the new thing that's going down."

This quote from a respected actor perfectly illustrates some of the things wrong with green screen and reliance on computer effects in general. In essence it makes it hard for the actor to do his job. It does not engage the actor into the movie's world and at the same to it alienates the audience from that same world. The technology hinders the actor in reacting to their surroundings or different obstacles. Not only that but it must not make being an actor as fun as it once was. For example, instead of having a man dressed up in a monster suit you have a tennis ball on a string to help you act afraid. All the imagination in the world isn't going to help an actor get past the fact that they are surrounded by nothing. Really it's a whole different craft than real acting.

Now, I'm no cinematic Luddite saying we should get back to the days before computer-generated imagery but think about the classic movies that didn't have CGI to fall back on. Imagine: The Thing without practical special effects, Blade Runner without minitures or Aliens without men in suits. The best effects in Tron, famous for its introduction of computer effects, aren't even created on a computer. CGI just allows the filmmakers to get lazy and they end up relying on it too much. For every Avatar there is a Speed Racer. Green screening is just another way for filmmakers to tell their story and should not be the basis for a movie or considered the only tool in the toolbox. Remember that it is the same technology that allows local weathermen to give it's viewers the five-day forecast.

Meteorologist are either hot babes or dopey dudes, depending on what the station can afford.

I know that CGI is here to stay but it is my wish that filmmakers will one day remember that special effects don't have to be done on the computer and some of the best films relied on those computer-less special effects. I'm hoping that the novelty of it will one day wear off or maybe the novelty of life before CGI will become popular again. Filmmakers can get more creative with their movie making (just look at Wes Anderson's work on Fantastic Mr. Fox). Leave the hokey CGI to the Sci-Fi Channel (I refuse to call it Syfy) and make something truly engaging.

IPhone's facetime destroying face to face time

The commercial is heartbreaking. It begins on an image of a phone where we see the face of an old man. The man is jubilant to be shown something as the the box in the corner turns we see the face of the old man's granddaughter. The old man tries to hold in his feelings but his voice starts to break as he has a heart to heart with his son about their new roles in life.

As a commercial it works great. It details the product's strengths and it shows more then a cool feature: it shows how the feature can impact the lives of the users. There is something scary about this commercial though. Why isn't the grandfather meeting his granddaughter for the first time in person? While yes, if the grandfather was far away the Facetime feature works nicely but seeing a pixelated picture of your granddaughters face is no substitute for not being able to really meet this new person in person. I doubt any new grandfather out there would trade holding his granddaughter for a streamed image but even if it's a last resort it cheapens it.

The second iPhone commercial I saw was even scarier in this respect. It has a man and women, apparently in a relationship, talking about what they've been "working on for awhile". The man realizes what the woman is referring to and they both rejoice at the thought of the two becoming parents.

Now this commercial hints at two aspects of the story between these two: A: they've been trying to have a baby for a while now and B: they have had sex in the past few months. Now why would two people in a relationship need Facetime to be used in this way? The woman couldn't of told the man any other way? They see each other enough to try and have the baby but not enough to celebrate the results of their endeavor? I admit that is way too many rhetorical questions in a row but I was on a roll.

Now common sense dictates that phone conversations do not substitute face time when it comes to important matters. Hell, even high school couples know that it is bad form to break up through text messages. A feature like Facetime does not make the phone any better when it comes to giving important information. Now I doubt Facetime will create a big revolution or be the catalyst for those cool video phones we see in every movie set in the future. Let's hope that people realize that Facetime is not a proper replacement for actual face to face interaction and isn't one more step in the isolation of the individual.

Insert witty vampire pun here

Let's start off by saying that vampires are past the point of overexposure. I assume that most people, like myself, are tired of even hearing the word vampire (I've always preferred zombies personally). Twilight is, of course, to blame for this epidemic. With it's laborious storyline spanning four books and culminating into one big sex after marriage moral, it's ripe for parody. With that being said, I doubt anything is horrible enough to deserve it's own spoof movie.

Even their posters aren't trying anymore.

The spoof movie, the lowest form of cinema. While some spoof movies turn out solid (the first Scary Movie and Not Another Teen Movie), others are just pop culture mad libs. They are time capsules of the worst aspects of the time they were made. They meander from one stale reference to another to the point where you wonder why they even try anymore. The latter kind of spoof movie has one thing in common, the writer/director team of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (makers of such classics as Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie).

What are they laughing at? Maybe they rented Airplane!

Lets start off by saying that these two are not the new Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker. They aren't even the new Waynes Brothers. They may belong to the same school of comedy as ZAZ but they have none of the class (yes compared to Friedberg and Seltzer, ZAZ has class). They want to be ZAZ but fail so spectacularly at it. Their movies follow the same formula to the cringe inducing end.

By taking whatever genre they want and spicing it up with easy pop culture targets at the time (with gags involving such resilient icons like Amy Winehouse) the result becomes a mess destined for the bargain bin at your local supermarket. These movies are so bad that even Leslie Nielsen won't touch it.What you do have are Madtv refugees playing five roles a piece and doing that same shtick they did on Madtv when it started to suck (except for the Stuart sketches, those will always rule). Speaking of spoof movie regulars, I'm surprised to find that Tony Cox isn't in Vampires Suck anywhere. Maybe he was busy or maybe he wised up to whoring himself out to spoof movies.

He's probably mad that Warwick Davis gets all the good roles (funfact: both men played ewoks).

Really what it comes down to is parody for parody sake to give the failed sketch comedy actors someone to imitate. Pick someone to do an impression of and try to fit them into the patchwork story that comes out of the long list of fodder. What Friedberg and Seltzer do isn't writing and it's an insult to real comedy writers out there. I like to think of the reason for their existing careers is the same reason why a Saw movie comes out every year: they're easy to write and cheap to make. Producers are probably looking for the short money and hoping that enough people buy tickets in the first weeks that they see some profit. Really though, these movies are an insult to the business.

Vampires aren't cool anymore and having a spoof movie just shows how finished the genre is. Nowadays vampires are just too easy a target and it was only a matter of time before the hacks that are Friedberg and Seltzer decided to make a movie about it. The fact that a spoof movie is being made about vampires and Twilight to be specific shows how it's just too easy to make fun of them. I hate vampires nowadays but I hate spoof movies even more.