AMC, which used to stand for "American Movie Classics" can no longer be called such. They're actually showing Star Trek Nemesis on AMC. I think I need to puke now. Is this worse than Sci Fi showing Braveheart?
"Nemesis" undeserved reputation aside, AMC has been showing movies like "Predator 2" and "Catwoman" for several years now.
Catwoman? What are they smoking over at the AMC offices these days? Also, Nemesis would have been better if the studio didn't force so many scenes to be cut. 2 examples come to mind instantly... 1.) The scene where Data & Picard discuss family in his quarters would have made Data's death at the end more poignant. There should have been more to the scene with Data's wake too. Hell, why didn't he get the same 'torpedo tube' funeral that Spock got? Data was the Next Gen's equivalent of Spock, right? Give him the funeral he deserves! 2.) That scene where Shinzon once again tries to mind-rape Troi in the turbolift also should have been left in the final cut. It makes him even more monstrous of a villain. It also makes Troi more sympathetic and her revenge against the Viceroy even more cathartic for her and the audience.
AMC changed it's focus out of necessity. Sereval factors came into play...Both Fox and Warners raised the prices of the classic films they had under license for many years, so high that they had to go to cable operators and suggest raising the monthly fee cable ops pay the channel to cover the increase. The cable ops didn't jump for joy over paying more to them, so AMC was forced to start running commercials...Selling ads turned out to be harder than they thought, as advertisers weren't keen on buying ad time in older movies. Meanwhile, all those classic films from Warners they had rights to, wound up on competing Turner Movie Classics, and Fox launched their own classic movie channel (which was speculated to have been the motive for jacking up the prices in the first place). In the end they had no choice. Survival meant changing their format to running more recent films, in order to attract ad dollars to stay afloat. As for running Nemesis, well, it's better than most of the horror junk Sci Fi runs...
AMC hasn't been a good station in a long time. I remember back in the days when they didn't show any movies beyond the 60's and never had any commercials (except for a few station related ones between movies). At least we still have TCM.
A movie must be 150 years old before it is shown as a classic... Not really. Yeah, I wonder why so many movies on both TCM and AMC are considered classics... Classics to who? and how? Nemesis wasn't that bad, but a classic? I can't think of it in those terms...
I think that's why AMC is so desperate to show original programming for the network, like Mad Men and Breaking Bad. I don't care for Breaking Bad, but Mad Men is excellent.
To be fair, AMC ran The Hunt for Red October the other night, and that still holds up stupendously well. In any event, I believe the "Classic" name was dropped five or six years ago.
The History Channel showed a series about dragons once. That's gotta be the worse. Or maybe that crap they're showing now about bigfoot and chupacabra.
The only thing that slightly irritates me is their censoring. If they want to show Nemesis, then all the power to them. I mean if it really bugged me I just wouldn't watch.
It seems to me like people who really like classic movies have large movie collections. If people watched these channels when they showed those movies we wouldn't have a problem. People at AMC got to eat too, so I don't blame them for trying to make a dollar.
AMC is a sad sad shell of its former self... they seem to show the same movies every day. I keep it in my favorites largely out of pity. They deserve Nemesis! ...thank Iluvatar for TCM! If I had a Nielsen box it'd be #1...
AMC has long been a vessel for crap. Even when they actually play classic films, they fill them with so many commercials and that annoying bar at the bottom of the screen that you can't enjoy the film anyway. In the U.S. Turner Classic Movies, followed by Fox Movie Channel are the channels of choice for the classic film fan. There are also a few specialty vintage channels that are good - there is a westerns channel, for example that is good if you like westerns.
AMC has already declared that they no longer stand for "American Movie" anything. Maybe they should just admit that anyone who wants to watch classic movies can see them on DVD and concentrate on making more TV series like Mad Men and Breaking Bad.