Static In My Attic

I was up 'til about 3 am last night, actually unable to look away from the TV for a change, watching the documentary Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession. Sure I could have merely turned the DVD off and watched it another time, preferably one where I didn't have to get up 3 hours later at 6am. But hot damn, whatta flick. And what a channel. I just had to seek this one out to the end.

About the picture: A picture about... pictures. How best to describe the Z Channel for us Gen X-Y-Zers east coaster types who were never there? I took this tellingly descriptive excerpt from a review on the IMDb who knows how to speak my language:


"For those of you reading this who are not from Los Angeles or are not yet 30, you do not know what you missed. Imagine a late 60's, early 70's FM eclectic station that mixed Marvin Gaye, Frank Zappa, Charlie Parker, Parisian Ballads, The Rolling Stones and Parliament Funkadelic into their play list. Now, imagine the same kind of eclectic mix applied to movies. Oh yeah, add to that some late night Euro soft-core sex movies and a monthly magazine that provided the kind of insight you now find on IMDb with full cast lists and turkey alerts, 20 years before the internet."

Los Angeles pay cable station Z Channel offered more on its daily programming than anything HBO, Showtime, Bravo or anything else that came after, even to this day. Chief program director Jerry Harvey became a sort of hero and legend among his fans and viewers and even the movie industry elite for what he was able to provide as a cinemaphile himself -- the most eclectic movie programming of any television channel ever offered in its time (the channel started in 1974 and lasted up until the late 80's, shortly after the startlingly tragic deaths of Jerry and his wife). Directed by Xan Cassavetes (yep, John's son) the film interviews actors and directors like Robert Altman, Quentin Tarantino, Theresa Russell, James Woods, Alexander Payne, and Jacqueline Bisset as they reminisce in wonder about the little channel that would show Star Wars one moment and then run L'Avventura then next. A monthly newsletter from the station outlined their programming schedule featuring film festivals of pictures that hardly anyone ever got to see even in theaters during its initial release. In one afternoon you could potentially see Heaven's Gate, Black Orpheus, Once Upon A Time In America, Berlin Alexanderplatz, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, la Notte, L'Important C'est D'aimer, Scarface, Turkish Delight, Fitzcarraldo, and Silver Streak, and then in the late evenings be treated to soft-core European sex romps -- all of which the documentary shows clips throughout the picture. Second only to the films themselves are accounts from Jerry's friends and former co-workers recalling the years of erratic behavior that eventually lead to his demise in 1988, followed shortly after by Z Channel itself, forced to incorporate awkwardly placed sports programming into its daily rotation in the years before folding.

A very fascinating look into an idea that came and went, and was still ahead of its time to this day.