remember Z channel?

i vaguely remember it.

when i was growing up i think we stole (did i say stole? what i meant was shared) it from a split cable connection with our neighbor. yes, we were one of those privileged few who witnessed the beginnings of MTV, HBO, Showtime, TMC, and other pay channels.

the thing about it is that i was too young to appreciate all that the Z channel had to offer me. really the only bits of it i can recall are soft-core movies that they would air in the later hours of the evening. and before you get the wrong idea about me, this isn't the stuff i feel i was too young to appreciate. (why does that sound worse than i mean? for clarifications sake, i am NOT saying that i appreciated the soft-core movies as a youngun. you just thought that because you're a pervert.) what i was referring to are the eclectic movies, the lost treasures of the filmmaking world that i could have seen in the comfort of my living room. an assortment of actor, director, and themed festivals; obscure documentaries, movies that had been panned by critics, short-run releases, restored director's cut films - all made available, all at my fingertips, just by tuning in to Z channel. i could have been an ultimate film fanatic had i been a little bit older, had i the mental capacity to sit through avant-garde movies, foreign language classics and the like. but at that age i was more inclined to plop down on the sofa and follow the adventures of the little prince, visit mr. rogers in his neighborhood, play the HBO brain games, or see how else the Nickleodeon lineup could entertain me. (although i think this is still pretty sophisticated tastes for a grade-schooler.)

i recently watched a terrific documentary on the beginnings of the Z channel. (which is why, incidentally, i'm blogging about this.) the documentary, Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004), opened my eyes to the extraordinary loss that the demise of the Z channel has brought upon my movie knowledge and history. the guy that was responsible for Z channel's programming was some kind of mad genius curator who cared about breathing life into dying films and nurturing other's work as his own. i feel disappointed that there is no Z channel out here now to guide me through the movie jungle, to hold my hand as i explore unfamiliar film frontiers. the Z channel seemed to me like having a really cool movie buff friend to recommend movies you haven't heard of, or might otherwise have ignored, but without the pretentiousness of telling you why this particular movie sequence was flawed, or who the 2nd assistant camera person was and why that's important to blah blah blah. you know how some movie people can be.

who knows, maybe the Z channel will resurface. maybe some bold new movie meister is already planning its return. that would be awesome. i'd pay for that. and now that i'm unemployed and soon-to-be 30 i'm definitely able to appreciate it.