2014: A Platinum Year For Pay-Per-View

In celebration of the Caucus twentieth anniversary, we asked veteran writer-producer George Eckstein to predict what made-for-television- movies might be like twenty years from now. -- Ed.

2014 will not be remembered as a particularly distinguished year in the history of Movies of the Week made for free television. Only the three remaining independent production companies were supplying products to the eight major networks, the networks themselves having abandoned in-house MOW production as economically insane. There were the usual women in jeopardy, children in jeopardy, animals in jeopardy, large appliances in jeopardy, and, of course, Alex Trebek's dramatic debut in "Jeopardy in Jeopardy." The year also brought us 12 adoption series, 23 docudramas about serial killers, the 41st and 42nd Danielle Steele mini-series, and Ken Burns' 31-hour documentary on the history of convenience stores.

The big news, naturally, was in the area of pay-per-view. The bankruptcy last year of Cineplex-Odeon more or less marked the end of traditional film exhibition. It was inevitable, of course, with 96% of the population now owning high-definition, wide-screen 72" TV monitors. Americans are unwilling to risk the hazards of murderous street gangs and the annoyance of people talking behind them when they can sit comfortably at home and punch in their requests. Also, the PPV price of $25 per showing is much more appealing than the $55 cineplexes have been charging.

Film historians are fond of pointing to 1939 as the Golden year of films, and, certainly, it was an extraordinary twelve month period: Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Wuthering Heights, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Dark Victory, Ninotchka, Love Affair, Stagecoach, Babes in Arms, Juarez, The Rains Came, Of Mice and Men, and many more. Impressive? Certainly. But, in all honesty, even such a glittering array of cinematic achievements pales beside the films digitally satellited to the living rooms of America in 2014. As examples:

 

• It's A Blast! -- Detonation experts Sylvester Stallone, Danny Glover and Macaulay Culkin manage to blow-up the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World in pursuit of the villainous and psychotic John Wayne Bobbit, who has stolen microfilm containing a fair and workable definition of net profits.

   

• Here's Aiming At You, Kid! -- Vet helmer Quentin Tarantino pushes the violence envelope a little further in this interactive thriller in which, at each screening of the film, a member of the audience, selected at random, is brutally, but entertainingly, murdered by Elijah Wood.

   

• The Big Double Cross -- Oliver Stone's dizzyingly cinematic examination of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (Kato Kaelin) wherein Stone conclusively proves the events at Calvary were the result of a heinous conspiracy between the C.I.A., Father Porter, and former President Sonny Bono.

   

• Lumpy Old Men -- Affectionate look at life and love in a retirement home where octogenarians Robert Redford, Warren Beatty and Clint Eastwood vie for the affections of feisty septuagenarian widow, Meryl Streep. The switch, of course, is when Meryl romantically reunites with her childhood sweetheart, Susan Sarandon.

   

• Weekend At Bernie's 9 -- This hilarious comedy involved the efforts of George (David Caruso) and Lenny (Rob Morrow) to conceal the death of their aged mother (Roseanne Barr) by disguising her corpse to resemble a nuclear waste dump.

   

• Steve and Jeff and David's Excellent Adventure -- The wicked Eisnerman deviously but unsuccessfully attempts to subvert our intrepid trio's heroic attempts to buy the motion picture industry.

   

• Foot Soldiers -- James Cameron's brilliantly directed tragedy about a successful screenwriter pursued for years throughout the world and eventually killed by Uzi-armed, Armani-clad thugs employed by a powerful agent. Allegedly based on a true story.

   

• It's Another Blast! -- This time Stallone, Glover and Culkin blow up the Seven Wonders of the Modern World (actually) in pursuit of the villainous and psychotic James Woods who has stolen the negative of Die Hard 12 because he was embarrassed by his over-the-top performance therein of a villainous psychotic. Reputedly, there was some difficulty persuading the Egyptian president to allow the destruction of the Pyramids until he was promised 5% of the gross and a separate Producer card.

   

• In all honesty, there were also some disappointments in 2014: the animated version of Schindler's List, James Ivory's misbegotten attempt to star Arnold Schwarzenegger in the filmography of Noel Coward, and, of course, Sony's kamikaze attempt to remake Meet Me in St. Louis with an all-Japanese cast. Nevertheless, 2014 was a year to celebrate, and, with Bruce Willis in King Lear soon to be beamed into our homes, 2015 promises to be even greater.