By Lee Pfeiffer
Add New York Post TV critic Phil Mushnick to the chorus of movie fans who deplore network's editing of films they broadcast. Specifically, Mushnick hates the recent trend to all but eliminate closing credits by squeezing them into a box so tacky promotions for other shows can be shown. Adding insult to injury, the credits are also run at hyper-speed, making them virtually impossible to read. Mushnick wrote in a recent column:
"When’s the last time you read a book without knowing the author? Or attended an art exhibit, artists not identified?
Then why must we watch movies that don’t include the closing credits?
TV’s
elimination or squeezing of post-movie credits — a move that years ago
began as a crass, insulting way to include stay-tuned network promotions
— has become the standard. Now even a network named the Independent
Film Channel — so artsy, so above the commercial fray — sees fit to make
the films’ credits unreadable, shrinking them to make room for IFC
promotions.
Who
played that secondary character? Who was responsible for special
effects? Wasn’t that bit part played by a young Richard Dreyfus? Who
scored the movie? Look it up on the Internet."
We're with you, Phil. However, we wonder who even watches movies on broadcast TV anymore. They are cut, bleeped, shown in pan-and-scan format and contain endless blocks of TV commercials. Recently my wife was channel surfing and came across Steve Martin's Father of the Bride, a film she likes very much. When the movie went into commercials, we counted 21 ads during the break....that's right, 21 ads. Like any sane people, we turned to another network. However, the vast majority of people are far less discriminating. I recently visiting someone who was in the midst of of watching an action movie on TBS or TNT (is there really any difference?). When I noted that the movie had been cut and censored, he simply shrugged and said, "That's okay- I don't know the name of it or who's in it, anyway." As long as this line of thinking represents public attitude, TV will be a wasteland for classic movie lovers. (TCM being the glorious exception, of course.)