Description
From 1974 to 1989, Z Channel graced the Los Angeles airwaves as one of the country's first pay-television stations. Though its subscription rate barely reached into the hundred thousands, the cable station presaged later channels such as Sundance and IFC with an eclectic slate of movie programming that included art-house, foreign, independent, classic, and otherwise rare and/or out-of-the-mainstream films--this at at time when VCRs and cable were still in their infancy and cinephiles had to frequent repertory theaters to quench their cinematic thirsts. Z Channel's visionary approach was the brainchild of its main programmer, Jerry Harvey, who shaped the station's offerings with his encyclopedic knowledge and impeccable taste as well as innovations like director's cuts and theme nights. Unfortunately, the very qualities that made Harvey such a cinematic obsessive also lent themselves to emotional instability, and both he and Z Channel came to an abrupt end when he killed his wife and then himself one tragic night in 1988. Director Xan Cassavetes (daughter of indie icons John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands) fashions a movie-lover's tribute to Harvey's pioneering station with her documentary Z CHANNEL: A MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, which tells its story through talking-head interviews with such notable Z fans as Quentin Tarantino, Robert Altman, Jim Jarmusch, and Alexander Payne, as well as a wealth of film clips sure to make cinephiles drool.