By Lee Pfeiffer
There was a time when AMC, originally known as American Movie Classics, lived up to its name. The network rivaled Turner Classic Movies in terms of reverent showings of great movies, all complete and uncut. Then the zombies and Wall Streeters took over management of the network and decided to trash tradition. Suddenly, lousy movies were interspersed with the classics, films were edited for content and to allow an abundance of commercials to be crammed in and the network didn't even respect the movies enough to allow for the end credits to run. Instead, they were shown in a microscopic window at warp speed while inane "coming up next" promos filled the screen. The outcry was tremendous among classic movie lovers, but there's a big brainless public in America that will watch movies under these conditions. The AMC brass knew their target audience and the station's popularity and profits soared. They did do something right, however, in terms of developing original content, which resulted in the acclaimed series Mad Men and Breaking Bad). AMC may have another promising concept: creating a series from Nicholas Pileggi's non-fiction mob book Wise Guy which was the basis for Martin Scorsese's 1990 film Goodfellas, a genuine American masterpiece. Pileggi is involved with the project, as is the film's producer Irwin Winkler. They might make a great series out of this, which is ironic, because you would never be able to see Goodfellas presented respectfully on the same network. For more click here