Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

Disir

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Sep 30, 2011
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This is an excellent documentary on the rise of Z Channel and Jerry Harvey who was a screen writer and film programmer. They are so intertwined that they are inseparable. He shot and killed his wife and then himself in 1988. A few weeks later Z Channel added sports and in a year the channel was done. It is known that he had significant mental health problems and it sounds like he was bipolar in the documentary but it's not mentioned. His Wikipedia page mentions a sister that went missing that he believed was dead and she had a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

This documentary is made the way these things are supposed to be made. There is no person conducting interviews or talking about how they feel about the individual. These are people that knew him personally or, in the case of Quentin Tarantino, were influenced by the movies on Z Channel. He may have known him. I didn't hear that in there.

I never saw or even heard of Z Channel due to the location. Jerry Harvey was obsessed with films and certain directors. So now I have a list of movies and some directors to look into. I have already ignored about 3/4 of Heaven's Gate.

It's on Amazon Prime.
 
I happened to watch it the other night. I like documentaries. I also knew nothing about this cable system but yeah, it was interesting.

Sounded like I would have enjoyed their programming.
 
That is a pretty fantastic event and they had to be really ticked off at this guy not to have attempted a documentary until 2022.

I like documentaries more so than movies. I don't think I would make an effort to even track down any of these movies had I not seen it.
 
This is an excellent documentary on the rise of Z Channel and Jerry Harvey who was a screen writer and film programmer. They are so intertwined that they are inseparable. He shot and killed his wife and then himself in 1988. A few weeks later Z Channel added sports and in a year the channel was done. It is known that he had significant mental health problems and it sounds like he was bipolar in the documentary but it's not mentioned. His Wikipedia page mentions a sister that went missing that he believed was dead and she had a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

This documentary is made the way these things are supposed to be made. There is no person conducting interviews or talking about how they feel about the individual. These are people that knew him personally or, in the case of Quentin Tarantino, were influenced by the movies on Z Channel. He may have known him. I didn't hear that in there.

I never saw or even heard of Z Channel due to the location. Jerry Harvey was obsessed with films and certain directors. So now I have a list of movies and some directors to look into. I have already ignored about 3/4 of Heaven's Gate.

It's on Amazon Prime.
I thought this was going to be about the 1954 movie Magnificent Obsession with Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman. That movie had a marvelous message: help others anonymously.
 

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