ON-TV: a modest tribute
c.1980-1983: a simple box with a single knob was connected to the only tv in our home and was largely responsible for the onset of my obsession with movies. ON-TV was a UHF-scrambled, commercial-free, subscription programming service that aired sports, concerts, music videos and movies several years before the introduction of cable tv.
The following is a list of influential movies I first experienced via 'ON' (at the impressionable ages of 12-15). Most are quite good and still rank as some of my all-time favorites while some are bona fide clunkers. Regardless of their critical reception, each certainly helped shape my overall interest in film, my cinematic inclinations, and my attitude about the world in which I was presently becoming an independent entity.
I suppose the real thanks should go to my parents who not only paid for this luxury but also provided me the freedom to explore all content without supervision, guidance or restriction. This rare act of parental latitude allowed me to be completely objective and thus thoroughly immerse myself in the medium to form opinions, emotions, likes and dislikes that were truly idiosyncratic.
Of course we are all products of our environment and usually retain and revere our early influences... and so it is, for me, that this became a "golden age" of film for which I am grateful to ON-TV for its quality, unedited programming and brief existence before the purchase of our first VCR.
The following is a list of influential movies I first experienced via 'ON' (at the impressionable ages of 12-15). Most are quite good and still rank as some of my all-time favorites while some are bona fide clunkers. Regardless of their critical reception, each certainly helped shape my overall interest in film, my cinematic inclinations, and my attitude about the world in which I was presently becoming an independent entity.
I suppose the real thanks should go to my parents who not only paid for this luxury but also provided me the freedom to explore all content without supervision, guidance or restriction. This rare act of parental latitude allowed me to be completely objective and thus thoroughly immerse myself in the medium to form opinions, emotions, likes and dislikes that were truly idiosyncratic.
Of course we are all products of our environment and usually retain and revere our early influences... and so it is, for me, that this became a "golden age" of film for which I am grateful to ON-TV for its quality, unedited programming and brief existence before the purchase of our first VCR.
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