If you want an easy job, you can apply to pretend to hang out in
a café for AMC’s new show “Sunday Morning
Shootout.” The show, which has aired twice, is set in a
coffee shop complete with anonymous coffee drinkers to add to the
authenticity.
Last week’s guest star, Dustin Hoffman, went over and
apologized to a woman sitting at one of the tables in the café
after uttering a word you can’t say on television.
“If you say “˜Hello,’ they’ll pay you
extra,” he said as he walked back to the main table.
The interaction is proof that there is something that makes
“Sunday Morning Shootout” just a little different from
most shows about show business.
The program, which features UCLA professor Peter Guber and
visiting assistant professor Peter Bart, focuses on issues
important to movie-goers, such as whether there should be
commercials before a film and whether movies should get an
automatic “R” rating if the main character consistently
smokes cigarettes. For the first half of the show, Guber and Bart
discuss the topics of the day. After that, their guest comes on and
weighs in on the topics.
The idea behind “Sunday Morning Shootout” is based
on a book that Guber and Bart wrote together, which in turn drew
from Guber’s classes at UCLA.
“The show had an indirect genesis at UCLA,” Bart
said.
Although Guber and Bart claim that they don’t want to give
plugs for or play clips from their guests’ new projects, they
did spend a large chunk of their time with Hoffman praising him for
“triumphing” in the movie industry since the 1960s.
Like Hoffman, Guber and Bart have had their fair share of
experience in the film industry. Guber, who started working for
Columbia Pictures in 1968, founded Mandalay Pictures in 1995. Bart,
who has worked as an executive at many large studios, is currently
editor-in-chief at “Variety” magazine.
“(We’ve) weathered the last 30 years, and are still
right in the middle of the action,” said Bart. “So, we
can bring some perspective to the table, as well as a point of
view.”
And those points of view usually oppose one another. On this
week’s episode, when asked by e-mail if there were any issues
they agreed on, they took a moment to look at each other, shook
their heads, and said “No,” in unison.
Guber and Bart hope that being two informed hosts with almost
polar opposite views will bring a spark to the show. According to
Bart, the purpose of the show is to provide information about the
movies “in a casual and occasionally humorous way.”
Guber cites the growing importance of cinema as an important
reason for the show’s existence.
“It is the defining art form of the 20th century,”
he said.
“Sunday Morning Shootout” airs Sundays at 11:00
a.m. For more information, log on to www.amctv.com.