TVSquad

As much as there have been movies about the theater and movies about movies, the films that have been made about television are some of the best ever. This year alone, there are two movies nominated for Best Picture of the year by the Academy Awards that are all about television -- Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon. Without TV, neither of these films would exist. Looking back, here are the films about TV that set the standards by which Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon are measured.

While NBC is carefully plotting Jay Leno's exit from The Tonight Show, David Letterman is talking about staying on the CBS Late Show beyond 2010. And since the subject of Leno came up, Dave thinks the guys at NBC are nuts to treat Jay the way they are, especially since he's done such a great job in the 11:30 slot. Letterman even said he wants Jay on his show the day after his Tonight Show tenure ends.

Letterman, who was once the heir apparent to Johnny Carson's desk but was passed over in favor of Leno, has thrived on CBS even though he was crushed to lose The Tonight Show. The supposed feud between Letterman and Leno, and their competition for The Tonight Show, was depicted in the HBO film (and Bill Carter book) The Late Shift. (If you've never seen it, buy or rent it; it's one of the best films ever about how TV works behind the scenes.)

After the first 15 minutes of the HBO movie Recount, I was so upset, so filled with rage that I wondered if I wanted to watch the rest of the movie. Did I want to relive the events of November 7, 2000? Did I want to watch what happened, the craziest election fiasco in the last 25 years? I was compelled to stick with it because I had lived through it and I was dying to know what I didn't know when it unfolded in real time. I thought the HBO movie might teach me something, and, in fact, it did.

For those who don't want to know what happened in Recount, I won't reveal any spoilers until after the jump. Of course, if you don't already know how the election turned out, you've either been in a coma or are woefully out of touch. Suffice to say that Recount doesn't rewrite history. The ending is exactly as it was in 2000.

Now someone in Hollywood has confirmed what I've thought for several years.

George Lopez, comedian and star of his own ABC sitcom, told Florida radio station WOMX hosts Scott and Erica that Leno is "the biggest two-faced dude on TV," and went on to call him a back-stabber. He also said that Leno was bad at interviewing his guests.

Anyone who watches Leno knows that Lopez is right. He's an awesomely bad host, mumbling through introductions, laughing at his own jokes, and rushing through everything so fast he must want to get the hell out of there so he can either go home and write more jokes or maybe play with his car collection. In fact, the whole show is a mess, from the addition of Stuttering John as announcer to Leno's "bits." As for the back-stabbing accusation, I can't speak to that, except to say that everyone should read Bill Carter's book The Late Shift and find out about the Leno vs. Letterman Tonight Show feud.

[via TV Tattle]

One of my all-time favorite books is The Late Shift, a blow-by-blow account of the machinations involved in the late-night wars of the early 1990s. Bill Carter of The New York Times put together such a vivid picture of the battle between NBC, Jay Leno and David Letterman, I almost thought I was there during the book's pivotal scene: Leno, in a supply closet next to an NBC boardroom, eavesdropping on NBC executives as they discuss dumping him in favor of Letterman, even though he had been hosting The Tonight Show for only a few months.

Hopefully, Carter can bring his sense of "you are there" style to his latest book, Desperate Networks, which is due out on May 2. In the book, Carter explores the eventful and historic 2004-05 season from a few different angles: the fall of NBC, the slow-and-steady rise of CBS, the great new ABC shows that came on the air (Lost, Housewives), the retirement/departures of all three network anchors, and that nutso FOX network. The publisher's blurb on Amazon promises that Carter will be giving readers a lot of behind-the-scenes dirt, so I'm looking forward to getting this book. Is a TV Squad book review in the cards...?  We'll see...

[via Variety.com]