True Movies

The hours don’t simply fly by in its company. They swoop, they glide, they cavort!

Alright, slight exaggeration, but if you’re at all amused by melodrama, then it’s worth flicking over to on your next duvet day.

The made-for-TV movie is oft subject to well-deserved ridicule. They are the refuge of the bit-part actor or the faded soap star. Scripted by the mediocre, directed by the misguided, funded by the careless. They really shouldn’t pass as entertainment, but they rarely miss the mark.

Despite their huge popularity in America, the discerning UK have done little more than dabble with the genre and then sniffily set it aside. We much prefer to point and laugh at their efforts from across the pond and so, perhaps with that in mind, Moving Movies Ltd. managed to give quality control the slip and launched True Movies in April 2005.

It is dedicated to telling the stories of some of America’s greatest heroes, victims, criminals and ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances which are only just a little bit made up. A mother’s struggle. A father’s battle. A monkey’s uncle.

Another source of constant amusement, beyond the wildly exaggerated acting and the hugely improbably scenarios we’re somehow supposed to believe could or did happen in real life, are the titles. Most of them are so long-winded that they could be easily mistaken for plot summaries.

“Whose Child is This? The Fight for Baby Jessica” and “Willing to Kill: The Texas Cheerleader Cases” are just two of the ones I haven’t made up.

Of course, if you do start making them up, you’ll find yourself hard-pushed to come up with anything that sounds too ludicrous to actually exist. Believe me, I’ve tried – “A Cry in The Dark: The Story of My Lower Bowels”, “Addicted to Apes” and “My Husband the Murdering, Seafaring Mariner” sit comfortably amongst the likes of “Blood Vows: The Story of a Mafia Wife” and “The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal”.

And if I still haven’t given you a good enough reason to watch, then True Movies is also dedicated to showcasing the embarrassing early work of most of the current Hollywood massive. Hugh Grant, Angelina Jolie, Kirsten Dunst, Martin Sheen plus a whole host of other surprisingly big names are brought to justice by you, the jury.

I’ll save you a seat…

True Movies can be found and enjoyed on Sky Channel 321, Virgin 428 or Freesat (whatever that is) 302