Michael Pack

The executive who oversaw the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's $70-million television programming fund has left after three years to return to filmmaking. Michael Pack, the corporation's senior vice president for television programming, said he decided to exercise an option in his contract that allowed him to collect a $500,000 grant for a documentary called "Winning Modern Wars" that his production company was awarded before he took the job at CPB in February 2003.

The executive who oversaw the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's $70-million television programming fund has left after three years to return to filmmaking. Michael Pack, the corporation's senior vice president for television programming, said he decided to exercise an option in his contract that allowed him to collect a $500,000 grant for a documentary called "Winning Modern Wars" that his production company was awarded before he took the job at CPB in February 2003.

"American Family," the sprawling dramatic series about a Mexican American family from East L.A., won't be returning to PBS for a third season, despite a best miniseries Emmy nomination and a stack of admiring reviews. As a casual viewer, I had assumed the show, perhaps the most costly drama in PBS history at roughly $1 million per episode, was canceled for the most obvious of reasons -- lousy ratings, which it had in spades.

"American Family," the sprawling dramatic series about a Mexican American family from East L.A., won't be returning to PBS for a third season, despite a best miniseries Emmy nomination and a stack of admiring reviews. As a casual viewer, I had assumed the show, perhaps the most costly drama in PBS history at roughly $1 million per episode, was canceled for the most obvious of reasons -- lousy ratings, which it had in spades.

Filmmaker Michael Pack says it was pure luck that in his project to chronicle six ordinary months in the life of then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, he turned up six extraordinary ones. When Pack's cameras started following the Georgia Republican in September 1998 during a dinosaur bone search in Montana, the intent was to contrast this moment of relaxation with an otherwise hectic schedule. Little did he know how vivid the contrast would turn out to be.

A Lomita man who tried to be the peacemaker in a dispute between his twin brother and another man died this week after the man suddenly drew a gun and shot him twice in the chest. Kevin Michael Pack, 23, died at Bay Harbor Hospital about an hour after the 10:30 p.m. Monday shooting in the courtyard of a Lomita condominium complex, Sheriff's Deputy Roger Hom said.

On the heels of heated meetings recently with independent producers and public broadcasters in New York and San Francisco, Corporation for Public Broadcasting executives were expecting more fireworks when they brought their roadshow to Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon. Instead, all but a handful of the 125 or so independent filmmakers and producers in attendance were there primarily to learn more about the corporation's $20-million initiative, "America at a Crossroads."

The American businessman has usurped the place of ethnic thugs and corrupt Watergate-era politicians and is now the closest thing television storytellers have to a universal villain, a new television documentary says.

A new public television documentary takes the three major networks to task for their prime-time portrayals of American businessmen and women as "heavies" who behave "amorally" and who, the report contends, are beginning to serve as role models for young television viewers.

In the late '70s, when jogging was a mystical experience, a jogger could instantly terminate a good party by blabbering about the loneliness of the long-distance runner. At the time, it was assumed that joggers ran alone because they were too boring to find a companion. But new evidence suggests that joggers were merely going through a phase. Today's Nuclear Age joggers run in packs. They are warm, gregarious human beings who enjoy the camaraderie and security of the group experience.

Filmmaker Michael Pack says it was pure luck that in his project to chronicle six ordinary months in the life of then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, he turned up six extraordinary ones. When Pack's cameras started following the Georgia Republican in September 1998 during a dinosaur bone search in Montana, the intent was to contrast this moment of relaxation with an otherwise hectic schedule. Little did he know how vivid the contrast would turn out to be.

Judging by the dozens of long and short videos on display at the American Film Institute's 1994 National Video Festival (starting tonight at 7 and continuing through Sunday at various venues on the AFI campus), what videomakers currently seem interested in are the facts. Or at least, their version of the facts.

TV documentaries about American history in the post Ken Burns-age have a certain predictability -- a placid interweave of earnest interviews with historians, portraits of long-dead presidents and reenactments with the inevitable extras in period costume and fife and drum music. But Monday night sees an energetic reworking of the form. "Rediscovering Alexander Hamilton" on KOCE illuminates the life and accomplishments of one of the most brilliant yet least celebrated Founding Fathers.