Maybe They're Amazed

Two Spielbergers to go

MOST of this season's anthology TV series—The Twilight Zone, A If red H itehcock Presents—sound like retreads picked up at the Holiday Inn School of Television (where the best surprise is no surprise). NBC's Amazing Stories, how-

ever, promises freshness. It is produced by the hardest-working man in pop culture, Steven Spielberg, who also directs a few of the episodes. Among the other big-name directors Spielberg has assembled are Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Timothy Hutton, Peter (2010) Hyams, and Irvin (The Empire Strikes Back) Kershner. The two newcomers are Philip Joanou and Lesli Glatter (see below). None of the twenty-two episodes will be screened for the press. All of this has generated an enormous wave of anticipation: expect the Shock of the New from Amazing Stories, not the Schlock of the Used.

Philip Joanou (twentythree, fresh from U.S.C. film school and immediately signed up by Disney to write and direct three pictures, he is making ''Santa '85" for Amazing Stories, a mod Christmas myth): "I'm having a great time. I think that Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese got to the scripts first and said, 'Two sets. . .all interiors. . .I'll take it. Give the ones with all the locations and special effects to the kids.' And that's great. I love problem solving, because that's what makes directing for me. I've got everything all set up so that when something goes wrong I'll be prepared for it and my crew will be in the trenches with me and we'll solve it together. Of course, we could end up with a Heaven's Gw/ckinda thing here. lean see it now—'First-timer's TV show goes 10 million over budget. Lew Wasserman forced to sell MCA Records to CBS.' "

Lesli Glatter (thirty-three; her first movie. Tales of Meeting and Parting, was nominated for the 1984 best-short-film Oscar; she is making ''No Day at the Beach," about young World War II soldiers, for Amazing Stories): ''I think what's great about Amazing Stories is that it's not copying anything, or remaking shows. The stories arc so completely different, but the wonderful thing about them is the connecting thread. The stories are about something extraordinary happening in everyday lives, and that provides the latitude to go from being very funny to deeply, intensely dramatic. That's what attracted me to it, because I'm really not that interested in working in television."

Elvis Mitchell