Top 5: Movies for niche cable networks

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By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Weather Channel announced earlier this week that they are adding feature movies to their programming diet of forecast updates. First up is "The Perfect Storm." We've taken it upon ourselves to program some movies for a few other cablers.

1. Fox News Channel — Depending on your point of view, the Murdoch-Ailes news network is either a platform for dangerously cynical demagogues or the last line of defense against creeping socialism in the land of the free. They can cover all the bases with Elia Kazan's mass media cautionary tale "A Face in the Crowd" and John Milius' blueprint for a homegrown resistance movement, "Red Dawn."

2. MSNBC — Scrambling to catch up with Fox News yet again, the ideological counterprogramming at MS would make the anti-FNC documentary "Outfoxed" an almost-too-obvious selection. Michael Moore's entire oeuvre would also have a home here, as would former Vice President Al Gore's global warming slideshow "An Inconvenient Truth."

3. HSN — The Home Shopping Network could take product placement to new heights, hawking merchandise seen in movies based on toys ("Transformers," "G.I. Joe"), video games ("Mortal Kombat," "Street Fighter," "Resident Evil") and comic books ("The Dark Knight," "Spider-Man," "Iron Man").

4. Al Jazeera — The Qatar-based news network will specialize in cinema verite, showing — uncut and commercial-free — interminable speeches taped by top al Qaeda operatives. Not shown: "Team America: World Police."

5. Comedy Central — By focusing their film programming on Hollywood's ample library of anti-George W. movies, the newly tame satirists at the network and their fans could fondly relive the Bush years, when they had a president they weren't afraid to laugh at. The choices are endless: Oliver Stone's crude docudrama "W," the aforementioned Mr. Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" (starring new White House aide Kalpen Modi) …