Category: TVM
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Spoiler: there’s no trial in Trial of the Incredible Hulk. Except maybe the viewer’s difficulty getting through the TV movie. Or producer, director, and star Bixby doing a special effects heavy (but not for Hulk Lou Ferrigno) backdoor pilot for a “Daredevil” TV show starring very special guest star Rex Smith. Ferrigno’s so shoe-horned into…
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I’d love to know the logic behind the episode arrangement in Photo Finish and Matter of State. Another “Amazing Spider-Man” compilation movie again puts the later episode first; while the series presumably didn’t have much in the way of season-long character arcs, it’s peculiar to see Nicholas Hammond and Ellen Bry’s relationship rewind in the…
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Wolfpack and the Kirkwood Haunting once again proves me very wrong in thinking these two-episode compilation movies were the way to watch the old “Amazing Spider-Man” show. However, that revision is less about the narrative packaging this time and more about the show itself. Independently or consecutively, Wolfpack and Kirkwood are stinkers. But the Wolfpack…
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In a more modern context, The Con Caper and the Curse of Rava take on additional depth. First, there’s convicted state or federal senator (or congressman) William Smithers. He’s a white guy who once upon a time gave Black woman Chip Fields her first chance in the early seventies after she would’ve spent most of…
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Bride of the Incredible Hulk is just the season two two-part opener, “Married,” as a theatrical release (for overseas). But it’s also a remarkably self-contained outing for Bill Bixby (and even more so for series costar Jack Colvin, who gets a single scene). The movie opens with Bixby arriving in Hawaii to consult with preeminent…
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Night of the Clones and Escort to Danger is a strange way to watch a couple episodes of “The Amazing Spider-Man.” Without anywhere near enough episodes for syndication, the show’s producers packaged a couple episodes together so they would have TV movies for syndication. Well, TV movie length, anyway. Some of these duets would come…
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The Babysitter is too technically proficient for its own good. It’s a wannabe prestige lurid TV movie about eighteen-year-old girl with a past (early twenties Stephanie Zimbalist) worming her way into a seemingly perfect family only to reveal all the cracks within. Except it’s not a seemingly perfect family—and not even by the end, actually—with…
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As a pilot movie, The Flash is a success. It establishes its regular cast—John Wesley Shipp, Amanda Pays, Alex Désert, Paula Marshall (who wasn’t back, but sure seemed like she would be)—and doing an admirable, post-Burton Batman live-action superhero. Danny Elfman even contributes the theme, while composer Shirley Walker keeps the rest in Elfmanesque line.…
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The Jericho Mile plays a little like a truncated mini-series. The first hour of the film introduces the characters, the ground situation, and does an entire arc for six characters. There’s a minimal subplot about prison psychologist Geoffrey Lewis trying to convince seemingly super-fast-running inmate Peter Strauss to open up in therapy. Lewis then gets…
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Somehow this four hour adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma has rapidly delivered dialogue but never manages to work up any energy. It’s just people talking fast at one another, then lengthy “action” sequences, then more fast talking, then more dragging out. It’s especially noticeable with something like the oft-adapted Emma because there apparently isn’t a…
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You know, a three-hour King Kong movie may just be a bad idea. Though the television version of Kong is intended to be a two-night experience, turning the original two hour and fifteen minute movie into two two-hour network blocks. An almost mini-series event, only not because the only way to get it so long…
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Life is profoundly cheap in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. The film’s ostensibly about little human orphan Aubree Miller’s adventure with her Ewok buddy Warwick Davis and the old man (Wilford Brimley) who takes care of them after a group of bad guys appear out of nowhere and destroy the Ewok village and pew pew…
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I’m not sure what I thought Elizabeth Is Missing was going to be—I only half read a description—but when it became clear Glenda Jackson’s character (not Elizabeth) would be searching for that character (played by Maggie Steed) but also Jackson having Alzheimer’s and also sort of live action flashbacks with her younger self… Well, I…
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Bad Education is the story of a junior in high school (Geraldine Viswanathan) uncovering the biggest school embezzlement case in United States history, something like $12 million dollars. Only it’s not Viswanathan’s movie. It’s Hugh Jackman’s movie, which makes sense because Hugh Jackman’s great in it. Not transcendent, but he’s really good. He can’t be…
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In the Gloaming is a qualified success. If you’re trying to go for humanizing a guy dying of AIDS while his upper middle class White yuppie family is slow to realize he’s a dying person who they probably ought not to avoid because they’ll regret it… it does that job. Gloaming is an hour-long HBO…
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The first act of Duel ought to be enough to carry it. Spielberg’s direction, Frank Morriss’s editing, even Jack A. Marta’s workman photography—it’s spellbinding. It even gets through lead Dennis Weaver calling home to fight with his wife and revealing to the audience he’s a wuss. See, last night he and the wife went to…
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Surprisingly solid TV thriller about veteran cop Lloyd Bridges losing it when he finds out son-in-law Frank Converse is stepping out on daughter Sallie Shockley. As Bridges spirals more and more out of control, his partner (Murray Hamilton) starts investigating him and it ends up being up to Converse to mitigate the fallout. Simple enough…
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Harold Pinter television play about a successful toilet manufacturer (Leo McKern) and his eventual downfall due to jealousy and lust. Jealousy is with wife Jennifer Wright (who’s barely in it) and her… brother(?) Charles Gray, who McKern tries manipulating. Lust is secretary Vivien Merchant, who rather encourages him. Or does she… is it all in…
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Scare-free TV movie about a transatlantic flight under attack from vengeful spirits. The story goes from disaster movie tropes followed by haunted house movie tropes without much enthusiasm from anyone involved, though William Shatner does occasionally give his material a gnaw. It’s the peculiar example of when a bad movie isn’t bad in the right…
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The Incredible Hulk Returns is severely lacking. It’s severely lacking pretty much everything. Despite being set in and filmed in Los Angeles, the movie looks generic and constrained–director Corea has a truly exceptional aversion to establishing shots. The interior shots often have a different visual feel. More like video (Returns was shot on film, but…
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The Return of the Incredible Hulk is the second pilot movie for the subsequent “Incredible Hulk” TV series. It aired three weeks after the first pilot, which featured the origin of the Hulk–scientist Bruce Bixby turns himself into green-skinned musclebound grotesque Lou Ferrigno thanks to gamma rays–and his pursuer, annoying, uninformed tabloid reporter Jack Colvin.…
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The opening of Jesus Christ Superstar is the only place the three leads really interact. Jesus, Mary, and Judas all interact. Through and behind the songs, this quick narrative plays out. In addition to showcasing the performers–John Legend is Jesus, Sara Bareilles is Mary, Brandon Victor Dixon is Judas–and giving them brief solos, the sequence…
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About half of V is quite good. Unfortunately, V was a two-night mini-series and the first half is good part. The second half, not so much. The first half has human-like alien visitors arriving on Earth, in hopes of making a chemical compound to take back home to save their planet. Turns out they’re lying…
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A horrific crime. An infamous suspect. An unrelenting prospector and his search for the truth. Or not. I mean, technically most of the above statements could be used to describe Lizzie Borden Took an Ax, but none of them accurately captures the ninety-one minute TV movie. There is some time spent on the crime. But…
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The Incredible Hulk opens with a montage of lead Bill Bixby’s martial bliss. It goes on for quite a while, just Bixby and (an uncredited) Lara Parker being a happy married couple. Then tragedy strikes. Like most tragedies in The Incredible Hulk, it involves a car tire blowing out. There are three such instances in…
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It’d be nice if there were anything good about Brenda Starr. Stuart’s direction is–at its best–mediocre. It’s always predictable, it’s sometimes bad. He has familiar patterns–over the shoulder, close-up, walking two shot. He repeats them, every time with a bad cut from James T. Heckert and Melvin Shapiro. Sometimes the sound doesn’t match, always when…
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How the Grinch Stole Christmas! has three rather distinct things going on throughout the twenty-six minute television special. It also some some indistinct things going on–the Whoville songs, while charming, are nowhere near as impressive as the big things. First, but not foremost, is Washam and Jones’s direction. Although Grinch is a Dr. Seuss adaptation,…
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The Night Stalker moves with ruthless efficiency. It’s a TV movie, so it’s got a mandated short runtime–seventy-four minutes; Richard Matheson’s teleplay has a brisk pace, something director Moxey embraces. There’s rarely a dull moment in The Night Stalker. It’s always about waiting for the next bad thing to happen. The film opens with lead…
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The Star Wars Holiday Special elicits a lot of sympathy. Not for the goings on, but for the cast. The easiest cast members to pity are Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, and Harrison Ford. Not only are they stuck in this contractually obligated ninety-some minute nightmare of terrible television, director Binder doesn’t even know how to…
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Hammer, Slammer, & Slade is a television pilot spin-off of a movie (I’m Gonna Git You Sucka). It has the same writer as the movie–Keenan Ivory Wayans–and much of the movie’s cast. The three “leads” all return from the movie–Bernie Casey is Slade, Jim Brown is Slammer, and Isaac Hayes is Hammer. Slade, Slammer, &…
The Stop Button 