The Phantom takes the weekend off

Greetings from the Landfill. I'm sorry to say I don't have much to offer this weekend. I knew this was going to come up sooner or later. Here's the deal:

Television stations buy "packages" of movies. A "package" is a group of films offered by a syndicator that can include either a mix of various films with little connecting rhyme or reason, or a mix of films from the same owner/production company/distributor, or a mix of films built around a theme.

As you can tell from reading my previous posts, the late night, weekend Channel 7 movie slot uses movies from a "previously aired Lifetime Channel originals" package as well as a "direct-to-video/direct-to-late-night-cable R-rated movies" package.

Saturday night (February 16th), a movie from the third type of prevalent package is shown - a "black cinema" package. These are movies made by and starring African-Americans. And unlike the majority of movies in the other packages, these films are often quite good. Of course, the package is not completely devoid of clinkers, and if those turn up I'll more than likely comment on them, but how could I say anything in a typical Late Nite Landfill "look how cheesy this is" fashion about a movie that's not only a documentary, but one on Nelson Mandela? The answer is: I CAN'T. So I won't. If you're interested, it appears to be a documentary that was made for PBS's "Frontline" series back in 1999/2000, called "The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela."

The movie on Sunday (February 17th) sounds more in line with our usual fare. Although it has a serious topic at its core, someone who reviewed it at imdb said it was terrible (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0127545/usercomments).

Here's the decription from Zap2it.com's TV listing:

"Every Nine Seconds": A crisis center volunteer embarks on a desperate search for the woman who threatened to kill her abusive ex-husband."

It stars Amy Pietz, Christopher Meloni and Gail O'Grady. This opus is also knonw as "A Call for Help." It certainly sounds like it has all the earmarkings of
a Late Nite Landfill find.

Both movies air at 11:35 PM on WABC-TV Channel 7 In New York.

So I said I was taking the weekend off but managed to type a bunch of stuff anyway. But without a trailer to share, it really does feel like I'm taking the weekend off. Hopefully next weekend's offerings will enable me to offer some embedded-video goodies once again!