"Falling Sky"

I was originally going to try to play a game of “Six Degrees of Summer Blockbuster” to see how many moves it takes to link the star of Sunday’s late night Channel 7 movie, Karen Allen to past and present blockbusters.

I’ve abandoned that idea because there are too many movies that would link in one move or less. Heck, she’s in at least three summer blockbusters to start with:

• “Animal House” (released July 28th, 1978)
• “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (released June 12th, 1981)
• “The Perfect Storm” (June 30th, 2000)

This summer, she’s also appearing in a little film you may have heard of that’s presumed to be a hit, although of course there’s no guarantee of that (“Speed Racer” being the latest to prove that point).

In addition to the films of summer, Allen has appeared in other films with big followings, including “Starman,” the holiday comedy “Scrooged,” and “The Sandlot.” None of them were released in summer, and some of them weren’t even big hits when initially released, but all have gone on to amass followings since.

Her co-stars in the above certainly link to some blockbusters. Jeff Bridges went from protagonist in “Starman” to antagonist in “Iron Man,” this summer’s first mega-hit. "Scrooged"’s namesake Bill Murray’s biggest summer popcorn flick was “Ghostbusters.” Perhaps biggest of all, James Earl Jones from “The Sandlot” gave voice to that intergalactic sourpuss Darth Vader in one of the original summer blockbusters.

We can even link Karen Allen to Saturday night’s Channel 7 movie, “School of Life”: not only did Karen Allen appear in Animal House with John Vernon, but she was also in “Malcolm X” with John Vernon’s daughter, Kate!

Now, all of this blockbuster banter has got to be more fun than the movie Karen Allen is starring in on Channel 7 this Sunday night, “Falling Sky”.



Here’s the plot: A woman growing up on the seedier side of Las Vegas learns how to live with her alcoholic mother.

The daughter is played by Britanny Murphy in her pre-emaciated, pre-bleached blonde days. As I previously mentioned in my post on “Drive,” the Phantom prefers the early “Clueless”-era days of Murphy’s career, when she still stood out as “unique,” in my opinion.

When you watch the trailer, the movie looks like it makes severe jumps in tone. This is backed up by imdb user comments which you can read here.

Karen Allen also happens to run a knit-wear designs business. I think watching her knit something instead of seeing her stuck in this potentially painful mess of a movie would be more fun, too.

You can watch the trailer by clicking here.

Or view the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, May 10th at 11:35 PM… if you dare!