The Late Nite Landfill

"Taken"

2008-08-29T10:13:00.001-04:00

Boy, this is some hiatus! I’ve been on “hiatus” now for two weekends, and with this entry I’ve posted as many times.

Well, I did say I’d “delurk” from time to time if a movie of interest came up.

Wouldn’t you know that this Sunday, Channel 7 is yet again playing a movie that’s of interest to me?

Well, maybe not the movie itself (the movies on this blog rarely are the subject of interest but rather the people who star in them). But I’d be terribly remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity to laud a man you’ve seen mega-jillions of times and at this point may even be bloody well sick of or none too impressed with.

I’m speaking of Dabney Coleman. He stars in “Taken,” being shown this Sunday night on Channel 7. This one has all the Landfill hallmarks, but I won’t go into that – you’ll enjoy its heightened, cheesey, over-the-top intensity when you watch the trailer.

But first I want to remind some who may have forgotten of not only how consummate an actor Mr. Coleman is, but that he also appeared in two very significant television series. Like most shows that were ahead of their time, they had cult followings and critical acclaim but not enough ratings to stay on the air.

The first was “Buffalo Bill,” wherein Coleman played the title role. It’s significant as being one of the first, if not the first “edgy” sitcoms with a character who audiences couldn’t really embrace – one who would do and say outrageous things of the “I can’t believe he just…” variety, but without the occasional turns to pathos and sentimentality that predecessors like Archie Bunker, George Jefferson and Maude Findlay often lapsed into. And without the sometimes obvious, broad humor that sometimes infiltrated those shows. “Buffalo Bill” was very sharp, well-written material at a time where such shows were in short supply. It revolved around daytime talk-show host Bill Bittinger, whose name was probably inspired by his biting wit which could be not only caustic, but vitriolic as well. Bill truly was a viper.

And as an extra bonus, it featured a top-notch supporting cast with the likes of Joanna Cassidy, John Fieldler, Max Wright and a young, vivacious Geena Davis. Check out this scene:

The next important show Coleman was involved in was “The Slap Maxwell Story.” If you thought his Bill Bittinger character was hard to like, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The sports writer character Coleman essays in this show gives vultures a bad name. Again, great writing and supporting cast, with Coleman acting his heart out once again. And very significant as one of the first “dramady” programs, also known as “sitdrams,” where the comedy and drama are doled out in equal doses. There have been many such shows since, although the monikers above have faded from view. David E. Kelley in particular seems to have been inspired by the short lived “dramady/sitdram” trend, incorporating similar elements into his signature shows “Ally McBeal” and “Boston Legal.”

Watch Coleman act his heart out in this rather dramatic and uncomfortable scene from “The Slap Maxwell Story,” which leads into the show’s opening credits:

Like most of the other actors we laud here on the Landfill, Coleman has worked continuously through the years, and he hasn’t always turned up in the best projects. But he always turns in a great performance. He is probably best remembered as the nasty boss in “9 to 5.” These days, the roles seem to be more tailored to his age, while the types of roles he used to get seem to be going to the equally brilliant Jeffrey Tambor.

So back to “Taken”: it looks totally like a by-the-numbers Landfill flick about true confessions and betrayals, but even in the trailer you can see that Coleman’s abilities elevate this tired hash higher than it has a right to be elevated.

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, August 31st, 2008... if you dare!

"Angels Don't Sleep Here"

2008-08-21T12:13:00.001-04:00

I know, I know – I said I was on hiatus.

But I also said that I’d pop up from time to time when there was something of interest.

How was I to know the very first weekend I’d be on hiatus there’d be a movie of interest?

This Sunday, Channel 7 is running “Angels Don’t Sleep Here.” It stars one of my all-time favorites, Robert Patrick. He’s had a wonderful career as a character actor. He’s mostly been in action-oriented films playing people on either side of the law, but he has managed a few choice roles in romantic comedies and serious dramas, too.

But that’s not what you’ve come to the Landfill for. No, you’ve come to hear yours truly, The Phantom remind you that Robert Patrick is the ultra-cool co-star of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” playing the T-1000 robot determined to incinerate Ahnuld’s original model. If you don’t know Patrick from that (and really, you’d have to be living under a rock not to), then you know him for his lead role of Agent John Doggett in the last two seasons of “X-Files.”

So, Patrick is one of those journeyman actors who likes to work. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re okay with the fact that you’ll often be showing up in direct-to-cable or direct-to-video projects alongside the higher profile roles. And if you stick around long enough, those higher profile roles come back around to you (as I recently mentioned, Eric Roberts toiled in a bunch of DTV dreck but can now be seen on the big screen in a great role in the film of the year, “The Dark Knight.”)

Unfortunately, based on the imdb user comments for “Angels Don’t Sleep Here,” it appears to be from the “dreck” category. But Patrick is always fun to watch, even in dreck.

Check Robert Patrick out in this quick clip from “Angels Don’t Sleep Here”:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

Landfill on "semi-hiatus"

2008-08-16T00:45:00.004-04:00

Okay, in my previous post I used the expression “swampy Landfill.”

Well, it’s more like yours truly, the Phantom of the Landfill is swamped.

I just have a bunch of stuff going on right now. Most of it good; some of it challenging. All of it time-consuming.

Something had to give, and this is it. Starting with this post, the Late Nite Landfill is going on semi-hiatus. What does that mean?

That means until the smoke clears from all that’s going on, I won’t be reporting on Channel 7’s weekend late night movies every week. I may occasionally post if there’s a movie of particular note, but for the most part, this space will gather dust and crickets for a while. Just has to be that way for now.

I can’t just leave you without some entertainment though, so here’s a random selection of trailers and movie scenes I think you’ll appreciate (and as I implored you in my previous post, visit the links at the bottom of my page, too). Enjoy, and Lord willing I’ll see you all again soon!

Goofy mobsters, stalked jurors, awesome links & a swampy Landfill

2008-08-16T00:41:00.001-04:00

What in the world does the title of this post even mean?

You’ll have to read the whole post to find out.

So let’s start with the movie Channel 7 has scheduled for Saturday night. It’s called “Crime Spree.”

Out of all the films I’ve covered so far, this is only the second one I can say I would probably enjoy (the other being the Mark Dacasos actioner, “Drive” – click on the triangle next to “February” in the blog archive for my review of that one).

In this one, Gerard Depardieu heads up a gang of French mobsters who rob Harvey Keitel. They soon learn that Harvey is a Chicago mobster under surveillance by the FBI. Needless to say, they are now being pursued by both sides of the law. This one looks like it has a lot of energy and humor to it, and a simple-yet-fun premise (many of the most fun premises are the most simple – Pixar has practically crafted their entire empire on that notion).

I doubt I’ll be awake when it airs though, as so much is happening with me (one of the reasons I’m not providing extra links in this post – but again, you’ll have to read the rest of this post to find out more).

Anyway, you can watch the trailer here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, August 16th, 2008 at 11:35 PM… if you dare!

NOW…

If you tune in on Sunday night, you’ll see “Fatal Affair” (aka “Stalker).

This of course is one of the bazillion films that came out in the wake of “Fatal Attraction”’s success. What’s funny about these films is that many of them tried to copy the title – the use of two words, the kind of words used, the tones of the words – and some of those copies were so blatant that they come off almost as parody. And within that mix, at least a couple of them actually were parodies. The rest were just unintentionally funny.

You get C. Thomas Howell, Maxim Roy and Jay Underwood in this one. The plot: a juror realizes that the victim of a murder is someone he had an affair with… and apparently someone involved in the murder realizes it, too and stalks the juror.

Yeah, makes perfect sense. Like he wouldn’t just get himself removed from the jury. But what do I know?...

Anyway, this one sounds like it’s definitely in the “must-miss” category. But decide for yourself. You can view the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 11:35 PM… if you dare.

BUT WAIT… there’s more!!!

I want you to do me a favor. I want you to scroll down to the bottom of my page and get yourself lost in the “Other excavations you might dig” list of links. There are many sites there that are just too good to ignore.

My favorite on the list has to be “Trailers from Hell,” where prominent movie directors give audio commentaries to trailers.

The site “New York Monster Movie Memories” is indispensable for anyone who grew up on the east coast in the ‘70s, or for anyone who just loves classic (and not-so-classic) horror flicks from the 1930s through the 1970s.

I’ve also linked to a site where the inimitable (except maybe by Jerry Lewis) Sammy Petrillo is interviewed by the interminable Dave the Spaz. A keeper!

And you can learn a lot from two of the greatest perpetrators of popcorn cinema, screenwriters William C. Martell and Mark Verheiden, so be sure to check them out.

And check out every other link, too!

Okay, so by now you’re wondering why this rather schizoid post is all over the place. And why the Landfill is swampy.

Well, you’re about to find out, when you read the next post entitled “Landfill on semi-hiatus.”

It's a "Women on a Rampage" weekend! (“Sweet Evil” and “The Perfect Marriage”)

2008-08-08T21:57:00.002-04:00

This weekend, you get two posts in one from the Late Nite Landfill. The reasons are simple:

• This has been a crazier week than usual for yours truly, The Phantom. Time is in short supply for me.
• The themes of this weekend’s movies both involve women behaving badly, making it easy to pair them together.

So let’s start with Saturday night’s movie, “Sweet Evil,” a 1996 release also known as “Final Vendetta.” As one TV listing described it, this direct-to-video jaunt features “a psychotic surrogate mother” causing trouble for the couple she’s moved in with.

Since this one comes from the “relative or houseguest secretly plans to rip apart the family and do us harm” genre which I covered in depth before, it affords me the opportunity of simply providing the link to my post on “The Stranger Game” which you can read by clicking here.

Since I’m on a time-crunch, I’ll only mention a few cast members. And just for this week I’m eschewing the usual links to video clips for each (perhaps when the smoke clears and I have more time I’ll add those links at a later date):

• You know Scott Cohen from a bunch of recurring TV roles including Max Medina on “Gilmore Girls,” and his detective characters Chris Ravell on “Law & Order: Trial by Jury” and Harry Denby on “NYPD Blue.”
• The late Peter Boyle – do you really need me to tell you? Tip-of-the-iceberg highlights include the monster in “Young Frankenstein,” patriarch Frank Barone in “Everybody Loves Raymond” and as the brutal Wizard in “Taxi Driver.” Oh, and John Lennon was his best man at his wedding.
• Oh yeah, there’s a lead actress in this – Bridgette Wilson. She was Adam Sandler’s love interest in “Billy Madison,” a horror victim scream queen in “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and the remake of “House on Haunted Hill,” and she’s the real-life wife of 7-time Wimbledon champ Pete Sampras.

View the trailer to “Sweet Evil” here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on Saturday, August 9, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

NOW... onto Sunday night’s movie, “The Perfect Marriage.”

In this one, an adulterous woman schemes with her lover to murder her husband and collect a huge inheritance.

This plot is older than Hollywood, has been done to death, and quite frankly no one’s really improved upon the classics like “Double Indemnity” or “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” But that doesn’t stop these movies from getting made by the dumpster-ful.

Again, I’ll single just a few folks out:

• The femme fatale is played by Jamie Luner, who like Scott Cohen from the previous night’s movie has tons of recurring TV roles including one of the clan in “Just the 10 of Us,” a pair of seductress sirens in the prime-time soaps “Savannah” and “Melrose Place,” and as the title investigator in the 4th season of “Profiler.”
• William R. Moses played major recurring roles in two series of made-for-TV mystery movies, the “Jane Doe” series and the 1990’s “Perry Mason” series.

The rest of the cast features the usual quotient of TV actors, mostly from Canada, who have had guest-roles on TV series and in TV movies.

The trailer I found for this one is not of the embeddable kind, so you'll have to click here to view it.

Or watch the entire movie on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"Family in Hiding"

2008-07-31T12:28:00.000-04:00

I knew this day would one day come… it was inevitable!

For months, yours truly, The Phantom has been grousing about how Channel 7’s Late Movie show seems to broadcast an inordinate amount of mob movies and Lifetime/CTV movies.

Well, this Sunday, Channel 7 presents a movie that was originally a Lifetime/CTV movie AND is a mob movie at the same time!!!

I know, it’s hard to believe, isn’t it? I’ll pause to let you pick up the remote you just dropped.

This is a good time to point you to two previous posts of mine: one that will lead you to my reviews of all the other mob movies that have shown up in the Landfill; and the other that links to most of my Lifetime/CTV reviews.

So now that you’ve had ample time to pick up your clicker, let’s get back to “Family in Hiding”: there’s this single Mom who’s in the wrong place at the wrong time and sees a DA get rubbed out by the mob. She’s put into the witness protection program so she can live long enough to testify, but everyone who’s ever seen one of these movies knows that there’s a distinct lack of protection for the threatened until at least the final five minutes when the bad guys are finally disposed of.

There’s really only one notable cast member here.

Well, really three. I’ll get to the film’s main star in a moment.

First, I have to mention Christopher Jacot simply because he was in several episodes of a series the Phantomess enjoys greatly, ”Degrassi: the Next Generation.” A cooler credit for me is his turn as the voice of Johnny “The Human Torch” Storm in the 2006-2007 ”Fantastic Four” animated series.

And I have to mention Ben Cotton because he was in another of The Phantomess’ favorite shows, ”DaVinci’s Inquest.”

Per usual with these Lifetime/CTV movies, it’s a cast filled primarily with Canadian TV actors (who, if you peruse their credits, also appear in a lot of sci-fi and fantasy shows aimed at the San Diego Comic Con set… of which the Phantom proudly includes himself).

So, I said I’d tell you about the film’s star.

I lied. I’d rather show you. Primarily because I have neither a trailer nor a clip for “Family in Hiding.” So…

The star of this movie is “Brenda Strong,” who you’re bound to know from one of her two most famous roles:

Sue Ellen Mishkie, the O’Henry candy bar heiress and braless wonder from “Seinfeld”:

…or as Mary Alice, the suicide on the block whose voice-over narrates every episode of “Desperate Housewives”:

You can watch “Family in Hiding” on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, August 3rd, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"The Simian Line"

2008-07-31T12:27:00.000-04:00

I actually have a vague memory of this film’s existence. Can’t remember if I saw a trailer, or a TV commercial, read about it somewhere or saw some kind of promotion – I just remember hearing this film’s title and the fact that it starred a former-supermodel and a Cajun crooner in rare movie roles. I probably also remember it because it was released shortly after 9/11.

I’ve come to learn it was actually filmed in 1999 and sat on the shelf for two years. Never a good sign.

Another not-so-good sign: most of the reviews compared it unfavorably to ”Ghost.” And let’s face it, while a successful crowd-pleaser, technically, if you stop to think about the script and analyze the acting and production values, “Ghost” really wasn’t any great shakes itself.

Most of all, this film features a rare acting turn by Cindy Crawford. It’s no accident the words “rare” and “acting” are in such close proximity in the previous sentence. If you need any proof, simply watch the trailer for Crawford’s ”Fair Game.”

If anything, this movie can be considered a curio simply due to it having one of those wacky ensemble casts of people you never expect to see working together. Kind of like ”Love Actually,” which is another movie it resembles (that is, if that romantic comedy had psychics and ghosts in it).

Harry Connick Jr. is of course most well-known for being a pianist and singer of jazz standards and originals. He limits his roles so he can manage both his music and acting careers, and as a result has been a solid presence in movies. Acting seems to come easy to him. Of course, with all his nice roles it’s the one where he simply did the voice that I enjoy the most, as the scrapyard beatnik in Brad Bird’s masterful ”The Iron Giant.”

Eric Stoltz – where to start? Too many great roles to mention – go check out his imdb listing. I’ll cite my favorite – as the angel Simon in ”The Prophecy.”

William Hurt is another one that would take too much time to delve into, so I’m directing you to his imdb listing. I’ll just highlight my fave Hurt role, as Inspector Bumstead in ”Dark City.”

Lynn Redgrave… well, this is just getting ridiculous. I’d need to write a blog a day for days just to cover the first quarter of her career… so you’re going to visit her imdb listing, too.

Samantha Mathis has worked steady in both high and low profile projects. She never took off big as I think some thought she would, but at least she works. Maybe best known as the love interest in the John Travolta/Christian Slater actioner, ”Broken Arrow.”

…and Tyne Daly as Whoopi. But she’ll be forever known as Mary Beth Lacey in the long-running female-buddy police drama ”Cagney & Lacey.”

Now, do I really need to tell you anything about Cindy Crawford?

I didn’t think so.

View the trailer here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"The Obsession"

2008-07-25T04:57:00.003-04:00

Its movies like this one that really justify my use of the word “Landfill” in this blog’s name. We’ve been down this dark alley of sexual irresponsibility and perversion before with such films as ”Sol Goode” and ”The Real Cancun” and especially ”Cheaters Club.” All displayed an “anything goes, who cares about morals” attitude.

Up until now, the worst of all, the most morally wrong (and illegal) behavior on display was served up in the movie ”These Girls.” Now comes an even more insidious tale of a man going after a teenage girl. A ballet teacher who becomes infatuated with one of his students and dates his mother so he can get closer to her.

I’ll never understand what makes men do this. I mean clearly, the mother here is a woman, and a darn fine attractive one at that. It would be normal to want to date her. The daughter is a KID. Young enough to be the creep’s own kid. It’s just not normal to be obsessed with her. It’s just sick. And I have to wonder whether making movies about people with such sickness in their brains has any point. I can’t see it doing any good. We all know there are creeps out there like this (and in the interest of fairness, just as disturbing, there’s also the flipside of the coin with all the female teachers getting involved with their teen and pre-teen students). We don’t need cheap, exploitive movies to tell us this. And if someone already has a problem with their wiring in this area (being obsessed with an underage person or persons), I firmly believe seeing something like this may make them consider following suit even more.

Now, in all fairness, longtime readers of this blog know that I don’t actually watch the films I feature. I merely comment on the trailers or clips I find before the films air. I’m confident the film doesn’t condone the actions of the ballet teacher and most likely even condemns those actions. Again, I just question why, when we live in a real world where such abuse is happening constantly, we need to show it in a fictional story, even if it is one that condemns the abuse.

On the lighter side, let’s take a look at the cast.

Of course, we have to start with Daphne Zuniga. If you’re a guy, you know her from the Mel Brooks “Star Wars” spoof ”Spaceballs.” If you’re a gal, you know her from such prime-time soaps as ”Melrose Place.” Those aren’t generalizations; just demographics.

Sebastian Spence is a TV actor from Canada. Recurring roles for Spence include Lt. Noel 'Narcho' Allison from ”Battlestar Galactica” and Professor Matt Freeman on ”Dawson’s Creek.”

Elise Gatien plays Zuniga’s daughter. Her career is still young – this was her first film. The rest of the cast is filled with Canadian TV stalwarts.

I couldn’t find trailer for this one, but did find a clip that someone posted online. Strangely, the actor who plays the perverted ballet teacher carries himself more like Robert Patrick as the T-1000 from “Terminator 2” than a graceful dancer.

View the clip here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, July 27th, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"Winter Break" (aka "Snow Job")

2008-07-24T14:49:00.002-04:00

I took one look at the trailer for this Saturday’s movie and said, “Yuck! Boy, do I hate this genre!”

I’m speaking of the “teen sex comedy,” sometimes also known as the “college age sex comedy” or the “immature adult sex comedy.” You know the films. I’m not going to dignify them by naming their titles (although there’d be slim chance of that happening even if I did).

That’s the impression you’ll get when you watch the trailer – that it’s yet another sex comedy. Especially when you notice that Eddie Kay Thomas from all those ”American Pie” movies is in it.

While perusing the ”user comments on imdb.com, however, a common theme emerged: according to those who’ve seen the film, this movie is more of a “romantic comedy” with soft edges instead of a raunchy one with hard edges.

Still, it doesn’t look totally innocent, either.

Either way, I’m not interested in watching the whole flick. Just doesn’t seem to be the Phantom’s cup of tea.

So onto the other stars. Milo Ventimiglia has quite a few TV and movie credits under his belt, most notably his current role as a star of the super-popular super-hero show, ”Heroes,” his past recurring role on ”Gilmore Girls,” and his turn playing the Italian Stallion’s son in the surprisingly good ”Rocky Balboa.”

Anna Faris is another young talent with a batch of credits. She’s most known as a mainstay in the ”Scary Movie” horror spoof franchise, and also counts four episodes of ”Friends” among her roles.

Last but not least… well, actually, “least” would be the operative word, as in ”the least popular James Bond” – yes, good ‘ol Aussie George Lazenby is in this. I bet he secretly wished Q slipped him a cloaking device, so he could hide himself out of embarrassment on the set of this film. But seriously, it seems the one-time Bond actually has had quite a few post-007 roles throughout the years – good for him – it can’t be easy being so dismissed (hey, most of us couldn’t compete with Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig either). He’s also done some nice voice-over work in animated series like ”Batman Beyond.”

By the way, the alternate title of this movie was “Snow Job.” I guess that was designed to make boys under the age of 17 snicker (boys who the movie’s original R-rating was meant to keep out, but we all know how that goes).

View the trailer for “Winter Break” (under its alternate title, “Snow Job”) here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, July 26th, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

Three Cheers for Eric Roberts!!!

2008-07-17T12:26:00.001-04:00

If you read this blog with any frequency, you know that yours truly, The Phantom of the Landfill has a soft spot for Eric Roberts. As well as a soft spot in my head, but that’s another story…

I went a little bit into Roberts’ background in my post on “American Strays” which you can read here.

As I mentioned in that post, Roberts had quite an auspicious start (including an Oscar® nomination) but ultimately ended up toiling for many years in low-budget, often DTV (direct-to-video) productions. Some of his films from that period would be right at home on Channel 7’s late night schedule. Click on the titles below to see trailers to some likely Landfill candidates:

“Shadow Men”

“Dead End”

“Raptor”

“Restraining Order”

Roberts’ detour into DTV land was most likely due to too much competition for the “big roles” and a harder edge than some of the more “pretty boy” leading men types more than anything else, as his acting has for the most part been uniformly good and sometimes even great over all this time.

But beyond his acting skills, he’s just a nice guy. Here’s how I know:

• He’s appeared in not just one one but two films with a friend of mine, who told me how great Roberts was to work with. This is further backed up by the commentary tracks where the other co-stars mention their fondness for Eric.

• I got to meet Eric myself a year and a quarter ago at an autograph show and I could tell not only from my personal experience with him but from how he treated everyone else there that he was a real class act.

Besides being a nice guy, he’s very cool, too. When I told him I wanted him to autograph a photo that I could give my dad as a Father’s Day gift, I mentioned that one of my dad’s favorite movies is “The Pope of Greenwich Village.” Roberts got very excited and said, “don’t worry, I’ll take care of him – I know just what to do!”

He signed the photo, “Tell Charlie they took my thumbs!” Just great.

Back to his career: Eric’s fortunes began to change when he was cast as a bad guy in the hit TV series “Heroes.” And this weekend that roller coaster ride is poised to get even faster: Roberts is back on the BIG screen, and from all accounts, the screen doesn’t get any bigger this year than with the spectacle that is genius director Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight.” Roberts plays a mob boss in the latest Batman epic, and in just about every review I’ve read that mentions Roberts, he’s getting stellar notices.

This is also a good opportunity to laud Nolan as well. Back in the Hollywood Studio System days, Nolan would probably have been an underpaid contract director working with b-movie casts and b-movie budgets turning out what would later be hailed as film noir classics. I’m convinced of it. His films “Memento” and “Insomnia” are pure noir, and he has gone on record as saying his latest Bat-pic is intended to be noir as well.

So fans of low-budget filmmakers and actors have double reason to feel good this weekend, with both Roberts and Nolan hitting a home run. Get out there and support them (and besides, it’s BATMAN!)!

Here’s Roberts being interviewed about “Heroes” – enjoy!

"Long Lost Son"

2008-07-17T08:24:00.001-04:00

It’s been a few weeks but Channel 7 has finally scheduled another movie that originally aired on Lifetime in the US and CTV in Canada. This Sunday, the Late Movie presents “Long Lost Son.”

Like the myriad of mafia movies that litter the Landfill, I’ve waxed pathetic time and time again over these (usually) overly-melodramatic TV movie productions. Several times in fact, as these films are almost as ubiquitous on Channel 7’s late night schedule as the mob films are.

Just as I mentioned last week when I posted on
“Mafiosa: the Father, the Son,” I don’t really want to keep repeating myself. There are specific attributes that make up these Lifetime/CTV movies, and you can read all about them in my previous posts on such movies – just click on the film titles below:

”The Accidental Witness”

”Last Exit”

”Murder in My House”

”Eight Days to Live”

”Cheater’s Club”

”Past Sins”

”Cradle of Lies”

The cast for this one features the real-life romantic couple of Gabrielle Anwar and Craig Sheffer... that is, if they’re still together (the Phantom can never keep these things straight)!

Gabby has appeared in all sorts of films and TV shows. She’s probably best known for her tango with Al Pacino in “Scent of a Woman” as well as her role as Princess Margaret in the series, “The Tudors.” Currently, she has one of the lead roles in the popular USA Network series, “Burn Notice” (and gets to play off of one of the Phantom’s faves, supporting star Bruce Campbell.).

Sheffer also has a laundry list of credits. Most notable to cult film fans is his lead turn in Clive Barker’s quite introspective monsters psycho-drama, “NightBreed.” He also landed a main part in Robert Redford’s “A River Runs Throught It.” His most prolific work was a long-time main role as Keith Scott on the WB drama, “One Tree Hill.”

The other main star here is young Chace Crawford, currently setting teeny bopper girls’ hearts a-thumping as Nate on “Gossip Girl.”

Last week I suggested that Channel 7 just run their mob movies on Saturday nights and change the name from “The Late Movie” to “Midnight Mobsters.” This week I’m suggesting they just run their Lifetimey movies with female leads on Sunday nights and change the name to “Late Nite Ladies.”

On second thought, maybe not... that sounds more like after-hours Cinemax or Showtime fare. Maybe just “Ladies’ Night?”

Unlike this Saturday’s movie, the trailer for Sunday’s “Long Lost Son” does tell you all you need to know about the plot. You can view the trailer here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"Chicago Boricua"

2008-07-16T21:12:00.002-04:00

There’s not much I can say about this film, for two reasons:

1.) It’s the debut film of a first-time director, and as such, most of the cast has few if any other roles to their credit. And those who do have a few roles have a lot of “extra with no character name” type roles.
2.) The only trailer I could find for this is barely a trailer at all. It has the film studio logo and the title of the film, but then goes into a random scene that doesn’t really give you a feel for what the film is about.

Out of the cast, there is one face you may recognize. That would be Aimee Garcia who has a recurring role as Veronica on ”The George Lopez Show.” Everyone else has had a role here, a role there, and probably not enough to be recognizable.

I found some descriptions of the film on Channel 7’s site and on zap2it.com, but they are very general. Basically, they say the same thing about the film – that it is a collection of stories about people in a Latino community (Humbolt) in Chicago. Namely, a realtor, a college student, a drug dealer, and an aspiring beauty pageant contestant. Whether their stories ever converge I can’t say.

In Variety’s review of the film, they likened it to a take on Spike Lee’s ”Do the Right Thing.” I seem to recall that being a bit more cohesive though, a whole piece as opposed to an anthology. Is “Chicago Borica” the whole enchilada, or merely the filling?

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, July 19th, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"Judgment in Berlin"

2008-07-10T08:08:00.004-04:00

What a difference a day makes. Saturday night, Channel 7 has yet another mafia movie on tap. But Sunday night, they have scheduled a movie that not only is about a serious topic, but appears to actually be a good, well-done movie for a change. I say this not only due to the caliber of the people involved in the movie, but also because I found very few negative comments anywhere on the internet about this movie. The film tackles the court case of an East German man on trial for hijacking a Polish airliner so he can see his kids and take asylum in the West - a true story. Note to my younger readers: to understand the magnitude of this, go google or wiki “The Berlin Wall.”

So “Judgment in Berlin” stars Martin Sheen and Sean Penn, two polarizing personalities. The Phantom doesn’t necessarily agree with all their political views, but both are great performers, especially Penn. But I’m just going to stop here. I mean truthfully, what more do I really need to write about their careers (and their famous offspring/siblings/ex-spouses) that hasn’t already been written a bazillion times over? If you want to learn more, that’s what imdb, google and wikipedia are for. Besides, you know I’d much rather talk about character actors and cult favorites like Lance Henriksen and David Paymer, or the late Brion James.

Speaking of favorites, c’mon channel 7, when are you going to run a Robert Patrick movie?

There are two supporting actors worth mentioning here. Sam Wanamaker was a journeyman actor and often a director as well. The Chicago thesp appeared in countless movies and TV episodes, but his great love was the stage. He spent a lot of time in England in the late ‘50s acting, directing and producing Shakespearean productions at Stratford-upon-Avon, Covent Garden and more. While most of his directorial efforts consisted of TV show episodes, perhaps his coolest directing credit is helming the movie, “Sinbad & the Eye of the Tiger.”

Max Gail will forever be known for his brilliant portrayal of Detective Stan 'Wojo' Wojciehowicz on the seminal ensemble police comedy, “Barney Miller.” But since then, he has continued to turn in one great performance after another, and what comes as a surprise to many, primarily in dramatic roles.

Oh yeah, “Judgment in Berlin” was directed by Sean Penn’s father, Leo. In addition to fathering talented children, the elder Penn left his own mark not only as a writer/director, but also as an 8th Air Force bombardier during World War 2. Before the war, he was a political supporter of communism who advocated U.S. neutrality during the short-lived Nazi-Soviet pact, but once Hitler violated the pact he urged the U.S. to go to war. His past ties to communism and then-present ties to labor unions resulted in him being targeted during the McCarthy blacklists of the 1950s.

You can view a clip from the movie by clicking here...

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"Mafioso: the Father, the Son"

2008-07-09T22:05:00.003-04:00

Last week I joked that, given their propensity to show mob movies, Channel 7 should just start running them exclusively in their Late Movie slot. As if in response, this Saturday Channel 7 fires back with yet another mobfest!

At this point, I’ve said all I could possibly say about the mob movie knockoffs that litter the Landfill. I’ve outlined time and again their shared elements and their obvious pilfering of the more famous mafia movies and TV shows. Rather than rehash all that again, I invite you instead to peruse my previous entries on such efforts – just click on any of the titles below.

”Avenging Angelo”

”Blood Vows”

”Under Hellgate Bridge”

”Amongst Friends”

”A Good Night to Die”

”Triggermen”

”American Strays”

The trailer for this Saturday’s movie is filled with “hey, isn’t that so-and-so from such-and-such?” actors. Folks whose names you rarely know, but you’ve seen them time and time again. If the casting here seems deliberately ”Sopranos”-esque, well, that’s the way the meatball crumbles. You can check out the movie’s imdb listing and from there go to the individual filmogpraphies – you WILL recognize some folks, but again, you probably won’t know their names.

The only one I’ll call out here is Robert Costanzo. You’ve seen him hundreds of times, and the fact that he has a similar look to James “Tony Soprano” Gandolfini could not have been lost on the creators of “Mafioso.” Costanzo is quite an adept character actor who can shift from comedy to drama with ease. And for the comic book fans out there, he’s also the voice of Detective Harvey Bullock on the various animated Batman and DC Superheroes cartoons.

Best moment in the trailer: the statement that the film was the “Winner of the Audience Choice Award at the Portland Festival of World Cinema” (I’ll let you come up with your own response to that).

So how about it, Channel 7? Why not just devote one of the late night slots exclusively to mob movies? You have enough of them to run one every Saturday night, for example. You can change the name from “The Late Show” to “Midnight Mobsters” (who cares if the movies start at 11:35). Or maybe one Sunday afternoon when there’s no sporting events, you can have an all-day mobster marathon. It could be a “hit”… you could score some big ratings… maybe even be “#1 with a bullet!”

View the trailer for “Mafioso: the Father, the Son” here...

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"The Stickup"

2008-07-03T13:22:00.002-04:00

Hooray – it’s the return of James Spader! James Spader is one of my favorites – he’s really a terrific actor. In fact, I wrote extensively on Mr. Spader a few weeks ago in my post on “Shadow of Fear.” If you missed that post, or just want to revisit it, you can do so by clicking here.

The only thing I’ll add to that post is that Spader must wake up every day and give thanks for getting the Emmy® winning role of Alan Shore, first on “The Practice” and then on “Boston Legal.” Because apparently he was on a never-ending treadmill of cheapo direct-to-video thrillers, like George Jetson forever running in place in the “Jetsons” end credits. It’s enough to make a fellow scream, “fame, stop this crazy thing!”

Since I’ve already covered Spader, the Phantom will move on to the supporting cast.

Scratch that, I’ll just move on to ONE of the supporting cast members, because frankly, I don’t recognize anyone else in this cast.

David Keith is best remembered for portraying Richard Gere’s ill-fated friend in “An Officer and A Gentleman.” He has had all sorts of roles since, primarily as supporting characters, but sometimes as a lead. His biggest “featured” role would have to be playing Elvis in “Heartbreak Hotel.” Genre fans will know him from a pair of “dad” roles – playing superhero Matt Murdock’s pop in “Daredevil” as well as the father of the intrepid mystery-solving kids in “Hangman’s Curse.” Of note to me is that he actually played a character with the same name as my good friend Tommy Lane, in a movie called “Caged Fear”… aka “Hotel Oklahoma”… aka “Innocent Young Female”… aka “Jail Force” (sounds like film with an identity crisis)!

Okay, make that two supporting cast members. I don’t really know her, but my research shows that last year, Leslie Stefanson played Ted Kennedy’s ex-wife Joan in the TV movie, ”The Women of Camelot.” This year, seven years after appearing in “The Stickup” as Spader’s leading lady in “reel life,” she finds herself his leading lady in “real” life – engaged to become the next Mrs. Spader. That is, of course, if that tidbit I gleaned off of imdb is still accurate.

The film: a series of robberies that Spader is pinned for. He’s a cop who swears he didn’t do it. Was he framed? And is it mandatory that every movie like this a.) have robberies committed by people in clown masks and b.) feature nurses who take their work home with them, continue to nurse patients back to health off-hospital premises AND become their love interest in the process?

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, July 6, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"Triggermen"

2008-07-03T10:50:00.003-04:00



triggermen

The Phantom feels a bit guilty writing this, but this film is filled with “also-rans.” It’s not that they’re necessarily bad actors; it’s just that in head-to-head competition with others, well they come up short. They are the backups. The actors that are called in when one or two or even three others on the list ahead of them aren’t available. Except for those times when the budget is so small and the project so limited (i.e. planned from the start to be direct-to-video, as opposed to originally intended for theatrical release) that their names jump to the top of the list.

And maybe that’s just fine because you often find such actors being utilized in stories that require more of an “ensemble cast.” Films where there are numerous characters and no one individual role is meant to stand out or outshine the others. Rather the parts working together toward the overall effect of the whole.

So you have Donnie Wahlberg, formerly of ‘90s mega boy band New Kids on the Block to start with. He’s done some good acting work, most notably a brief but pivotal bit in ”The Sixth Sense” (for which he lost a reported 43 pounds) and a major role in the acclaimed television mini-series ”Band of Brothers.” He’s been able to get some steady gigs in a variety of movies and TV shows, including a recurring role in the ”Saw” franchise, but all in all he’s the “ensemble guy” while his brother Mark gets his name above the titles.

Pete Postlethwaite is a great British character actor. Simply take a look at his credits. Too many choice roles to mention, but since the trailer for “Triggermen” suggests more than a mélange of mobsters and conmen, the most appropriate of those roles to mention here would be Kobayashi in “The Usual Suspects.” And he’s got an Oscar® nomination as well for a Best Supporting Actor part in “In the Name of the Father.”

Claire Forlani, like Wahlberg, has been in projects of all stripes for some time now. Also like Wahlberg, she seems well-entrenched in the “ensemble” area. Her career recently got a boost with a recurring role on the ”CSI: New York” TV series that has led to a slate of film roles. Cult film fans will remember her best from Kevin Smith’s “Mallrats.”

I spoke about Michael Rappaport back in my post on “A Good Night to Die,” which I invite you to check out by clicking here. He tends to play tough mugs, so to speak. To reiterate from my earlier post, to me he’s the next guy you go to when Michael Madsen isn’t available. But at least that puts him ahead of Rich Rosovich. The joke is on all three of them, though, because ever since “Sin City” Mickey Rourke is back on top of the tough mug list. And Tom Sizemore may be permanently off (I’ll leave it to you to research why). It’s a delicate balance that must be maintained after all. A game of plus one, minus one.

From the looks of this trailer, it appears Amanda Plummer plays one of her patented oddball characters again. She may be the only reason to tune into this. The Phantom digs her oddness; it makes her cool to me. Consider her amazing portrayal of a limbo-ized cancer patient forced to do evil Gabriel’s bidding in “The Prophecy” before he’ll let her die in peace. In a film already stuffed with scene-stealing performances from Eric Stolz, Viggo Mortensen, Adam Goldberg... and of course Christopher Walken, Plummer held her own and then some.

Last but not least, I have to give special mention to Saul Rubinek. Memories are funny things, and if I watched it today, I might not enjoy ”Soup for One.” But I seem to recall enjoying the Woody Allen-esque film of quirky New Yorkers in and out of love many, many moons ago and that Rubinek was one of the reasons I liked it. Like just about everyone in Saturday night’s movie, Rubinek has an extensive resume, including a recent recurring role on the short-lived ”Blind Justice” TV show.

So the plot of “Triggermen” as best as I can guess is that there’s two hit men and two con men, and either both pairs switch places or one partner each swaps out so one of them can get a better shot at a girl (for a lip lock, not a dead shot). Yep, it’s another one of those convoluted, crazy-mixed-up movies that tries to combine romance, comedy, and mob violence. It’s the mafia meets Tarantino once again on Channel 7’s late night movie. Maybe all they should do is run mob films in this slot as it seems they show one every other week anyway. Instead of the Late Movie they could call it the Late-Because-You-Got-Rubbed-Out Movie.

You can view the trailer by clicking here...

Or watch the entire film on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, July 6, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"Blind Horizon"

2008-06-28T18:26:00.005-04:00

This movie stars Val Kilmer. In it, Kilmer plays a guy with amnesia who thinks he's somehow involved in a plot to assisinate the president. The Phantomess and I are in disagreement over the value of Val. She doesn’t have much use for him after his second movie, “Real Genius.” While I agree that my favorite Kilmer performances were in his initial two films (the first being the hilarious “Top Secret”), I think he’s shown a capacity for good performances since. Granted, those are very rare. Most often, it’s due to the garbage scripts he finds himself saddled with in low-rent movies like the one Channel 7 is showing this Sunday night, or with muddled scripts in movies with good intentions, like the first Joel Schumacher debasing of the caped crusader, “Batman Forever;” the blind man who falls in love “At First Sight” chick flick; or the hard-to-follow and surprisingly inert adaptation of the classic British spy series, “The Saint.” Other times he’s just been deceived into appearing in incoherent messes masquerading as allegedly prestigious projects like the third go-round of “The Island of Dr. Moreau” (enticed no doubt by the prospect of co-starring with the by-then dilapidated Marlon Brando.).

Despite a plethora of poor script choices and poor eating habits the past 13 years, the Phantom cannot concede to the missus that Val hasn’t scored since playing Nick Rivers and Chris Knight. He was a marvelous Doc Holliday in “Tombstone;” brought the right amount of cool to the ghost of Elvis in “True Romance;” and received great reviews for two films the Phantom didn’t see, “Wonderland” and ”Spartan.” Monetarily, he also managed to appear in major roles in at least three blockbuster hits – along with his Bat-flick he engaged audiences in ”Top Gun” and ”Heat.”

Today, he’s providing the voice of “Kitt” the car in the television reboot of David Hasselhoff’s cult classic hit ”Knight Rider.” Provided the remake is still on the air, that is (the Phantom doesn’t keep track of what TV shows are on, let alone what’s been canceled). He takes over for the obliquely funny Will Arnett, formerly of the brilliant TV series “Arrested Development” as well as two recent features the Phantom hasn’t seen that look well beneath his talents (you tell me – here’s one; here’s the other.).

Here’s a tasty tidbit from Kilmer’s past: he and Kevin Spacey were classmates and members of the drama club at Chatsworth High School in California, and then again at the famous college of performing arts, Juilliard. While there, Spacey borrowed money from Kilmer’s well-off parents… and never paid it back! Lest you think this an urban legend, this was recounted directly by Kilmer in a Cinema Confidential interview and elsewhere.

Kilmer is supported here by some familiar faces. Although she probably doesn’t want to be referred to as such, Neve Campbell is primarily known as “the girl from the ‘Scream’ movies.” In this one, she has the misfortune to be sporting a Selma Blair haircut. But the Phantom is confident that’s where the similarity ends… after all, Campbell can act.

Faye Dunaway of course is the famous Oscar® winning actress with two infamous roles that are probably of most interest to Landfill readers who go in for over-the-top hysterics. Those of course would be her portrayals of actress Joan Crawford in “Mommie Dearest” and the villain in “Supergirl” (someone should sign her up to be in a Lifetime movie, if she hasn’t appeared in one already)! Those scenery-chewing extravaganzas aside, the Phantom gives Dunaway credit for publicly calling out Hollywood’s long-standing practice of pairing ever-aging leading men with ever-younger leading ladies.

Also on board here is Amy Smart. The Phantom knows he’s heard of her, and probably has seen her in something or other, but he couldn’t really pick her out of a line-up. But apparently she has quite the TV and movie career going for herself. “Blind Horizon” must have been a detour.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that Oscar® nominee Sam Shepard is also in this. But there’s just too much to write about him and the Phantom has already written too much already on this film, so I’m going to direct you to his wiki profile instead.

I had a choice of two trailers to share with you for this one. The home video promo seems to be the most appropriate for the Late Nite Landfill – it is full of the “over-the-top heightened escalation” that is a hallmark of Channel 7’s late nite movie. And it is mighty “base” in its approach – exploitive to the hilt, seeking to appeal to a lowest common denominator (as opposed to the theatrical trailer that tries to pass off the flick as a thought-provoking indie film - which you can watch by clicking here).

View the video promo for this film here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, June 29th at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"The Circuit 2"

2008-06-28T09:08:00.004-04:00

The scariest thing about “The Circuit 2” is the number 2, which implies that there was a first installment. Hard to believe when watching the trailer for this that anyone would be clamoring for a follow-up, but then again, maybe I’m just not the target audience... although I’m not sure who is. I just don’t like prison movies with inmates beating each other up, but they seem to be a popular genre (and sub-genre, if you count the women-in-prison movies also popular with male audiences – whose popularity is even more perplexing to fathom).

I prefer my prison movies intentionally funny – you know, comedies starring the likes of Laurel & Hardy or Wheeler & Woolsey, or to give more modern examples, Gene Wilder & Richard Pryor or Leslie Nielsen.

Anyway, to make matters more unseemly, this film revolves around a corruptly run prison that allows an “underground fight club,” so I guess they’re trying to extend the appeal beyond mere criminals roughing each other up to the notion of a “club” with rules and codes (like “Fight Club”)… except just like that cult hit there really are no rules during the actual fighting. That mindset has somehow creeped from “reel” to “real life” in those “Ultimate Fighting” competitions I find oh so disturbing. Indeed, the rules only apply to everything but the fight in “The Circuit 2,” as the inmates here are fighting to the death.

So you either like this kind of movie or don’t. I don’t. But I do enjoy digging into the backgrounds of the principle stars, surely a more entertaining endeavor than watching this dreck. So here goes:

Olivier Gruner was the first French Kickbox Champion and also became a World Champion Kickboxer before becoming a model and an actor – primarily in martial arts-themed action films. Of special interest to Late Nite Landfill readers is that he starred in “Soft Target,” a film penned by our friend and fellow Landfill reader William C. Martell. Another friend, Matt Porier (aka “The Direct-to-Video Connoisseur”) wrote a nice review of the same film under its alternate title, “Crooked.”

I saw the name “Michael Blanks” in the credits and of course I did what you would do: I asked myself, could he be related to the famous Tae Bo workout guru, Billy Blanks? Of course he could… and is! The Blanks are brothers.

But I’ve saved the best for last. The main star of this film is one Lorenzo Llamas. Where to start? Maybe with the Phantom’s mother – when I was a kid, my Mom thought Lorenzo was hot stuff on the prime time soap “Falcon Crest.” Kind of weird to me, all things considered, as my Mom was otherwise silent on such matters. Llamas’s life after that soap became a soap opera unto itself. It seems he got into the habit of collecting pretty young wives. Of course, the sticky problem there is what to do with the previous wife, especially if you picked the new model up from the showroom before trading the old one in. Usually because both Llamas and his soon-to-be-previous wife were in the middle of shooting a movie and who can afford to recast in the middle of a shoot? Little did the leading lady now that when Lorenzo yelled “cut!,” he wasn’t just talking about finishing the film.

Womanizing dads almost always fall to the curse of having a daughter of their own... one who either attracts boys that are as much dogs as he was, or worse, daddy’s little girl herself is a devil-may-care fatale. Recently, Lorenzo’s daughter Shayne competed on the show “The Bachelor” and won the heart of the title star. Or at least was chosen by him. Now they’re engaged. Will Shayna have a better marriage record than her dad? Only time will tell.

I mentioned upfront that the number “2” was a scary prospect signaling there was more than one of these flicks. During the course of my video clip research (you know, for that bonus content you’ll get by clicking the bold green words), I made a horrifying discovery: there was even a “Circuit 3!”

View the trailer for “The Circuit 2” here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, June 28th at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

INTERMISSION!

2008-06-25T22:14:00.003-04:00

Hello, Late Nite Landfill fans. This is your 'ol pal, the Phantom of the Landfill reporting that I'll be on the road for the next 48 hours. I've started the posts for this weekend's late night Channel 7 offerings but I need time to refine them, so look for them sometime Friday or Saturday. Believe me, they will be worth the wait - unless Channel 7 changes the schedule between now and then, you have films featuring Lorenzo Llamas and Val Kilmer to look forward to. In the meantime... enjoy this intermission!

Late Nite Landfill reviews now linked to on imdb.com!

2008-06-19T07:25:00.001-04:00

I’m pleased to announce that the majority of my reviews are now featured on imdb.com (the Internet Movie Database). My reviews can be found when you click “external reviews” on a movie’s page. For example, say you were on the imdb.com site and you were looking up Lance Henriksen movies and came across the imdb entry for “Antiobody.” Well, you would click where it says “external reviews” and among the reviews listed you’ll see “The Late Nite Landfill.” Click on those words and it will take you to your’s truly, the Phantom’s review of “Antibody.” As a camper whose campfire blew out hours ago once said, “cool beans!”

LINKS – they’re not just for breakfast anymore!

2008-06-19T07:22:00.000-04:00

Hello phans. This is the Phantom of the Landfill here, reminding (and encouraging) you to check out the links that are hidden throughout the posts on this blog. The Phantom has worked hard to bring you the best in bonus content. If you haven’t been clicking on the bold green words, here’s what you’ve been missing:

• Joe Penny at target practice (for real)
• Aidan Quinn reading Kafka's "Metamorphosis" aloud
• Jean-Claude Van Damme “dirty dancing”
• Henry Winkler as The Fonz teaching kids to scream when strangers try to abduct them
• A Sylvester Stallone noodle commercial from Japan

...and tons of other celebrity commercials, music videos and oddball clips from around the world.

BUT… I’m not going to link to them in this post. You’ll have to search through the other posts on this blog to find them. Just like "Easter Egg" surprises on DVDs. Happy hunting!

"Eight Days to Live"

2008-06-19T07:20:00.006-04:00

I know, I know. The Phantom is starting to sound like a broken record. But it’s not my fault. Channel 7 insists on running movies that premiered on Lifetime back in 2006. They must have gotten a great deal on these flicks, so they’ve liberally spread them into the mix among the direct-to-DVD dreck. And every time out, I mention how the films are usually shot in Canada, feature Canadian actors, are released on DVD in other countries and let’s not forget the “over the top, zero-to-sixty, heightened escalation” factor. What else can I do? These are the unifying factors of all recent Lifetime “original” movies. As Yogi Berra would say, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

One thing I’ve missed in previous posts: apparently these movies are also shown on CTV – Canadian TV out of Winnipeg, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. And tonight’s entry, “Eight Days to Live” had the distinction of garnering that network’s highest ratings up until that time. I don’t know if anything has surpassed it yet, but when originally aired on CTV, “Eight Days…” was seen by two million people.

The Phantom is willing to bet that’s substantially more than will be watching this Sunday night when WABC-TV Channel 7 in New York airs it on the Late Move.

There is one element in “Eight Days to Live” that shows up in a lot of these Lifetime movies that I haven’t previously mentioned: the family member doggedly pursuing answers to the mystery surrounding another missing and/or murdered family member. This of course is not relegated to just Lifetime movies. Such mainstream fare as “In the Bedroom,” Steven Soderbergh’s “The Limey” and others covered similar ground. Okay, maybe “mainstream” is not the word to use for any of those. “Theatrical releases” is a better word, as none of those films were designed to appeal to the masses (they found more success in the art-houses and theaters catering to independent movies).

In this one, a missing woman’s son disappears after veering off the road, and now she must find him to try to save his life.

It’s got the usual assortment of Canadian actors, most who have done both US and Canadian TV and spotty film work. Overall, based on the ensemble’s credits it’s one of the more well-casted Lifetime films. These all seem like competent actors. Among them are:

Kelly Rowan from “The O.C” heads the cast as the mother. She has many film and TV credits, and for this film, she also served as a producer. She was also an executive producer on another film she made for Lifetime and CTV, 2007’s “In God’s Country,” which has as its subject matter something rather timely at the moment: women trapped in polygamist communities.

Katherine Isabelle as a girlfriend of the son also has a lot of film and TV credits, including a recurring role (the main role) in the “Ginger Snaps” horror film series. The Phantom saw and thoroughly enjoyed the original “Snaps” – it was a refreshing reboot of werewolf movies for the new generation, complete with dark humor and meaningful subtext for its star and core audience.

Shawn Doyle continues the parade of actors with several gigs under his belt. Right now, he has a recurring role on the latest cable-TV “let’s make something out of the norm seem normal” show, “Big Love” (refer back to my comment above re: “In God’s Country”).

While his career is so far less extensive than those mentioned above, Ryan McDonell is a talent bubbling under, and has thrilled audiences as Lt. Gonzo Pike on the Sci-fi Channel’s revamp of “Battlestar Galactica.”

Ryan’s “Battlestar” co-star Ty Olssen (LSO Capt. Aaron Kelly) is also a journeyman with many credits, including a recurring role as Sam the Plow Guy on the short-lived Anne Heche series, “Men in Trees.”

Michael Eklund is a veteran of such Uwe Boll movies as “Black Woods,” the video game adaptation “House of the Dead,” and “Bloodrayne II: Deliverance.” If you haven’t heard of director Boll by now, that’s probably a blessing. He is just about universally reviled by most (see the site “Uwe Boll Must Be Stopped”) although he does have that rare supporter. If you’re intrigued to learn more, click here or here.

Last but not least, there’s Gwyneth Walsh, who played Patricia DaVinci, a coroner and ex-wife of Dominic DaVinci, also a coroner and titular star of the exceptional Canadian police procedural drama, “DaVinci’s Inquest.” By the way, “Inquest” is often run on American TV in the wee hours, and is a much better option than the Late Movie, provided you’re looking for quality and not kitsch.

I don’t have a trailer for this one, but you can view a clip here (NOTE: disregard the date scrolling across the bottom of the frame – that date was the original TV airdate):

Eight Days to Live

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

Another (different) installment of Robocop: Prime Directives (“Crash & Burn”)

2008-06-19T07:18:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I wrote about “Robocop: Prime Directives.” I erroneously stated that it was one movie comprised of bits and pieces of four separate movies (aka “four movies rolled into one”).

Apparently The Phantom had that wrong. It appears that “Robocop: Prime Directives” is actually the heading for a series of four movies, and that each of those four movies is about 2 hours long. So Channel 7 has actually been running each 2 hour installment, not a compilation of clips.

Whether they are running them in the right order or not I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that they ran one shortly before I started writing this blog (around January), and then ran another in late May. This of course begs another question: if these four movies fit together to make one story, why run them so far apart? But we’d need to answer the first question (are they being run in sequential order?) first.

I wrote everything I had to say about the “Prime Directives” series and Robocop in general in my post of a few weeks ago, so I invite you to revisit it. I also included a trailer in that post that covers all four of the movies in the series.

And that leaves us with this tonight’s specific installment, which according to zap2it.com is subtitled “Crash & Burn.” You can view a brief “behind-the-scenes” featurette here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"Past Sins" (NOTE THE TIME CHANGE THIS WEEK – THIS MOVIE WILL AIR AT 12:05!)

2008-06-14T15:40:00.004-04:00

Well Landfill fans, the Phantom has a special treat for you: a guest post from the Phantomess! She agreed to write about Sunday’s movie, “Past Sins.” It’s another of those movies that premier on Lifetime in the US but have a video release in the rest of the world (sometimes under a different title), and are usually filmed in Canada and loaded with Canadian TV actors. Like all Lifetime movies of recent vintage, it as that over-the-top, “zero-to-sixty heightened escalation factor” the Phantom oh-so-loves to poke gentle fun at.

NOTE: Like last weekend, the NBA playoffs
are still going on, so this movie will start at 12:05 AM instead of the usual 11:35 (and that makes it Monday, not Sunday).

Without further ado, here’s the Phantomess:

While preparing this week's entry, my husband the Phantom, master of puns (I call it “pun”-ishment), mentioned that he didn't recognize anyone in the cast. I said I knew who Lauralee Bell was, but that was about it. A longtime fan of fellow CBS soap (daytime drama if you prefer) “As the World Turns,” I've caught bits and pieces of her work as Christine "Cricket" Blair on "The Young and the Restless."

Though Christine/Cricket somehow managed to get kidnapped many times more than the average person over the years, Bell's talent blossomed as teen model Cricket matured into plucky, compassionate and accomplished attorney, Christine.

And Christine was married, at varying times of course, to two of daytime's hottest hunks, Michael “Rock On” Damian (singer Danny Romalotti) and Doug Davidson, who has portrayed private eye Paul Williams for 30 years.

Here she battles with a pre-"Desperate Housewive's" Eva Longoria in 2003.

Bell holds the unfortunate distinction of being known as the ”Tori Spelling” of daytime soap operas. Part of the Bell dynasty--her parents, William and Lee Phillip Bell, co-created Y&R and sister show, ”The Bold & the Beautiful,” she started on the show while still in her teens. She bore the brunt when the late Terry Lester, who played the popular Jack Abbot, left the show in 1989. During interviews he said he felt his role on the show was steadily declining and singled her out, saying the powers that be had a little nepotism issue.

Bell, now a mother of two, focuses her time on an upscale boutique and makes guest appearances.

Of course, none of this says anything about the “Past Sins” film and honestly, I've never heard of it. I much prefer old-time Lifetime fare such as the two Betty Broderick movies starring Meredith Baxter. My ideal time would be a rainy day watching a double bill of "A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story" and "Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, The Last Chapter" followed by the ultimate true-crime miniseries "Fatal Vision," which originally aired on NBC in 1984 but was a Lifetime staple back in the network's infancy. Now those are great movies.

So there you have it, Landfill phans – the Phantomess has spoken! The Phantom abides.

Now, upfront I mentioned the time change for this Sunday’s movie. Just a reminder – the NBA basketball playoffs are on again this weekend, so the late news will once again start later and make The Late Movie into the late Late movie). “Past Sins” will start at 12:05 instead of the usual 11:35.

View the trailer here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, June 15th (wait, make that MONDAY MORNING, June 16th) at 12:05 AM... if you dare!

"Shaka Zulu: the Citadel"

2008-06-13T08:19:00.002-04:00

Sometimes a blog entry is just handed to you like a gift. Sometimes, Channel 7 schedules a movie in its late night slot that, based on the lead actor alone, allows the blog to practically write itself (”Kill Me Later” comes to mind). This Saturday, Channel 7 presents just such a movie. A movie that enables you to read no further than the two words I’m about to type. Ladies and gentlemen... I give you...

“THE HOFF!”

That’s right, good ‘ol David Hasselhoff has finally put in an appearance on this blog.

Of course, I’m hoping you’ll continue to read on because amazingly, there are other dubious pleasures to be found in “Shaka Zulu: the Citadel.”

But first, the Hoff. Where to start? Primarily a TV actor, he is best known for interacting with a talking hot rod built for speed on “Knight Rider,” and for interacting with talking hot bods built for spandex and speedos on “Baywatch.”

But that’s not all... the Hoff is also a singer. Don’t believe me? Then watch this music video.

What’s that? You watched the video and still don’t believe me?

That won’t stop millions of people in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland from buying his albums. He is to those countries what Jerry Lewis is to France. He’s not quite as big in Brazil, though.

These days, he splits his time between trouble with ex-wives, trouble with alcohol, trouble convincing the world outside of Europe to take his singing career seriously, and trouble staying on the set of “America’s Got Talent” when confronted by such stellar acts as Boy-Shakira. Ultimately, I have to give him credit for perseverance. He seems rather adept in the “keep on keepin’ on” department, able to keep standing tall (he’s 6’4” ) in the face of everything.

The backdrop of this movie is the historical and controversial Shaka Zulu, the warrior king and the Zulu nation he ruled (the controversy being that certain elements held to as fact by some are deemed fiction by others). The Phantom is inclined to believe a bit more than the basics, and is not bothered by the possibility that other elements may have been embellished (the majority of history books are almost always at least a quarter fiction after all).

There have been several TV and movie projects built around this theme, the most famous being the “Shaka Zulu” television mini-series from 1986. Some of these adaptations have been taken to task for their historical inaccuracies, but from accounts the Phantom has dug up on the web, it appears “Shaka Zulu: the Citadel” has all comers beat in the fiction department.

Amazingly, there are others besides Hoff in this cast. We’ve already spoken about Indy Jones’ gal pal Karen Allen back in this post about “Falling Sky.” And Omar Sharif is someone who’s been around forever who really should need no introduction, but in case you don’t know him, you can always imdb him. Or watch the trailer for “Dr. Zhivago.” Or better yet, watch this scene from one of my all-tme favorite movies, “Top Secret.”

Which leaves us with one other notable cast member... someone who puts this movie as much into the kitsch zone as the Hoff: Grace Jones!

She’s been a model, a singer, and an actress, with her biggest heyday coming in the 1980s. Let’s face it, she’s just one of those unique characters who people either love or are completely baffled by. And by unique I mean completely unique – she has a unique look, unique mannerisms, and unique movements, all of which you can see in the links above. Perhaps the producers felt her exotic presence would provide the perfect balance to Hoff’s ham-fisted heroics.
…and getting back to Hoff, he does have a tenuous tie to some of this summer’s biggest blockbusters: he was the first actor to play the role of Marvel Comics character Nick Fury, a role now savored by the ubiquitous Samuel L. Jackson.

I don’t have a trailer for this one, but I do have a clip with Miss Jones that you can view here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

“Shadow of Fear” (NOTE THE TIME CHANGE THIS WEEK – THIS MOVIE WILL AIR AT 12:05!)

2008-06-07T09:45:00.010-04:00

This film stars James Spader. He’s such a dominant personality that more than likely he’s the whole show here, or at least most of the show.

Spader came up with those “brat pack” actors in the ‘80s but in that context he never really fit in. He always came off smarter than his years (and peers), and sometimes a bit smug. Not good for magazines like Tiger Beat.

Eventually, everyone has to grow up, including high-profile high schoolers (even if most of them were out of high school when they hit the big time). Then the school of hard knocks kicks in, and most realize they can no longer trade off on whatever youthful eccentricity got them through a dozen John Hughes movies. Since Spader was already aping an (admittedly irresponsible) adult in his characterizations, the transition out of Hughes-land was smoother for him than most.

The character that most clearly defines the personality type Spader often plays is of course Alan Shore, originally one of several strong personalities from “The Practice” but now clearly the front-and-center star of “Boston Legal.” And I say that with no disrespect intended toward co-stars Candice Bergen or the irrepressible William Shatner. The fact is, Shore is the only character the show cannot survive without, in my opinion. He is the glue. I think the ever-rotating supporting cast of that show attests to that fact.

The Alan Shore character has made such a strong impression that Spader became the first actor ever to win a Lead Actor Emmy® for portraying the same character on two different series. Ed Asner won twice for playing Lou Grant on both the eponymously-titled drama and on the classic comedy, ”The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” but his win for “MTM” came in the Supporting Actor category (and while we’re shuttling roles and numbers around, Asner has incidentally played two different judges on “Boston Legal”).

The roots of the Alan Shore character can be found in earlier Spader characters. As Steff in ”Pretty in Pink,” he essayed a new kind of school bully: the suit-wearing Yuppie bully. Just three years later he portrayed a sleazy “documentary” filmmaker coaxing women to do sexually revealing interviews in ”Sex, Lies and Videotape.” A year later, under the ”Bad Influence” of Rob Lowe, Spader’s Michael character rapidly progressed into slimeball-ness.

But it is his hysterical performance in an episode of “Seinfeld” that really showcased the perfect gelling of sleaziness with intensity and a knowing wit, and perhaps more than the above roles is really the blueprint for the Alan Shore character. I encourage you to click on the above link to see a condensation of that episode focusing strictly on Spader’s character’s storyline.

This leads to tonight’s movie, “Shadow of Fear.” When a young man accidentally murders someone, he finds himself entrenched in a “secret society” of people whose crimes could ruin them. It’s never a good idea to join a secret society, because then they’ve got the goods on you and how do you know you can trust them? It’s even worse if that society is run by Spader. Clearly, the accidental murderer never saw any of Spader’s work before. If only he had read this post first, he would have never joined up!

As needless as it seems to provide a backup cast that’s more than merely adequate when you've got someone as formidible as Spader at the controls, this film actually does deliver a great selection of supporting players. You’ve got Aidan Quinn as a detective, Peter Coyote as a congressman, Alice Krige as the congressman’s wife and Robin Tunney and Lacey Chabert as... well, I’m not sure exactly what their roles are but I’m sure they look cute playing those parts. You can imdb all of the above for their filmographies... they all have extensive bodies of work.

To reiterate, despite game support, this is clearly Spader’s show. And I’m not just playing favorites because he shares The Phantom’s birthday.

I mentioned the time change for this Sunday’s movie. Due to the NBA basketball playoffs, the late news will start later and consequentially so shall The Late Movie (making it the late Late movie). Channel 7 will start the movie at 12:05 instead of the usual 11:35. And that really makes it Monday's movie.

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, June 8th (wait, make that MONDAY MORNING, June 9th) at 12:05 AM… if you dare!

“One Last Ride”

2008-06-06T16:09:00.006-04:00

It’s time for another venerable genre to take the spotlight: the addiction movie. These are the films where someone just can’t seem to quit some kind of addiction, and spends the movie either slipping further toward certain demise or miraculously overcoming the monkey on their back. They are just too numerous to mention here, and the Phantom will not be so foolhardy as to attempt to do so and risk leaving a good one out.

Addiction movies are no stranger to the Late Nite Landfill. A couple weeks ago, Channel 7 ran “Falling Sky,” about Indy Jone’s #1 gal pal Karen Allen fighting demon alcohol. In May, they aired “Phoenix,” a film about a cop with a weakness for poker chips and slot machines. And it seems that in any given movie in Channel 7’s late nite slot, there’s somebody who’s addicted to sex. Or mob hits. Now comes this Saturday’s movie, “One Last Ride.” Like “Phoenix,” this one explores the pursuit of gambling highs, but in a much more straightforward, traditional way (focusing on one man’s addiction in a realistic light, as opposed to making it part of a multi-layered storyline of conmen and crooked cops on the take).

A good rule of thumb is to be leery of films that are “produced” or “presented by” famous directors, for example Martin Scorcese or Quentin Tarantino. The video store shelves are lined with such lackluster efforts. What makes them lackluster? The obvious: they’re not actually directed by Martin Scorcese, he’s just being used as a brand name to lay over the main brand. Like Scooby-Doo-branded Snausage snacks for dogs or Budweiser-branded barbecue and grilling sauces.

“One Last Ride” falls into the same category. Ang Lee is an executive producer on this film and his name is prominently mentioned in the trailer. Lee of course is the Oscar® winning director of several critically acclaimed movies. His most lauded film is also about some folks who just can’t quit something, while his most well-known movie is sort of about addiction – if you count getting so angry that people wouldn’t like you when you’re angry as an addiction.

An interesting aside: this gambler's main "high" of choice seems to be the ponies. Could it be possible that the programmers at Channel 7 actually purposely scheduled this the same weekend as the Belmont Stakes, on the eve of a potential triple crown victor?

The main trio of characters is portrayed by television actors.

The addict is played by an actor whose main work appears to be scattered TV guest-shot roles but no ongoing roles, but that’s no surprise – Patrick Cupo also happens to be the writer and producer of the film.

His best friend in the film is played by Joe Marinelli, who also has a lot of guest-credits in prime-time but regular featured roles on various soaps... including a stint as a cross-dressing mafioso named Bunny on “Santa Barbara.”

Playing the wife is Anita Barone, who actually did have a couple of recurring TV roles, most notably the wife in the short-lived Michael Rappaport sitcom “The War at Home,” and netted a “best actress” award for this film from “Methodfest” (who knew method actors had their own awards ceremonies? Marlon Brando must be “role”-ing over in his grave!)

Of greater interest here, as is usually the case here at the Landfill, are the supporting performances.

Jack Carter is a classic stand-up comedy star who has popped up everywhere including Broadway, TV and movies. And Vegas, of course. Trivia time: he played Arthur Spooner in the “King of Queens” pilot, but when it became a series the role went to Jerry Stiller.

Chazz Palminteri has become a staple in movies with both mobster and cop roles. He rose to prominence on TV’s “Wiseguy” but really broke out once his one-man play, “A Bronx Tale” took off and was ultimately chosen by Robert DeNiro to be the first film he directed.

Charles Durning… where to begin? A lifetime of extraordinary character roles. Just go to your Netflix account, do a search on him and start adding his films to your queue. In fact, a couple of great “bookend” roles are his wonderful detective in “The Sting” and his equally wonderful (and much more irascible but still lovable with age) incumbent politician in “O, Brother Where Art Thou?”

Robert Davi belongs to the Phantom’s “coolest actors of the modern era” club. That exclusive club includes such awesome character actors as Bruce Campbell – Sam Raimi’s favorite muse, Lance Henriksen – Bishop from the “Alien” movies, Robert Patrick – of “Terminator 2” and “X-files” fame, Eric Roberts – of a bazillion cool flicks, and of course, the incomparable Christopher Walken. You’d do well to do a Netflix search on Davi, too… or as he suggests, Google him!

View the trailer here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, June 7th, 2008 at 11:35 PM… if you dare!

"Murder in My House"

2008-05-30T20:22:00.011-04:00

Sometimes people are just absolutely perfect not only at what they do, but for what they do. Take Barbara Niven. Ms. Niven is a beautiful actress in her ‘50s with an expressive face and a range that allows her to play both innocent victims and femme fatales. She is the consummate “utility actress” (see this post for a further explanation of the term). Since her ‘40s she has been called upon time and time again to essay such roles in both direct-to-video psychological thrillers as well as made-for-TV movies for Lifetime – the kind that ultimately make it to Channel 7’s late night schedule (and consequently, the Late Nite Landfill). I think the key to her success is that she’s believable. Despite her great beauty, she doesn’t seem unapproachable or like someone you’d never happen upon in “real life.” She really does seem like a person you can meet – a soccer mom, a co-worker, a son or daughter’s schoolteacher, etc. It’s her presence both in terms of her acting and of her appearance, particularly her face. She really seems grounded in reality. Probably because she is – at her website, you can read poignant tales of her lifelong struggles with body image.

Inevitably, given the assignments she most often finds herself in, she is almost always better than the material. It’s just the nature of the beast. And probably one of the reasons she’s often hired – as the Phantom has mentioned several times here at the Landfill, the right actor can really elevate weak material so you don’t see the seams showing as much.

The trailer for this one makes it look like passable “who done it” fare to kill time with, depending upon what mood you’re in. It’s yet another movie that premiered on Lifetime in the US while having a video release in the rest of the world, notably Canada. The trailer hints that it has a little bit of that over-the-top, “zero-to-sixty heightened escalation factor” these DTV/Lifetime psycho-dramas usually have, but there is the nice twist of having a father-daughter relationship explored, especially since the daughter is middle-aged. Surprisingly, the trailer also seems to reveal a few of what are probably supposed to be “surprises” in the plot… go figure (or don’t, since the trailer already did the figuring for you).

Playing Niven’s father is journeyman TV actor Daniel J. Travanti. He cut his teeth with a variety of guest-roles in 1970s cop shows, but is most well-known for his own cop show with six seasons as Captain Frank Furillo on the acclaimed “Hill Street Blues.” His next most notable role after Furillo is probably that of John Walsh, host of “America’s Most Wanted” in not one but two TV movies about the dad who turned activist following his son’s murder. Last but not least, he portrayed legendary broadcaster/McCarthy opponent Edward R. Murrow in a television biopic 19 years before David Straithairn netted an Oscar® nomination for doing the same in “Good Night and Good Luck.”

The other notable supporting performer here is Lisa Zane. Zane is one of those “can’t be pigeonholed” performers. She’s turned up in tons of TV and movie roles, and a lot of her work is in productions like this one. But she’s also a gifted stage actress who originated the roles of Rita in "Prelude to a Kiss" and Cleo in "Robbers;”a singer-songwriter with a recording contract and a steady gig at L.A.’s Les Deux Café for over a decade; and has even done voices for animated cartoons like “Biker Mice from Mars.” Outside of her professional work, she has a couple of ties to comic book characters, having once dated the late Heath “The Joker” Ledger and of course, being the sister of Billy “The Phantom” (of the jungle, not the Landfill) Zane.

View the trailer here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, June 1st, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"American Strays"

2008-05-30T08:24:00.003-04:00

When I watched the trailer for this one, I thought to myself, “what hath Quentin Tarantino wrought?”

Then I found a review of “American Strays” from 13 years ago, in the New York Times of all places, that asked the same question.

The answer was more relevant back then of course. For about 8 to 10 years, there were several lackluster Tarantino-inspired tongue-in-cheek/let’s talk about pop culture/gory shoot-em-up’s in the wake of “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction.”

In those days, many a movie review either started or ended with the line, “yet another talky, bloody, darkly humorous Tarantino knock-off”… or words to that effect.

I stand in the minority in my opinion of Tarantino. Quite frankly, I consider him the Emperor’s New Clothes. Not that he ever hid that from interviewers. When he came on the scene he revealed point-blank that his career was the result of being influenced by the films he watched working in the video store and being a pop culture geek, and he merely decided to combine the two. I just don’t think he’s ever been terribly original at doing that, despite the almost universally glowing press he receives. He’s been a kid in a candy store, allowed to make his pastiches, and that’s all well and good. Deep inside, I suspect he’s laughing at the absurdity of the accolades.

At the same time, he’s probably not anxious for anyone to discover the naked truth. Over the years in re-watching “Pulp Fiction,” that truth became more and more evident to me. That film is a film remembered for moments, characterizations and especially conversations. But as “film” – telling a story using a visual medium to its fullest extent – it’s actually pretty lacking on repeated viewings. Much better for me was the film that preceded it, “Reservoir Dogs” – but even that one was better as an example of interesting dialogue and characterization than of “story.” The story just careens to a nihilistic anti-ending. And the most engaging idea in the story, of a gang who is set up by their leader so they don’t really know one another (in “Dogs” they are given code names), is lifted from the much superior film noir classic “Kansas City Confidential” (in which the dupes are given masks to hide their identities) from 1952.

Of all the videos he watched in his shop, it appears film noir was the genre Tarantino watched most. Clearly he found his main inspiration in film noir as well as films with characters chatting about pop culture (two of the most famous being the “Bonanza” discussion in “Tin Men” and that little prologue in the “Twilight Zone” movie with Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks playing “name that TV theme song” – including “Bonanza”) and the profanity-laced-and-blood-soaked exploitation and mob movies from the ‘70s and ‘80s.

What these films have in common is the “reference” factor. Not just the obvious example of characters literally referencing pop culture in dialogue, but also films referencing other films in style and tone. The exploitation movies were famous for that. And how many mob movies have we discussed here that all reference one another? Even film noir, one of the greatest of all genres, was one of references. It was a combination of German Expressionist films, rough and tumble detective mysteries and intensely violent gangster movies. So we have Tarantino making copies of copies. And what happens when you go to the photocopy machine and make copies of copies? Your image gets diluted with every generation removed from the original.

Which brings us back to “American Strays.” One look at the trailer and it’s evident that it’s a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, many generations removed from the original. I’m sure there were some critics and viewers who were just fine with it when it came out, but I wonder how they’d feel watching it now?

The film, unlike most Late Nite Landfill fare is filled with familiar faces. There are two returning Landfill veterans: Luke Perry and James Russo. Kewpie doll-cum-femme fatale Jennifer Tilly adds a little spice to the proceedings, while the legendary Carol Kane and the clueless-character expert Patrick Warburton (aka “Puddy” from “Seinfeld”) lend their own special brands of lunacy. There’s also the ubiquitous actor/apartheid foe John Savage; everyone’s favorite comic relief mob henchman the late Joe Viterelli; and Sam J. Jones, square-jawed star of “Flash Gordon.” Also on hand are two actors The Phantom has actually met: the late (and highly underrated) Brion James, best known as the replicant Leon in “Blade Runner” and Eric Roberts, who’s done a ton of great work in B-movies although he was once “the next big thing” in films like “Star 80” and “The Pope of Greenwich Village.” The Phantom had pleasant experiences meeting both genial stars.

Last but not least, this film was originally distributed by the now-defunct A-Pix. For them to handle a film like this was a bit of an anomaly. They were much better known for direct-to-video horror schlock like “Uncle Sam” and “Jack Frost” (the scary killer snowman version; not the scarier “I-used-to-be-your-dad-now-I’m-a-creepy-snowman” Michael Keaton family film version… by the way, you can click here to read a brilliant article comparing the two “Frosts” by my friend and loyal Landfill reader William C.Martell). Heck, they were probably even more well known for the packaging those DVD’s came in – both “Sam” and “Frost” had “lenticular” covers where the title characters would appear to go from benign to monstrous as you walked down the aisle. Spending an hour and a half in the video store tracking these clever cover images with your eyes may actually be preferable to watching “American Strays.”

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"How to Go Out on a Date in Queens"

2008-05-23T08:37:00.002-04:00

I suppose one could criticize this blog for the fact that I only watch the trailers for the movies I feature, and not the movies themselves. One could ask, “How accurate can The Phantom of the Landfill’s opinion be if he’s never watched the movie he’s slagging?”

That criticism may be valid... up to a point.

Let’s face it, we’re at the mercy of WABC-TV Channel 7’s late night movie programmers. All I’m doing is reporting on what they plan to broadcast next. And the fact is, we’re dealing with three kinds of movies here.

• Films made expressly for the direct-to-video or direct-to-cable markets (or both). These are the films you see in Blockbuster that make you say, “Wow, I’ve never heard of this one before,” even though you recognize the actors on the DVD case. These movies almost always fall within a certain range of quality, with “decent-enough time waster B-movie” being the highest accolade; although you’re more likely to get C to F grade movies with bad acting, bad directing and no budgets.
• Independent movies made by novice directors. These films are almost always very earnest. The director is usually also the writer, and believes wholeheartedly in the material. Usually because no one else has raised any objections (he’s either surrounded by supportive types that are either inexperienced in good writing and direction or others who know something’s wrong but don’t want to hurt the director’s feelings – in either case, “yes men.”) Because the films are already shot, produced, and most importantly paid for, they are desirable to the same direct-to-video/direct-to-cable distributors mentioned above as instant content they can provide their customers without expending production costs.
• Films made for the Lifetime Channel. We can argue the relative merits of these but there’s no point. I’m a guy and these just don’t appeal to me (with apologies to those guys who do enjoy them) beyond their value as over-the-top camp ripe for ridicule.

The other local affiliate stations run lots of movies, too – some good, some bad, but at least they’re movies you’ve heard of before with Warner Brothers, MGM and Universal logos in front of them. On the other hand, when you tune to Channel 7 late at night on the weekends and see a “DEJ Productions” or “First Look Studios” logo, you can safely assume you’re in for some prime-grade schlock of the Late Nite Landfill variety.

Which all leads up to my following statement: I cannot watch the trailer for Sunday night’s movie, “How to Go Out on a Date in Queens” without saying afterwards, “This looks like a dog from snout to tail.” It just does. I’m sorry. It’s a lot of “been there, done that” cutesy romantic comedy stuff mixed with sex comedy drivel and the curse of the indy movie, the “ensemble cast filled with broad, eccentric characters.” It looks like it has absolutely no center, nothing to unify it, just random snippets of people’s allegedly “comic” relationships. If you can actually relate to the loser characters depicted in this trailer, I feel sorry for you.

Onto the stars: Jason Alexander, who will forever be known as George Costanza from “Seinfeld” heads this cast. Alexander is one of those guys who will always give his all in any role. The problem arises when the script and direction are not up to his level. Instead of elevating weak material, the opposite effect seems to happen with Alexander – his presence makes it all the more glaring how flimsy other elements of the project are.

Rob Estes is one of those “he reminds me of…” guys. In this case, he reminds me of Sam Rockwell and David Arquette.

Last but not least, it’s hard to tell what Ron Perlman’s role is from watching this trailer. When he’s not playing reluctant-demons-turned-superheroes, he’s usually cast as a bad guy, a detective or both. Watching his quick clip in the trailer (don’t blink or you’ll miss it), I couldn’t help but imagine a comic book thought balloon above his head reading, “Just one day’s work and I get to bail this set!”

View the trailer here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, May 25th at 11:35 PM… if you dare!

"RoboCop: Prime Directives"

2008-05-22T20:57:00.004-04:00

I know what you’re thinking. You’ve heard of the trilogy of RoboCop movies. You may have even heard of both the live-action and animated RoboCop TV series. But what the heck is “RoboCop: Prime Directives?”

Are you sure you want to know? You can always turn back now...

For those who chose to read further, here’s the deal: at some point a company called Fireworks Entertainment apparently got the TV option on the famed RoboCop character, and right before their rights lapsed in 2000, they squeezed out a television mini-series. “Prime Directives” is a compilation of bits and pieces of that mini-series.

A little refresher course: the original “RoboCop” was directed by Paul Verhoeven and was a scathing satire on the out-of-control media, out-of-control weapons manufacturers and a few out-of-control law enforcement officials (but thankfully plenty of good ones, too). It also delivered high-octane action, high-concept sci-fi elements, and a high body count. And it starred Peter Weller in the title role, veteran of such cult classics as “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 3rd Dimension” and “Of Unknown Origin.” In short, it was the perfect genre film, appealing equally to fans of sci-fi, horror, fantasy, action and superhero movies.

It all went downhill from there.

“RoboCop 2” was written by popular comic book writer Frank Miller. It maintained a dark satirical edge but was ultimately a nasty tale with an ill-conceived plot about an underage, murderous drug kingpin. It was so poorly received that Miller didn’t fully re-immerse himself in the film scene until urged by Robert Rodriguez to write and co-direct 2005’s “Sin City,” based on Miller’s gritty neo-noir comic series of the same name.

The 2nd one was so dark that the keepers of the ‘Cop had a knee-jerk reaction that sent them completely in the opposite direction for “RoboCop 3.” The Weller-less, family-friendly third installment (which actually had its origins in a Frank Miller script although it’s doubtful much of it remained in the final cut) made barely a whimper at the box office, yet served as the template for the “RoboCop: The Series” live-action show as well as the eponymously-titled animated series.

With “Prime Directives,” the producers set out to return ‘ol Robo to his dark, violent roots. They just forgot to include the biting social commentary/satire and the black humor. It’s always a better idea to temper the dark with a little levity, and to back it up with some kind of subtext. Otherwise all you’re left with is bargain basement nihilism... a deadly ingredient guaranteed to bring any genre film down.

This is actually not the first time “Prime Directives” has shown up on ABC’s late movie. I actually had trouble sleeping one night and groggily flipped on the TV (in hopes of being lulled back to sleep) only to see the final scenes of this “film” play out. And let me tell you, what I saw was pretty bad. This film reeks of two things: no budget (aka: bad special effects) and Canadian actors. Not that Canadian actors are necessarily bad mind you (I actually enjoy some of the Canadian crime drama shows that have made their way to US soil like “Da Vinci’s Inquest,” the familiar-sounding “Cold Squad” - yes, it was around a bit before the mega US “Case” - and “Stone Undercover”), but when you’re watching a movie and you not only don’t recognize any actors but make note of their regional accents and TV show-style approach to acting, well, you get the picture.

There is a major element of cheese here, and it has to do with a rogue cop who becomes Robo’s nemesis. I’m not sure if he’s just wearing an exo-skeleton style armor or whether he’s mostly machine, too (like I said, I only saw the tail-end of this), but he is wearing a bony Skeletor-like skull mask. Which may sound cool but looks utterly ridiculous, especially with the clichéd, evil raspy voice coming out of it. Cheesy with a capital CHEESE.

Anyway, you’ll find a more in-depth review at the Scifi Moviepage site. They are a little more kind to the film than I am, although they share some of the same issues. And just so you’re not left on a completely dour note, click here to see to see the trailer for the “home-made” version of “RoboCop” that appeared in “Be Kind, Rewind.”

You can view the trailer for “RoboCop: Prime Directives” here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 at 11:35 PM on Saturday, May 24th... if you dare!

REVIEW MY BLOG!

2008-05-17T12:00:00.002-04:00

Thanks to a Google news alert, I just learned that my blog is now featured at blogged.com. This is a site that allows you to rate and review blogs. If you're a regular reader of my blog, I encourage you to go to the link below and let blogged.com know what you think of "The Late Nite Landfil" - thanks!

http://www.blogged.com/blogs/the-late-nite-landfill.html

Reiterating the F.A.Q.'s

2008-05-17T11:50:00.004-04:00

The Phantom is frequently asked the same questions. The most frequent probably being “do you really watch all these awful movies?” In the last month alone I think I got asked that question at least 4 times. That’s an average of once a week over the course of a month.

Thankfully, there’s this neat little invention called “Frequently Asked Questions,” or “F.A.Q.” An opportunity to list out common questions. I felt it was time to revisit some of these oft-asked questions that I’ve tackled before in various postings, but this time in one handy posting for your easy reference. So here goes:

1.) ARE THE MOVIES COVERED ON “THE LATE NITE LANDFILL” RANDOMLY SELECTED?

No. This blog is driven by WABC-TV Channel 7 in New York and their schedule of late night weekend movies. The idea is that I write about these movies before they air, and provide the trailers for these movies whenever possible. You can then make up your own mind whether you want to actually watch these films as they air in real time over Channel 7, which is usually at 11:35 PM on Saturday and Sunday nights (exceptions include when sports events run overtime, in which case the movie may start at an unspecified time or be shown "already in progress;" or when epic movies like the annual showing of "The Ten Commandments" run later than usual, in which case the late movie is usually officially given an alternate start time).

2.) DO YOU (meaning ME, the “PHANTOM OF THE LANDFILL,” keeper of this blog) ACTUALLY WATCH THESE (mostly) AWFUL MOVIES?

NO WAY! The opinions I express on this blog are purely based on viewing the TRAILERS for the movies and not the movies themselves. The opinions are supplemented by commentary on previous work from the actors and directors, or by similarly-themed movies. It may very well be that some of the movies featured are worthy of your time from an entertainment standpoint ("Drive" comes to mind); although it is highly unlikely in most cases. I have attempted to watch many of the films that WABC-TV Channel 7 runs in this time slot, but often don't get past the first 10 minutes. Of course, there may come a time where Channel 7 schedules a movie I've actually seen before; if that happens, I'll be sure to mention it.

3.) WHAT DO THE OLIVE GREEN BOLD WORDS MEAN?

Any words you see that are colored olive green AND bolded are hyper-links that lead to additional content. Just click on those words and you’ll be taken to other pages featuring additional trailers, behind-the-scenes clips, interviews international TV commercials, bloopers, music videos, oddball projects (like “Circus of the Stars” appearances) and the like. It’s the Phantom’s gift to you, the discerning reader who loves to have the most potential background content at your fingertips!

4.) WHY DO YOU SOMETIMES MENTION "LIFETIME" MOVIES IN THIS BLOG?

I mention "Lifetime" movies because one of the movie packages that WABC-TV has leased is a collection of movies that originally ran on the Lifetime TV network. Lifetime has syndicated their movies from 2006 and earlier. Many of these movies have alternate versions that were created for international markets either for broadcast TV, home video release or even theatrical release. Those versions may be even longer than those that appeared on Lifetime and include elements such as profanity that would not make it to the on-air versions (but sometimes show up in the trailers I find). In addition to previously-aired-on-Lifetime flicks, the other packages that WABC has tapped for this late night slot include some real direct-to-video and direct-to-cable independent fare as well as a package of urban films (including some like "Sounder" that really are great, classic films that deserve a better timeslot and presentation).

5.) WHAT IS THE PHOTO ON THIS PAGE SUPPOSED TO BE, ANYWAY?

You may have wished you never asked: it's "spaghetti with mealworms." And it's a real dish. Of course, the thought of it would turn most of our stomachs. I thought it made an appropriate image for the Late Nite Landfill given the nature of many of the films we feature - they can be appetizing to a point, but may also leave a bad taste overall.

6.) CAN I TURN OFF THE "RECOMMENDATIONS LIST" SCROLLING AT THE BOTTOM OF TRAILERS FROM THE VIDEO DETECTIVE?

Yes, you can. Most of the trailers on this site come from either the YouTube or Video Detective sites. Recently, Video Detective has added their own form of "pop-up ads" to their trailers - with a list of "recommendations" that scroll at the bottom of the trailers. It can be quite distracting. I just learned (by accident) that you can turn the recommendations lists off. If you play a trailer and the list starts, you'll see a small white triangle outline or "down arrow" next to the list. Just click on it and the recommendations list will... "PRESTO!"... disappear, just like "magic!"

"Avenging Angelo"

2008-05-17T11:26:00.006-04:00

Have you ever had one of those “I never heard of that movie before” moments when perusing the DVD rental shelf at your local Blockbuster? The movie in question usually features a star you’ve heard of, perhaps even one who has appeared in some major releases over the years. Now, here you are face to face with a DVD box of a movie featuring someone you know in a movie you’ve never heard of. If you’re unaware of the “DTV” direct to video (sometimes called “direct to DVD” in these days, or “cable premieres” for those that run on cable TV first) phenomenon, you figure you must have somehow just missed it when it was in the theater. But if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know it most likely never made it to a theater. At least not in America.

There’s a reason for this, and it is best exemplified by something known as a “Q rating” or “Q score.” This concept refers to the practice of polling a group of people to gauge not only their awareness of a celebrity, but how they feel about that celebrity (the likeability factor). For celebrities with high awareness in other countries, it often means the ability to keep appearing in movie projects. For example, if a film star has a following in a particular country, an investor from that country may want to come on board a project that features that particular actor because of their following in that country. In many cases, they will even manage to get theatrical distribution for a project based solely on a performer’s participation in it, even if they are third or fourth billed. The video sales in that country are usually an extra to the theatrical release, while in America, the same movies go the DTV route. This is a practice that has made it possible for once red-hot stars like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal to keep having theatrical releases overseas.

“Avenging Angelo” is one such movie. This film made its debut as a theatrical release in Italy, and went on to appear on the big screen in France, Greece, Spain, Kuwait, Mexico, Egypt and Japan. But in Poland, Sweden, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, Finland and the United States, this film went straight-to-video. It was one of a handful of Sylvester Stallone films from 2002 and 2003 to go the DTV route, during the years in between his theatrical “Driven” and “Spy Kids 3-D” releases.

Since that time, Sly has managed to secure theatrical bookings once more, by returning to his roots with the characters that made him a household name. The seemingly improbable return of the Italian Stallion turned out to be a very pleasant surprise for many (including me) in the late 2006 release “Rocky Balboa.” Sly followed that comeback up just over a year later with the return of “Rambo” (alas, the Phantom has never been a big fan of big John, although I did enjoy the original “First Blood”). That one wasn’t as well-received (by either fans or critics) as “Rocky Balboa;” leaving Sly with a .500 batting average on the comebacks.

This also happens to be the last film of Oscar® winning actor Anthony Quinn. The Phantom is too pressed for time to go into this legendary actor's career, so you can learn more about him here. Likewise, the other most recognizable name here is actress Madeline Stowe. She has been in a bazillion movies and TV projects. Check out her filmography here.

“Avenging Angelo” is another hybrid movie, by the way. A romantic comedy that’s also a mob film (see “Prizzi’s Honor” or “Married to the Mob” for reference). Which is no surprise as Channel 7 seems to like their pasta sauce bloody – this is just another in a long line of mob films we’ve covered here at the Landfill (within my recent “Blood Vows” posting you’ll find links to all the other mob films that have appeared on the channel 7 late movie the past four months).

Could it possibly be any good? I don’t know. But I know I don’t have the time to find out. Variety actually reviewed this and gave it low marks. They particularly point out the lack of chemistry between Sly and Maddie. To quote Jerry Seinfeld, “that’s a shame.”

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, May 18th at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"Shooting Gallery"

2008-05-16T18:44:00.003-04:00

Freddie Prinze Jr. seems like a nice enough guy. He just doesn’t really interest me much as a performer. Which isn’t to say he’s terrible as much as he is unremarkable. Unlike his late father – a comedian who really did have an electric presence both on stage and on-screen. Perhaps it was the times, and the fact that he played up his Puerto Rican heritage so much in his comedy, which up until then wasn’t a very prevalent stand-up motif. He was a pioneer in that respect and so the spotlight fell instantly and squarely on him. But the fact is if the spotlight didn’t fall on him, he would have wrestled it into submission anyway. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer, not with his drive. He was dynamic, quick-witted and quite fearless. Of course, he never realized his full potential. But the tragic story of Freddie Prinze, Sr. has been oft-told so I won’t repeat it here – you can always go to Wikipedia’s account for that.

But back to the son: Freddie Prinze Jr. seems like a guy who’s well aware of his acting limitations but goes out and does the best he can regardless. In doing so, he comes off as quite amiable and likeable. Still, he doesn’t make performing his top priority in life. He’s often been quoted talking about the importance of giving of one’s self to make others feel better, of a husband’s responsibility to his wife, of the value of sharing, and how much he’d love to be a father. I’d have to agree all of those things trump the “acting bug.”

It’s no surprise he would feel this way given what happened with his father. In addition to being open about what he truly values in life, here is what he had to say about acting:

“I'm going to stop acting in the next few years because it's just too weird. You have to constantly be willing to live in a scary, emotional place, which is why actors are in therapy all the time.”

Creatively, I give him credit for attempting to take a page out of his father’s book by transplanting his own experiences (in his case, how he was surrounded by female family members when growing up) to his art, in the short-lived series, “Freddie.” He not only starred in that show, he was the co-creator, producer and wrote several of the episodes. As the Phantomess pointed out, his professional future probably lies in the writing department. Maybe so, but I suspect his most creative output will be a result of his personal life should he become a father as he hopes. Then he’ll have an opportunity to enchant his children with fantastic tales filled with the values he has embraced.

This Saturday night, Freddie has the lead in Channel 7’s late night offering, “Shooting Gallery.” It’s the tale of a street-smart pool player, his lady, a pool shark, and a crooked cop. One look at the trailer you and you know you’re squarely in Late Nite Landfill territory. The first thing you’ll notice is that the movie looks highly derivative of other movies you’ve seen. In fact, it’s another “hybrid” movie (as I mentioned back in my post on “The Enemy,” a “hybrid film” mixes several genres). “Shooting Gallery” combines the “pool shark” genre (made famous by “The Hustler” and its sequel, “The Color of Money”) with the rogue cop genre (a mainstay of the Landfill – the last one we covered was “Phoenix”) and the con-man genre (exemplified by movies like “The Sting” and “The Grifters”). It appears it may even have a bit of “mobster” in it as well.

Like most “con-man genre” films, the focus is on a trio of characters. In this case, the other parts of the triangle are made up of Ving Rhames and Roslyn Sanchez.

I’m sure most of you know Ving Rhames by now, so do I really have to go into his background? Probably not, other than to say that:

a.) He’s always offered solid support in any project he’s in.
b.) His fellow drama classmate at Suny, Stanley Tucci gave him the nickname “Ving” (his real name is “Irving”)
c.) One of his rare lead roles was as “Kojak” in a short-lived TV remake.
d.) His four mastiffs gave a caretaker a fatal heart attack after a frightful encounter.
e.) My favorite Rhames performance is in “Out of Sight.”

If that’s not enough for you, there’s always his wikipedia and imdb entries.

As for Roslyn Sanchez, she takes the lead female role here. You remember her – she was last seen on the Landfill setting sail on the ill-fated “Boat Trip” ‘nuff said!

View the trailer here:

Check out this video: Shooting Gallery - Trailer

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, May 17th at 11:35 PM… if you dare!

"Falling Sky"

2008-05-10T21:19:00.001-04:00

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!

"School of Life"

2008-05-10T15:11:00.004-04:00

David Paymer is an absolutely wonderful performer. An accomplished character actor, he has proven adept at a variety of roles, and particularly excels in comic portrayals. He has that special gift of being able to play either grounded or off-kilter characters that somehow provide the perfect counterpoint to the lead character. That’s his expertise – he is one of the absolute best supporting actors and is equally brilliant when called upon to be an integral member of an ensemble cast.

That’s no small feat, nothing that should be looked down upon or dismissed, as the supporting player is often the character who colors the whole movie and gives a movie its core tone, its undercurrent. Two Oscar® winning supporting roles that accomplish this brilliantly are Martin Landau’s role as Bela Lugosi in “Ed Wood” (providing that film’s true, warm heart) and on the other side of the spectrum, Anthony Hopkins in “Silence of the Lambs” (providing that film’s darkness that must be overcome). Yes, I know Hopkins won “Best Actor,” but he’s on-screen for about 15 minutes total, and while his role permeates the whole movie, he is by no means the lead character.

All this leads to a point about Channel 7’s late night movie this Saturday: In “School of Life,” David Paymer is the “biggest name” in the cast, first-billed. Now I’m sure if you bother to watch this film, you’ll probably see some of the usual top-notch acting from Paymer in most scenes. I’m not questioning that. What I am questioning is the use of Paymer in the main role. It’s kind of like this: using TV sitcoms as an example, most people I know enjoy characters like Ed Norton from “The Honeymooners,” George Costanza and Kramer from “Seinfeld,” Robert Barone from “Everybody Loves Raymond,” and Dwight Schrute from “The Office” as “accent,” but it would be difficult to build a weekly show where they were the main characters. The performers who portray these characters imbue them with such nuances and idiosyncrasies that they function best as counterpoint. And sometimes the performers are so closely identified with their signature supporting roles that audiences have a hard time accepting them in the lead even when they’re playing another character (the quick cancellations of various Jason Alexander and Michael Richards shows bears this out).

For what it’s worth, in this movie Paymer is playing against someone named Ryan Reynolds. I’m not familiar with him, but he seems to be working steady, mostly in television, and has a following with the younger set, not only as an actor/comedian, but also as a musician and tabloid fodder as former fiancé of Alanis Morrisette and current fiancé of Scarlett Johansson. It appears he’s on the verge of a big breakout role in a Marvel superhero movie, “Wolverine: Origins” playing the character Deadpool.

Kate Vernon plays Paymer’s wife. The daughter of the great character actor John Vernon who played Dean Wormer in “Animal House” (which we’ll discuss more in the post about tomorrow’s film), Vernon has been working steady in movies since the 1980s. Now in her mid-40s, she seems poised to follow in the footsteps of Barbara Niven, who continues to essay vivacious vixens and femme fatales into her ‘50s. Vernon’s most recent success was playing the conflicted character Ellen Tigh on the Sci-Fi Channel’s revamped “Battlestar Galactica” series.

As per usual, the Phantom is more interested in digging deeper into the supporting cast to see if he can unearth any gems. This time, that gem is the sublimely funny John Astin. Astin is one of those guys who has been around forever, and been so consistently good for so long that to many he’s just a “given,” his true worth often taken for granted. And what is that true worth? In my estimation, Astin is nothing less than a comic genius. But for performers like Astin, the general populace often doesn’t realize that until after the performer is gone. John Ritter is one who comes to mind. Everyone always liked him but his talent was so natural, so seemingly effortless that I don’t think many folks stopped to ponder how exceptionally gifted he was... at least, not until after he died. Then it became apparent that here was a man who really stood apart from the pack of interchangeable performers in television comedy. It’s the same with John Astin. He really does stand apart in my opinion. As does Henry Winkler (and if Channel 7 ever sees fit to reschedule the movie “P.U.N.K.S,” which they promised but never ran, be prepared for a major ode to him).

The Phantom noticed something interesting with this film. What we have here is a tale of two trailers. One tries to sell the film as a warm-hearted tale of academic triumph in the mold of “Stand & Deliver;” the other tries to sell it as a raucous, rowdy, scatological slapstick romp a la “Back to School.”

Let’s start with the “Back to School”-styled trailer. You can watch it by clicking here.

What’s really interesting to note that this TV movie originated on the “ABC Family Channel.” Which, based on the above trailer shows you that they’re committed to some new definition of “family appropriate entertainment,” what with that implication that the veteran teacher’s wife has had an affair with the hot new teacher on campus. Even if it turns out it’s just a dream sequence, I don’t remember the “family films” I grew up with containing content like this – especially in the context it’s presented in within the above trailer. Then again, ABC Family’s slogan is “A new kind of family.” That’s one “family” I’d prefer to be emancipated from, thanks!

If you’d prefer, you can watch the more benign, family-friendly “Stand & Deliver”-styled trailer for this movie here:

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

LATE NITE LANDFILL BONUS: For you tri-state area readers, be sure to click on the hyper-link for David Paymer above – it links to clips from the Dudley Moore-starrer “Crazy People,” concluding with a scene featuring New Jersey’s famed faux-kiddie show host and vaudeville preservationist “Uncle Floyd” Vivino playing piano & singing. ENJOY!

"Cheater's Club"

2008-05-02T13:01:00.002-04:00

I don’t know who’s been greenlighting screenplays these days, but there seems to be an awful lot of ill-conceived plots about irresponsible behavior in movies lately. We’ve covered several such flicks here at the Late Nite Landfill, including “Sol Goode,” “The Real Cancun,” and most irresponsible of all, “These Girls.”

And those are just the movies featuring young people. On top of that, there’s a plethora of films that Channel 7 runs in its late night slot that originated either late nights on Cinemax and Showtime or in prime time on Lifetime, all revolving around adults engaging in duplicitous, promiscuous and often adulterous behavior. Films like “Cradle of Lies” and “Attraction.”

The latest to hit the landfill is “Cheater’s Club.” I kid you not when I tell you that the plot involves a group therapist actually encouraging women to cheat on their husbands! This leads to all sorts of dire consequences. Intriguing that this was a Lifetime movie – where cheating is usually the idea of the man and shown for the evil it is. Perhaps the “dire consequences” were added so as not to appear to be advocating a double standard, but the very premise seems a bit dubious to me. Oh well...

This one stars Joss Whedon alum Charisma Carpenter, who has become a television veteran in a relatively short amount of time. With seven years as Cordelia Chase on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel,” a three-episode stint as Kira on “Charmed,”
and the recurring role of Kendell Casablancas in eleven episodes of “Veronica Mars,” Charisma has become a darling of both genre fans and the comic book cognescenti. While some actors hate being typecast in such roles, Charisma is apparently grateful for being embraced by fantasy fans. So much so that, during its checkered development history, Charisma has campaigned several times for the coveted role of Wonder Woman. And it may yet come to pass. Certainly the Phantom would approve.

Of particular note for Miss Carpenter is a role she didn’t get in the 2005 remake of “The Fog.” After Fergie bailed on playing lighthouse DJ Stevie Wayne (played by Adrienne Barbeau in the original), Charisma was considered… but not for long. Studio execs decided she was “too old” and “not popular enough”... and astonishingly, replaced her with anti-thespian Selma Blair (and if you think I’m being too harsh by using that adjective to describe her, you haven’t read my post on Selma’s movie, “Kill Me Later” )

The rest of the cast is unremarkable so I’ll refrain from making remarks about them.

I don’t have a trailer for this one, just a clip. Based on the plot synopsis, it seems that what’s probably happening here is that Charisma Carpenter is trying to make up to her husband for her indiscretion. All things considered, this surprisingly plays out in a rather mundane, pedestrian fashion.

DISCLAMER: The onscreen commentary at the end of this video clip did not originate with the Phantom, but rather with the person who posted the clip on Daily Motion.

View the clip here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, May 4th at 11:35 PM… if you dare!

"Antibody"

2008-05-01T23:05:00.002-04:00

This Saturday Channel 7 is running a sci-fi movie. It’s been a while since they’ve run a sci-fi or horror movie in their late movie slot. Instead, they’ve glutted the airwaves with cinemuck like mobster, psycho-maniac, he-done-her-wrong and teen sex (so-called) “comedies.”

While the Phantom doesn’t hold out much hope that this will actually be a good sci-fi film, it is a refreshing change from the litter that’s been cluttering the landfill lately.

In last week’s post on “The Stranger Game,” I mentioned how being derivative is a hallmark of Channel 7’s late night movie fare. Well, Late Nite Landfill fans, try this one on for size (pun intened): in “Antibody,” a disgraced FBI agent and a team of experts are minimized and injected into a terrorist's body to locate a bomb-triggering device.

Sounds like “Fantastic Voyage” meets “Inner Space” – with the added element of a nuclear device in the hands of a terrorist, a la countless direct-to-video military thrillers. Oh, they also throw in the “disgraced fill-in-the-blank (policeman, judge, lawyer, military commander) who now must clear his name and prove himself” element as well – the plot of about a bazillion movies from time immemorial!

However, having Lance Henriksen as the lead automatically elevates this movie’s status, probably beyond what it deserves. A national treasure, Henrisken has appeared in classic genre films like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “The Terminator” as well as some lower-budget cable and direct-to-video endeavors. He’s had recurring roles in the “Alien” and “Pumpkinhead” franchises. On TV, he was the lead character Chris Carter hand-picked for his series, “Millennium;” plus he’s done some great voice work for the latest “Transformers” animated series and supplied the voice of Superman’s nemesis Brainiac in an animated TV movie. While most of his work has been in the horror/sci-fi/fantasy realms, he’s had a few opportunities to show his range with choice roles in mainstream dramas as well. Included on his resume are a pair of performances in which Henrkiksen portrayed real-life figures including astronaut Walter Schirra in “The Right Stuff” and action film icon Charles Bronson in “Reason for Living: the Jill Ireland Story.” You can explore his amazing filmography here.

What really makes Henrisken great in anything he appears in his personality. He combines the icy stoicism of Clint Eastwood and Charlton Heston with the spooky off-kilterness of Christopher Walken and doles out the occasional witty retort a la Bruce Campbell.

This brief clip from “Antibody” showing Henriksen’s reaction to being asked for a “sample” illustrates just how much he brings to a part, and how blessed any producer is to have him in a movie:

The only other cast member worth mentioning here is Robin Givens. Of course, she’s unfortunately more famous for once being married to brutish boxer Mike Tyson, overshadowing a career of rather steady work. Acting-wise, her most well-known role is still her first recurring role in a TV series, as high school student Darlene Merriman in “Head of the Class.”

Director Christian McIntire has a resume filled with similar sci-fi cheapies, which only seems fitting since he was born in Roswell, New Mexico!

You can view the trailer for “Antibody” by clicking here.

Or watch the entire movie on Saturday, May 3rd at 11:35 PM… if you dare!

"The Stranger Game"

2008-04-26T20:26:00.006-04:00

This is just one of several films from the “relative or houseguest secretly plans to rip apart the family and do us harm” genre. Sometimes it’s a step-parent (who could forget Terry O’Quinn as “The Stepfather?”), sometimes a tutor (Shannon Tweed feeling a bit scorned), sometimes a live-in health care professional (Lisa Zane, awfully irate with her job as “The Nurse”). And of course, sometimes it’s a nanny.

In fact, it’s often a nanny. So much so that the “evil nanny” genre can basically be called a sub-genre of the “relative or houseguest secretly plans to rip apart the family and do us harm” genre. Noted entries in the “evil nanny” sub-genre include “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle” (of course) and “The Perfect Nanny.”

Now comes 2006’s “The Stranger Game” with its own evil nanny, but this time with a twist: this time it’s a male nanny. BUT... even that’s not a new twist, as evidenced by Hulk Hogan’s turn 13 years earlier as “Mr. Nanny.” Except Hulk was a benevolent nanny, not a malevolent one menacing the family of Mimi Rogers.

Mimi Rogers is someone the Phantom likes to refer to as a “utility actress.” Like utility players in baseball who can play any position, utility actresses are those who can play any role (and apropos of nothing, a lot of them seem to be brunette as well – in addition to Mimi, consider actresses like Dana Delany and Christine Lahti). Talented women who can a play devoted wife or a devious mistress; an evil boss or a conscientious employee, a totally rational person or a completely unhinged one.

The rest of the cast is what the Phantom refers to as “TV actors.” These are folks who spend a lot of time on episodic TV shows, sometimes as a leading or recurring character but mostly as guest star. They usually supplement those roles by appearing in TV movies like this one. And they are often Canadian like this movie’s supporting stars, David Orth and Sonya Salomaa. The Phantom doesn’t know a great deal about these two, but suspects that even they have small, loyal cadres of followers.

The “been there, done that” quality that the plot descriptions hint at is confirmed by Richard Sheib in his review on the Science Fiction, Horror & Fantasy Film Review website. One word from his review sticks out above the others: “predictable.”

Then again, trading in originality for exploitive thrills, no matter how derivative, seems to be a hallmark of the movies Channel 7 runs in their weekend late movie time slot… making “The Stranger Game” a prime example of a Late Nite Landfill movie.

The Phantom couldn’t find a trailer or even video clips for this one, so you’ll have to settle for some stills instead. There’s action aplenty... as well as a non-recommened misuse of a nail gun... in the following shots. Feel free to create your own captions or dialogue if you want. Maybe even print these out, staple them together and start flipping the pages. Then you can pretend it’s an actual trailer with moving images:

Or you can watch the entire film on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, April 27th at 11:35 PM... if you dare!

"The Enemy"

2008-04-26T08:29:00.003-04:00

This Saturday night, Channel 7 is running what the Phantom likes to call a “hybrid film”: one of those films that tries to combine several genres. In the case of “The Enemy,” those genres are:

• The military action film (see my post on “Freedom Strike” for other examples)
• The “uh-oh I made a boo-boo and it’s my moral responsibility to fix it” film, like this film or that film.
• The “official we’ll send in to help you will be of the opposite gender so you can conveniently fall in love” film. Happens all the time to folks like Tom Cruise and Mike Myers.

When enough of the right elements are in place (good director, good screenplay, good cast), a “hybrid film” can actually be pulled off with beautiful results (for example: “His Kind of Woman” – part violent film noir, part exotic locale romance, part satirical comedy).

Based on the trailer, what I’ve read about this film, and the folks involved, I doubt “the Enemy” yields the same beautiful results.

In this film, a chemist who once created a bio-toxin disappears and it’s up to his son and a CIA agent to both rescue the father and create an antidote to the poison before madmen use it.

Personally, I think they’d all have an easier go of it if they just called ”Captain America” in, but that’s another movie.

So on to the cast. You’ve got Luke Perry as the hero, a long way from the streets of ”Beverly Hills 90201” (this film was shot in Germany – doubling for Quebec!!!); and Olivia d’Abo, well beyond the wonder years of her career. But the supporting cast is much more interesting. Start with one of the Bonds, Sir Roger Moore, who has become kind of a self-parody in recent years but is so good-natured about it you enjoy being in on the joke. Tony-award winning Tom Conti has been a steady presence in films since the1960s. German actor Horst Bucholz is probably most noted for his role as Chico, the Mexican youth eager to be a gunman in the classic western, ”The Magnificent Seven.”

There are a group of fine people out there in internet-land who meticulously study films just to see if they can spot mistakes, then post those goofs on the Internet Movie Database. Well, thanks to those anonymous gaff-gawkers, you can read all about “The Enemy”’s flubs here.

Scott Weinberg over at the Apollo Movie Guide website gives a review of this film that confirms the film is exactly what the Phantom expected from the trailer. You can read it by clicking here. Or simply go by this single sentence from the review, which seems to sum it all up:

“For fans of movies you can talk through and still follow perfectly, “The Enemy” is worth a look.”

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire film on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, April 26th at 11:35 PM… if you dare!

"Stranded" and "These Girls" (aka "The Bring on the Bikinis Weekend")

2008-04-16T22:54:00.003-04:00

Look, let’s get one thing straight: the Phantom of the Landfill appreciates girls in bikinis as much as the next Phantom. But I’d rather see them at the local beach, instead of stuck in lousy movies with terrible screenplays, saddled with ridiculous dialogue. You know, as real people capable of intelligence, instead of just eye candy used to prop up dubious “entertainment.”

This weekend, the programmers at WABC-TV Channel 7 in New York appear to have a bit of “spring fever,” as they couldn’t resist giving us not one but two films featuring bikini-clad beauties.

And that is why, dear Phantom phans, you are getting two posts combined into one this week.

Let’s start with Saturday’s film. It’s called “Stranded.” It features two stars with pretty large followings: Erica Durance, aka Lois Lane from the ”Smallville” TV series; and Carlos Ponce, international star of tele-novellas and a pop-singing sensation.

In this one, a bride-to-be’s bridesmaids start disappearing one-by-one during her bachelorette party in the Carribean. Sounds like an overused plot that is probably full of clichés, but at least the girls look engaging instead of annoying.

I couldn’t find a trailer for this, but a person or persons called ”Reign of Terror” put together a nifty music video tribute to this movie on MySpace. Watch it here:

Or view the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 at 11:35 PM on Saturday, April 19th… if you dare!

Now, onto our second movie, “These Girls.”

This time the girls look annoying instead of engaging.

But it’s really worse than that.

It’s hard to believe, but based on the trailer, this film is about three underage girls (ages 16 and 17, according to user comments on imdb.com from people who have seen the movie) making a pact to share the duties of being the “hunk next door’s” baby sitter… and oh, so much more.

Yes, it’s true. This film promotes:

• Adultery
• Statutory rape
• Parental irresponsibility
• Promiscuous/casual sex
• Blackmail

...all this, served up under the guise of being a "lighthearted romantic comedy."

The only redeeming thing I can mention here is that the actresses portraying the girls were really all in their late 20’s when this was made. Small consolation, I realize.

I don’t know who thought this would be a good idea for a film. And speaking of “ideas,” I’m guessing the object of the title girls’ lustful conquests, David Boreanaz (now a big star in ”Bones”) wishes Channel 7 never got the idea to air it, either.

I’m actually encouraging you NOT to watch this trailer, but if you must, view it here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

I’d also like to encourage you to do whatever you can to avoid watching the entire film airing on WABC-TV Channel 7 at 11:35 PM on Sunday, April 20th, too.

"Kill Me Later"

2008-04-12T18:42:00.003-04:00

Selma Blair has the lead role in this film.

This movie actually has a very interesting premise: a thief takes a bank teller hostage just before she attempts to commit suicide. But...

Selma Blair has the lead role in this film.

The trailer for this features one of the funniest review claims I’ve ever read: “In the tradition of ‘Out of Sight.’ and ‘Run, Lola Run.’” is the snippet culled from a Variety review. I shouldn’t be surprised, as this same critic actually gave a bad review to “The Limey,” a thriller with depth that actually IS reminiscent of “Out of Sight” and “Run, Lola Run.” As well it should be, given that both it and “Out of Sight” were directed by Oscar® winner Steven Soderbergh.
In fact, all three are very fine films indeed. But I see nothing in “Kill Me Later”’s trailer to lead me to believe it will even come close to being as good as those films. Because...

Selma Blair has the lead role in this film.

Now I know she has her fans. She has a certain appeal to some. Some women like and relate to her as the put-upon “best friend” she often plays. Some men think she’s cute. I’ve found her serviceable at best and bland at worst… and alas, the bits pulled from this trailer lead me to believe it’s the “bland” Selma who showed up on the “Kill Me Later” set. Honestly, I can’t really recall too many times I’ve even seen her be serviceable. Most of the time she just appears bored. And if she’s bored, the rest of us are going to be bored watching her. Which is probably why except for this film, she’s always just a supporting player. I hate to use a cliché, but watching paint dry appears to be more engaging than watching this movie. Because...

Selma Blair has the lead role in this film.

I can’t recall ever hearing of the male lead before. His name is Max Beesley. I looked him up. Apparently he’s a big star in England, particularly on the BBC. And he has at least one cringe-worthy credit redeemable for a special Late Nite Landfill kudo: he played one of Mariah Carey’s love interests in “Glitter.” When he’s not acting, he’s a professional musician. For all I know, he may be a very talented actor-musician indeed (“Glitter” notwithstanding); I just don’t know him. He’s worked with people as diverse as George Michael, George Benson, Take That, Jamiroquai and has even played piano for the late James Brown. In other words, he’s a guy I’ve never heard of playing music with a whole bunch of folks I have heard of. Which is probably one better than the rest of the cast and the director, who are all also unknown to me. I hope none of them nodded off on the set. Because...

Selma Blair has the lead role in this film.

So, if you’re really suffering from insomnia Sunday night, I recommend you tune in to this one. Because...

Selma Blair has the lead role in this film.

Watch the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or view the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 at 11:35 PM on Sunday, April 13th... if you dare!

"The House Next Door"

2008-04-12T13:02:00.007-04:00

Hello there, Phantom Phans! I’m getting the Late Nite Landfill off to a later start than usual. I had planned to have this weekend’s first entry up no later than yesterday (Friday),
but encountered unforseen delays. Those delays turned out to be fortunate, as I woke up this morning to learn that Channel 7 pulled a switcheroo for tonight and is running “The House Next Door” instead of the originally scheduled “P.U.N.K.S.” Which is really too bad because I had a great post prepared on how I think Henry Winkler is one of the most underrated comic talents of all time. Perhaps another time...

In the meantime, back to the film at hand. “The House Next Door” looks like a strange hybrid between a Lifetime-style “family crisis” movie and a routine slasher flick. It’s title is certainly evocative of both – there actually IS a Lifetime movie of the same title with Lara Flynn Boyle and Mark Paul Gosselaar, and countless horror films with the word “House” in the title. The premise is as old as the hills: a recently married couple discover disturbing, maybe even murderous secrets about their new neighbors.

Over at www.moviescreenshots.blogspot.com you can see photos of the whole movie. Which is probably quicker and less painful than actually watching the film itself.

Based on the photos, there seems to be an awful lot of goofy smiling going on in this movie. That and Sean Young not looking so much like the Sean Young you remember (amazing, because I don’t think she ever had plastic surgery). whereas Theresa Russell just looks like an older version of herself. Which isn’t necessarily to say Sean Young looks bad; just that I whizzed by her photo before realizing it was her. But those are just the still photos – in the trailer she looks like herself again. Go figure.

Lead actress A.J. Cook was about 23, 24 years old when she made this film but looks like a 15-year old high school student, not a newlywed. Which is probably the reason some real veterans were cast in support. A balanced cast can often mean everything when all you’ve got is an overdone premise and a mediocre script. In this case, it appears the weight of the film is carried by the seasoned actors. Among them are two women known for playing both victims and femme fatales.

Theresa Russell has long been a favorite of the Phantom. Few actresses of the last 25 years combine the sultry with the dangerous as well as Russell, whose “Black Widow”
role is a veritable master class on how to play a viperous vixen.

Sean Young is probably better known for things that did (and didn’t) happen to her while off the movie set. There are three rather infamous examples. The first being the time she crashed the set of ”Batman” and confronted Tim Burton and Michael Keaton while wearing a Catwoman costume, a failed attempt to be cast in the sequel (as part of her doomed-to-failure effort she also showed up on a TV talk show wearing the same outfit). Another example was her tumultuous relationship with actor James Woods and the bizarre (and alleged) behavior he accused her of. Last but not least was her recent outburst at the Director’s Guild awards. She followed up this sad incident up by checking herself into rehab, admitting to a long battle with alcoholism.

I’ve always thought she was an underrated talent, with a unique, unconventional beauty. In a world where pretty actresses are often cookie-cutter, one after another coming off the assembly line, she’s been a refreshing presence in the last 25 years or so of movies she's appeared in. And not just in thrillers – she has a knack for comedy, too as no less an authority than comedian-director Carl Reiner recently attested. Perhaps Young would have fared better in the 1940s and 1950s, when actresses with distinct looks and personalities often got as many roles as the vivacious beauty queens. Both she and Russell probably would have been much-employed during film noir’s 1940s through mid ‘50s heyday.

Rounding out the veterans are Frederick Forrest and James Russo. Forrest won a best supporting Oscar for “The Rose,” a movie whose Bette Midler title song holds a special place with other movie songs that are among the Phantom’s most-hated of all time. Others include Celine Dione’s “My Heart Will Go On” from “Ttanic,” Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” from “The Bodyguard”
and Bette Midler’s other anguish-inducing anthem, “The Wind Beneath My Wings” from “Beaches.” Thank goodness the great punk-pop band A New Found Glory exists to remake these dreadful songs into super-fast sing-alongs on their highly recommended “From the Screen to Your Stereo” releases. As for James Russo, he is another of those character actors who always seems to be working, with a long list of credits on view at his imdb.com listing, most notably ”Donnie Brasco.”

The movie is directed by John Travolta’s actor-writer-producer-director brother Joey. Like many siblings-of-the-more-famous, Joey has often been the butt of many jokes, but I actually have a lot of respect for him due to his work with autistic actors, which you can read about here.

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 at 11:35 PM on Saturday, April 12th... if you dare!

“Blood Vows: The Story of a Mafia Wife”

2008-04-04T22:31:00.002-04:00

Well, it looks like I didn’t have to wait to post this one after all – Channel 7 finally announced what they’re showing Sunday night... lucky us!

I only have an extremely short promo clip for this one, so there’s not much I can comment on (other than I have seen bits of this movie before and it’s suitably over-the-top cheese... of the grated parmesan variety)!

Let’s face it – it’s Melissa Gilbert, all-growed-up and in an early non-”Little House on the Prairie” role, marrying a guy who turns out to be a mafia thug. What more do you need to know? That’s either going to sweeten or sour the deal for you right there.

Okay, I know, you want me to come clean with the facts, so I’ll give them to you straight up.

* As we’ve discussed before, Channel 7 seems obsessed with littering the Late Nite Landfill with mob movies. Witness the recent airings of “Under Hellgate Bridge,” “Amongst Friends,” and “A Good Night to Die.”

* Most of the mob films we’ve covered here contain some sort of “nod” to an earlier classic in the genre – usually in the form of a cast member from some better film. Here, we get Talia Shire, from well, the “godfather” of all modern gangster movies, “The Godfather” (...and its sequels, directed by her brother Francis Ford Coppola)

* It was a TV movie for NBC
that originally aired in January, 1987. That’s over 21 years ago, fans! Easily the oldest movie we’ve excavated from the Landfill so far.

* The mobster is played by Joe Penny of ”Jake & the Fatman” fame. I’ve always been ambivalent toward Penny, but Fatman William Conrad sure was a terrific narrator for Rocky & Bullwinkle!

View the promo clip here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, April 6th at 11:35 PM… if you dare!

NOPE, NOT THIS TIME!

2008-04-04T19:34:00.002-04:00

Last weekend, I got tired of waiting for Channel 7 to announce what movie they would show on Sunday night’s ”Late Movie.”
I guessed that perhaps it would be the same movie their sister station was running
that night... but I was wrong!
Well, I won’t get fooled again.
This time, I’ll wait…
even until Sunday morning
if I have to. So Stay tuned...

"Phoenix"

2008-04-04T18:52:00.003-04:00

I love Ray Liotta. He’s one of my favorites. He’s been in everything from simply dreadful flicks to movie masterpieces… and everything in between!

My favorite Liotta performances have to be as a no-holds-barred detective in “Narc,” Melanie Griffith’s completely-out-of-his-gourd boyfriend in “Something Wild,” and of course, wiseguy Henry Hill in the legendary “Goodfellas.”

But my all-time favorite Liotta role doesn’t come from a movie… and alas, it’s one I couldn’t find a clip for. I’m speaking of the time he played… himself! Well, okay, maybe not his “real” self, but a bizarro
version totally obsessed with Christmas
for a guest-stint on the TV sitcom, “Just Shoot Me.”

Anyway, here we have a movie from the “corrupt cops” genre. It’s directed by Danny Cannon, who made the acclaimed “Young Americans” (and the Bjork video that went along with it), then went on to helm the poorly-received comic book adaptation “Judge Dredd”
with Sly Stallone,
the slasher sequel “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” and ultimately filled up his career with multiple episodes of the multiple C.S.I. shows.

This actual has a pretty solid cast
filled with faces you know (including Anthony Lapaglia, who like Liotta is another reliable actor always turning in good performances), and based on the trailer may be a worthy time passer for all I know. Decide for yourself…

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 in New York on Saturday, April 5th at 11:35 PM… if you dare!

The "new & improved" Late Nite Landfill!

2008-04-04T08:09:00.006-04:00

Welcome to the new & improved “Late Nite Landfill”... now enhanced with HTML coding!

That’s right folks, the Phantom has discovered HTML coding. Well, actually, the Phantom’s better half (aka “The Phantomess”) clued her “clueless” Phantom into just how HTML coding works. So…

Now, whenever you see a word that’s both BOLD
and in OLIVE GREEN
type, click on that word and you’ll be led to bodacious bonus content like groovy
graphics, marvelous
music, amazing animals, radical
rarities, intriguing
info and (additional) tantalizing
trailers.

This special feature will appear on all phuture Phantom pheatures… and the Phantom is so nuts
that he’s actually going backwards and applying HTML coding to all his previous posts… keep checking to see which past posts I’ve updated (those on the mailing list will be notified each time). So far I’ve updated last weekend’s posts for "Freedom Strike,"
"One Hell of a Guy (MAYBE...),"
and "Ground Control."

Well, what are you waiting for?... Start clicking!

"Ground Control"

2008-03-29T20:32:00.005-04:00

Well faithful readers, it looks like the ‘ol Phantom here guessed wrong, because Channel 7 finally decided to reveal what tomorrow night’s movie is going to be… and it’s NOT the same movie their sister station is running (“One Hell of a Guy (MAYBE…)”)

Instead, we get this 1998 thriller called “Ground Control” (alternate title “Jet”). Unlike most “Late Nite Landfill” fare, this one is actually loaded to the gills with actors that most folks know. It seems to be loaded with some bad special effects, bad supporting performances and bad clichés, too.

But you never know, it could be a passable time waster.

Some descriptions I found:

“A disgraced former air traffic controller is called back into service when the airport's traffic control system malfunctions;” and “An air-traffic controller endures an especially tense night of bad weather and electrical failures during New Year's Eve.”

That cast I mentioned includes Kiefer Sutherland (playing a different “Jack” from the most famous role he plays on “24”), Kelly McGillis, Robert Sean Leonard, Margaret Cho, Michael Gross and Kristy Swanson. As often happens in movies like these, a couple parts seem cast out of “left field” – in other words, featuring folks not known for starring in action films. Namely Charles “Roger Rabbit” Fleischer and Henry “The Fonz” Winkler.

Having grown up watching and mocking the “Airport” series, I’ve pretty much seen all the planes in peril movies that are worth seeing. I really don’t think they ever improved on the formula beyond the classic “The High & the Mighty” anyway; and the first “Airplane” movie spoof was pretty much the last word on the genre for me.

I will admit one intriguing element in the trailer that’s nagging at me. What, oh what is Henry Winkler doing with those wires?!?!?! I’m dying to find out, but not enough to actually watch this movie. Unless I wake up by accident just as Fonzie gets all tangled up!

View the trailer here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 11:35 PM (instead of “One Hell of a Guy”)… if you dare!

"One Hell of a Guy" (MAYBE)...

2008-03-27T23:21:00.008-04:00

Why the maybe? Because Channel 7 has not revealed the movie they will be showing Sunday night. I am making an educated guess here based on the schedule of a sister station in a neighboring city. It’s possible that this movie won’t be shown on Channel 7 this Sunday… but odds are it will be at some point, as it certainly seems in line with the goofy “high concept” comedies that often litter the Late Nite Landfill, like the recently-shown "Elvis Has Left the Building".

I’ve expended most of my energy on "Freedom Strike" so I’ll make an effort to actually keep this one brief. This is described as follows: “Sent by the devil, a demon falls in love with the woman he was supposed to corrupt.”

The trailer seems to take things a step further by implying the woman may indeed be an angel. That would certainly explain the film’s alternate title, "Opposites Attract."

This one engages in “stunt” or “on point” casting. In other words, it takes an actor who’s already known for playing bad guys and makes him the chief bad guy, Satan himself. I’m speaking of Michael York, most famously known by most of the populace as Austin Powers' boss in the Mike Myers spy parodies. Of course, he has a large body of work, and like most British character actors it runs the gamut from great drama and period pieces to horror movies and general rubbish. But he’s always a game performer in whatever he does. And in addition to having played bad guys previously, he may have already played the devil, too. If memory serves, he played a character who was actually the anti-Christ in “The Omega Code,” but I couldn’t tell you for sure as I’ve spent the last 10 years trying to wipe the memory of that movie from my mind (and in fairness to York’s range, he was also John the Baptist in “Jesus of Nazareth”).

The other well-known actor in this has also played his share of bad guys AND is also an alum of the Austin Powers flicks: Rob Lowe. Just as I revealed a fondness for Tone Loc in my “Freedom Strike” entry, I have to be frank about Lowe: I actually find him an underrated comic talent. His impersonation of Robert Wagner while portraying the younger version of "Number Two" in ”Austin Powers 2” was sheer brilliance in my opinion, and his comedic turn in “Wayne’s World” was something to laugh about as well. Even in his bad guy roles he brings a certain wit – who could ever forget the audacity of his “I’m sorry” apology at the close of ”Bad Influence” – hysterical in its absurdity! In audition to audacity, he can also be fearless when it comes to comedy, as he was here, dancing with Snow White at the 1989 Oscars:

Okay… maybe that’s NOT the best example of comedy. But trust me, when given the right material, Lowe delivers more than he’s given credit for. His role as “One Hell of a Guy” appears to offer him the chance to put on his broad comic clown shoes...

...and you can view the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, March 30th at 11:35 PM… MAYBE!

"Freedom Strike"

2008-03-27T21:05:00.006-04:00

The Phantom is overworked and overtired this week, so he’s going to try to keep the latest entries as brief as possible. Luckily, with such fitting Late Nite Landfill fare as the films being served up this weekend, the trailers for these epics really do speak for themselves. But I’ll do at least a little “speaking” on behalf of “Freedom Strike.”

For starters, how this screenplay assignment eluded my friend (and Landfill reader) William C. Martell I’ll never know. The b-movie action screenwriter extraordinaire has a passel of similarly-themed military thrillers including:

STEEL SHARKS (1996) – A Navy Seals saga taking place almost entirely on a submarine… and incredulously the producers forced him to write a sex scene for it (you can read the entertaining explanation behind that request on Bill’s blog).

CRASH DIVE (1997) – Navy Seals and a submarine again, with terrorists vying for the nuclear cargo aboard… starring Michael Dudikoff (or maybe we should call him “Michael Dejavu,” – you’ll see why soon)!

BLACK THUNDER (1998) – A jet fighter instead of a submarine this time, but still the same nagging terrorists… and the square-jawed Dudikoff to mete out two-fisted justice! This one was recently remade with other writers at the keyboards.

THE BASE (1999) – we’re on an army (airforce?) base now, dealing with drug traffickers and trading Dudikoff in for our ‘ol pal Mark Dacascos. This one was revised by two other writers, and Bill doesn’t get credit on it.

…and those are just his PRODUCED screenplays. He has other scripts loaded with military mayhem just waiting to be produced and unleashed upon an unsuspecting Netflix renter...

Seriously, I do have to give a tremendous plug to Bill. His articles, books and tips on screenwriting (which you can find at Bill’s “Script Secrets” site) are invaluable, and I’ve never read a more practical book on screenplays than “The Secrets of Action Screenwriting.” I believe it’s out of print now, but I would recommend that ANY aspiring screenwriter track it down – even if you have no intention of writing action movies. The advice in the book really can be applied to any genre in filmmaking.

Now, I mentioned we should change Michael Dudikoff’s name to “Michael Dejavu”… because the plot of “Freedom Strike” is as follows: “A strike force must stop terrorists who have taken over a nuclear reactor.” More specifically, “Elite American commandos launch a precision attack against terrorists who have seized a nuclear reactor in Iraq.” It’s Dudikoff vs. terrorists again, with the threat of mushroom clouds looming large! Does this owe a debt to Bill Martell or what?

In addition to Michael-man-of-action-Dudikoff, “Freedom Strike” takes a page out of the “we need a wise-cracking sidekick, maybe a personality known for TV roles or a musician or something.” We get rapper Tone Loc in this case.

The Phantom must pause here to make something absolutely clear: while it may appear that I have nothing but disdain for these “train wrecks masquerading as movies,” the fact is, I love cheese. Some of the flicks that end up on channel 7 in the wee hours are indeed so bad they’re good. Some are actually not even that bad, or even bad at all. And some of them are merely worth it for the unique talents that appear in them. Tone Loc is one such talent. I admit, Tone is a guilty pleasure of mine. How could you not love that deep raspy voice on those rap records of his, records which are not disposable garbage pop to me but actually brilliant parodies of the pretentious, bravura-filled offerings of his peers. Besides, any rapper who samples Van Halen’s “Jamie’s Crying” shows that he “gets it.” He’s throwing rocks from “inside” the glass house. Again, brilliant parody in my book.

This film also offers us one of the all-time great character actors. There’s a short list of guys any director would absolutely love to have in their low-budget film just to guarantee a level of professionalism and an engaging performance. Dick Miller is one such journeyman who comes to mind. Another is William Schallert. Yet another is James Karen, who plays the US president here. You’ve seen him hundreds of times before, in movies and on TV, in big-budget, well-known fare and bargain-basement cheapos, too. From “Poltergeist” to the “Return of the Living Dead” series, from the “Larry Sanders Show” (playing a television network executive) to “Apt Pupil” and countless others. Still, he will probably be most familiar to the majority of you as the “Pathmark” guy from the commercials:

There are tons of other folks in this who you’ll recognize. I’ve already waxed rhapsodic too much on this film to take time going into them, so feel free to check out imdb.com’s credit listing of this film for the others.

What was I saying about this being a brief entry? Oh well…

View the trailer here…

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, March 29th at 11:35 PM… if you dare!

A F.A.Q. and a fact

2008-03-21T11:53:00.002-04:00

Hello Landfill fans. The Phantom is taking a break from mediocre movies to address a couple more things with you. Consider this a bit of a continuation of my "For Those Who 'Tuned in Late'" entry a few posts back (http://latenitelandfill.blogspot.com/2008/03/for-those-who-tuned-in-late.html)

1.) WHAT IS THE PHOTO ON THIS PAGE SUPPOSED TO BE, ANYWAY?

You may have wished you never asked: it's "spaghetti with mealworms." And it's a real dish. Of course, the thought of it would turn most of our stomachs. I thought it made an appropriate image for the Late Nite Landfill given the nature of many of the films we feature - they can be appetizing to a point, but may also leave a bad taste overall.

You can learn more about mealworms here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mealworms - however, whenever looking anything up on Wikipedia, be sure to keep these words of Michael Scott from "The Office" in mind:

2.) CAN I TURN OFF THE "RECOMMENDATIONS LIST" SCROLLING AT THE BOTTOM OF TRAILERS FROM THE VIDEO DETECTIVE?

Yes, you can. Most of the trailers on this site come from either the YouTube or Video Detective sites. Recently, Video Detective has added their own form of "pop-up ads" to their trailers - with a list of "recommendations" that scroll at the bottom of the trailers. It can be quite distracting. I just learned (by accident) that you can turn the recommdations lists off. If you play a trailer and the list starts, you'll see a small white triangle outline or "down arrow" next to the list. Just click on it and the recommendations list will... "PRESTO!"... disappear, just like "magic!":

"Last Exit"

2008-03-20T08:34:00.000-04:00

Hooray, it’s another “Lifetime” movie! I’ve mentioned Lifetime movies before, and how films aired on that station in past years have ended up as part of a syndicated package of movies that help fill the Late Nite Landfill time slot at Channel 7.

This one looks like a doozy. One of the great things about Lifetime movies of recent vintage is what I call the “heightened escalation” factor. This is usually played out by the female characters in a story, and usually in one of two ways: the first is in their reaction to a cheating spouse or boyfriend, the second in response to a woman who has scorned them in some way (either the other woman stole her man, or ruined her career, or stole her identity, etc.). The characters go from “zero to sixty” in their hysteria, jumping to such insane extremes that they may even consider (and in some cases attempt or even succeed) to kill the party or parties who wronged them! Which makes the following description I found of “Last Exit” all the more amusing in its understatement: “Two ordinary women, both moms, succumb to stresses in their overburdened lives during a traffic jam.”

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are alternate versions of many Lifetime movies created for international movie theaters, TV broadcasts or home video release. In some cases, those versions are longer and more liberal in their use of graphic language (in the “Last Exit” trailer you’ll hear a word that probably didn’t make it to the US Lifetime broadcast cut of the movie). A lot of Lifetime movies (and a lot of independent movies in general, including others seen on ABC’s late night movie) are co-productions between the US and other countries or Canada. Sometimes the films are made entirely in Canada, using Canadian actors and locales (I believe this may be changing soon, but for years Canadian productions have been government subsidized). Today’s movie appears to be Canadian in nature based on one of the descriptions I found online: “Road rage leads two Canadian mothers on an extended car chase.”

The cast for this one seems interesting. When you read Kathleen Robertson’s bio at imdb.com (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005370/bio) you’ll find that she hasn’t had many lead roles, but she’s had several flashy supporting roles, often opposite big names. Her most well-known movies are probably “Scary Movie 2,” and “Hollywoodland,” and she had the title role in the serial killer bio-pic, “Torso: The Evelyn Dick Story.” Co-star Andrea Roth has done a lot of guest-star roles on TV series and is probably best known for recurring roles as Janet on “Rescue Me” and Diana on the TV series spinoff of “Robocop.” Linden Ashby has worked steady for many years appearing in direct-to-DVD movies, doing guest stints on TV shows, and having recurring roles on soap operas. He is most notable for taking on the role of Johnny Cage in the video game adaptation “Mortal Kombat” after originally slated star Brandon Lee was killed.

The director, John Fawcett has a mixed bag of credits, including directing, producing and writing on a variety of projects. I have to give him a shout-out for directing and co-writing “Ginger Snaps,” an at-the-time unique retelling of the werewolf legend.

View the trailer for “Last Exit” here:

Or watch the entire film on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, March 23rd) at 11:35 PM … if you dare!

"Under Hellgate Bridge" (NOTE THE TIME CHANGE THIS WEEK – THIS MOVIE WILL AIR AT 12:20!)

2008-03-20T08:30:00.002-04:00

Here we go again. It seems every few weeks we’re reminded of how mobsters are just “good fellas gone awry” here at The Late Nite Landfill. From our very first post covering “A Good Night to Die” (http://latenitelandfill.blogspot.com/2008/02/good-night-to-die.html), to our entry on “Amongst Friends” (http://latenitelandfill.blogspot.com/2008/02/amongst-friends.html) just a few weeks thereafter, the neighborhood has been swarming with “wise guys.”

These movies all tend to have the same things in common:

1.) They borrow liberally from the oeuvre of Martin Scorsese, be it “Mean Streets,” “Casino,” or especially “Goodfellas.” You can throw in all the other low-level hood flicks you can think of (with or without DeNiro), too.

2.) Those made after the debut of “The Sopranos” TV show tend to add similarly quirky characterizations and humor.

3.) They try to exploit the above facts by either evoking the names of famous mob movie directors in their trailers or actually hiring actors who have appeared in better fare before.

Like actors from “The Sopranos.”

“Under Hellgate Bridge” hedges its bets. It features not one, not two, but THREE Sopranos alums… and as a special bonus, one of those alums also happens to have had a major part in “Goodfellas.”

Are the producers uncertain about the screenplay or is it simply a matter of marketing? I’d lean toward the latter if it weren’t for the fact that a precedent has already been set for exploiting known talents in lackluster productions. Of course, I could be wrong. My viewing of the trailer left me with a feeling that’s there an air of desperation to the whole affair.

I won’t go into details on the “Sopranos” actors – namely Vincent Pastore, Dominic Chianese, and Frank Vincent – as there’s already plenty on the internet about them and the famous characters they played on “Sopranos” (and for Vincent, the even more famous Billy “go get your shine box” Batts from “Goodfellas”).

Among the rest of the supporting players, I did notice one famous sibling - Jonathan LaPaglia, younger brother of Anthony. But co-star Brian Vincent is NOT related to Frank – Brian’s real last name is Kelly! Rounding out the cast are various TV series actors with a lot of “single time role” (as opposed to recurring role) credits.

I mentioned the time change for this Saturday’s movie. Due to the annual showing of the epic “Ten Commandments,” which fills a 4 hour and 45 minute time slot that starts at 7PM and ends at 11:45 PM, Channel 7 will start the late movie at 12:20 instead of the usual 11:35.

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire film on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, March 22nd (wait, make that SUNDAY MORNING, March 23rd) at 12:20 AM... if you dare!

For those who "tuned in late"...

2008-03-15T14:48:00.002-04:00

With our readership growing week by week, I thought I'd take the opportunity to clearly communicate just what this blog is about and clear up any possible misconceptions anyone may have. Here goes:

1.) THE MOVIES ARE NOT RANDOMLY SELECTED

This blog is driven by WABC-TV Channel 7 in New York and their schedule of late night weekend movies. The idea is that I write about these movies before they air, and provide the trailers for these movies whenever possible. You can then make up your own mind whether you want to actually watch these films as they air in real time over Channel 7, which is usually at 11:35 PM on Saturday and Sunday nights (exceptions include when sports events run overtime, in which case the movie may start at an unspecified time or be shown "already in progress;" or when epic movies like the upcoming showing of "The Ten Commandments" air earlier in the evening- on those nights, the movies may start later and are usually officially given an alternate start time).

2.) I HAVE NOT WATCHED THE MAJORITY OF MOVIES FEATURED ON THIS BLOG

The opinions I express on this blog are purely based on viewing the trailers for the movies and not the movies themselves. The opinons are supplemented by commentary on previous work from the actors and directors, or by similarly-themed movies. It may very well be that some of the movies featured are worthy of your time from an entertainment standpoint ("Drive" comes to mind); although it is highly unlikely in most cases. I have attempted to watch many of the films that WABC-TV Channel 7 runs in this time slot, but often don't get past the first 10 minutes. Of course, there may come a time where Channel 7 schedules a movie I've actually seen before; if that happens, I'll be sure to mention it.

3.) WHY DO YOU MENTION "LIFETIME" MOVIES IN THIS BLOG?

I mention "Lifetime" movies because one of the movie packages that WABC-TV has leased is a collection of movies that originally ran on the Lifetime TV network. Lifetime has syndicated their movies from 2006 and earlier. Many of these movies have alternate versions that were created for international markets either for broadcast TV, home video release or even theatrical release. Those versions may be even longer than those that appeared on Lifetime and include elements such as profanity that would not make it to the on-air versions (but sometimes show up in the trailers I find). In addition to previously-aired-on-Lifetime flicks, the other packages that WABC has tapped for this late night slot include some real direct-to-video and direct-to-cable independent fare as well as a package of urban films (including some like "Sounder" that really are great, classic films that deserve a better timeslot and presentation).

So that's it in a rather verbose nutshell. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to click the comments button for this posting. - your fiend, The Phantom.

"The Accidental Witness"

2008-03-14T08:24:00.006-04:00

Ah, another former “Lifetime” movie makes it to the Landfill! When the Lifetime Network first began, many of the movies they ran (both those they acquired from other sources and ultimately those produced expressly for their channel) featured sympathetic female protagonists beleaguered by the horrible men in their lives – mostly their cheating husbands who usually planned to kill them so they could spend the insurance money on their mistresses. As time went on, however, the station (perhaps unknowingly) often took the “embattled-turned-empowered woman” theme to the opposite extreme, giving us characters of such sheer hysterics that one was reminded of latter-day Bette Davis movies. I’ve never seen “Accidental Witness,” but this seems like it could fall close to what I describe, with an “intensity” so forced that it lapses unwittingly into unintentional parody, setting some viewers to giggle and guffaw at the proceedings.

In this one, a murderer is after the attorney that he thinks “accidentally witnessed” one of his killings. As someone close to me pointed out, “isn’t everyone an 'accidental' witness?” I reminded them that literal accuracy is not a hallmark of Late Nite Landfill films.

This one stars Natasha Wagner. You remember her – the stepdaughter of the oft-mentioned (at least here anyway) Robert Wagner, she was in “Sol Goode,” which we covered a few weeks ago and which ABC yanked in favor of a bad Elvis impersonator movie instead. Perhaps this weekend Natasha will get a chance to display her wares as one of the queens of Late Nite Landfill fare – just take a gander at her imdb.com filmography and you’ll see what I mean. It’s littered with direct-to-DVD and cable TV movie fare.

The supporting cast is made up of the usual mix of TV, soap opera, and Canada film industry actors. A common bond among them seems to be appearances on the top crime drama shows like the various Law & Order and CSI series, as well as syndicated sci-fi shows and Canadian programs.

Speaking of sci-fi, the director, Kristoffer Tabori seems to have quite the side-career going for himself as a voice-over artist in such fantastical fare as the animated series, “Avatar: the Last Airbender;” and video games of “Battlestar Galactica” and “Star Wars.” Too bad “Accidental Witness” doesn’t look quite so “out of this world” as those space operas!

View the trailer here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Sunday, March 16th at 11:35 PM – if you dare!

"Boat Trip"

2008-03-14T07:59:00.002-04:00

Well folks, here it is: for the first time since I started this blog, we actually have a well-known bad movie. Not that many people saw it – it was a colossal flop at the box office – but that, along with the fact that it starred a then-recent Oscar® winner made it a highly publicized disaster. People just couldn’t believe that Academy Award winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. (who won the Supporting Actor prize as a pro footballer in “Jerry Maguire”) would agree to appear in a movie like this. My only guess is that he saw a connection between “Boat Trip”’s premise and “Some Like it Hot.” What he didn’t see was the definition of the phrase, “tenuous at best.”

I’m not going to talk too much about the movie itself. Most people have heard what it’s about. If you haven’t, the premise is that two womanizing pals are accidentally booked on an all-gay cruise. Well, all gay except for the convenient straight women that also happen to be on board. You guessed it, instead of merely saying, “our travel agent made a mistake but all we have to do is tell these attractive women that we’re really straight and we can be their dates for the duration of the cruise,” the men perpetuate the ruse that they are gay. Of course, there’d be no movie if they didn’t – but given the end result, that outcome would have been preferable.

But let’s get back to Gooding, or more precisely, the fabled “Oscar Curse” that seems to often befall those lauded luminaries of Tinseltown. Now I don’t personally believe in curses (although I love seeing them play out in movies with mummies), but I can understand how some could make the case here. For decades, Hollywood has been littered with feted actors whose post-Oscar® winning performances were followed by barrelfuls of reeking manure. Some of the more infamous examples include:

* Halle Berry (Best Actress for “Monster’s Ball”) went on to headline some really horrible duds like “Gothika” and “Catwoman”

* Roberto Benigni (Best Actor for “Life is Beautiful”) ended up playing the title role in a live-action “Pinocchio” – at the age of 50!

* F. Murray Abraham (Best Actor for “Amadeus”) portrayed the villain in the execrable modern-day update of Laurel & Hardy (that desecrated the cherished memories of those two genius clowns) called “The New Adventures of Laurel & Hardy: for Love or Mummy.”

* Louis Gossett, Jr. (Best Supporting Actor for “An Officer & a Gentleman”) found his career “lost at sea” when he set sail in search of a less-than-great white shark in “Jaws 3-D.”

…and we already talked about Mira Sorvino’s downward spiral after winning Best Supporting Actress for “Mighty Aphrodite” in our February 21st review of “Amongst Friends” (http://latenitelandfill.blogspot.com/2008/02/amongst-friends.html).

But enough about the so-called "curse." What about the “Boat Trip” supporting cast? A mixed bag indeed. Horatio Sanz is here as “the buddy.” He can be funny but usually only in a short-form SNL skit (and even those aren’t “short” anymore – they seriously need editors because they beat what few “jokes” they have to death as it is). I’m guessing the female roles here, performed by Vivaca A. Fox and Roselyn Sanchez are none too demanding and that these usually competent actresses give adequate if unremarkable performances. Looking further down the cast list reveals more interesting support. Richard Roundtree, the original “Shaft” himself, portrays the father of one of the girls. His is a career that helped define “blaxpoitation” and ultimately evolved into a steady stream of character roles. He is always fun to watch (although I’d recommend finding one of his other movies to view). Sir Roger Moore, once a Bond, has, like Robert Wagner, George Hamilton and William Shatner, figured out how to make a career out of portraying a self-parody of his perceived image. Last but not least, I notice Lin Shaye rounds out the supporting cast. She was hysterical in Farrelly Brothers movies such as “Kingpin” and “There’s Something About Mary.” If there are any funny moments in “Boat Trip,” my guess is they come from Shaye.

Speaking of “Kingpin,” it’s hard to believe that movie’s brilliant script was co-written by Mort Nathan – the writer and director of “Boat Trip!” Oh well, you can’t win them all!

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, March 15th at 11:35 PM – if you dare!

"Attraction"

2008-03-07T10:48:00.002-05:00

Here we have a movie that plants our feet back firmly on Late Nite Landfill ground. It's a salacious mix of violence, sex, and people bahaving badly.

I did find two descriptions of this movie that seem to contradict one another:

"A newspaper editor who is concerned about an employee stalking his ex-girlfriend soon begins doing the same thing."

---AND---

"A writer/radio advice show host fails to heed his own advice as he stalks his ex-girlfriend and then becomes involved with an actress friend of hers."

Further compounding matters, it appears in the trailer that after a girl's ex-boyfriend stalks her, her current boyfriend stalks the ex-boyfriend.

As the classic song "You say tomato, I say tomato" says, "let's call the whole thing off!"

Leaving the tangled mess of a plot behind, let's talk about the actors.

First, I have to mention poor Tom Everett Scott. Ever since his breakout role in "That Thing You Do," Hollywood just hasn't known what to do with him. It's obvious to me that his engaging, likeable charm is tailor-made for romantic comedies, screwball comedies and family comedies. In fact, not long after "That Thing..." I concocted a treatment for a big-screen remake of "Mister Ed," envisioning Scott as a natural choice to play the talking horse's human confidante, Wilbur. So what does Hollywood do with him? They put him in horror-comedies like "An American Werewolf in Paris," black comedies like "Dead Man on Campus" and (*gasp*) dramas like "Boiler Room" where we were supposed to buy him as a "you scratch my back, I'll break yours" ruthless financial broker. His last movie outing is a reverse of what I had in mind for him in "Mister Ed" - in "Snow Buddies," he's the VOICE of one of the dogs! Shame on you Hollywood, for misusing such an affable talent. In "Attraction," he looks particularly misused, as a seemingly-normal guy turned unhinged. The producers must have thought they had a profound character in this script, as they bill Scott not as "Tom Everett Scott" but as "Thomas."

The three other leading players have all had their share of success and failure over the years. The one who seems to be doing best is the other male lead, Matthew Settle, who currently has a recurring role on the TV show "Gossip Girl" amidst a host of TV and movie credits. Gretchen Mol has been at it for a little while now. People know at least her name, because her name is memorable. More so than her roles, of which the two most notable are probably playing Michael Madsen's girlfriend in "Donnie Brasco" and Christian Bale's wife in "3:10 to Yuma." She does a competent job in these roles which most actresses could essay. Finally, there's Samantha Mathis. She was one of those "it" girls for a while that got cast in a string of projects, but once Julia Stiles, Leelee Sobieski and Erika Christensen came along that was "it" for her.

An element that one of the above descriptions promises is one that's been beaten to death in movies, and usually very poorly done: the "provacative" radio talk show host. "Play Misty for Me" was one thing, having the great Clint Eastwood involved, but since then we've suffered through such depictions in films like "Talk Radio," a host of cable/direct-to-video offerings like "Midnight Confessions" (and I think Andrew Stevens produced some similar entries, too), and the recent execrable offerings "The Night Listener" and "The Brave One."

What more can I say? See for yourself.

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 at 11:35PM on Sunday, March 9th - if you dare!

“The River King”

2008-03-07T09:31:00.003-05:00

Here’s a film based on a novel by Alice Hoffman. It stars Ed Burns, who came to notoriety by financing, writing, directing and producing the indie hit “The Brothers McMullen” while he was still a gofer at Entertainment Tonight. Since then, he’s worked pretty steadily in both movies and television, juggling personal projects with work-for-hire gigs (most notably “Saving Private Ryan”). His supporting cast here is a mix of actors from both films and television, including many from Canada (where it appears this film was shot).

This is a “police procedural” with Burns cast as the lead investigating a student’s drowning in a river. This leads to several questions: Was it murder? Suicide? Accidental? Is Burns’ work here merely a dry run for a potentially inevitable stint on one of the many “Law & Order” incarnations? And how can this movie possibly be directed by the same man (Nick Willing) who brought us such disparate entries as the teen sex romp “Road Trip” and the befuddling TV mini-series re-imagining of Oz called “Tin Man?”

Watching the trailer, I have to admit that this doesn’t seem to have the level of “badness” most Late Nite Landfill offerings have. Instead of badness there is a “sameness” evident here – I’m reminded of “The River’s Edge,” “Stand By Me,” “The Gift,” “In the Bedroom,” “Mystic River” and countless others with the dredging of waters to uncover corpses, or tracking the trail in the woods, or both. It also has the elements of “secret societies” and “secret pacts” as seen in “The Skulls,” “Murder by Numbers,” “Scream,” and the little seen Toni Collete vehicle, “Like Minds” (aka “Murderous Intent”), which I wouldn’t be surprised to see make its way to the Landfill at some point. Yes, a heaping helping of sameness, which may put this into the “average” category at best.

Earlier I mentioned the questions this story and movie bring to mind. Now I have a question this trailer brings to mind: why, oh why does the trailer have a horror movie style shock ending?

View the trailer here:

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 at 11:35 PM on Saturday, March 8th – if you dare!

The old "bait & switch!"

2008-03-02T23:49:00.003-05:00

Well friends... if you tuned into Channel 7 tonight hoping to see "Sol Goode" - you didn't! They decided to run "Elvis Has Left the Building," aka "Love Me Tender" instead. Based on the trailer, it looks like a romantic comedy (allegedly on both counts).

If I were paranoid, I'd think they did this to throw the Phantom off... but knowing they've shown movies other than what they listed in this slot before, I know it's just one of those things.

Anyway, I probably can't improve upon the skewering you can come up with yourself simply by viewing the trailer.

Watch it here in English:

http://www.trailerfan.com/movie/elvis_has_left_the_building/trailer

...or watch it here in Spanish:

"The Real Cancun"

2008-02-28T04:33:00.004-05:00

QUESTION: What’s worse than a Late Nite Landfill fictional film about party people spending most of their time in an inebriated state, making foolish choices, acting stupidly and having irresponsible sex?

ANSWER: A Late Nite Landfill documentary film about party people spending most of their time in an inebriated state, making foolish choices, acting stupidly and having irresponsible sex!

Remember my post last week about the Razzies? Well this film, directed by “reality” specialist Rick de Oliveira, was actually nominated by the Razzies for the prestigious honor of “Worst Movie of 2003.” If not for the existence of its competition, “Gigli,” perhaps it would have won that honor.

Maybe the programmers at ABC will pick up Oliveira’s “Road to Menudo” at some point. We can only hope...

Meanwhile, in “The Real Cancun” (take note: whenever you see the words “real” or “reality,” as in “reality TV,” you can be certain that what you’re seeing is contrived at best), MTV gives the “Real World” treatment to a group of strangers they’ve thrown together and set loose in the title’s den of iniquity during Spring Break.

Zap2it.com’s description was more concise and snappier than mine – I really can’t put it better than this:

“Sixteen teenagers and twentysomethings spend their Mexican vacation in various stages of undress and inebriation.”

With all the sexcapades both that description and the trailer allude to (reports claim real encounters were filmed with cameras strategically placed to avoid an NC-17 rating), and noting that the film will have to be edited for broadcast TV, one wonders how they expect to fill the entire 2 hour alloted time slot. Longer commercial breaks perhaps?

Among the teenagers rock ‘n rollin’ all night and partying ev-er-y day, blonde Laura Ramsey has actually gone on to an acting career, including some notable indies and a role opposite Amanda Bynes in Disney’s “She’s the Man;” although a peek at her imdb.com filmography suggests it’s mostly been Late Nite Landfill quality fare for her so far.

Watch the trailer here (WARNING: The following trailer contains adult subject matter):

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or view the entire movie this Saturday, March 1st on NYC’S WABC-TV Channel 7 at 11:35PM… if you dare!

“Sol Goode”

2008-02-27T12:53:00.005-05:00

QUESTION: Is it possible that a Late Nite Landfill fictional film about party people spending most of their time in an inebriated state, making foolish choices, acting stupidly and having irresponsible sex can be just as bad or perhaps even worse than our previous entry – the documentary, “The Real Cancun?”

ANSWER: If the trailer to “Sol Goode” is any indication, apparently so!

The main players are a veritable who’s who of the “direct-to-video” industry. Balthazar Getty – has he ever been the lead in an “A” picture? And silicone-enhanced Carmen Elektra and Tori Spelling as bimbo-ed up versions of Betty and Veronica who might be at home working at the Pussycat Doll Café.

Someone named Danny Comden’s “Cooper” character gets good notices in the “User Comments” on imdb.com, but I’ve never heard of him... and his character sounds very “been there, seen that” to me. Turns out he directed the film, too… guess he was his own first choice for the typical sex comedy’s clichéd Spicoli/Kramer/Dude hodge-podge.

Despite those demerits in the top slots, there are some game supporting performers in this – Cheri Oteri is almost always funny, attractive and usually gives 150%. Jason Bateman is a genius in my opinion. Robert Wagner has perfected a wonderful self-parody of himself for at least the past 15 years. His step-daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner does a turn here as well. Jamie Kennedy’s career has overall been a mixed-bag, but I give him points for trying different things and not being so predictable. But the problem is, unlike our DVR, DVD and VHS players, broadcast TV has no fast-forward button. I’m not sure I want to trade in my sleep to find out if these troopers put in good work here.

In the end, despite the inevitable redemption this story may offer, it’s evident from the trailer that this is pretty much an R-rated, raunchy “Ferris Beuller.” If forcing yourself to stay awake for fart, vomit and sex jokes is your thing, dig in.

Watch the trailer here (WARNING: The following trailer contains [im]mature subject matter):

Or view the entire movie this Sunday, March 2nd on NYC’S WABC-TV Channel 7 at 11:35 PM… if you dare!

Oscar, Schmozcar!

2008-02-21T03:43:00.000-05:00

Well folks, Sunday, February 24th is the night of the 80th Academy Awards. Once again, ABC-TV is hosting the gala event. As a result, they won't be showing one of their patentedly bad movies late that night. Instead, they have to wait for the Oscars to end (always a guessing game as to when that might be), have the news, and then Jimmy Kimmel does a live show with the winners.

Here's "compelling" footage of 7 men placing the giant Oscar statue on its stand from last year's ceremonies:

Rarely will you find a "Late Nite Landfill" movie an Oscar(R) winner, let alone being nominated for one. However, I wouldn't be surprised if some of ABC's Late Nite Landfill excavations have been past winners or nominees of the Razzies. In fact, I suspect this year's leading contender, "I Know Who Killed Me" with Lindsey Lohan, will someday end up on the ABC late night schedule.

So... if you want to learn more about the Razzies, and see this year's list of nominees here's a link to their official site:

http://www.razzies.com/history/28thNoms.asp

"Amongst Friends"

2008-02-21T03:31:00.002-05:00

Well, it didn't take the programmers at Channel 7 long to schedule another mobster movie. Just a few short weeks ago we covered their airing of "A Good Night to Die." Now, we're face to face with another cheap "Mean Streets" meets "Goodfellas" knock-off - a fact the trailer doesn't hide by shamelessly mentioning those two classics. Filmmakers like to think that they're being original by NOT having Italians as their main gangsters, so over the years we've seen mob movies about the Irish, Asians, Russians, African-Americans and more. This time, we have the story of a nice group of Jewish kids from Long Island "coming of age" - by becoming murderous thugs!

It's called "Amongst Friends," and as both the title and the trailer point out in such sledgehammer-obvious fashion, these are the kind of friends for which one doesn't need enemies. Yes, the trailer for this one trots out all the cliches - the bored rich kids, the concerned girlfriend, the calorically-challenged goofy guys who are there for comic relief (and probably to get whacked), the stoic dressed-to-the-nines-because-I'm-pretending-to-be-legit guy who doesn't flinch even though guns are in his face, and a couple of old-time gangsters bemoaning the fate of their younger counterparts - except this time they seem more like retired Borchst Belt comics than hardened old hit men!

Lots of actors here I don't recognize - it's a mix of folks with only 1 to 3 credits to their name and character actors with tons of credits but you couldn't pick most of them out of a line-up because their roles are usually inconsequential.

Only Mira Sorvino is instantly recognizable here. This is her second theatrical feature. Three years later, she won a Best Actress Oscar for her role in Woody Allen’s “Mighty Aphrodite” (hmmm… maybe ABC decided to show “Amongst Friends” now since it’s Oscar weekend?.... NAH!). After a few more notable roles, she dated Quentin Tarantino for a spell and appeared at his behest alongside his hero Chow Yun Fat in “The Replacement Killers;” then proceeded to have an erratic career checkered with both decent films AND those that make perfect fodder for the Late Nite Landfill.

Mira's brother Michael is also in "Amongst Friends," essaying the role of "Kid in Fight."

The movie is directed by Rob Weiss, who has since found his way out of obscurity as a writer/producer on the acclaimed show, "Entourage."

View the trailer here:

visit videodetective.com for more info

Or watch the entire film on WABC-TV Channel 7, 11:35 PM On Saturday, February 23... if you dare!

The Phantom takes the weekend off

2008-02-16T16:13:00.000-05:00

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!

"Drive"

2008-02-08T20:36:00.001-05:00

Ah, the cheesy action flick. With martial arts! Now you're talking real Late Nite Landfill goodness/badness! :)

I have to admit, I've actually wanted to see this one for quite some time. It goes back to the late '90s, when, inspired by screenwriter William C. Martell I got this idea in my head that I could churn out direct-to-video (DTV) screenplays as well as anyone (my produced screenplays to date: zero!)

When renting another DTV movie, I noticed the trailer for this one and thought, "this might be fun." It seems to have all the elements: providing the action is a guy who looks like a nice guy but can kick karate butt even though speaking seems to be a problem; joining him in the adventure are a wise-cracking African-American sidekick as well as a cute/ditzy girl to provide comic relief.

Sounds like a template for the “Rush Hour” flicks - the first of which it predates by a year.

Dacascos has made a career of such DTV actioners but did show up as the lead in the rather unique sci-fi period piece, 2001's “Brotherhood of the Wolf” from France.

That bright light may be an anomoly: he's currently appearing on Blockbuster Video shelves as the title character in the DTV “I Am Omega,” a shameless rip-off of the classic Richard Matheson story that manages to pilfer the titles of ALL the previous movie versions, taking the “I Am” from the current Will Smith smash, the “Omega” from Charlton Heston’s ‘80s starrer, and even using the wording “The Last Man on Earth” (title of the original '60s Vincent Price version) in both the trailer and as part of the descriptive copy on the front cover beneath the title!

Mark's co-stars do seem engaging in this trailer (or maybe I'm just delirious): Kadeem Hardison looks like he makes an entertaining turn here as the sidekick, and you may (or may not) recognize the girl - she's Brittany Murphy back in her much-cuter (IMO) “Clueless” days - when she WASN'T an emaciated, bleached blonde.

Check out the trailer here (WARNING: the following contains brief, graphic language):

Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 (NYC) on Sunday, Feburary 10th at 11:35... if you dare!

"Cradle of Lies"

2008-02-08T20:00:00.000-05:00

This weekend brings another staple of ABC's late night movie fare. It seems the 'ol Landfill is a dumping ground for Lifetime movies that the Lifetime Network has already shown. Lifetime Movies are the opposite of that other Late Nite Landfill mainstay, the "scorned mistress/seductress" flick, aka the "late night Cinemax/Showtime" flick.

The difference? In Lifetime movies, the woman is almost always the good guy - the victim - who must combat the cheating, nefarious man or men in her life. In scorned mistress/seductress flicks, the woman is the bad guy, the "other" woman adept at tricking and tempting the "good guy" - the male victim (give me a break) - into cheating on his wife (yeah, these are real "good" guys - NOT)! The other difference is the Cinemax/Showtime movies often show the skin that the Lifetime movies can't... at least until they make it onto channel 7 in edited form.

I'd love to show you a trailer, TV commercial or even a clip from this movie, but I could find none. The plot does sound like typical B-movie badness: in order to gain a family inheritance, a man must have a son - but his wife is pregnant with a girl! Now, the man will stop at nothing to get that son and claim his inheritance. Hoo boy. Read more at Lifetime's site:

http://www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/movies/cradle-lies

I don't want to leave you video-less here, however. Let's talk about the director. His name is Oley Sassone, son of the famous hair product mogul Vidal Sassoon. I can't imagine there's anyone out there who hasn't heard of Vidal, but if not, here's a fittingly cheesy 1980s-era commercial for his wares:

Oley is infamous for a noted wedge of cheese himself: the never-officially-released-to-the-public (but available as a bootleg for years) original 1994 version of "The Fantastic Four," based on the famous Marvel comic book. Produced by Roger Corman (who should need no introduction, but in case you don't know him, start your web search now).

The thing about this cheese is, even during its worst moments, it is pretty engaging and entertaining. And in retrospect, it turns out the big-budget 2005 version with Jessica Alba and Michael Chiklis only slightly improved on this paltry-budgeted initial attempt. Personally, I didn't find much improvement in the script, acting or effects in the recent blockbuster. At least the '90s original had a naive charm buried in its cheesy-bad goodness. Here's the trailer:

To watch "Cradle of Lies," tune in to WABC-TV Channel 7 (NYC) at 11:35 on Saturday, February 9th... if you dare!

"Replicant"

2008-02-02T21:11:00.002-05:00

Recipe for a Late Nite Landfill crass-ic:

STEP 1: Have screenwriter pen a wretchedly bad ripoff of “Blade Runner” and “Terminator 2.”

STEP 2: Steal the cool transform-o-pod from the Jeff Golblum remake of “The Fly.”

STEP 3: Make sure you have absolutely NO budget for special effects, so symbiotic fluid really looks just like cake mix.

STEP 4: Hire Jean-Claude Van Damme.

’Nuff said!

View the trailer here:

Or watch the entire movie Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 11:35 on WABC-TV Channel 7 - if you dare!

"A Good Night to Die"

2008-02-02T20:14:00.000-05:00

Our first post presents a staple in the world of Late Nite Landfill movies: the bloody mobster movie, featuring all the f-bombs and gore of The Godfather, GoodFellas and Pulp Fiction films without any of the wit, subtlety, good acting and screenplays.

This one stars Michael Rapapport. When not playing the dumb jock in romantic comedies, Rapapport's other favorite role has been that of a poor man’s Michael Madsen. And when you consider how many films Madsen’s made that are already perfect fodder for The Late Nite Landfill, well, the word “diluted” comes to mind.

Frank Whaley has made a career of playing the put-upon guy who’s smarter than he lets on in such classics as “Swimming with Sharks” and “Pulp Fiction.” When his agent handed him this script, it appears he was only put-upon!

Lainie Kazan is an acquired taste that many find hard-to-take. If the editing in this trailer is to be believed, however, those who don’t like her may enjoy her character’s outcome. Unless of course it’s a trailer cheat!

Late Nite Landfill movies are notorious for having eclectic casts who have seen better days or have always been on the “fringe” at best. Debra Harry provides that fringe element, while Ally Sheedy and Robin Givens have become mainstays of such fare. Apparently no one is sending any “Karate Kid” or “My Cousin Vinny” sequel scripts Ralph Macchio’s way, so he might as well chew up all the scenery he can until his next daring assignment in the world of cinemuck arrives!

View the trailer here (WARNING: the following contains graphic language and violence):

Or watch the entire movie tonight (February 2nd, 2008) at 11:35 on WABC-TV Channel 7 - if you dare!