Category: Drama

Dark Mansions (1986)

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So how did Yvette, wife of shipping scion Jason Drake really die when she plunged from the bluffs outside her home? Was it suicide as her snippy sister-in-law Jessica claimed? Or did she get too close to the edge picking flowers and she slipped out of Jason’s desperate grasp in the version he related?

But wait, his crabby brother Phillip claims Jason pretty much killed her and lured her to edge and didn’t do anything to stop her! And who could forget her son Nicholas came up with a version where she was picking flowers for him and she got too close to the edge despite his warnings? Okay, we should probably forget that account since it came after his blind cousin used her supernatural powers to hypnotize him into recovering this memory after he also recovered the “memory” of being born with a dead twin he never knew had. (Even the blind cousin’s dog looked flummoxed by it all during its reaction shots someone thought was a good idea to edit into the sequence.) Continue reading “Dark Mansions (1986)” →

The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan (1979)

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In one world Jennie Logan is married to a guy who cheated on her and desperately tries to make it up to her by paying lots of attention to her. After the basketball game he’s watching is over. In her other world, Jennie Logan is 80 years in the past, going on boat rides and sharing the bed of an artist played by Beastmaster Marc Singer (Dead Space). Jennie is seeing a disbelieving therapist about all this, but who could blame her if her sessions were more so that she could brag about her sexy time traveling than trying to actually get any help? Continue reading “The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan (1979)” →

The Users (1978)

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“Everybody’s a hooker. Some more, some less. Including me,” says has-been actor Randy Brent to his new wife, an actual hooker (that’s how they met!) named Elena. Randy was describing the denizens of Hollywood and while his brutal honesty about showbiz was an admirable attempt to put Elena at ease about her own sleazy past, you know what didn’t put her at ease so much? Catching Randy with another man in their bedroom after Randy goes into a funk about his latest flop movie! While Elena said she expected that he might take to drugs and liquor following yet another failure, she didn’t expect that! Guess what else she didn’t expect? Randy’s suicide attempt! (That he failed at that as well was probably anticipated though.) Continue reading “The Users (1978)” →

The Vegas Strip War (1984)

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It’s all out freaking war on the Vegas Strip! No, it isn’t mined one-armed bandits dispensing death instead of coins or croupiers painting the green felt red with the blood of hapless whales! It’s much more heinous than all that!

It’s Sharon Stone in an early role as Sarah, the girlfriend/casino worker, who nonchalantly tells her boyfriend/casino owner about how she sometimes decides to turn tricks. It’s James Earl Jones humiliating himself in a Don King fright wig, frequently accusing people of not liking him because of his race, thus forcing the accused to list all the other reasons they really don’t like him. And saddest of it, it’s Rock Hudson near the end of his life (and looking every bit of it), busting his ass to convince us that his character, casino operator Neil Chaine, is somehow a decent and honorable man as well as a ruthless businessman out to destroy the former business partners who done him wrong! Continue reading “The Vegas Strip War (1984)” →

The Haunting of Sarah Hardy (1989)

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Poor Sarah Hardy had the worst funeral ever! I don’t mean the one they had for her. She was too busy faking her death to worry too much about that one. I’m talking about the one that happened 15 years earlier for her beloved father. No doubt that was a downer, but then her crazy mom had to go and ruin a perfectly good mourning buzz by causing multiple scenes! Continue reading “The Haunting of Sarah Hardy (1989)” →

Along Came a Spider (1970)

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There are all sorts of twists and turns in Along Came A Spider, an ABC Moive of the Week starring Suzanne Pleshette and Ed Nelson as a couple of star-crossed psychopath lovers. Sometimes, you’ll think she’s crazy, sometimes you’ll think he’s crazy and sometimes watching the mindgames going on between her archeologist character and his physicist character, you’ll wonder if we shouldn’t just shut down all the universities and make people get real jobs where they don’t have so much free time to concoct meticulous murders and frame ups. Continue reading “Along Came a Spider (1970)” →

International Airport (1985)

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I’m sure Airport resonated with the fossils who saw it when it first came out way back in 1970. Back in those days, you could slap Burt Lancaster’s name on a movie poster and people would pay to see just about anything, even a movie where he just drove back and forth from his office to different parts of airport!

In those more innocent/clueless days gone by, you could watch a sweaty nervous guy just bring a primitive bomb onto a plane and think “shoot, that could probably happen about six or seven times a week at any old airport!” There were probably even folks back then who actually owed some of star Dean Martin’s record albums! Continue reading “International Airport (1985)” →