Recently in TV Movie Category

Starring Mira Sorvino, Donald Sutherland, Robert Carlyle. Drama. Synopsis: A movie original airing on the Lifetime Network, now on DVD, about the  sale and trafficking of young women, particularly children, for the purposes of sexual favors and sexual slavery. Told against the backdrop of three separate stories woven into one drama that follows a goverment agency on the trail of an international trafficking ring run by a Russian crime boss.

"Human Trafficking" is one of those made for cable movies that tackles a sensitive and serious issue not suitable for family consumption in a way that only a movie can, yet does it without emphasizing or trying to capitalize on the titiallation or gruesome factors in the way that a TV program must.

It is effective and heart wrenching. First, as most would guess but has to be said anyway, this is a movie not a documentary. Having said that, those who were unaware of this issue, or at least its scope, will learn a lot of genuine facts in watching this in the way that you learn from a good, informative documentary.

Mira Sorvino and Donald Sutherland play agents for ICE, the International Customes Enforecement Agency. They are charged with stemming the tide of young girls, some preteens, who are abducted and/or falsely lured to this country, ostensibly to model, be a mail order bride, or some other more innocuous reason, but in reality  for the purpose of forced prostitution.

The film is told with the focus on three young women, one a poor teenage girl from an Eastern European family lured to the U.S. by a phony "modeling" agency, one young woman-also a mother-who was effectively sold into prostitution by her "boyfriend", and the third a preteen American girl who is literally snatched from her parents on the streets of Manila. The film also touches on and reveals the plight of some of the other young women: their various reactions to forced prostitution, in the form of street work, higher class call girls, and/or pornographic movies as well as the means of physical and mental abuse that keeps them relatively docile and subjugated.

Although this is not an easy film to watch-no matter who or where we are, or what our political/religious affiliations might be, I've long been of the opinion that the abuse of children is the one thing that we all agree on as an unspeakable evil without qualification-but it does not get too lurid with showing us the actual sexual abuse of children. It is, however, strongly implied and we do see the mental and physical abuse, with the younger children mostly in the form of denial of adequate food and medical care.

You also get to see the ones who make this possible, the crime lords (played very effectively by Robert Carlyle as a Russian mob figure with an extensive syndicate here in the U.S.), their collaborators, the well meaning but ignorant families that allow their young girls to pursue "jobs" or "careers". One poignant scene shows the child pimps approaching a subsistence farmer, literally living in a nineteenth century type hovel with his wife and several children, and offer him more money than he has probably ever seen for his daughter. You see the look in his-a man who has probably done more manual labor in his life than 10 average Americans combine-  eyes as he now, maybe for the first time, has more than enough to feed and clothe the rest of his family, at the expense of his precious daughter. No, I'm not saying you will feel sorry for him , or that his actions are not disgusting, but it is done in such a way as to make us understand the crushing poverty and hopelessness in some countries-particularly Asian nations and former Eastern European bloc countries-that would make this type of thing not totally uncommon.

You also see the other side of it, US children snatched off the streets and the huge uphill battle that has to be fought to find them in countries where the infrastructure is not nearly aas conducive to finding criminals...particularly when those criminals pay very well.

The buyers of these exploited women and children are shown as well...yes, the stereotypical dirty old men are represented, but you also see the yuppy types at 6 figure mansions, and one particularly disgusting American doctor, who is seeking a little something different on his vacation to the Phillipines.

The heroes are there, too. The mother of the American child who refuses to leave the Phillipines or rest until she has found her daughter, the father of the teen age girl lured from Europe who comes to America with no clue as to find his daughter, but immerses himself in the child sex culture as a enforcer, in hopes that he will cross paths with her, and, of course, the tireless work of the government agents, played wonderfully by Sorvino and Sutherland.

These are fictional accounts, but they are the type of stories and done in such a way as to make it obvious that such things can and do occur. The international scope of the film shows how difficult the problem is, but it also that, like all problems that are human in creation, there is a solution, not just from the government, but from all of us. Any child that we can help-in any way: Little League coaching, den mother, crossing guard, whatever-whether our child or not, is one child that is just a little less likely to fall prey to these perverts. And, for those of us unable to do those kinds of things, just keeping your eyes and ears open, especially in larger cities, can help, or giving any extra $10, $100 or whatever-one time or on a regular basis, it all helps-, to one of the many private organizations that do so much to help exploited children. Anything helps.

Well, the purpose of this blog is not to be preachy, but that is the effect a film like this can have. And, you won't forget it.

Directed by Rod Holcomb. Starring Scott Glenn, Zachary Ty Bryan, Theo Rossi, Jeff Roop, Corey Sevier, Adam Grimes, Jake Busey, Richard Zeppieri. Drama/Historical/Sports/TV Movie. Synopsis: The story of the 1950 Army football team and its involvement in a historic cheating scandal and breaking of the honor code. The scandal ended the West Point careers of 30 football players, bo other cadets, and shocked the nation during the height of the Korean War.

This is a very good historical drama that is, surprisingly, relatively absent from the consciousness of many die hard college football fans (like me)-and not just because it happened more than 50 years ago. Believe me, a lot of die hard college football fans can tell you plenty about Red Granges' epic 6 touchdown effort or the Four Horseman of Notre Dame, both of which happened decades prior to the events in this movie. 

Code Breakers is made by ESPN, but those of you who are not sports/football fans per se shouldn't worry, this is a quality drama and not shot just for jocks. And, its not the first time (The Junction Boys) ESPN has hit paydirt with a movie based on a historical period of college football.

The film is set in 1950, with the West Point (Army) football team coming off of two straight undefeated seasons, and heavy favorites for a third, a feat then unmatched in college football. Army was, unlike today, one of the glamour teams in college football with only Notre Dame being comparable in the national consciousness. The euphoria of the victory in WWII was still fresh, yet the specter of Korea looms large. The football team was coached by the legendary Earl "Red" Blaik (Scott Glenn Training Day Urban Cowboy), well on his way to college coaching immortality and helped by an impressive staff that included future NFL coaching legend Vince Lombardi (Richard Zeppieri)

Holcomb does a great job of bringing this all to us and setting the mood in the first few minutes of the movie with a very good replica of the West Point campus and good use of period newsreels. The cast is ensemble, as you might guess, but the most important characters for the purpose of introducing us to the scandal are George Holbrook (Jeff Roop), a key football player who struggles with some of his subjects and his swim team roommate Brian Nolan (Zachary Ty Bryan). The two are best friends and mutually worried about their grades amidst the incredible pressure and expectations of the Academy.

Holbrook is introduced to a ring of cadets, including several key football players, who are able to share questions and answers with each other to get borderline academic qualifying players over the hump. The main players in telling the story of the ring, which was so sophisticated and ingrained that there was actually a member of the ring on the honor committee, include the quarterback-and coach's son-Bob Blaik (Corey Seveir) and the aggressive star running back DeSantis (Theo Rossi)

Holbrook reluctantly gets drawn into the cheating, though he, like so many of the cadets involved, did not directly benefit from cheating yet did break the code to help others, and ultimately confides the existence of the cheating ring to Nolan, who in turn goes through his own struggle in deciding how to proceed. I never want to play spoiler, but if you want to see this movie, even if you know nothing about this story, you know that the cheating ring was exposed just from the title. 

But, without giving you a overview of what happens next, I can do it justice by saying that it is done in such a way as to make it ambiguous, at least to me, as to what the truly honorable thing to do and the personal struggle some of these cadets went through in reaching their decisions, honorable or not.

The desire of some of the players not to want to tell on their friends-some of whom were literally weeks away from going to the war in Korea after graduation-is done in such way as to not be superficial or cheesy. On the other hand, the necessity of upholding the honor code and to tell the truth is presented with equal strength.

The acting is excellent. Scott Glenn (Urban Cowboy, Silence of the Lambs, Courage Under Fire)  is incredible as Coach Blaik. The young actors who portray  the cadets seem to me, an Army veteran, to be legitimate military men and, as you would guess, an ESPN produced film is righteous with the football as well. To me, Bryan, Roop, Sevier, and Rossi were all excellent in their roles and brought their characters to life as well as you could expect. The rest of the cast is good, too, with Jake Busey probably being the most recognizable for the obvious reason that he is an exact replica of his father.  

Some of you know that special features in a DVD are important to me, and the special features in this film are an A+. They are informative and substantive. There is a nice feature on the actual team complete with contemporary news footage, a touching feature on both the Army and Navy teams leading up to their big game in 2001 in the wake of the terrorists attacks on America, and several excellent interviews with famous Army men and West Point graduates such as Norman Schwarzkopf, several West Point Graduates who were there during the scandal such as Bill Yeoman, whom some of you college football fans will remember as the successful head coach of the University of Houston in the '80's, 1959 Heisman Trophy winner Pete Dawkins, and even some notable Navy men, such as Roger Staubach and John McCain. All of this, plus the standard stuff: interviews with the cast and on the set, director's commentary.

The special features last as long or longer than the film and you just couldn't ask for more if you are interested in this movie, the making of the movie, learning more about the story, or the Army-Navy football rivalry.

The only complaint I have about the film is that it could have done more in telling us what happened specifically to some of the characters who were featured. Instead, we got general stuff at the end like "..so and so went on to serve with distinction in the U.S. Army after leaving West Point..."    But, I do understand that this is still a touchy subject a half century later, some of these men are still alive, the facts are undoubtedly still in dispute, and I would guess that not everyone who was involved in this affair, at any level, was on board for the movie. So, its a small complaint.

Most movies that make it to my favorites have to be viewed at least twice (how good can it really be if I don't want to watch it again....and again...?), but Code Breakers made it after one viewing.

For what that's worth.     

Horror/Drama. A TNT original movie. Directed by Mikael Saomon. Starring Rob Lowe, Andre Braugher, James Cromwell, Samantha Mathis, Robert Mammone, Rutger Hauer, Dan Byrd. 

Synopsis: A successful writer returns to his hometown Maine to confront his personal demons revolving around a menacing house that sits on a hill above the town. Shortly after his arrival, strange things begin to happen in the form of people disappearing. Ultimately, he and the people of Jerusalems Lot confront the horror of vampirism in their small town.

A few disclosures: Salem's Lot, by Stephen King, is one of my favorite novels, and I try to read it every couple of years. Like many fans who are in the over 30 club, I remember the original TV movie (will later be reviewed in this blog separately) vividly, and being a scared pre-teen when I saw it, it wouldn't be possible to be as scared as I was the first time, if only because I'm not a 12 year old who is scared of the dark anymore. (I'm still scared of the dark, to tell the truth, just not 12) The kid vampire floating outside the window scene in the original is one for the ages. I say this because, anytime a remake is made, and of a popular novel to boot, I think there is the temptation to not talk about the remake on its own merits, but to talk about it as a comparison to the original and/or the book.

So, when I first heard that a remake was in the works, I was very excited to see it. My reaction to hearing that Rob Lowe would be playing Ben Mears was a resounding "Huh?" Now, nothing against Mr. Lowe, he's from my generation (in fact, according to IMDB, we're almost  the same age...but, he's older..haha!!), and I know he has had success, but I wasn't into that whole Brat Pack thing back in the day, and opt now for sports, news, and movies on cable instead of network TV so I'm not that familiar with his work in The West Wing. My impression of him was that he is a celebrity, a pretty boy, and a relative lightweight as an actor. I'll talk more about  my impression and how Mr. Lowe did a little later. 

Some fans of the novel might be irked that the story in this film is set in the present day. I disagree. Some stories, no matter how timeless the theme may be, are period pieces and should stay in that period. Modern film versions of movies like Othello, in my opinion, lose a little something when set in the present day. On the other hand, movies that are remade to the present time like Scarface can work very well. I think Salem's Lot fits in the latter category. First of all, it was only set in the '70's because that was the time that King wrote it, no other reason. In this version, set aside the cell phones and references to the Internet, and we don't have a setting that is too radically different from the original.

The story is largely the same, and this version stays closer to the specifics of the book in some regards but deviates more than the original film in others. There is no question that it develops more of the novel's characters than the 70's version.

Ben Mears (Lowe Tommy Boy, The Hotel New Hampshire ) is a successful writer based in New York who returns to his hometown of Jerusalem's ('Salem's)  Lot to research a book he is going to write on the Marsden house, a home that overlooks the small town and was the scene of a gruesome murder/suicide of the owner and his wife, a crime that a young Ben Mears was witness to as a young boy entering the home on a dare.

Shortly after Ben's arrival back in Salem's Lot, two things happen that really shape the upcoming days in Salem's Lot. First, he meets Susan Norton (Samantha Mathis The American President) and, his attempt to rent the Marsden home are rebuffed when it turns out the home has been sold to a antiques dealer named Richard Straker (Donald Sutherland The Dirty Dozen, JFK) and his absentee partner, Kurt Barlow (Rutger Hauer The Hitcher, Blade Runner ). Of course, people soon start disappearing around Salem's Lot and its not long before some of the good folks in town start to suspect that the undead might just be walking among them.

As I said earlier, this movie develops more characters along the line of the novel, so it is much more of an ensemble cast than the '79 movie. Dr. Norton , an important character in the novel and the first movie, is replaced  by a younger and, shall we say, more virile Dr. Cody ( Robert Mammone). Dud Rogers (Brendan Cowell) also appears in this version, another important minor character in the book and absent from the '79 movie. 

The most obvious changes from the novel/orginal that fans of either will notice right away are the change in Matt Burke (Andre Braugher) , a much more sinister Larry Crockett (Robert Grubb),  and a much more worldly Mark Petrie (Dan Byrd The Hills Have Eyes). Also, the Kurt Barlow main vampire character is much closer to the novel than the hideous, Nosferatu like character in the '79 movie.

This film is told in the first person, with Rob Lowe doing the narrative throughout the film. This works very well, in my opinion, and Lowe is a more convincing Ben Mears than David Soul in the original. I was pleasantly surprised. Also, this version makes much more use of Father Callahan (James Cromwell The General's Daughter)  than the '79 version, and radically changes his role from the novel.

Again, unless you are one who thinks that a movie based on a popular novel needs to be wedded to every specific of the book, I beleive you will find this change in character enjoyable, as Cromwell plays a flawed, but likeable Father Callahan very well. To me, the changes in this version are, on the whole, minor, and made to make the story more in tune with 21st century front page issues (e.g. homosexuality, child abuse, racism, drug/alchohol abuse, the War in Iraq). However, none of these undercurrents takes from the story, or is overly emphasized, and the story is still wonderful.

Most of the main characters do a little better than their '79 counterparts, but I think this is mainly due to the expanded script and greater latitude in a 2004 cable  film as opposed to a 1979 network TV movie. As I said, Lowe surprisingly surpasses Soul as Ben Mears, the wonderful Samantha Mathis outdoes Bonnie Bedilia as Susan Norton, as Bedelia was saddled without a major impact in the '79 version, especially in the edited version many of us saw on TV where she just disappears from the movie with no explanation. Rutger Hauer is deliciously wicked, if not as shocking, as his '79 counterpart who had no dialogue.

The one major character who is not an upgrade is Richard Straker. No slam on Donald Sutherland, obviously an excellent actor, but his Straker is more humanly evil than James Mason's version in the '79 movie. Mason was the epitome of understated, polite, unspeakable European evil. In other words, Mason was scarier. 

Of the novel characters who got short shrift in the '79 movie, Steve Vidler's Sheriff Parkins stands out. Vidler makes the character much stronger, though probably a little too young, than what is portrayed either in the novel or the '79 film, which makes it even more striking when he makes his choice towards the end of the movie...which coincides with the end of Salem's Lot.

The special effects work, though it would not take much to outdo the '79 movie in that department. We see a lot more believable gore in comparison to '79, but its not over the top nor is it even close to what you will see in a typical modern horror flick. I can't say this version is scarier than '79, although I would bet that most people who have seen both would say the same thing, I think the primary reason for that is that most of use who have seen both are 25 years older. Hopefully, then , the list of things that will make us jump is a lot shorter, or at least different.

What this film does do is tell a much better story, with better acting all around, than the '79 movie. And you need to understand that I consider the '79 movie a classic in this wonderful subcategory (vampires) of horror movies. This is a decent horror movie that is also a good drama, based on a hall of fame novel that makes it a favorite. My only real criticism is the release of the DVD without special features. How long before they realize that we serious movie fans who want to break down every aspect of a film no longer consider special features as an "extra perk", but as a neccessity?

Oh, well, can't have everything.       

Directed by Robert Lee. Starring Jeff Fahey, Erika Eleniak, Jessica Amlee, Britney Irvin. Synopsis: A scientist and his young pair of researchers determine that there is going to be a catastrophic shift in the Earth's atmosphere, resulting in a shift of the polar extremes and resulting in absolute zero in most balmy and tropical places near and south of the equator...and it is going to happen soon.

When a campy, made for TV cable flick has a title like Absolute Zero, its almost too easy to make a lot of wise a** and cutting put-down remarks on how cheesy the movie was by incorporating several variations of the term "zero" into the review. To do that would be low brow, insensitive, and kind of juvenile in the pursuit of a chuckle or two at the expense of a serious, well thought out review.

So, I guess I'll just get started.

No, seriously, this is not a very good movie, although some of you may have seen it in your local video store with multiple copies available in the new release section, which can-sometimes-indicate that it might not be too, too bad. Well, not in this case, although I want to go on record right now and say its not completely horrible, so yours truly will not relegate it to the "Duds" category, because the seasoned movie watchers among you might just have an idea going in that you are not going to be watching top tier stuff and, if you go into not expecting Citizen Kane, or even The Towering Inferno, you might be able to enjoy some aspects of the film.

As you will suspect from the box cover, this is one of those catastrophic-in-nature movies that reflects the unthinkable change in nature. The more cynical among you will think that this is just a low budget rip off of The Day After Tomorrow, and I will admit that the thought crossed my mind as well. They are careful in the film not to refer to the coming calamity as another Ice Age, referring to it as that theoretical scientific condition known as "absolute zero". I don't know if this is legitimate science or not, it made for o.k. theater. (Although I'm quite sure that this condition, if it could occur, wouldn't happen over the period of a couple of days)

Jeff Fahey plays the scientist who first sounds the alarm, based on his observation of some curious weather patterns and his findings on a research trip to the North Pole (in which all of his buddies were killed due to an extreme and deadly shift in the weather, and Jeff was last seen huddling up with his dying pal in a cave when a terrifying CGI storm that destroyed the command post was rolling in. My thought in this scene was "I wonder how he is going to get out of this one?". Well, we fade to black and in the next scene he is back in his office in sunny Miami. You've got to love a script that doesn't sweat the small stuff in details)

Well, when he gets back he sounds the alarm but, as will surprise no one, the higher ups don't believe him, or if they do, they think this big shift is centuries in the future and every one is more worried about securing government funding in the present to ward off this disaster.

Sorry, guys, absolute-freakin-zero is not coming in the 23rd century, its coming later today, and boy does it hit Miami hard. The only people listening to Jeff and his two student researchers are an old professor buddy of his and the prof's wife (Erika Eleniak. Under Siege ), who just happens to be an old flame of Jeff's.

Ah, yes, the tried and true formula of boy meets girl/boy dumps girl/girl marries boy's best friend without boy knowing it/boy meets girl again/girl's hubby gets killed in scientifically impossible catastrophe/boy, girl, and girl's daughter survive in boy's office which is somehow built to withstand a condition no one thought possible two days before it happened/boy gets girl for good/ has been done many, many times, but never better than in Absolute Zero. 

By far, the standout performance in this one is Jessica Amlee, who plays the little girl and has an obvious screen presence and natural talent. That's not to put down the other actors, the script and ridiculous settings did not give them a whole lot to work with.

You might expect some awesome FX in this one like you saw in The Day After Tomorrow. Well, you will be disappointed. Although some of the CGI is not bad, there are others that are cheesier than a Wisconsin dairy farm. In addition to that, at times when they are not using CGI when showing us the devastation coming to Miami, they use the trick of a local newscast footage, which looks suspiciously like some of the footage you might see during the first snowstorm of the year in Albany. Clearly not Miami.

Look, if you've got nothing better to do or have an end of the world complex or love improbable reunions of lost love or if you are a member of that segment of the population who enjoys seeing Erika Eleniak no matter what...then check this out and be prepared to be slightly amused for a while. Otherwise, don't feel bad if you give this a pass, you haven't missed much.

Directed by Douglas Jackson. Starring Linda Purl, Linden Ashby, Shannon Sturges. Drama. Synopsis: A made for TV movie on DVD about a woman who moves in with her brother in law and his children after the death of her sister and assumes the majority of the homemaking duties for two years. She develops an obsessive desire for her brother in law and it turns violent when she learns of his intent to marry another woman.

If you see this one in the store or online, don't let the campy art on the cover fool you, this is in no way a  horror flick, nor will you see any gore, despite the bloody knife that is brandished by the scary looking woman in the bridal gown.

This film was obviously made for TV, so it's going to be more character/story driven than what you might expect from the description on the cover. The only reason that I picked this one up was because I saw that it had Linda Purl, and my first thought was that she had come down a long way to now be doing cheesy slasher films.

I'm glad to say that it was not that at all. The title and the first few minutes of the movie give away the major premise of the plot, that Laci (Purl) was always second best to her late sister, whose husband, Richard (Linden Ashby) and children she has been taking care of since her sister's death.

Richard is obviously doing well, ruggedly handsome and living in a house slightly smaller than Laramie, Wyoming with two kids who are cute as buttons, so it is easy to see why Laci would want a permanent "piece of that", as they say. Well, much to Laci's chagrin (and curious surprise) Richard announces that he intends to marry Nicole (Shannon Sturges), who he has apparently been courting on the sly and, hey, two years of being a widower is long enough.

Laci does not react well to this news and, as we see in flashbacks, she was not wrapped too tight to begin with, as the implication is there that she let her ungrateful mom die because she had heard that sis was the better child one too many times. As the film progresses, we see Laci's obsession increase, from trying on her sister's wedding band, to misleading the children about their soon to be step-mom, to attempted murder and murder.

The plot is not new or originally done here, and there are some things that are a little too hard to buy, such as the quick way that the children-one a teen ager- warm up to their father's intended, whom they apparently knew nothing about, so relatively soon after the death of their mother. Also, the premise of a man having a woman living in his house, particularly his sister in law, and being totally oblivious to her feelings is a bit of a reach. Not interested? Sure, I can buy that. Clueless? Nah.

The only thing that saves this from being entirely forgettable is Purl. You can see her metamorphis from scene to scene, both in her actions and even her looks. The script is weak, but she makes it seem better than it is. I don't mean to slam the other actors, they did o.k.  (Maybe a little less than that in the case of Ashby...I just didn't buy his character for a second), but all of them are so far beneath Purl in acting ability that it is just so obvious that it stands out in the movie. When Purl is not in a scene, this is nothing but an attempt at a "B" movie that is in the lower "C" range and flirting with "D".

This is not a horrible film, I'm not really even trying to say it's bad, its just all about Linda Purl. She delivers, big time in my opinion, but its not enough to make this the really good film it good have been with better acting across the board and a stronger script.

For those of you in the Over 35 club, like me, who hear the name Linda Purl and say, "Gosh, she was pretty good back in the '80's, whatever happened to her?", well, if you do check this one out, you will see that she is doing just fine, indeed.