Out of Time (1988)

There are a few TV shows and movies that aren‘t available on DVD or streaming.  In some cases, like Doctor Who, the tapes were wiped.  New episodes are made available as lost tapes are found, but many are still missing.  Other productions don’t have enough demand to be released on DVD.  It’s a shame because many of them were good enough to at least be worthy of streaming.

One made-for-TV movie that I remember watching was called Out of Time.  It was about a police officer from the future who chases a criminal back to what was then the present.  It was exactly what you’d expect of a failed pilot episode, but I remember liking it.  My only option, apparently, was to watch it streaming on Amazon.

The movie starts in the year 2088.  Channing Taylor is a Los Angeles police officer who doesn’t trust a computer to do a human’s job.  He’s after Richard Marcus, who is up to something.  Taylor comes to realize that Marcus might have a time machine.  It’s the only thing that makes sense.  Taylor figures out when and where the time machine will appear.  Marcus shows up just in time to get the machine, himself.  The two end up back in 1988, where Channing Taylor meets his great-grandfather, Max Taylor.

The movie wasn‘t quite as good as I remember it.  (I can see why it wasn’t picked up for a full series.)  Channing is your typical fish out of water.  Even in 2088, he’s a police officer mostly because Max Taylor was such a great police officer. (No mention is made if any other Taylors made the force.)  When Channing tries to navigate 1988 Los Angeles, he seems to know just enough to get what he wants.  He’s able to use future technology to win money in a scratch-off lottery, but has no idea what a tie is.  He also seems ambiguous on what a bank is, even though Marcus is going to rob one.

The movie is somewhat generic and cliché.  Part of this could be attributed to the fact that it was supposed to be a TV series.  The writers may not have wanted to use up all of their good stuff in one episode.  Other things, I can’t let off so easily.

For instance, Channing has to use his last bit of fuel to save Maxwell.  Since the fuel won’t be invented for a while, it’s used to strand Channing in the past.  Couldn’t the writers have found another way?  Maybe have enough to make one trip back, but have Channing decide to stick around.  He was suspended, so I could understand there being no rush to get back to 2088.

I’d say that it could make for a good TV show, but a similar concept was used for Time Trax.  (This is another TV series I’d like to see released on DVD.)  I think Out of Time may have suffered from more than a few setbacks.  Part of it is the writing.  I’d like to think the movie would have made more sense as part of a series, but it just doesn’t work as a standalone release.  Channing and Maxell seem just too goofy to take seriously.

Also, I suspect that there wasn’t enough of a budget to make it work.  There are almost no special effects to speak of.  We see a laser effect maybe two or three times.  When we do see it, it comes across as just this side of obvious.  The props look like rejects for kids toys.  Channing’s gun looks like someone found a piece of acrylic somewhere and found a way to make it vaguely look like a gun.  I’m really not surprised that it didn’t get picked up for a full season.

IMDb page

In the Year 2889 (1967)

There are certain descriptors that generally mean that a movie is bad.  Rover Corman has been associated with a lot of movies and is associate with many low-budget productions.  Made-for-TV movies, similarly, aren’t known for having better production values.  Remakes, at least, are a mixed bag but are generally worse than the original.  When I say that In the Year 2889 is a made-for-TV remake of a Roger Corman film, that should tell you something.

The movie takes place at the house of John and Joanne Ramsey, who are father and daughter.  John has stockpiled supplies for three people to last three months.  The third person was supposed to be Joanne’s fiancé, but poor Larry didn’t make it home in time.  The bombs went off and nearly everyone was killed.  How did the Ramseys survive?  Their house is in the middle of a valley that’s bordered by lead-filled mountains.  There’s also a heated stream or something.

Anyway, five other people show up.  Steve and Granger are the first two.  They’re brothers.  Steve appears normal, but Granger was hit by enough radiation to kill the entire main cast.  You can tell because it looks like someone put white house paint on part of his face.  Surprisingly, he survives the radiation.  There are also Mickey and Jada.  Jada’s a stripper and Mickey is her loser manager.  She does a striptease in one scene and he spends most of the movie trying to take control or rape Joanna.  Rounding out the crew is Timothy.  He has whiskey.

The entire group looks like they were leftover characters from other movies.  This would be appropriate, as this is where they got the title.  American International Pictures was going to do a movie based on the Jules Verne story, but the project was cancelled after they registered the title.  Rather than let it go to waste, they used the name for this movie.  (There’s absolutely no indication that the movie takes place 900 years in the future.  It looks exactly like 1967.)

It actually sounds like the click-bait version of a bad joke.  (Two brothers, an alcoholic, a stripper and her deadbeat manager walk into a guy’s house.  You won’t believe what happens next.)  The movie is set in and around Casa del Ramsey.  There’s even a pool nearby, which I’m assuming must be on a neighboring property or something.  The story follows the seven survivors, who basically get on each other’s nerves.  There’s even a telepathic mutant that’s also taken an interest in Joanna.  (You can tell he’s a mutant because of the really crappy makeup.)

It looks like very little effort was put into this movie.  I noticed that animals didn’t appear to mutate at all, even though humans did.  There also seems to be a minimal understanding of science.  I’m not even sure they were using a standard unit to describe the amount of radioactivity.  I always imagine that there’s some expert out there watching movies like this and repeatedly asking if they actually had done even minimal research.  (Then again, this is before the World Wide Web.)

It seems to be a favorite of those 50-movie bundles you get and with good reason:  It’s public domain.  Consider that the original Corman production, Day the World Ended, had a bigger budget.   I actually got this as part of a nine-movie set.  The only one I have left to watch is Metropolis.  Even as part of a set, I’m not sure this movie is worth the price.

IMDb page

To Love, Honor and Deceive (1996)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

WARNING:  I’m going to pretty much give away everything.  If you’ve never seen this movie and have any interest in doing so, now would be a good time to do so.  If you want to know why you should skip it, then please read on.


I’ve often wondered why people would star in a made-for-TV movie.  Some are good, but many tend to fall flat.  I don’t know if the scripts aren’t good enough to make it to the big screen or if the people involved just don’t care.  To Love, Honor and Deceive is the perfect example of this

The movie starts with a happy family doing things that a happy family does.  Sydney is a mother thinking about going back to work, but really likes being there for her son, Adam.  Husband and Father Matthew works in the import/export business.  Matthew can’t spend that much time with Adam because he has to be in other countries for long spans of time.

Matthew decides to take Adam out on the boat, which seems innocent enough.  Problem is that, because of a bad storm, Matthew and Adam don’t make it back.  Police find the boat and enough stuff floating around that Matthew and Adam are presumed dead.

Sydney doesn’t buy it.  At first, it seems like she’s just grieving and can’t accept the loss of her family.  The FBI tells her to drop it.  Things get suspicious when she goes to visit Matthew’s parents.  She finds that they don’t exist, nor has anyone ever heard of Matthew.  (I find it odd that she never got suspicious when they weren’t at their own son’s wedding, nor did they have any contact with their soon-to-be-5-year-old grandson.)

After a little digging, she comes to realize that her husband had led another life and had essentially done the same thing to another woman.  Sydney pretty much writes off her husband, but wants her son back.  The FBI still denies everything.  No one will give her any information.  So, she sets off to find her son and eventually does.

There are a lot of questions that I have.  First, as I mentioned, it seems odd to me that she never met her in-laws.  From the sound of it, she never even got a phone call from them.  Since her son is turning 5, we can assume that they’ve been married at least that long.  They were probably dating for a while before that.  I would think that if you were going to marry someone, or at least have that kind of intent, you’d be better off saying that your parents had died.

Also, why is it that the FBI is always made out to be the bad guys?  They’re always the one withholding information and telling the local police what to do.  I always imagine some FBI agent sitting at home watching movies like this and yelling at the TV, “Oh, we’re not like that at all!!!”  The FBI really seems to get a bad reputation.

More importantly, Sydney has a best friend that apparently slept with her husband, but the best friend doesn’t even get a name.  You’d think that someone like that would at least be called by name at least once.  I will say that I wasn’t complaining that Rosalind Chao played the friend.  I’ve always liked her.

While watching the movie, I thought Sydney looked familiar.  It took me a while to realize that she had been on the TV series Las Vegas.  She and Chao were two of only a handful of actors that I realized from other things.  Many of the other actors were new to me.  While there was some good acting, I felt like the overall acting wasn’t that good.  The husband seemed a little flat at times.  Even in the one scene where he gets angry, it doesn’t seem like he’s really getting that emotional.

In fact, I’d say that the entire movie wasn’t that good.  I understand that her husband lied to her, but Sydney showed no interest whatsoever in getting him back, even if it was for a divorce.  I felt like it just happened.  There was no explanation over why she lost interest in him so quickly.

There’s no back story to the couple, which would have been nice, especially considering that the husband’s story wasn’t real.  (There should have been a lot of clues aside from missing parents.)  The movie was fairly disappointing and seemed to alternate between dragging out and being rushed.  I’d recommend avoiding this movie if you have a choice. 

IMDb page

Timestalkers (1987)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

WARNING:  I’m going to be picking apart this movie.  This includes giving away major details, including the ending.  If you’re not into that sort of stuff, you may want to watch the movie before reading the review.

I tend to remember the movies of my childhood as being better.  I seem to recall the graphics and style as being somewhat decent compared to what I’ve seen as of late.  Yes, some movies do get remastered.  Yes, we do tend to be selective about things we like.  Yes, there were a lot of crappy movies made in any era.  When I saw Timestalkers, I knew it had a certain made-for-TV feel to it.  I later found out that it was actually a made-for-TV movie.  This explains why the film quality and script weren’t particularly that good.

Don’t get me wrong.  We do have some talent here.  The movie stars William Devane as Scott McKenzie.  He’s a father that loses his wife and children early in the movie.  This leads him to stay at home mostly when he’s not at work.  This leads his friend, General Joe Brodsky, to take him to an auction of Old West items.  (The General is played by John Ratzenberger.)  The two of them bid on a single lot, each taking a chest of items.  Joe finds some spurs he like, but Scott gets an interesting photo.  In it, a man is seen with a .357 Magnum, which hadn’t been introduced when the picture was taken.  (He has the picture tested, of course, and it really is that old.)

What does Scott do?  He writes a paper that looks like it came from the 80s, all right, asking his class how such a modern gun could have wound up in a photo that old.  The class is saved by the bell, which allows Georga Crawford to introduce herself.  (Georgia Crawford is played by Lauren Hutton.)  She’s very interested in the photo.  In fact, she’s the only person, other than Scott, to have more than a passing interest in it.

The two of them manage to find the spot where the picture was taken.  (Apparently, it’s not that far from where Scott lives.)  Well, as it happens, Georgia is from the future and she has a little diamond thingy that lets her go back to about when the picture was taken.  There, she finds out that this evil-looking guy is in town and he was asking questions.  Georgia is able to find him.  He sees her and chases her back to town, where she returns to the present.  He’s able to track her and follow her back to just after when she returns.  Georgia and Scott drive off just in time to not even notice that he’s shooting a gun at her.

To make a long story short, Georgia tells Scott that she’s from the future.  The evil-looking guy is Dr. Joseph Cole.  He worked with her father to create a time-travel device.  The two get into an argument.  Georgia and Scott figure out that Cole is in the past to kill Georgia’s great-great-(x23)-great-great-grandfather means no Georgia’s father to stand in his way.

Several things bother me about the ending, and yes, I am going to give away more details about the ending.  First, why go back so far to kill someone’s ancestor?  I suppose you might say that if you can travel in time effortlessly, going back a few generations is as easy as going back a few centuries, but it does present a few problems.  First, how do you know that this really is the right great-great-(x23)-great-great-grandfather?  For all you know, someone was adopted along the way.  Heck.  Several people could have been adopted along the way.

Also, how do you know that the ancestor in question isn’t also the ancestor or someone else?  You could share a common distant great-great-grandparent somewhere.  For all you know, you’d also be eliminating yourself.  Going that far back would probably influence a good deal of the population.  I’ve noticed that a lot of movies, non-sci-fi included, tend to have lineages that don’t branch.  Someone has one child, who goes on to have one child, who goes on to have one child and so on down the generations.  The truth is that someone along the line is bound to have several children and not necessarily boys.  Someone that far back in Georgia’s family tree is actually much more likely to have a different last name, which brings me back to my original point:  Going that far back in her family tree makes it harder to trace with any degree of certainty.

Another thing I noticed was that at the end, one of the time-travel diamonds was thrown to the ground.  Several horses walked over it until it was buried, which gave me the impression that it was supposed to be lost to the ages.  You’d think that Georgia would be certain to pick it up so as not to risk someone from the past altering history.  Scott seemed somewhat motivated to go to the future with her, so she knows that at least one person would want it and know where to look for it.  (It was never stated one way or the other, so it’s entirely possible that she did pick it up.)

This is what I had to put up with as a child.  Granted, it is on the low-budget end, but I do remember seeing things like this. I could see liking this when it first came out, but wondering why as I got older.  The graphics aren’t particularly good, which you might expect from a made-for-TV movie.  When someone is holding the diamond, you can tell that a static image was laid over the footage,  (There are one or two scenes where it’s obvious.  Also notice that you never see a close-up of someone operating the device.)

This is one of those movies that I’m glad I didn’t buy.  I was able to get it streaming on Netflix.  If you can get it streaming, I’d say give it a shot.  It’s only 100 minutes.  If you see it in the remainder bin at a Wal-Mart, you might want to think twice about buying it unless it’s part of some 50-movie set or something.  At the end of the movie, I was left wondering. Was it all a dream?  Will Scott ever see Georgia again?  Why did I sit through the entire thing, anyway? 

IMDb page

Style Wars (1983)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

When I was a kid, I remember associating New York City trains with graffiti. That seemed to be one of the images presented on TV and in media, fairly or unfairly. Then again, it was just paint to me back then. I thought people were just taking spray paint and putting up random images on the trains. Not only has New York City has cleaned up their image since then, but I have come to learn that the images are more than random.

Style Wars goes into what the images mean and shows who’s making them. Those doing it, who sometimes call themselves bombers, want to get their name out among others that are doing it. If you get your name on enough trains, you can be seen all over New York City. There are detractors. Those interviewed called it a quality-of-life issue, comparing it to prostitution or picking someone’s pocket. Many people didn’t like it. There’s also a pretty heavy price tag associated with getting rid of the paint.

New York City eventually cracked down on it, which is probably why I don’t associate graffiti with the trains any more. The documentary showed this campaign that the city had involving celebrities. There is a certain reverence paid to the graffiti artists, though. The crackdown is shown in a somewhat negative light, almost like the end of an era. The graffiti artists had to move on to other means of expression.

The movie didn’t so much put graffiti in a positive light, though. It was mostly showing who did this and maybe even why. There was one kid talking about it in front of his mother, who just didn’t get it. There was another guy who had only one arm, yet managed to do graffiti anyway. Despite complaining from the public and the best efforts of the transit authority and Mayor Ed Koch, people still found a way in to mark the trains. Everyone that did it had some way in.

There was one kid that was saying how he could get away with $50 or $100 in spray paint. Once he had a trench coat, all he had to do was wait for a couple of black or Hispanic kids to come in and he could stuff the trench coat was the limit. There was another kid trying to explain why he did it with his mother in the background. She kept rolling her eyes whenever he would say something like how he would never get caught.

The documentary focused mostly on the graffiti, but showed other aspects of life that went along with it, saying at one point that rap was the spoken word and graffiti was the written word. It seemed like the rap and break dancing were filler, though. It was almost like the producers didn’t have enough graffiti to go around and needed something a little more.

The movie really wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be. Even at 70 minutes, it seemed long at times. Part of it was that the film quality wasn’t that good. (That has to do not only with the movie being 25 years old, but also with the producers using smaller, more portable video cameras which have lower quality.) When I was done with it, I ended up returning it to NetFlix pretty quickly. (I’m beginning to think I should have watched some of the extras.)

I read that there was a follow-up documentary done recently, but I don’t know if I’m going to watch that. This was more of a three-star movie. If I have the time and I’m running out of movies on my NetFlix queue, I may get it. As for this movie, I think I’d recommend the same thing to you. Don’t waste a lot of time getting it, but if it comes on while you’re watching PBS or something, go for it. 

IMDb page

Doctor Who (1996)

The original Doctor Who ran for 26 seasons.  When it ended in 1989, a lot of people were disappointed.  In 1996, hope arrived in the form of a TV movie/backdoor pilot that aired on Fox, brought to us by Universal Television, BBC Worldwide and the Fox Network.  It starts with Sylvester McCoy as The Doctor, transporting the remains of his mortal enemy, The Master, back to their home planet for interment.  He crash lands on Earth and is promptly shot.

Rather than die, he regenerates.  He is the same person with the same memories, but has a different appearance.  He’s now played by Paul McGann.  Over the course of the movie, The Doctor has to stop The Master from destroying Earth.  Both The Doctor and The Master have help.  Of course, since this was supposed to be the start of a new TV series, we can assume that The Doctor saves the day.

When the movie first aired, I remember liking it.  I think this may have been because it was the first new material in such a long time.  My only access to the show was the reruns on PBS.  Here was something I could actually watch new.  I was even a little disappointed that nothing ever came of it.  When I saw that I could rent the movie through Netflix, I decided to give it a second look.

I don’t think that this would have been a worthy successor to the original series.  It had a different feel and was probably made to appeal to both American and British audiences.  Judging by the fact that it wasn’t picked up, it probably failed on both counts.  I suspect that a good deal of that had to do with too many hands in the pot.  You had three production companies, each making their own demands and trying to serve two audiences.  When a new show was eventually produced, it was produced solely by the BBC.

The movie also seems a bit light on the story, probably because it was meant to bring Americans up to speed.  Yes, some of us had seen the show, but not everyone watches PBS.  This was well before Netflix or Redbox.  It would have cost you a fortune to get all those VHS tapes from Blockbuster.  They had to get across a lot of information in short order, like Time Lords having two hearts and 13 lives.  The movie ultimately got pulled in too many directions.

I suppose every franchise has one or two entries that fans would sooner forget.  Star Trek fans make fun of the odd-numbered movies.  I heard that James Cameron wasn’t fond of some of the Terminator sequels.  (He considers Genesys to be a direct true sequel to Terminator 2.)  Highlander II: The Quickening is disavowed by some fans.  This may be the weak link in the Doctor Who universe.  (I don’t recall it being mentioned much in the new series, but that may have more to do with rights and clearances.)

Ultimately, it worked out well.  Christopher Eccleston took over the role in 2005.  Several other actors have taken over the role since then.  The show has been going strong since then and we have a Christmas Special to look forward to each year.  It would be interesting to see what happens in another 50 years.

IMDb page

Beyond Suspicion/Appointment for a Killing (1993)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.  A few modifications have been made.

When you say that a movie was made for TV, it‘s not usually meant to boost people’s expectations about it.  I’m not saying that it’s fair, but it’s often right.  Take Appointment for a Murder, a.k.a. Beyond Suspicion.  The movie is about a dentist, Stan, who has a thing for killing people for money.  Shortly after divorcing his wife, Joyce, he admits to killing someone, but in such a vague manner that she can’t really pin anything on him.  The next morning, Stan threatens that if she tells anyone, he’ll kill her or arrange to have her killed.

She does go to the police, but they don’t take her seriously.  Stan didn’t give out any details like names, locations or motives.  She does catch the attention of a Federal Agent Ron McNally, who thinks that he can link Stan to several murders.  What really makes Stan  a suspect and makes the whole operation possible is that Stan killed someone that he owed money to, which looked very suspicious.  (There was no proof, of course, but it was very convenient for Stan.)   Joyce agrees to have her house bugged so that the authorities can hopefully get some evidence.

Of course, it’s not that easy.  Stan is a cold, calculating person and would never admit to doing anything so quickly.  Yes, Stan does go over to Joyce’s new place a lot, but he’s not the kind of person that usually makes mistakes.  Plus, you’ve got Joyce’s meddling cat, who starts playing with one of the microphones, drawing Stan’s attention.  (I’ve always thought that this sort of thing is cliché and used only to add some drama, but I digress.)  Joyce does eventually get Stan to confess to murder on tape, thus sending Stan to jail for a long time.

Now, in this case, the movie does reek of being made for TV.  First, you’ve got those fadeouts every fifteen or twenty minutes.  Second, the video quality looks like it was made for the small screen.  Add to that the fact that there’s not much of a detailed story or character development.  (It’s based on a true story.)  There are three big names involved in the movie:  Corbin Bernsen as Stan, Markie Post as Joyce and Kelsey Grammer as Agent McNally.  (Don Swayze is the only other person I recognized.)

The movie takes place in St. Louis.  There are a few establishing shots of St. Louis, like the Gateway Arch, but the rest of the film could have been filmed anywhere.  The houses look like any other houses in any suburban area.  The streets look like they could be anywhere.  I guess one of the advantages of it being so far inland is that you don’t have to worry about coastlines.  (I guess it is kind of hard to put that sort of stuff in inconspicuously.)

I got this as part of a two-pack of movies a long, long time ago with the intention of writing reviews.  (The other movie was To Love, Honor And Deceive.)  Both movies were decent, but I really think I should have skipped these.  I don’t even remember how much I paid for them, but I think it was too much.  If you’re going to watch this movie, I’d recommend waiting for it to come on TV again.

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