WEIRD WEDNESDAY: The Jupiter Menace (1982)

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“In this documentary film narrated by George Kennedy, we investigate the planet Jupiter and the secret power it holds over our planet Earth.  Directors Peter Matulavich and Lee Auerbach have combined years of research and interviews with the nation’s leading scientists and historians.  The result is a documentary with such impact that it must be watched and then watched again to fully grasp the tremendous amount of information and prophetic study packed into all 80 minutes!  Discover the Jupiter Menace!” 

The world is doomed, and nothing can be done about it.

Directed by Lee Auerbach and Peter Matulavich (who wrote several episodes of In Search Of) and written by Matulavich and Alan Coats, this tells us that by the year 2000 — 26 years ago — the poles of our planet would move and send us into space, as a grand alignment would cause volcanoes to explode, earthquakes to shatter cities and, well, you wouldn’t want to live on this planet, let me tell you that much.

That’s because Jupiter and Saturn — “Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania, Neptune, Titan, stars can frighten” — were about to move as well, and the Bible says that will happen, and so do astrologers and the Anasazi. Chester Brooks, a computer programmer and church deacon, explains in this movie how he programmed his computer with every reference to natural catastrophes in the Bible, then uses a simple map to calculate that the Dome of the Rock will be destroyed in the near future. 

So do John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann, who said that this alignment of the planets would cause major disasters, including a large earthquake on the San Andreas Fault, in their 1974 book The Jupiter Effect. A rare planetary alignment when Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto would be on the same side of the Sun would produce enough tidal forces on our system’s big star. 

The documentary highlights the San Andreas Fault as a scar and features Peter Franken (a former Pentagon researcher) describing a nightmare scenario where Los Angeles is taken out, resulting in over 100,000 immediate deaths and grotesque injuries. Then, technicians use a computer to simulate a 12-point earthquake on the Richter scale, a force 10,000 times more powerful than the 1906 San Francisco quake.

When the alignment happened on March 10, 1982, no major disasters occurred. Gribbin later disavowed the theory, admitting in The Little Book of Science that he “don’t like it, and I’m sorry I ever had anything to do with it” In 1982, he and Plagemann published The Jupiter Effect Reconsidered, shifting the focus to a supposed 1980 event linked to Mount St. Helens, though this also lacked evidence, as you would expect.

Plagemann, Jeffrey Goodman and John White, who wrote Pole Shift. appear in this, along with psychics Clarissa Bernhardt (who claims to have predicted over 30 earthquakes and visualizes the San Francisco Bay becoming an inland sea and the East Coast being ravaged by volcanic activity) and Alex Tanous, and CSA leader James Ellison (an American white supremacist and this group means The Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord, a radical paramilitary and survivalist group active in the 70s and 80s). There is also a group of people who plan on living in the sky, the STEL Community, before they come back to the surface to rule. Located 60 miles south of Chicago, this group planned to build 3,000 airships by 1999 to hover above the Earth during the cataclysm, before building a new community they named Philadelphia.

What’s insane is that both of these groups are presented as sane and not at all fringe.

Why should you watch this? Because George Kennedy needed a paycheck, and I can respect that. It also has a soundtrack by Larry Fast, who is also Synergy. On his site, Fast says, “Larry Fast is best known for his series of pioneering electronic music albums recorded under the project name SYNERGY. He is also recognized for his decade-long work with Peter Gabriel, playing synthesizer on recordings and tours, and serving as part of the production team on many of Peter’s albums. During his career, Larry has worked as an electronic music composer/arranger and producer, contributing to numerous platinum-selling recordings with world-renowned artists. Performers as diverse as Nektar, Bonnie Tyler, Foreigner, Hall & Oates,  Annie Haslam (Renaissance), The Strawbs, Meat Loaf, Barbra Streisand and many others have called on Larry’s electronic production talents.” He also played synth on “Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young” and “Nowhere Fast” for the  Streets of Fire soundtrack, as well as on Hall and Oates’ “Private Eyes” and Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” 

Much like an off-brand Sunn movie, this has two narrators, the other being C. Lindsay Workman, who was the voice of God in Garfield: His Nine Lives. And hey — the cinematographer was Robert Harmon, who went on to direct The Hitcher and shot stills on Nocturna, Tourist Trap, Fairy Tales, Fade to Black and Hell Night.

You can watch this on YouTube.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: Julie Darling (1983)

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Between Pin, Cathy’s Curse and this film, what is it about Canadian families in horror films? Beneath a surface of politeness, is everyone this psychotic north of the border?

Julie (Isabelle Mejias, Scanners II: The New Order) just wants to play with her pet snake, hunt with her dad, and, well, lie in bed with him. But when her mom takes away her snake, she just watches a delivery boy (Paul Hubbard, who played Flash Gordon in the deleted scenes in A Christmas Story) violate her and does nothing to save her life, even though she’s holding a gun. It’s a horrifying scene, as the man is shocked that he’s knocked the woman’s head so hard into the ground. He’s more upset than Julie when he sees the blood seeping out of the back of her brain. Julie just watches, fascinated yet removed.

Julie thinks she has her father (Anthony Franciosa, Tenebre) all to herself, but he soon finds a new wife: the alluring Susan (Sybil Danning)! She brings sex appeal and a stepson. And because she may have been dating daddy before mommy died, maybe Julie’s dad is taking advantage of the death she caused.

One thing he’s definitely taking advantage of is the opportunity to make sweet, sweet love to Susan. He doesn’t know that his daughter is watching the entire time and enjoying things way too much, imagining herself in bed with her father! Ugh!

And it gets worse and worse, as Julie does things like lock her stepbrother in a refrigerator, nearly killing him, and then brings the rapist who killed her mother back to the house to take out her new mom in a blackmail plot. Yep, she even tells him, “You can rape her all you want!” It all adds up to an ending that totally shocked me, and I don’t want to cheat you out of it.

Unlike The Bad Seed, Julie isn’t just born bad; she is a product of a father who is so pathologically oblivious that he borders on being an accomplice.

Yep. This is one rough little film, which makes sense when you realize it’s by the writer and director of Chained Heat, Paul Nicolas (that movie also has Danning in it, plus Linda Blair, Henry Silva, Tamara Dobson, John Vernon and Stella Stevens for a movie that transcends the WIP genre).

It’s not for everyone. But Mejias is great in it. And it’s the kind of movie that you are amazed exists, and even more astounded as it plays in your DVD player (or streams on YouTube).

In a bizarre twist of “it’s a small world,” Cindy Girling (who plays the mother who gets her head smashed) was actually married in real life to Paul Hubbard (the delivery boy who kills her). Talk about taking your work home with you!

Return to Death Park (2025)

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Ken Brewer clearly has a favorite hiking spot, and unfortunately for the local population, it’s filled with body bags. With nine films now under his belt, Brewer’s Death Park saga has officially transitioned from a low-budget slasher series into a sprawling indie epic. By returning to the familiar, scenic grounds of Santa Carla Regional Park, Return to Death Park leans into the comfort food of horror: beautiful foliage, questionable law enforcement and a high body count.

This time around, The Death Park Killer’s body (Brewer and/or  Robert Allen Mukes) has vanished from a morgue and new murders have begun. To stop this once and for all, Chloe (Josi Kat) leads a posse of bounty hunters after a $50,000 reward, while survivors Hunter (Doug Waught), Willie and Shady (Linnea Swanson) also return. As Shady and Chloe have both lost sisters to the killer, they have some level of kinship.

This has a huge cast, from one-eyed groundkeeper Willie Loomis (Joe D’Aguanno) and Detective Frank Ricardo (Rich Gordon), who are just searching the park, to the entire posse that comes in guns drawn, shooting for that big paycheck. who steps up to talk to the group. He warns them not to go to the park with guns as the place is being patrolled by undercover police, and they will be arrested. There may be two killers, but there’s definitely a “Matrix Guy” (John Ozuna), who can teleport before getting his head smashed in with a sledgehammer.

Brewer understands the assignment: if you have a massive cast and a legendary killer, you give the people what they want. And that’s confrontation. The tension between the heavily armed bounty hunters and the undercover police patrolling the park creates a powder keg environment where the killer isn’t the only threat.

You can get this from Livid Media.

KO-FI SUPPORTER: Sons of Steel (1988)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s movie is brought to you by Steve Shinners, who subscribed at the Big B&S’er tier.

Would you like me to write about the movies of your choice? It’s simple!

  1. Visit Ko-Fi.
  2. Join as a monthly member for just $1. That makes you a Little B&S’er.
  3. As a Medium B&S’er at just $3 a month, if you pick a movie or a director, I’ll write about them for you. In fact, I’ll do one for each month you subscribe and even dedicate the post to you.
  4. For $5 a month, you basically get some major power. As a Big B&S’er, I’ll write an entire week on any subject you’d like. Every month, if you’d like.

Steve asked me to get to this movie and described it this way: “It’s everything that was bad about Australian movies from that period. Characters turned up to 11, and accents that were what a private school boy thought “real” Australiana sounded like. The fact that the lead thought he was going to be a global superstar makes it all the more perplexing.”

World famous hair metal impresario and eco-warrior Black Alice (Rob Hartley, who was also in a short that inspired this movie called Knightmare (co-directed by Yahoo Serious!), using the name Black Alice; that’s also the name of the band, which had Hartley on vocals, Jamie Page playing guitar, Vince Linardi on bass and Joe Demasi playing the drums. They released the album Endangered Species before breaking up, but reformed for this movie with Andy Cichon on bass, Scott Johnson on drums, Paul Radcliffe on keyboards and guitar, and Hartley and Page. They have been imprisoned in a stasis hologram by the dictatorial leaders of OCEANA, a corporate entity that now owns Australia. 

After the death of a lover, Black Alice is trapped in endless slumber until Alice is accidentally freed 113 years later. He finds a wasteland where Sydney was vaporized after the peace ferry he was supposed to be on collided with the nuclear sub. Now, he must travel backward in time to fix everything. He is aided by two barbarian warriors, X and J, and a sentient motorcycle called The Shine. He has only 10 hours before his physical body decomposes into smegma.

You may hate every minute of this, but it’s a movie where nearly everyone is wearing face paint. One that starts with a cover of Thunderclap Newman’s “Something In The Air” and ends up being a musical. I have an absurd weakness for the late 80s world of post-apocalyptic visions, kind of like Road Warrior by way of Italy by way of Rinse Dream. It doesn’t hurt that Black Alice sounds like Bowie by way of sleazy late 80s glam metal. Just imagine if bands like D.A.D., Zodiac Mindwarp or the Dogs D’Amour got to make a film of their own! Throw in some ancient CGI, sword and sorcery moments and attractive women in lab coats, and you have a movie!

Director and writer Gary Keady co-produced Black Alice’s Endangered Species album with Steve James (not the action film actor), and it was originally released in the UK before coming out in Australia. According to the Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop, the band indulged in “…the world of sword and sorcery with tracks like ‘Blade of Slaughter,” “In the Hall of the Ancient Kings” and “Man of Metal” (an ode to bushranger Ned Kelly).

Keady even wrote a review of the film on IMDb: “I’m probably biased as I wrote and directed the film. It had its moments. It was a hard film to make. I had to rewrite the original script only six weeks prior to principal photography due to budgetary changes. In a lot of ways the film paid the price for being a first in Australia. It was the first film to be shot employing digital live sync sound and thus pathed the way for others. Sons of Steel was shot at night, at times a mile or more underground Sydney in World War II bunkers (Gen. McArthur’s). It was a tough eight week shoot and in retrospect an difficult task for a first time director. I’m proud of what we tried to do with as little funding as we had. We put a lot of quality up on the screen. Those who I was fortunate enough to work with gave the film a first class look and me first class experience. Some find the story hard to follow, and that would be because so much of it wasn’t shot because of bad scheduling, and plenty ended up on the edit floor for one reason or another. I’m sure that’s generally taken as a directors excuse for a flawed film, perhaps so, but then again maybe I’m right. I did live through the experience of not only writing it a number of times but raising the finance, writing much of the music, directing it and selling it around the world. And for that experience I am eternally thankful.. I hope I can improve with the next picture, and I hope those who see Sons of Steel are entertained enough to appreciate it and perhaps look out for my next film.”

This is a cult movie without a cult, and I’d like to change that! Sure, it doesn’t really have a likeable lead character, but when has that ever stopped us before? Virtually every character looks like they’re auditioning for a glam metal band or a Mad Max reboot, including the corporate drones. It also has a lizard monster named The Freak, with the biggest lizard cock you’ve ever seen. Sure, the acting isn’t all that great, but there’s so much fog that Lucio Fulci was like, “Ha bisogno di tutta questa nebbia?”

You can get this from Vinegar Syndrome or watch it on YouTube.

TUBI ORIGINAL: TMZ No BS: DMX (2023)

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DMX broke through in the late ’90s with hits like Ruff Ryders’ Anthem, and It’s Dark & Hell Is Hot and had one of the most recognizable voices in hip hop. In this TMZ on Tubi doc, Harvey Levin, Charles Latibeaudiere and Towanda Robinson discuss the impact of his music and persona on pop culture and how his death in 2023 continues to impact fans. 

“All I know is pain, all I feel is rain

How can I maintain with that shit on my brain?”

So much of DMS’s raps are in my brain years after he said them. He was a conflicted person, someone who couldn’t escape drugs but who would help people. There’s a great story in this about him helping clean at a restaurant long after he became a big star. 

DMX’s life was a series of intense highs and lows, a struggle he wore on his sleeve. He rose from a brutal upbringing in a New York that felt like a war zone at the time, enduring hardships that Harvey Levin describes as beyond words. 

You can watch this on Tubi.

KO-FI SUPPORTER: Telephone (1986)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s movie is brought to you by Eddie R., who subscribed at the Big B&S’er tier.

Would you like me to write about the movies of your choice? It’s simple!

  1. Visit Ko-Fi.
  2. Join as a monthly member for just $1. That makes you a Little B&S’er.
  3. As a Medium B&S’er at just $3 a month, if you pick a movie or a director, I’ll write about them for you. In fact, I’ll do one for each month you subscribe and even dedicate the post to you.
  4. For $5 a month, you basically get some major power. As a Big B&S’er, I’ll write an entire week on any subject you’d like. Every month, if you’d like.

Telephone is a 27‑minute short film written, directed, and produced by Eric Red in 1986, in which an emotionally distraught and suicidal woman (Laurie Latham, whose voice is in Reservoir Dogs) dials random numbers, hoping to connect with someone. She ends up reaching a man (Bud Cort, RIP, star of Harold and Maude), telling him that she plans to kill herself in a minute unless he can talk her out of it.

He doesn’t know her. He’s never met her. But suddenly, he has sixty seconds to save a life. The film captures a grueling, intimate power dynamic: while he hangs upside down in inversion boots trying to relax, he is forced into a psychological chess match where the stakes are literal life and death.

Eric Red, a Pittsburgh native, used this short as a calling card for his visceral, high-concept style. You can see the seeds of his later work here—the same DNA that made The Hitcher and Near Dark cult classics. Red has a gift for taking a simple, claustrophobic premise and ratcheting up the tension until it’s unbearable. He would go on to direct Cohen and Tate, Body Parts and Bad Moon, as well as write one of my favorite American giallo films — and one of the first DVDs I ever got — Blue Steel.

Filmed on location in Hollywood in 16 mm, the short is visually striking. The images of the woman’s apartment bathed in neon, and the hazy skyline behind her, are gorgeous. They evoke a mood similar to the famous scenes in Tokyo Decadence, which is impressive considering Telephone predates it by nearly a decade.

For younger viewers, Telephone serves as a time capsule. This was an era before caller ID or “star 69.” When the phone rang, you had no idea who was on the other end. It could be a friend, a telemarketer or—as in this film—a total stranger inviting you into their darkest moment. Red captures the terrifying intimacy of the old rotary phone system. As Latham’s character notes, the connection they share in that half-hour is “more intimate than if we’d fucked.”

The film deals with suicide in a way that feels raw and unpolished. In the mid-80s, these conversations happened in the shadows, and Red brings that isolation to the forefront. Despite the setup, the film’s closing remains a genuine surprise. While some critics argue it could be tighter, the deliberate tempo allows the audience to feel the same exhaustion and emotional depletion as the characters. You really start to feel for Cort’s character. Maybe it’s because as film nerds, we inherently love Cort and want him to succeed.

You can watch this on the director’s YouTube page.

TUBI ORIGINAL: No BS Hollywood’s Most Shocking Videos (2024)

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TMZ is always there, ready for celebrities to screw up and then have the video for their site and TV show. In this special, they’re taking that content all over again to re-embarass people and make even more money.

Starting with Michael Richards at The Laugh Factory, this goes through the what and why of some of Hollywood’s wildest moments that were captured on video. Remember Jay-Z, Beyonce and her sister Solange fighting in an elevator? Or a German Shepherd in distress while filming a scene for A Dog’s Purpose? 

Then we have Justin Bieber pissing in a bucket, getting upset about not getting a model helicopter and all the things he did when he was being a teenager. Reese Witherspoon is getting busted for a DUI. Britney Spears getting bumped by a basketball player.

This, like all the Tubi TMZ specials, is just people sitting on a couch and talking down on the very people who they get paid to be the parasites of. 

You can watch this on Tubi.

TUBI ORIGINAL: TMZ: No BS: Arianna Grande (2023)

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I love that TMZ is getting paid by Tubi just for having its crew sit on a couch and talk about celebrities. This time, it’s Arianna Grande, who took her four-octave vocal range from Broadway to two Nickedolian series before becoming a huge music star with songs like “Thank U, Next” and “Bang Bang.” Today, she’s in movies like Wicked and is one of the biggest music artists of all time with estimated sales of over 90 million records.

Anyone shocked by her dating history should just listen to one of the songs I mentioned above, “Thank U, Next,” in which she sings “Thought I’d end up with Sean/ But he wasn’t a match/ Wrote some songs about Ricky/ Now I listen and laugh/ Even almost got married/ And for Pete, I’m so thankful/ Wish I could say “Thank you” to Malcolm/ ‘Cause he was an angel,” which references boyfriends Big Sean, Ricky Alvarez, Pete Davidson and Mac Miller.

Grande can’t even get on her TikTok without causing controversy. Just this weekend, she was online with a face mask, and fans started to post that she’s had plastic surgery and was changing her appearance. 

Anyways — I hate everyone at TMZ because I get the feeling they think they’re kingmakers. The way the staff sits around eating snacks while deciding if a celebrity’s marriage is on the rocks feels intentionally designed to make the viewer feel like they’re part of an in-crowd. I guess they should do a special Tubi episode about how Epstein wrote that “Harvey Levin, who runs TMZ, is a good friend.”

You can watch this on Tubi.

TUBI ORIGINAL: Day of Reckoning (2025)

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Directed by Shaun Silva (who also directed Jason Aldean’s video for “Try That In a Small Town”) and written by Travis J. Opgenorth, this stars Zack Roerig as lawman John Dorsey, who is about to lose not only his job but his wife to his deputy, Danny Raise (Britton Webb). Against his will, he teams with U.S. Marshall Butch Hayden (Billy Zane) to hold outlaw Emily Rusk (Cara Jade Myers) hostage. A battle of wills ensues as Emily turns the posse on themselves, but as her marauding husband Kyle (Scott Adkins!) and his gang get closer, Emily and John realize they will need each other to survive.

Hayden and Rusk have already had a shootout at a motel, and the body count is piling up. Hayden is even using Big Buck’s (Trace Adkins) biker gang as part of his militia. Beyond Adkins, the inclusion of Yelawolf and Struggle Jennings (grandson of Waylon Jennings) gives the film a distinct outlaw-country texture that complements the Southern Gothic vibe of the motel shootouts and biker militias.

Nearly a Western, this has all the twists and turns you’d expect and maybe a few you won’t. While the marketing pushes the action, the meat of the story is the Stockholm Syndrome-adjacent dynamic between Zack Roerig and Cara Jade Myers as the lines of morality blur because the hero is essentially a man who has already lost his dignity at home. By the time the gang closes in, the film shifts from a chase movie into a siege film, reminiscent of Assault on Precinct 13 or 3:10 to Yuma.

Scott Adkins is widely considered one of the best modern martial arts stars (the Boyka series, John Wick 4), so seeing him as a marauding husband is interesting. He has only one fight scene, which is strange and may not be the best use of him. 

You can watch this on Tubi.

Murder, She Wrote S3 E13: Crossed Up (1987)

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Season 3, Episode 13: Crossed Up (February 1, 1987)

Even when Jessica is sick in bed, people still die, and she’s in the midst of it all.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury?

William Windom and Tom Bosley are back as Dr. Seth and Sheriff Amos.

Michael Horton? Oh no. Grady is in this.

Colleen Camp plays Dody Rogers. She’s been in everything from Battle for the Planet of the Apes to Clue, Sliver, Death Game, Police Academy 2 and 4, Smile, and so much more.

Tony Dow plays Gordon Rogers. He’s Beaver’s brother!

Stephanie Dunnam plays Leslie Cameron. She was in Silent Rage and Play Dead.

James Carroll Jordan plays Adam Rogers, Gisele Mackenzie is Mona, Sandy McPeak is Morgan Rogers, Henry Brandon is Abel Gorcey, James McIntire is Deputy Wells, and Yolanda Nava is a TV announcer.

What happens?

Jessica has hurt her back putting in new windows, so she’s stuck in bed. Dr. Seth says that she needs at least a week more bed rest and gives her a Life Alert bracelet in case she falls and can’t get up. So she’s stuck with Grady making every tuna fish recipe he knows, and if you’ve seen the horrible women Grady has dated on this show, you know that he loves the smell of tuna.

She picks up the phone to call someone and overhears a voice hiring someone to kill an old man. She begs Grady to go tell the news to Sheriff Amos, and he runs out on his bike, nearly getting run over, which makes me sad because I’d love to watch Grady get run down, have the van back up and then roll over his fecund corpse again.

Anyway, everyone acts like J.B. is an idiot, not someone who has already solved two seasons’ worth of murders. Amos just wanted to eat at Mona’s Diner, which means that, from what I’ve seen so far on this show, a small town like Cabot Cove has at least five diners, so nearly one diner per hundred people who live there. No wonder the tourist trade is so important.

The murder Jessica was trying to stop happens, and it’s lumber industrialist Jedediah Rogers, who has three boys — Adam, Gordon and Morgan — who are all about to get rich. Except, well, his journal and will are missing. He also has a granddaughter, Leslie, whom Grady bones up over. She tells him that her grandfather was changing the will to give her all the money and that she has his journal.

Meanwhile, Jessica is solving the case from her Serta. Abel Gorcey, the man who would be the killer, died hours before the actual murder. Amos ends up interrogating everyone while wearing a tape recorder so he can play it for Jessica, who suddenly hears an allergic Gordon on TV and realizes — that’s the killer.

Then this goes all giallo, and a masked killer breaks into J.B.’s place to knife her. Lucky for her, Seth gave her the bracelet, and she called the fire trucks just in time to save her life.

Who did it?

Dody is working with Gordon.

Who made it?

This was directed by the last episode’s bad guy, David Hemings, and written by Steven Long Mitchell and Craig W. Van Sickle, who created the TV shows Cobra and The Pretender.

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid? Does she get some?

No, she’s too busy being in pain and under the covers.

Was it any good?

Yes! It’s Rear Window, but still fun.

Any trivia?

The lightning bolt during the storm is the same one that the U.S.S. Minnow sailed past in the opening of Gilligan’s Island. They flipped the shot, so you don’t recognize it.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Jessica Fletcher: Do you ever get the feeling that you’ve overlooked something obvious? That you’ve done something wrong?

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Yeah. Every time I vote for Amos.

What’s next?

Jessica tells the story of her new novel about a college student accused of killing his music professor, who plagiarized his compositions.