Straight Talk (1992)
Straight Talk has been sitting on my shelf, part of a Mill Creek set along with VI Washawski, just taunting me, knowing that someday, somehow, someway that it would end up sitting in my DVD player, ready to cast its magic spell. Writer Craig Bolotin often worked uncredited on films like Desperately Seeking Susan before writing this […]
Dead Air (2009)
If the Lifetime cable channel decided to make a zombie movie, it would be this low-budget attempt at grafting Danny Boyle’s post-apocalyptic zombie film 28 Days Later (2002) with Oliver Stone’s Talk Radio (1998). “Hey, wait a minute . . . dude, I know this movie . . . but Dead Air? Is this an […]
Dead Air (1994)
When you need a suspenseful slasher flick, a neo-giallo or neo-noir thriller competently done on a tight budget, director Fred Walton (April Fool’s Day, The Rosary Murders) is the man to call. His 1979 debut film, the babysitter stalker flick When a Stranger Calls, budgeted at $1.7 million was brought in under budget at $1.5 […]
Play Misty for Me (1971)
During B&S About Movies’ “Radio Week,” you’ll notice we’ve reviewed a few Lifetime broadcast “radio psycho” films and mention this modest directorial debut by Clint Eastwood in passing. This tale about a womanizing DJ hooking up with the wrong fan is where the “genre” began. Oh, yes: Jessica Walters goes-for-broke in her portrayal of the […]
RADIO WEEK REWIND: Bad Channels (1992)
Ted Nicolaou directed Subspecies, TerrorVision and The Dungeonmaster in addition to this film, where two aliens named Cosmo and Lump take over Superstation 66, a small radio station in Pahoota, California. Meanwhile, DJ Dan O’Dare and Flip Humble have a scam going on that involves a car and polka records. If you haven’t figured out by now that Bad Channels […]
Night Owl (1993)
Don’t be logline or synopsis duped and don’t be conned by the film’s jazz score and soft-focus photography: Jennifer Beals (Flashdance, The Bride, and Vampire’s Kiss, Doctor M) isn’t a “pretty female radio DJ” or a “sultry nighttime disc jockey” and this isn’t a Lifetime-styled, soft-core sex thriller set inside a radio station. This is […]
Night Rhythms (1992)
Nick West (Martin Hewitt) is a nighttime jazz disc jockey of the Dave Garver variety (Play Misty for Me, 1973): as he spins songs, he coos to lonely, sexually frustrated women who, to listen to the Nickster on the radio, must attire themselves in the latest Victoria Secret fashions. Hey, this isn’t KRML 1410 on […]
A Cry for Help (1975)
Here’s another winner from the awesome “Big Three” network TV movie-era of the ‘70s. Also known as End of the Line in its overseas theatrical and later U.S TV syndication runs, A Cry for Help stars Robert Culp (Calendar Girl Murders, The Gladiator, Spectre) as Harry Freeman, a cynical and acerbic, Don Imus-styled radio talk […]
Melinda (1972)
The film noir and Blaxploitation genres meet in MGM’s follow up to 1971’s Shaft (along with 1972’s Cool Breeze and Hitman), which plays as a more action-packed version of Clint Eastwood’s better known radio romp, 1971’s Play Misty for Me—with a dose of karate. Instead of a bad mother private eye, Frankie J. Parker (Calvin […]
Midnight FM (2010)
Ko Sun-Young is an arrogant celebrity DJ on the last two hours of her final overnight shift on a highly-rated radio station. While popular with the listeners, Sun-Young also has her detractors for being “too American” in her tastes and, instead of talking up Korean movies and K-Pop, she’s all about the music of Leonard […]
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