I Just Watched...

[txfilmfan]

I thought I'd seen all of Angela's tv movies, but I missed this one. I wonder if it ran on another network besides the Big 3??

it's SO OBSCURE it doesn't even have A WIKIPEDIA ENTRY!!!!
I have NO IDEA what network it ran on or if it did.

dunno if it's available anywhere else but PRIME.

It was on NBC.

There are Wikipedia articles for it, but not in English, and under its other title: The Love She Sought.

[HoldenIsHere]

American History X (1998) -- Just what the world didn't need: a film abound our own t Neo-Nazis. Edward Norton plays a former skinhead who gets out of prison to find that his brother is drifting into the same poisonous beliefs. He then tries to save his brother, to no affect, as the film doubles back for black-and-white flashbacks of Norton's own days of hate. Performances are fine, but the film is loathsome and a waste of time.

CI, we will have to agree to disagree about this one.

I think the world does need to see Movies about neo-Nazis because unfortunately these groups do exist in our world and have become more active in the US since AMERICAN HISTORY X was released in the late 1990s.

Some of the characters and their actions are loathsome, but the movie is not.
It features one of Edward Norton's most powerful performances and is definitely not a waste of time.

[jamesjazzguitar]

American History X (1998) -- Just what the world didn't need: a film abound our own t Neo-Nazis. Edward Norton plays a former skinhead who gets out of prison to find that his brother is drifting into the same poisonous beliefs. He then tries to save his brother, to no affect, as the film doubles back for black-and-white flashbacks of Norton's own days of hate. Performances are fine, but the film is loathsome and a waste of time.

CI, we will have to agree to disagree about this one.

I think the world does need to see Movies about neo-Nazis because unfortunately these groups do exist in our world and have become more active in the US since AMERICAN HISTORY X was released in the late 1990s.

Some of the characters and their actions are loathsome, but the movie is not.
It features one of Edward Norton's most powerful performances and is definitely not a waste of time.

I agree with you. I found the film compelling and Norton gives a first rate performance.

[CinemaInternational]

I came across a real obscurity on AMAZON PRIME, "A GREEN JOURNEY" aka THE LOVE SHE SOUGHT.



it appears to be a TV MOVIE from 1990, we all know I love ANGIE, but I also love DENHOLM ELLIOT, so I gave it a watch and found myself pretty into it, even though there are issues.


ANGELA LANSBURY plays a deeply committed, stern, SPINSTER-b****-GODDESS MIDWESTERN CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER (without a whit of accent and NO PRODUCT IN HER HAIR!!!!)- very much the sort of role EDNA MAE OLIVER or MARIE DRESSLER or HELEN WESTLEY would have done for RKO/MGM back in 1933. She takes in a pregnant teen played by CYNTHIA NIXON (!!!!!!)- also without a hint of accent, but looking very charming and pretty good in her part. The film at this point seems like it is going to be episodic rather like ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, but no- we leap ahead four years and LANSBURY is on her way to IRELAND on a CATHOLIC SCHOOL TRIP- while there, she plans on meeting up with a LONG TIME PEN PAL PLAYED WONDERFULLY by DENHOLM ELLIOT in the strange fleeting moments of screen time he gets (i DON'T wanna spoil anything, but his character has a secret and is something of a queer (in the classic sense of the term) duck, ELLIOT is of course perfect for the part.) The real "romantic lead" by default becomes ROBERT PROSKY (also without a Midwestern accent) who costars as THE WORLD'S CHILLEST CATHOLIC BISHOP.

(SERIOUSLY, he gives "COOL POPE" a run for his money, it's...weird.)

The movie is clearly a rushed affair- in better hands and with a better script, something interesting could have happened, and while it was filmed partly (and cheaply) in the UNITED STATES (I think BURBANK stands in for MINNESOTA), it was also filmed on location IN IRELAND and I would like at this point to say that I have been to IRELAND and it is ONE OF THE LOVELIEST, IF NOT THE LOVELIEST PLACE I HAVE EVER SEEN.

You would not know it from this movie, it's GENUINELY IRELAND, i can tell, but it's like the LOCATION SCOUT was a MANIC DEPRESSIVE- they film in some of the most KUBRICKIAN and HIDEOUS LOCATIONS IN THIS AND I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY.

AGAIN, this was obviously a rushed affair and it was helmed by JOSEPH SARGENT- three years after JAWS THE REVENGE- so he was no stranger to rushed affairs.

the end credits to this thing are SO CHEAP.

LANSBURY does get TWO BIG EMOTIONAL SCENES, which I know was the point of her doing TV MOVIES (I have a strong suspicion that WORD CAME DOWN FROM ON HIGH over at CBS that JESSICA FLETCHER was NOT ALLOWED to EMOTE on MSW- it must'vde been confining for a performer of LANSBURY'S talent and range and even though she ACES both her BIG CRYING SCENES, they are not worked into the plot organically AT ALL and they stand out as more FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION than anything else.

it's still an interesting hour and a half, and it's on AMAZON PRIME and for some weird reason there were NO COMMERCIALS!!!!

I thought I'd seen all of Angela's tv movies, but I missed this one. I wonder if it ran on another network besides the Big 3??

As Txfilmfan said, it was NBC. I checked a website that has TV listings from the 80s onward to see how it did, and maybe the theme scared some viewers off. It placed third in it's 9 PM timeslot that night behind an episode of the raunchy sitcom Married with Children (on Fox) and a dark edged TV movie with Susan Lucci (on ABC) which won the nught.

[CinemaInternational]

American History X (1998) -- Just what the world didn't need: a film abound our own t Neo-Nazis. Edward Norton plays a former skinhead who gets out of prison to find that his brother is drifting into the same poisonous beliefs. He then tries to save his brother, to no affect, as the film doubles back for black-and-white flashbacks of Norton's own days of hate. Performances are fine, but the film is loathsome and a waste of time.

CI, we will have to agree to disagree about this one.

I think the world does need to see Movies about neo-Nazis because unfortunately these groups do exist in our world and have become more active in the US since AMERICAN HISTORY X was released in the late 1990s.

Some of the characters and their actions are loathsome, but the movie is not.
It features one of Edward Norton's most powerful performances and is definitely not a waste of time.

Fair enough. I know such groups exist, I wish that they didn't, but I guess my reservations were because those beliefs are so incredibly ugly. I had issues too when they had a subplot about such things in 1995's Higher Learning as well. I'm sorry, but its just personal because one of my relatives was in a concentration camp, and while she survived, she was nearly catatonic for the remainder of her life according to my father (she passed before I was born)

[CinemaInternational]

Another bleak round of dealing with the Oscars, and with the glum 2000s, and with uncomfortable issues such as Nazis, concentration camps, cloning, serial killers, warfare, govermental corruption, and sundry other issues.

I wish I could give this post 2 thumbs up.

Your writing is succinct with thoughtful observations that tell me EXACTLY what I need to know before choosing whether to see it since
I agree 100% with what you've written of movies I have seen.

Thank you. With these trio of posts on mostly recent films (in case you didn't see them, the other two are on page 187), I was hoping to do a bit of a service (as in to try to warn some others so they wouldn't have to see some bad films) to some others here, and hopefully that was achieved.

[HoldenIsHere]

Boys Don't Cry (1999) -- grim offering of the events leading up to the murder of a transgender individual (Hillary Swank) in 1993. The film is stricken, glum all the way through, even before the gory conclusion with dank photography, mumbled dialogue, and characters which are always held at a distance. It's hard to get involved in this.

IT's been two decades, but I went into this movie expecting to REALLY NOT LIKE IT, but I ended up liking it. It's not a film i really want to see again...And I think THE DIRECTOR has since gone on to not only some bad movies, but developed a bad personal reputation as well.

Full disclosure: I am not a fan of Hilary Swank although I can recognize that she is a talented actor.

HOWEVER . . . I did not like BOY'S DON'T CRY although I went into it expecting to like it (so the opposite of LHF's experience).

I had seen the documentary THE BRANDON TEENA STORY before I watched the movie.
The documentary includes interviews with people who knew Brandon (I think maybe even the murderers) as well as audio recordings of Brandon's voice.

The events happened entirely in Nebraska. Brandon was born in Nebraska and never lived anywhere outside of Nebraska.
Yet, Hilary Swank uses some kind of Texas/inland Southern accent for Brandon. Huh?

I recall seeing an interview where Hilary Swank talked about her preparation for the role including work to get Brandon's accent "right."
But she uses the WRONG accent!
People who have lived in and around Lincoln, Nebraska their entire lives do not have the kind of accent that Hilary Swank used in BOY'S DON'T CRY

[Hibi]

I thought I'd seen all of Angela's tv movies, but I missed this one. I wonder if it ran on another network besides the Big 3??

it's SO OBSCURE it doesn't even have A WIKIPEDIA ENTRY!!!!
I have NO IDEA what network it ran on or if it did.

dunno if it's available anywhere else but PRIME.

Strange. Wonder if it was some BBC related production and was syndicated in the U.S.?

[Hibi]

I thought I'd seen all of Angela's tv movies, but I missed this one. I wonder if it ran on another network besides the Big 3??

it's SO OBSCURE it doesn't even have A WIKIPEDIA ENTRY!!!!
I have NO IDEA what network it ran on or if it did.

dunno if it's available anywhere else but PRIME.

It was on NBC.

There are Wikipedia articles for it, but not in English, and under its other title: The Love She Sought.

WILD. I wonder how I missed it. Was it a Hallmark Hall of Fame entry? (Remember those?)

[Masha]

THANK YOU for all that info on THE RUSSIAN STAGE PRODUCTION though- pretty fascinating

I thank you for your kind words.

[CinemaInternational]

it's SO OBSCURE it doesn't even have A WIKIPEDIA ENTRY!!!!
I have NO IDEA what network it ran on or if it did.

dunno if it's available anywhere else but PRIME.

It was on NBC.

There are Wikipedia articles for it, but not in English, and under its other title: The Love She Sought.

WILD. I wonder how I missed it. Was it a Hallmark Hall of Fame entry? (Remember those?)

Looked that up, it wasn't a Hallmark Hall of Fame (they have a list of those: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_H ... e_episodes), but rather it was done by Orion Television, now part of MGM's holdings. So, it is likely streaming now because Amazon owns MGM and they can air it as part of extra volume for their streaming service.

[CinemaInternational]

Oh, and after taking in all those recent films, I felt I needed a break, so I took a look at the early talkie Hell's Angels (concerning WWI), and while a bit sluggish at times, it is great fun to watch. It's fun to see a film that doesn't take itself quite so seriously.

[Fedya]

I disliked those episodes that tried to make Jessica "hip" and "with it" by putting her in situations like this episode.

[CinemaInternational]

Also, maybe the script on the Lansbury TV movie was underwritten because the two men it was written by were busy trying to get their series, Sisters, picked up by NBC. They later did Queer as Folk for Showtime.

[Lorna]

ONE OF the few real issues I have with MURDER, SHE WROTE is the fact that, for whatever reason, JESSICA was never allowed to REALLY get genuinely EMOTIONAL, even when it was very much called for- there is even (AS I RECALL) a series of three episodes in a row in SEASON SIX- THE LAST FLIGHT OF THE DIXIE DAMSEL where her dead husband is accused of murder, one whose title eludes me but she goes OUT WEST and is pursued romantically by a war buddy of her husband's whose daughter in law vanishes after meeting with a psychic and TREVOR HUDSON'S LEGACY, where she basically gets a young writer killed (it's a unique episode, VERRY TRASHY and with a lot of sex [for MsW])- AND IN ALL THREE CASES, it would have been TOTALLY CALLED FOR FOR HER TO REALLY LOSE HER COMPOSURE ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS, but nah not really. (and even later on in the MIRROR, MIRROR two parter- she comes close when SETH almost dies, but not really)

I remember when I saw the episodes on their first run as a kid, I was STUNNED by the episode THE RETURN OF PRESTON GILES because it includes scenes from the finale of THE PILOT which was THE ONE TIME she (as JESSICA) really TEARED UP and HER VOICE BROKE and she did, in fact, lose it.

It was like seeing YOUR GRANDMA CRY!!!!!!!!!!!

ALSO when I was a kid, I was always amused by her catchphrase almost every time she finds a dead body, a rather calmly delivered and hushed "Oh Dear Lord!"- it became her "hi, I'm SHELLEY DUVALL."

guess they didn't want to mess with THE FORMULA, but really, they shoulda let ANGIE as JESSICA (not COUSIN EMMA- ugh!) lose it at least once a season and make that her EMMY EPISODE.