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To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before: Re-Watching The Star Trek Films

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

59 years ago today, the first episode of Star Trek aired in America.

There’s been a lot of different Star Trek shows and crews over the decades.  I have to admit that I’ve always preferred the Original Series, with Kirk sleeping with every alien he met, McCoy and Spock bickering about logic, and Scotty warning that the engines can’t take much more.  The Next Generation was strong as well, especially in the later seasons.  The subsequent series have been hit-and-miss for me.

I was born long after the Original Series went off the air so, like a lot of people, my real introduction to Star Trek came through watching the films.  This weekend, I sat down and watched all fourteen of the Star Trek films in order, from The Motion Picture to Section 31.  Here are my thoughts.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979, directed by Robert Wise)

In the first Star Trek film, Voyager returns to Earth, now known as V’ger.  James T. Kirk (William Shatner) returns to the Enterprise with his old crew and takes command from Decker (Stephen Collins).  Spock (Leonard Nimoy) returns from Vulcan is not happy about it.

Directed by Robert Wise, the first Star Trek film feels out-of-place amongst the films that followed it.  It’s long and slowly paced and it doesn’t have the sense of humor that runs through the best of the films featuring the original cast.  The film favors Kirk and Spock, with the rest of the original cast being largely used as bit players.  Even the costumes are different from the uniforms worn in the later films, making Star Trek: The Motion Picture feel like an entry from an alternate universe.

Despite mixed review, Star Trek: The Motion Picture made the most money of any of the pre-reboot films at the box office.  Because the film itself was so expensive, it was still judged to be a box office disappointment.  The Star Trek films would continue but in a new direction.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982, directed by Nicholas Meyer)

Featuring a character-driven script, exciting action, the best villain in the history of the franchise, and an ending that will bring tears to the eyes of the most cynical viewer, The Wrath of Khan is the film that set the standard for the Star Trek films that would follow.

Ricardo Montalban, recreating a character that he originally played in the television series, is a compelling villain as the vengeance-driven Khan.  Montalban and William Shatner make for perfect rivals, two sides of the same coin.  At the same time, the other members of the original cast all get their moments to shine, especially Walter Koenig as Chekhov.  Kirstie Alley is the sexist Vulcan to ever appear in the franchise and even the revelation that Kirk has a son is handled effectively.  Kirstie Alley, Bibi Besch, and Merritt Butrick all fit in with the original crew.

But the thing everyone remembers about The Wrath of Khan is the death of Spock.  Even though the movie features plenty of hints that Spock will return (including his command of “Remember” to McCoy), it’s impossible not to get emotional when Spock sacrifices himself for the crew.  “I have always been your friend.”  To quote George Costanza, that was hell of a thing when Spock died.  In that scene, Leonard Nimoy shows that he was the (logical) heart of the franchise.  Just as Spock brought out the best in the rest of the crew, Nimoy brought out the best in his co-stars.  Shatner was never better than when he was mourning Spock.

Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984, directed by Leonard Nimoy)

Spock’s back!  It’s not a surprise.  I think everyone knew, at the end of Wrath of Khan, that the Genesis Project would bring back Spock.  Star Trek III isn’t bad.  Christopher Lloyd reminds us of how brutal the Klingons were before their Next Generation makeover.  The self-destruction of the Enterprise is a powerful moment.  I just wish that a film about Spock being given a new life hadn’t featured so much death.  Both the revelation that David Marcus tampered with the Genesis Project and his subsequent death feel like missteps.  Robin Curtis takes over the role of Saavik and Kirstie Alley is very much missed.  DeForest Kelley playing McCoy possessed by Spock was, for me, the highlight of the film.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986, directed by Leonard Nimoy)

Returning home after rescuing Spock from the Genesis Planet, the Enterprise crew is instead sent back into the past so that they can bring two whales into the future.  The Voyage Home might not be the best Star Trek film (that honor belongs to Wrath of Khan) but it is the most likable and the most entertaining.  Every member of the cast gets something to do in 20th Century San Francisco.  The film is full of classic moments, from Chekhov looking for the “nuclear wessels” to Scotty trying to speak to the computer.  The moment with the punk on the bus is a crowd-pleaser.  I always laugh at Spock’s “One damn minute, Admiral.”  After the violence in The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home‘s humor, gentle sincerity, and emphasis on the efforts of the entire ensemble is a welcome development.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989, directed by William Shatner)

Leonard Nimoy got his chance to shine as the director of the previous two Star Trek films so William Shatner was allowed to direct The Final Frontier.  The Enterprise crew is brainwashed by a religious fanatic (Laurence Luckinbill) who is also, improbably, Spock’s brother.  Only Kirk is able to resist and confront the entity claiming to be God.  “What does God need with a starship!?”  Kirk demands.  It’s such an obvious question that I can’t believe the entity didn’t already have an answer worked out.

The Final Frontier gets no respect and it was probably doomed as soon as Shatner was announced as director.  Shatner also developed the story and it’s probably not surprising that the main theme is that Kirk was the only person on the Enterprise strong enough to not be brainwashed by the film’s fake God.  Laurence Luckinbill gave a good performance as Sybok but this film really does feel like an unfortunate episode of the original television series.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991, directed by Nicholas Meyer)

Star Trek VI featured the final appearance of the Original Series cast as a group and they get a send-off worthy of their legacy.  Having been previously established as the Federation’s greatest enemies, the Klingons finally pursue peace.  Just as only Nixon could go to China, only Kirk and the original Enterprise crew can go to the Klingons.  This movie is what Star Trek was all about, with enough world-building and continuity for the hardcore fans and a story that was interesting enough to hold the attention of the casual viewers.  By featuring the start of the era of peace between the Federation and the Klingons, this film also filled in some of the Next Generation‘s backstory.  The Final Frontier was meant to be the final Star Trek film featuring any of the original cast and it would have been the perfect entry for Captain Kirk to go out on.  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

Star Trek Generations (1994, directed by David Cason)

William Shatner meets Patrick Stewart as one Star Trek crew passes the torch to the new Star Trek crew.  Malcolm McDowell is the latest villain with an ill-defined plan.  Picard and Kirk team up to stop McDowell’s villain.  They succeed but at the cost of Kirk’s life.  As opposed to Spock’s death in Wrath of Khan, Kirk’s death feels pointless and tacked on for no reason other than to signify the arrival of The Next Generation to the films.  Seeing Shatner and Stewart together is interesting.  Stewart may have been the better actor but Shatner still dominates their scenes together.  Not giving Kirk a better send-off was one of the franchise’s biggest sins.

Star Trek: First Contact (1996, directed by Jonathan Frakes)

After the disappointing Generations, Picard and his crew finally got a film worthy of them with First Contact.  Not only do the Borg return but the crew goes back into their past and experience a key date in the history of the Federation.  After being outshone by Shatner in Generations, Patrick Stewart takes control in this film, giving a multi-layered and commanding performance that still gives the rest of the cast room to shine.  Director Jonathan Frakes not only handles the action well but he also shows that he understands what makes the characters click.  This was, without a doubt, the best of the Next Generation films and one the best of the Star Trek films overall.

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998, directed by Jonathan Frakes)

Entertaining but forgettable, Insurrection features Picard pulling a Kirk and defying orders from from a superior officer (played by Anthony Zerbe) and going out of his way to save Data from being decommissioned.  Insurrection feels like an extended episodes of the Next Generation television series and lacks the epic scale of First Contact.  Under the direction of Jonathan Frakes, the ensemble is strong and watching them interact feels like spending time with a group of old friends.  F. Murray Abraham and Anthony Zerbe make for effective villains.

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002, directed by Stuart Baird)

Just as the Original Series crew sought peace with the Klingons in The Undiscovered Country, the final Next Generation film finds Picard, Riker, and the rest seeking peace with the Romulan Empire.  Tom Hardy plays a clone of Picard who is now the leader of the Romulans.  Data sacrifices himself in a move that tries too hard to duplicate the death of Spock.  Picard retires.  Director Stuart Baird emphasizes action over the chemistry of the Next Generation cast and the end result is a disappointing finale that left critics and audiences underwhelmed.

Star Trek (2009, directed by J.J. Abrams)

I think people forget about what a big deal this Star Trek reboot was when it first came out.  Today, people focus on things like Kirk being a Beastie Boys fan and they forget how exciting it was to see Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, and Zoe Saldana all effortlessly stepping into the roles of the younger versions of the original cast.  The storyline is predictable and Eric Bana’s a bland villain but the scenes between Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto were a reminder of how important Spock was and is to Star Trek.

Star Trek wasn’t perfect, of course.  In retrospect, I think creating an alternate timeline was a mistake because it created a situation where, even if someone died, it was just an alternate version dying and not the version that audiences knew and cared about.  The alternate timeline would also lead to one of the biggest missteps in the history of the franchise.

Star Trek Into The Darkness (2013, directed by J.J. Abrams)

After the surprising success, both critically and commercially, of his Star Trek reboot, J.J. Abrams. Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof wasted most of that good will by messing around with one of the franchise’s most memorable characters.

There are some good things to be said about Star Trek Into The Darkness.  I like the action sequences and the climatic battle in the film’s futuristic version of San Francisco.  But casting Benedict Cumberbatch, of all people, as Khan is a misstep that can’t be overcome.  That the movie brought back Khan instead of exploring “strange new worlds” exposed the weakness of Abrams entire reboot.  For all the hype, did the Star Trek reboot actually have anything new or original to offer?  The answer here seemed to be no.

Star Trek Beyond (2016, directed by Justin Linn)

The final (for now) Star Trek theatrical film featured a memorable villain in the form of Idris Elba and a plot that felt like it could have just as easily been an episode of the original series.  In retrospect, the film is mostly memorable for featuring the announcement of the death of Ambassador Spock.  (The film was released a year after the death of Leonard Nimoy.)  The death of Spock, this time with no Genesis Project around to bring him back, makes this installment feel like right place to end the films.  For many of us, Nimoy was Star Trek.

Stark Trek: Section 31 (2025, directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi)

Though there have been many subsequent televisions shows, there hasn’t been a Star Trek theatrical release since 2016.  The next installment has been in pre-production limbo for nearly ten years.  (Quentin Tarantino was supposedly attached at one time.)  Instead of coming to theaters, the latest Star Trek movie came to Paramount Plus.

I debated whether or not to include Section 31 in this list, both because it was a “made-for-TV” movie and also because it was so bad that I think most Star Trek fans would rather forget about it.  A mediocre heist film that wastes star Michelle Yeoh and which doesn’t feel like it belongs in the Star Trek universe, Section 31 may still represent the way forward for the franchise.  With theaters having never recovered from the COVID shut-downs and more and more people preferring to stream their entertainment at home, the future of the Star Trek films could very well be a collection of assembly line Paramount Plus movies.

Finally, Case turned me onto this short film:

765874: Unification (2024, directed by Carlos Baena)

A collaboration between Otoy, a VFX company, and The Roddenberry Archive, with support from Paramount, 765874: Unification is a 10-minute short film that imagines Kirk meeting Spock in the afterlife.  Shatner returns as Kirk, de-aged with CGI.  Just as Kirk and Spock were friends in the film, the same was true of Shatner and Nimoy in real life.  (You only have to compare Nimoy’s comments about Shatner with George Takei’s endlessly bitter takes to see what true class actually is.)  This short film gives both characters the finale that they deserved.

It’s possible that we may never see another true Star Trek film.  Most of the original cast is gone now.  Patrick Stewart will always be Picard but even he is now approaching 90.  But whatever the future may hold, I’m happy for the films that Star Trek gave us.

Prince of Bel-Air (1986, directed by Charles Braverman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Robin Prince (Mark Harmon) is a laid-back former volleyball player who, at the age of 32, makes his living as a pool guy.  It’s an easy life and he enjoys it.  He sleeps with the wife (Deborah Harmon) of one of his clients and he hangs out with his richer friends.  Robin enjoys being a bachelor but that all changes when he agrees to give a job to Justin (Patrick Labyorteaux), the son of Stanley Auerbach (Robert Vaughn) and meets Justin’s cousin, an artist named Jamie Harrison (Kirstie Alley).  Justin goes from being bitter about having to work to idolizing Robin and his lifestyle.  Robin, meanwhile, falls for Jamie.

This film came out before Summer School, another movie that featured Mark Harmon as a laid-back guy who falls for Kirstie Alley, but it has a similar vibe.  Again, Mark Harmon is playing a likable guy who has never grown up and again, Kirstie Alley is playing a sophisticated woman who, at first, seems like she’s too serious for Harmon’s character.  Robin’s mentorship of Justin feels a lot like Hamon’s mentorship of his Summer School students.  (Dean Cameron even plays a supporting role in both Prince of Bel-Air and Summer School, though he’s far more memorable in Summer School.)  Prince of Bel-Air is more dramatic than Summer School.  In Prince of Bel-Air, Mark Harmon plays a character who secretly understands that there’s not much of a future in his lifestyle, even if he’s not initially willing to admit it.

Prince of Bel-Air is a likable movie.  Mark Harmon gives an amiable and relatable performance as someone who is finally trying to grow up and, as always, Robert Vaughn is a perfectly smug villain.  Kirstie Alley’s sultry performance is the highlight of the film.  In the 1980s, Alley has a smoky-eyed beauty that, when combined with her ribald sense of humor, made her irresistible.  It only takes a few minutes to understand why Robin would be willing to give up his previous life to be with her.  There’s nothing particularly deep about Prince of Bel-Air but it’s still an entertaining 100 minutes.

Summer School (1987, directed by Carl Reiner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Summer School was the movie that made flunking out look like fun.

Freddy Shoop (Mark Harmon) is a relaxed, fun-loving gym teacher who is looking forward to spend his summer in Hawaii until he’s assigned to spend the summer teaching remedial English in summer school.  (His girlfriend goes to Hawaii without him.)  Freddy’s not happy about giving up his summer and he’s prepared to just spend his days taking his students to the beach, the amusement park, and the zoo.  But when he finds out that he’s going to lose his job unless his students pass the big test at the end of the summer, he gets serious and discovers what teaching is supposed to be all about.

When I was growing up, Summer School seemed to be on television all the time.  If it wasn’t on HBO, it was on one of the local stations, usually right before summer began.  The summer school kids seemed to be having too much fun for kids stuck in school.  I don’t think my classmates in Baltimore would have been as happy about losing their summer as the students in this film.  Everyone who has seen this film remembers Dave and Chainsaw (Gary Riley and Dean Cameron) making jokes and showing everyone The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  They also remember Anna-Maria (Fabiana Udenio), the Italian exchange student who took summer school to work on her English.  They remember Freddy letting one of his students move in with him, which doesn’t seem like a good idea even if she was played by Courtney Thorne-Smith.  Myself, I remember Robin Bishop, the teacher next door, who was played by an extremely sexy Kirstie Alley.  (This was one of the many 80s films in which Kirstie Alley made being uptight seem sexy.)  Of course, Robin was dating the snobbish principal who was trying to get Freddy Shoop fired.

I’m not going to sit here and say that Summer School is a great film.  It’s a dumb comedy with an uplifting message about what a good teacher can accomplish.  However, Summer School is a very likable film, an enjoyable 80s teen romp that suggests summer school was the place to be in the late 80s.  Mark Harmon, Kirstie Alley, and all the students give good performances.  How many future horror nerds were inspired by Dave and Chainsaw?  Legendary nice guy Carl Reiner directed and the movie itself is amiable and amusing enough to be watchable.

Madhouse (1990, directed by Tom Ropelewski)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Mark (John Larroquette) and Jessa Bannister (Kirstie Alley) have a perfect yuppie lifestyle going until their respective family members show up at their California home and refuse to leave.  First, it’s Mark cousin (John Diehl) and his wife (Jessica Lundy).  Then it’s Jessa’s sister, Claudia (Alison LaPlaca), who has just left her husband and now has to find a new man to support her lifestyle.  Mark and Jessa just want some time alone but instead, they have to deal with a cat who is frequently mistaken for dead, broken marriages, a shipment of cocaine, and a neighbor (Robert Ginty) who builds weird bed frames.  Mark has a big contract to land and Jessa is trying to succeed as a television news reporter but it’s not easy when you’re living in a madhouse.

There are some films that you just like despite yourself and that’s the way I feel about Madhouse.  It’s very much an 80s film, with its emphasis on material goods and achieving the perfect lifestyle.  (The appearance of Dennis Miller as Mark’s co-worker only reminds us of just how much a product of its era that Madhouse is.)  There are a lot of jokes that don’t work and some, like the cat that is continually mistaken for dead, that shouldn’t work but do.  It’s a sitcom transferred to the movies and the humor rarely rises above that level.  It ever stars two of the decade’s biggest sitcom stars, John Larroquette and Kirstie Alley.  Larroquette shows us why he was better suited for television while Alley shows how tragic it was that she didn’t have a bigger film career.  Kirstie Alley gives such a dedicated and fearless performance as someone who has been driven to the end of her rope that it keeps you interested in the film.  Alley, like the great comedic actresses of Hollywood’s golden age, was an actress who could mix physical comedy with barbed one-liners and who was undeniably appealing as she moved from one disaster to the next.  In Madhouse, she was beautiful, frantic, sexy, neurotic, relatable, and funny all at the same time.  By the end of this movie, you really do wish she had gotten more and better opportunities to show off her talents in the years after Cheers went off the air.

Madhouse is nothing special.  It’s a generic comedy about unwanted family guests.  But I’ll always appreciate it for Kirstie Alley.

Film Review: Shoot to Kill (dir by Roger Spottiswoode)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I am not one for camping.

I’m actually kind of alone amongst my family as far as that’s concerned.  All three of my sisters enjoy spending the night outdoors, listening to sounds of nature and looking up at the stars.  They know how to set up tents and make campfires and they enjoy hiking and rafting and exploring the great outdoors.  Myself, I do enjoy occasionally spending the weekend up at Lake Texoma and I like the fact that, even though we live in the city, we still occasionally get to see wildlife running around.  I think possums are cute.  A few days ago, I squealed with delight when I saw that there was a raccoon hanging out in one of our backyard trees.  (“Don’t go near that thing, Lisa Marie!” Erin snapped as I reached for the den door.)  Growing up, I spent time in both the country and the city.  While I love living in the city, there’s still a part of me that’s still a country girl.  That said, I definitely prefer sleeping inside to outside.  The inside is safe.  The inside is comfortable.  The inside is free of creepy bugs that crawl on the ground.

Watching 1988’s Shoot to Kill definitely did not do much to change my opinion about camping.  In this thriller from director Roger Spottiswoode, Sidney Poitier plays Warren Stantin, an FBI agent who is obsessed with capturing a sadistic criminal who blackmails people into doing his work for him.  At the start of the film, the extortionist has forced a jeweler to break into his own jewelry store by taking the jeweler’s wife hostage.  Stantin’s attempt to capture the extortionist leads to the jeweler’s wife taking a bullet in the eye.  (AGCK!  Seriously, this guy is mean!)  Stantin traces the man to Washington State, where he discovers that the extortionist has committed another murder and stolen the victim’s identity.  The extortionist is now a member of a five-man fishing party that is being led by a local guide, Sarah Renell (Kirstie Alley).  Stantin teams up with Sarah’s partner, Jonathan Knox (Tom Berenger), and the two of them attempts to track down the group before the murderer among them makes his move.

The action cuts back-and-forth, between Sarah’s party and Knox and Stantin.  Most viewers will probably be able to quickly figure out which member of Sarah’s party is the killer but director Spottiswoode still creates a little suspense by casting actors like Richard Masur, Andrew Robinson, and Clancy Brown as the suspects.  All three of the actors have played their share of sinister characters.  (Andrew Robinson was the Scorpio Killer, for God’s sake!)  While Sarah leads the murderer though the wilderness, Knox teaches Stantin how to survive in the great outdoors.  As is typical with films like this, Knox and Stantin go from disliking each other to depending on each other.  Have you ever wanted to see Sidney Poitier get into a verbal altercation with a bear?  This is the film for you!

Shoot to Kill is a superior genre film.  The story’s predictable but it’s told so well that it doesn’t matter.  Kirstie Alley, Tom Berenger, and Sidney Poitier all give good performances as sympathetic characters.  As for the actor who turns out to be the killer, he gives a performance that is, at times, absolutely terrifying.  Shoot to Kill is an entertaining thriller.  Just don’t watch it if you’re going camping the next day.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Blind Date (dir by Nico Mastokaris)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1984’s Blind Date, Joseph Bottoms stars as Jonathon Ratcliff, an American who works in Greece.

Jonathon would appear to have it all.  He has a good job in an exotic land.  He has a nice home.  He has a beautiful girlfriend named Claire (Kirstie Alley).  He has co-workers who love him so much that they insist on throwing him a birthday party and giving him his cake while he’s making love to Claire.  Jonathon enjoys jogging and listening to music and spying on his neighbor, which the film treats as a harmless little thing that all men do.  I mean, I guess we should be happy that Jonathon isn’t disguising himself as a taxi driver and murdering the women that he picks up with a scalpel.  No, someone else is doing that.

Jonathon suddenly loses his eyesight.  Fortunately, Dr. Steiger (James Daughton) has a solution.  He’s created a computer program that turns sound into very primitive, grid-like images.  As long as Jonathon is wearing his headphones, he can see … kind of.  At first, it’s all good fun.  Jonathon beats up the extremely flamboyant muggers who have been harassing him at the subway station.  And he continues to spy on his neighbor whenever she’s getting undressed which is not cool considering that Claire has stayed with him through his entire ordeal.

Meanwhile, the scalpel murders are continuing….

Now, to be honest, I assumed that Jonathon was going to form some sort of mental connection with the killer and start seeing the murder through the killer’s eyes.  Instead, Jonathon just hears the killer walking with one of his victims and he ends up investigating on his own, despite not really being able to see well.  Basically, the whole idea of Jonathon being blind doesn’t have much to do with the thriller aspect of the plot.  I could maybe accept that if the film hadn’t spent a huge amount of time explaining in pain-staking detail how exactly Jonathon’s “eyes” work.  The action literally stopped for a huge chunk of the film’s running time so that the film could make its most ludicrous plot point seem even more ludicrous.

Greek director Nico Mastokaris is obviously trying to do an Argento-style giallo with Blind Date and, indeed, Argento himself has a noted habit of including intriguing but ultimately pointless red herrings in his films.  Just as Asia Argento having the Stendhal Syndrome proved to be a bit inconsequential to The Stendhal Syndrome, Joseph Bottoms being blind is inconsequential to Blind Date.  That said, Argento can get away with that sort of thing because, even in his weaker films, he’s clever stylist and he usually maintain a solid narrative pace.  Blind Date, on the other hand, is rather draggy and Joseph Bottoms is not a particularly likeable hero.

On the positive side, James Daughton (he was the head of the evil frat in Animal House) gives a genuinely interesting performance and Kirstie Alley is likable as the neurotic Claire.  For the most part, though, one can see why the sequel promised in the closing credits never came to be.

Horror on TV: The Hitchhiker 4.7 “The Legendary Billy B” (dir by Chris Thomson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

At the tail end of the 60s, the so-called king of acid rock, guitarist Billy Baltimore (Brad Dourif) was assassinated on stage.  Or was he?  When tabloid journalist Jane L. (Kirstie Alley) is told by her morally conflicted photographer, Hodie (Andy Summers of the Police), that he believes Billy Baltimore faked his own death and is actually living in a mansion and plotting his comeback, Jane L. decides to break into the mansion and find out for herself.

That turns out to be a big mistake.  But, as badly as things go for Jane L. and Hodie, this is an entertaining episode that features Kirstie Alley at her most neurotic and Brad Dourif at his most off-beat.  The ending might not make much sense but the journey is still worth it.  For the record, the Hitchhiker (Page Fletcher) really does not like tabloid reporters.

The episode originally aired on March 31st, 1987.

Miniseries Review: The Last Don II (dir by Graeme Clifford)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Clericuzio saga continues and it’s sillier than ever!

The Clericuzios were the Mob family who were first introduced in a Mario Puzo novel called The Last Don.  In 1997, CBS turned The Last Don in a three-part miniseries.  The ratings were good enough that, in 1999, the network gave the world a two-episode sequel, The Last Don II.  The Last Don II was created without the input of Mario Puzo (who died shortly before the miniseries aired) but director Graeme Clifford returned, as did a few members of the cast.

For example, Danny Aiello briefly returns as the honorable but aging Don Domenico Clericuzio, talking about life in the old country and demanding to know why some of his children have yet to marry.  Under his leadership, the Clericuzios are almost totally legit and they’ve even become powerful in Hollywood.  Claudia De Lena (Michelle Burke) is in charge of the family’s film studio and has recently become engaged to a film star named Dirk Von Schelburg (Andrew Jackson, trying to do an Arnie impersonation but coming across more like Jean-Claude Van Damme).  Still, despite the fact that the Clericuzios are (slowly) abandoning organized crime, they haven’t completely cut their ties.  They still have enemies.  And when Don Clericuzio dies after dancing at his final birthday party, those enemies are set to strike.

Who can run the Clericuzio family?  Only one of the Don’s son was actively involved in the underworld aspect of the organization and he’s promptly (and, to be honest, hilariously) crushed when someone drops a shipping crate on him.  Another Clericuzio son is gunned down at his legitimate business, proving that someone is trying to take out the entire family, regardless of whether they’re a part of the family business or not.  Georgio Clericuzio (David Marciano) goes to Paris and tires to convince Claudia’s brother, Cross (Jason Gedrick), to return from exile to take things over.  Cross refuses because he’s happily married to the most famous actress in the world, the improbably named Athena Aquataine (Mo Kelso, replacing Daryl Hannah in the role).  However, Athena is subsequently blown up by a bomb that was meant for Cross and that’s all it takes to bring Cross back to America.

Now that Cross is in charge, he sets about to discover who, among the other Families, is targeting the Clericuzios.  Helping him out with this is Billy D’Angelo (James Wilder), who we are told is the the most important of the Clericuzios capos, despite the fact that he was neither seen nor mentioned in the previous Last Don.  It seems pretty obvious from the start that Billy is not to be trusted.  Everyone who has ever seen The Godfather will automatically look at Billy and say, “There’s your rat.”  But Cross is a remarkably naïve crime lord.  He’s apparently the only guy in the Mafia who has never seen a Mafia movie.

Of course, there’s more going on than just Cross trying to figure out who is targeting the Clericuzio family.  His unstable aunt, Rose Marie (Kirstie Alley), wants revenge for the murder of her son Dante but, fortunately, she’s distracted by an affair with the family’s priest (Jason Isaacs, of all people).  Disgraced former studio exec Bobby Bantz (Robert Wuhl) is plotting against Claudia.  And finally, Cross is falling in love with his stepdaughter’s nanny (Patsy Kensit) despite the fact that it’s kind of obvious that the nanny is actually an undercover FBI agent.  Remember what I said about Cross being impossibly naïve?

The Last Don was a fairly silly miniseries.  The Last Don 2 is even sillier but, for that every reason, it’s also a bit more entertaining.  If the first Last Don was held together by the rivalry between Cross and Dante, the sequel is held together by a nonstop flow of melodrama, overheated dialogue, and thoroughly unsubtle acting.  It’s as if the director looked at every over-the-top scene and said, “It’s okay but can we turn things up just a little bit more?”  As such, tt’s not enough for Danny Aiello to merely make a cameo before his character dies.  Instead, he has to deliver cryptic words of wisdom about family and and honor and he has to do one final, Zorbaesque dance of joy before his heart gives out.  Meanwhile, Kirstie Alley really throws herself into playing the insane Rose Marie and whether she’s seducing a priest or hoarsely yelling that she doesn’t know how to ice skate, her performance is always more than strange enough to be watchable.  Jason Isaacs, meanwhile, furrows his brow desperately as he tries to resist temptation.  Patsy Kensit is the world’s worst FBI agent while Kim Coates shows up as one of her colleagues.  Conrad Dunn returns as Lia, the Sicilian assassin with the world’s silliest mustache.  Even the presence of Robert Wuhl is less of a problem in the sequel.  With everyone chewing up every piece of scenery that they can get their hands on, it somehow makes sense that Robert Wuhl would show up and start yelling, “DON’T LAUGH AT ME!”  Somehow, it even seems appropriate that Joe Mantegna receives a “special appearance” credit, even though his character pretty much only appears in the archival footage used during the opening credits.  The Last Don II is just that type of miniseries.

Jason Gedrick and James Wilder are both good actors and they both do what they can with the roles of Cross and Billy.  Unfortunately, both of them were seriously miscast in The Last Don 2.  Neither one of them is the least bit Italian and Wilder was a bit too young to be convincing as the most feared capo in the family.  Compared to the classic gangster films that inspired them, both The Last Don and its sequel feels more like gangster cosplay than an actual portrait of life as a member of the Cosa Nostra.  Like the first Last Don, The Last Don II suffers from a lack of authenticity but it’s just ludicrous enough to be fun.

Miniseries Review: Mario Puzo’s The Last Don (dir by Graeme Clifford)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First broadcast over three nights in 1997, The Last Don tells the story of a powerful and respected Mafia family. They control politicians across the country and they own casinos in Vegas and their power even extends all the way to Hollywood. Despite having many enemies, the family has thrived due to the leadership of a wise but ruthless Don.  This Don remembers the old ways and imparts lessons about honor to the members of his own family.  Never let anyone know what you’re thinking.  Never side against the family.  If someone like you were to make enemies, they would become the Don’s enemies and then they would fear you …. you know, stuff like that.

However, times are changing and America is changing with it.  The underworld is no longer run by men of honor.  On top that, the Don is aging and in ill-health. Who will succeed him? One possible successor is respected by all but he’s stayed out of the dirtier aspects of the family’s business and, in fact, he seems to have no desire to be a feared man.  Another possible successor is ruthless and has a terrible temper.  He sometimes speaks out of turn, because the Don has a sentimental weakness for his children.  This possible successor’s anger is feared but perhaps fear is the future of the organized crime in America.  The old ways are changing but one thing remains the same.  The Don believes in America and he believes in family and….

Wait.

Okay, is it just me or does this all sound just a little bit familiar?

If it does, that’s probably because The Last Don is based on a novel by The Godfather‘s Mario Puzo.  Though the family may be called The Clerichuzios and the action may have been moved fro the 40s and the 50s to the 60s, 70s, and 80, the story is still the same basic one that was told in The Godfather.  Don Clerichuzio (Danny Aiello) is an honorable man whose time is coming to an end.  His grandnephew, Cross (Jason Gedrick), is the possible successor who isn’t crazy.  His grandson, Dante (Rory Cochrane), is the possible successor who is violent and doesn’t know how to negotiate.  Don Clerichuzio’s dream is for the family to become completely legitimate but good luck with that when the film business and the political world are just as corrupt as the Mafia.  I supposed one could argue that The Last Don is narrated by Don Clerichuzio while The Godfather has no narration at all but, seriously, once you have to add a voice-over to explain what’s going on, you have pretty much already last the war.

And yes, I did mention the film business.  When Francis Ford Coppola first read The Godfather, he famously hated the Hollywood sections of the book and, with the exception of Tom Hagen’s visit to Jack Woltz (and Woltz’s subsequent discovery of a horse’s head in his bed the next morning), Coppola refused to include them in the movie.  The second half of The Last Don, however, goes full Hollywood and, more or less, proves Coppola’s point.  Cross’s sister, Claudia (Michelle Burke, who also co-starred with Cochrane in Dazed and Confused), gets a job as an agent and one of her clients is the world’s most famous actress, the ludicrously named Athena Aquataine (Daryl Hannah).  When Athena has trouble with her crazy ex-husband (Chris Meloni, bringing a spark of genuine danger to the production), Cross helps her out, falls in love, and gets involved in the production of her next film.  This brings him into conflict with a studio exec named Bobby Bantz (Robert Wuhl).  Unfortunately, all of the Hollywood stuff is pretty dull.  One gets the feeling that Puzo was perhaps settling some old scores with the character of Bobby but Robert Wuhl is one of those goofy actors who belongs nowhere near a Mafia drama.  And don’t even get me started on country singer k.d. lang, who is bizarrely cast as a film director.

(Add to that, how can anyone take a character named Athena Aquataine seriously?  I never miss an Athena Aquataine movie!))

The Hollywood stuff distracts from the Mafia stuff, which is unfortunate because the Mafia stuff is at least occasionally interesting and it’s certainly better-acted than the Hollywood scenes.  Joe Mantegna plays Pippi, who is Cross’s father and who, years earlier, killed Dante’s father.  (Mantegna’s always good but it’s a struggle to take any character named Pippi seriously.)  Kirstie Alley plays Rose Marie, who is Dante’s mentally unstable mother and the Don’s only daughter.  Aiello, Mantegna, and Alley all give good performances, as do Burt Young and Seymour Cassel in the roles of family associates.  As for the “younger generation” of Clerichuzios, Gedrick is a bit dull but then again, Cross isn’t a very interesting character.  The slightly-built Cochrane is miscast as Dante but ultimately, that miscasting kind of works in that it reminds us that, due to his father being the scion of a rival family, Dante is destined to always be viewed as being an outsider.

As I said earlier, The Last Don was originally broadcast over three nights.  I watched the whole thing — all five hours of it — in one sitting and, yes, it was a bit of an endurance test.  It’s not just that it’s long but also that it keeps getting bogged down in all of the Hollywood stuff.  You don’t watch a film like this because you want to spend five hours watching Robert Wuhl mug for the camera.  You watch a film like this for the Mafia action and, for a film called The Last Don, there really wasn’t enough Mafia action.  It has its moments but it never feels as authentic as The Godfather, Casino, Goodfellas, The Irishman, The Sopranos or any of the other classic films and shows about the Mafia..  The Last Don needed to be extremely Italian but instead, it was only slightly Italian.  Robert Evans famously said that Coppola was selected to direct The Godfather because Coppola would make audiences “smell the pasta.”  There’s very little pasta in The Last Don.

Infidelity (1987, directed by David Lowell Rich)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Nick Denato (Lee Horsley) is a world-famous photographer.  His wife, Ellie (Kirstie Alley!), is a renowned doctor.  They have homes in San Francisco and Africa and they regularly fly from one continent to another.  The Denatos used to be called “jet-setters,” back when flying back and forth was seen as a positive instead of as a crime against the environment.

Despite the fact that Ellie is pregnant, Nick leaves his wife behind in San Francisco so that he can explore Nepal with his buddy Scott (Robert Englund!!) and Scott’s young and leggy assistant, Robin (Courtney Thorne-Smith!!!!).  While Nick is away, Ellie has a miscarriage.  Nick flies home but it’s too late.  His wife already resents him for not being there when she needed him.  It doesn’t help that, a week later, Scott and Robin come to visit and Scott tells a story about how he nearly fell off a cliff.  “And where were you, buddy!?”  Scott says to Nick with a laugh, forgetting that Nick was back home with his hospitalized wife.  An awkward silence follows.

Ellie can tell that there is an obvious attraction between Nick and Robin.  Nick denies it and then, to prove Ellie wrong, he cheats on her but not with Robin.  Instead, Nick cheats with Ellie’s best friend, Eileen (Laura O’Brien).  Ellie divorces Nick, stops talking to Eileen, and gets involved with Etienne (Michael Carven).  Nick returns to Africa, where he spends his nights listening to opera in a tent and thinking about how much he loves his his ex-wife.

Infidelity was made for television and it used to come on late night television frequently in the 90s, mostly because of its cast.  Not only did the cast features Rebecca Howe but also Freddy Krueger and whoever it was that Courtney Thorne-Smith played on Melrose Place.  The main problem with the film is that Kirstie Alley and Lee Horsley have zero chemistry so you don’t really care if they get divorced or if they get back together.  The other problem is that Lee Horsley is a convincing cowboy but he’s not as convincing as a sophisticated Italian-American photographer who spends his spare time listening to opera.  The movie also cops out by having Nick cheat with a fairly minor character rather than with Robin.  On the plus side, the movie’s got Robert Englund playing the type of role that he almost always played in his pre-Nightmare on Elm Street days, the loyal friend.  What’s interesting about Englund’s performance here is that he had already played Freddy Krueger three times before playing Scott in Infidelity.  In fact, Infidelity aired at the same time that Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors was still playing in theaters.  Englund is likable as Scott and the film shows what type of career Englund probably would have had if David Warner hadn’t turned the role of Freddy down in the first Nightmare on Elm Street.