Disc Reviews

"We came up here to get lucky."

What do you get when you combine Predator with The Twilight Zone and throw in an 80's television star and do a movie of the week? You get High Desert Kill and a preview of the kind of thing that would start appearing on Sy-Fy in a few decades. Universal was actually the king of these kinds of films throughout the late 70's and 80's, and director Harry Falk was one of television’s steady directors of the time. There's real experience here that allows this film to at times rise above its limited budget and offer a few compelling moments. There was actually a time the film was considered for theatrical release and did find a few box office dates in Europe. That was the dilemma in the 80's. Made-for-television would eventually give way to direct-to-video, and today, of course, it is streaming that provides the same kind of outlet. Thanks to Kino-Lorber you get a chance to decide for yourself as High Desert Kill arrives on Blu-ray, albeit with no real restoration. It's pretty much as it was when it was released on television in 1989.

So this is not a movie that I would say aged well with time. However, if you could put yourself in the mindset of the time period of its release (1987), I could see the appeal. Lori Singer of Footloose fame and Anthony Edwards of ER fame star as married couple Roxy and Aaron Walston, whose life and relationship becomes strained in rural North Carolina in the post-depression late 1930s, when a young drifter named Jack Ruffin (Bruce Abbott, Re-Animator) comes to their tobacco farm to be a farmhand. Roxy, a shelter girl who married young and had a child is unable to resist the temptation that is Jack Ruffin. As expected, things do not end well. Based on a 1984 novel, Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail, the film shows the tragic results of the affair, which in this modern setting may appear cliché, but during that time likely would be engaging.

Singer narrates sections of the film, which I found to be a great addition and to provide context that would have been lost otherwise. Additionally, it strengthened its connection to the source material, as the novel from my understanding is from the perspective of Roxy. During these narrations, she speaks to her feelings about her life and towards Jack Ruffin. Their initial encounter is quite abrasive, as Roxy, who is very young and impressionable, seems intimidated by Ruffin, while he comes off as somewhat brash. In their first meeting, he just appears and offers her a drag on his cigarette while she is hanging clothes in the yard. Roxy visibly displays her discomfort regarding his presence by attempting to put space in between them. Despite this, Ruffin doesn’t hesitate to reach in and snatch a clothespin from off her robe to help her hang something on the clothesline. This set a good stage for what was to come, as it showed that for much of what would occur between them, Ruffin would be leading the charge.

"I think this is just the beginning."

Walker is out on DVD. No, this is not the next spin-off of the zombie Walking Dead franchise. There's a new ranger in town, and his name is Cordell Walker. I know what you're thinking: "Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." That's where you'd be wrong. They might share the same name and job, but this Walker is nothing like the Chuck Norris version that lasted for over a decade when you include made-for-television movies. This Walker is much younger. He was a Marine who had joined after 9/11. He has a family. His wife was killed a year ago, and now he's trying to raise his son and daughter with the help of his parents, who were no longer living in the Norris series. The episodes are more of an ongoing story arc, which conforms to pretty much most dramas on television today. While there were certainly elements that ran through the original show, it was pretty much a bad-guy-of-the-week setup. If you haven't caught any of the new show, now is your chance. CBS Home Entertainment has released the entire second season on DVD.

"If you've got the money you can do what you like. Buy another man's life? Why not?"

There are few writers in the 20th century who have had the kind of career Graham Greene had. He was recruited by England's secret service MI6 where his sister was also an agent and spent time around the world. These experiences likely helped him write the kinds of international thrillers that made him one o the most successful writers in the 20th century. His final novel went a little against the grain of his reputation. The Tenth Man doesn't take us too far afield, and it's far more of an intimate tale than he was known for. It would also be his final novel before his death in 1991. But he lived to see it filmed, albeit as a Hallmark Television made for TV film in 1988. But The Tenth Man was a little step above most of the films made for TV in that decade. It actually did play in theatres in Europe, mostly England. Now Kino Lorber has dusted off this 1988 gem and given it a chance at a new life, and it's one of the better of the studio’s latest batch of titles.

"There is an old saying that blood is thicker than water."

We've had Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Gene Simmons with his Family Jewels, and even Snoop Dog's Father Hood. It's become a bit of a trend to follow these celebrity families around and watch the drama of their privileged lives unfold on our television screens. You might think it's a relatively recent phenomenon, but would you believe they were doing it back in the infant days of television when we followed around a musician named Ozzie and his wife way back in 1952? No, we're not talking about Ozzie Osbourne and his family. I'm talking about Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. They were television's darling family before we ever heard about Lucy and Desi. The show actually started on radio like many of the fledgling industry’s early hits including the likes of Gunsmoke. Four years after the radio brought us The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet, they moved to television. While their two sons were played by actors on the radio, both David and Ricky Nelson joined the television show, and it went on to make television history, breaking records, some still held today. It was the first television series to ever hit 10 seasons. It lasted from 1952 to 1966 with 436 episodes. Until The Simpsons, it was the longest running scripted television comedy and remains still the longest live-action scripted comedy ever on television. And while the stories were, of course, fictional, most aspects of the show were quite real. Their television home was modeled after their real home. Many of the family's life stories found their way to the series. The four family members were quite real, and you just couldn't fake these relationships.