JESSE STONE: NO REMORSE (2010)

I’m so dead that they’re going to have to bury me twice. I waited over 10 years to watch the next installment of the Jesse Stone series and I wish I had waited 10 more. Hell, a hundred more! Baby buttfucking Jesus, is this a slow movie.

The film starts in Boston with some dude in a parking garage getting shot in the back of the noodle. At the same time, still-suspended small town police chief Tom Selleck is busy turning down women who want to jump his bones and dealing with a new phone he recently bought. Soon there is a second identical murder and the Boston Police call in Tom Selleck for help. Stuff happens and he gets coffee at a gay bar. The End.

It’s strange, I love the old Magnum, P.I. TV series and can watch it over and over and over. Especially episodes with Higgins, but goddamn this Jesse Stone series is straight-up murdering me! I actually have quite a bit to say about the movie, but I’m so depressed and in so much pain right now that I just wanna publish this turkey and go to bed.

Part 1 - Stone Cold (2005)
Part 2 - Jesse Stone: Night Passage (2006)
Part 3 - Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise (2006)
Part 4 - Jesse Stone: Sea Change (2007)
Part 5 - Jesse Stone: Thin Ice (2009)
Part 7 - Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost (2011)
Part 8 - Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt (2012)
Part 9 - Jesse Stone: Lost in Paradise (2015)

COMPUTERCIDE (1982)

The 1996 of DEMOLITION MAN might have been a crime-filled shithole, but, in COMPUTERCIDE, 1996 is a crime-free paradise filled with weird, funky cars. And since all crimes are solved by computers there is very little use for private detectives. Enter our hero: starving private detective Michael Stringer. While finishing up a missing dog case, he’s contacted by a woman, Lisa, to investigate the death of her father. The computers didn’t find any foul play, but she suspects something is amiss since the dead version of her father is 20 years younger than her real father! Now they must go undercover (as a couple) to the cult-like housing community where her dad lived.

For a lower-budget film made in 1977 and not released until 1982, COMPUTERCIDE is okay. I was able to get through it easy enough. Still, it was rough around the edges and the script didn’t have enough going for it to keep the incredibly handsome viewer engaged. Lackluster acting, bland sets, bland clothing, bland colours, below average pace, unfunny humor, music that didn’t match the scenes, better cast than the script deserves. The title shown on the version I watched for this review called the film FINAL EYE, but all of the television listings I found for August 1, 1982 listed the movie as COMPUTERCIDE. One journalist even suggested that NBC only aired “…this unsold pilot dating back to 1977.” because ABC was airing ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE during the same time slot. I personally like the title COMPUTERCIDE much better and foolishly thought this movie was going to be about either an evil computer killing people in a high-rise skyscraper, a murderous electronic kid’s toy or maybe even somehow an evil computer dating service!

As it is though, COMPUTERCIDE is an interesting television novelty that nerds like myself would find interesting. Everybody else would probably be bored to sleep within 15 minutes.

SMASH-UP ON INTERSTATE 5 (1976)

"At 11:09am on July 4th, a major smash-up occurred on Interstate 5 in the state of California. Thirty-nine vehicles, 62 people injured, 14 killed."

Originally broadcast on December 3, 1976 as The ABC Friday Night Movie, SMASH-UP ON INTERSTATE 5 was viewed in 19.8 million homes and it's easy to see why cause it's kinda dope! The drama starts out immediately with highway patrolman Robert Conrad pursuing a murder suspect down a busy Southern California highway.  Then before you can say "Somebody should make a good version of Squid Game." there's cars crashing all over the place, people flying through the air, explosions, fire.  Thirty-nine vehicles, 62 injured and 14 killed.  That's the raw statistics, but what about the human cost?  The lost loved-ones and destroyed dreams.  The broken hearts and injured bodies.  All because some motherfucker can't drive for shit.  Well, hold on to your butts cuz we're about to rewind the clock 48 hours and find out more about the victims of...the smash-up on Interstate 5! 5...5...5...5 [imagine an echo effect here]

So you already know about how lone cop Robert Conrad was chasing a murder suspect down the highway in the opening scene, but in the flashback we see that he used to have a cop buddy (Tommy Lee Jones) who was suspiciously absent in the pursuit of the murder suspect.  I'm sure nobody will be able to unravel that bit of foreshadowing.  Naturally, Jones' wife is pregnant as fuck and about to bust.  We also catch up with lonely Vera Miles who's meeting a friend at a sleazy disco populated with horny swingers.  One especially pushy doctor is hellbent on pitching woo and slinging ding-a-ling with Miles, but she's so repulsed by his pre-Austin Powers sexual advances that she leaves town!  Bad idea, because she runs out of gas and is immediately attacked on the side of the road by Lolita herself (Sue Lyon) and about to get gang raped by Lolita's biker gang when trucker David Groh rolls up and starts smashing people with a lead pipe!  There's also storylines featuring Harriet Nelson, Buddy Ebsen, Scott Jacoby, Donna Mills and others but I don't want to give it all away.

SMASH-UP ON INTERSTATE 5 might just be an old TV movie that nobody cares about, but I'm a worthless nobody and I enjoyed the fuck out it.  It's a neat time capsule back to mid-1970's television.  Lots of familiar faces, tons of vintage cars, quick pace, impressive stunts, a van that's "Rated X", good acting, some gnarly car wrecks plus an interesting use of flashbacks.  Check it out.

[This has nothing to do with the review.  I just wanted to leave a note reminding my future-self that I composed and typed out this entire review using only my right hand because old lady cat, Susie, is using my left arm as a pillow.  I love her very much.]