Robert Feero Movies
- 1983
Stuart Margolin guest-stars "Hot" Rod Crysler, an old Naval Academy buddy of Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck). A hard-luck case if there ever was one, Crysler has only recently been released from prison, and is scratching out an existence as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. Unfortunately, corrupt narcotics officer Emmet Donner (Roland Hunter) is blackmailing Crysler into using his bookselling job as a front for drug-smuggling. To keep his old pal from being sent back to prison for keeps, Magnum joins forces with "Hot" Rod's sympathetic parole offiecr (Carlene Watkins). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1979
Fred Astaire guest stars as Chameleon, an intergalactic con artist on the run from the Boralean's Nomen henchmen. Hoping to find refuge on Galactica, Chameleon poses as Captain Dmitri--the long-lost father of Lt. Starbuck (Dirk Benedict). But others on board are doubtful of "Dmitri's" claims. . .and the Nomen are rapidly approaching. "The Man With Nine Lives" was later combined with the Battlestar Galactica episode "Baltar's Escape" and reissued as the two-hour "TV movie" Space Prison. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, (more)
- 1979
The treacherous Baltar (John Colicos) joins forces with several captured villains from earlier episodes -- the three Borellian Nomens, the Eastern Alliance Enforcers -- to plot an escape from the Colonials' prison. Holding Adama (Lorne Greene) and the Council of Twelve hostage, Baltar demands that he and his new cronies be immediately released. To rescue their comrades, Apollo (Richard Hatch) and Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) disguise themselves as Cylon robots. "Baltar's Escape" was later combined with the Battlestar Galactica episode "The Man With Nine Lives" and reissued as the two-hour "TV movie" Space Prison. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, (more)
Based on his award-winning student short, George Lucas's debut feature cerebrally celebrates the possibility for individual freedom against all odds. In a 1984-esque white-washed future underground dystopia where sexuality is banned, all humans sport shaved heads and the same shapeless outfits as they go about their work in a mandated state of sedation, listening to exhortations to "Buy and Be Happy." Black-clad robot cops chant a mantra to their victims that "everything will be all right" and automated confessional booths emit soothing therapeutic bromides. But unbeknownst to THX 1138 (Robert Duvall), his roommate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) has been reducing their meds, resulting in their mutual discovery of love and THX's subsequent imprisonment for drug evasion and sexual misconduct. Determined to find the pregnant LUH, THX breaks out of prison with the help of his cellmate SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence) and an escaped TV hologram (Don Pedro Colley). With fugitive pursuits strictly budgeted, THX only has to evade the robocops until the funds run out, but surveillance is omnipresent and THX's vehicle keeps overheating. Making the only film produced through the first incarnation of Francis Ford Coppola's independent studio American Zoetrope, Lucas and his small crew, including co-writer and sound editor Walter Murch, shot THX 1138 in northern California with no interference from distributor Warner Bros. When Warners saw the austere result, however, they recut the film before its release. Neither the studio's nor Lucas's cut was a popular success, but THX 1138's coolly minimalist style and story-telling gained fans on the college screening circuit, just as Stanley Kubrick's poetic 2001: A Space Odyssey had attracted a large youth audience in 1968. When Lucas returned to sci-fi after American Graffiti, he traded restraint for nostalgic fun in the film that guaranteed his creative freedom in Hollywood: Star Wars. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, (more)
