Jon Korkes Movies

Detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) investigate when a prostitute is found strangled to death. The trail of clues leads to a brothel where illegal immigrants are being exploited as sex slaves. Eventually, the law comes knocking at the door of a "happy" family -- and things are never quite the same again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The sudden exhumation of the remains of a person who was obviously walled up alive reopens a ten-year-old unsolved crime. Howard (Melissa Leo) and Munch (Richard Belzer) follow the trail of clues to a fanatical devotee of Edgar Allan Poe (this is, after all, in Baltimore). Elsewhere, the entire police force learns of the pregnancy of Pembleton's (Andre Braugher) wife, and Munch's date with Dr. Alyssa Dyer (Harlee McBride) takes an unexpected detour thanks to Alyssa's roommate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A multinational corporation specializing in military defense technology creates an indestructible killing machine for use on the battlefield, only to find out just how effective their monstrous invention truly is after the prototype malfunctions and embarks on a bloody killing spree. Syngenor is a Synthesized Genetic Organism, a scientifically created "Super Soldier" designed by Norton Cyberdyne and possessing powers far beyond that of mortal man. When Syngenor breaks loose from the lab and unleashes hell on the employees of Norton Cyberdyne, scheming executive Paula Gorski (Riva Spier) purposefully allows the killing to continue in order to humiliate Carter Brown (David Gale), the company's powerful CEO. But Paula's plan is about to backfire, because somewhere deep in the bowels of the building, a horde of newly spawned Syngenors are growing more powerful by the minute. If the creatures escape, the city streets will surely run red with blood. Now, the only hope for humanity is for the people trapped in the building to ensure that not one Syngenor manages to escape from the building. Unfortunately, outsmarting the perfect killing machine is no simple task, and it's beginning to feel as if the nightmare has only just begun. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A strange man who had come to Blue Moon hoping to hire a bodyguard abruptly drops dead in the office. Subsequently, David (Bruce Willis) and Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) find themselves "babysitting" their would-be client's corpse. The plot may be wrapped around a missing lottery ticket and a strange tattoo--and then again, maybe it isn't, who knows? The episode's title refers to a lengthy dream sequences in which Maggie finds herself in the Afterlife with some suspiciously familiar-looking ghosts and goblins. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The slight amount of credibility required for a successful horror movie is lost in the opening scenes of this derivative story of a cobra who is really Satan in disguise, taking revenge against a Catholic priest for some crimes committed by the priest's ancestors. When the cobra invades a train full of people, the glass partition that keeps the snake safely away from the actors is quite visible and is even emphasized as the poor snake hits its head against it. After that inauspicious beginning, the film cannot really go downhill, but it continues the same standard in the acting and script. Father Farrow (Fritz Weaver) belongs to a family cursed long ago because they persecuted Druids. Now snakes are taking the lead from the "king cobra" and attacking people in the town where the demoniacally harassed Father lives, while the mayor and local town leaders try to cover up the reptilian menace so as not to scare off patrons for the soon-to-be opened dog racetrack. Even if the snakes had raced the dogs, this horror film is too trite and predictable to be salvaged. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Larry Peerce directed this tired disaster movie about a mad sniper loose in a football stadium. At the beginning, the sniper picks off a cyclist for practice and then takes roost in the top tower of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Sent in to stop the terror is Captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston), who wants to get his hands on the sniper without endangering the lives of the people in the stadium. Unfortunately, there is a second group of law enforcement officers, a tactical commando group, who want to go into the stadium and rush the sniper -- regardless of the danger such an action would cause to the crowd watching the game. The sniper plans to start blasting at the two-minute warning signal of the football game. Holly has to find the sniper before the two-minute warning is given -- not merely to prevent the killings threatened by the sniper but to head off the tactical force before any other unnecessary deaths are incurred by the force's bulldog techniques. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Joseph Wambaugh, the ex-cop turned novelist whose Police Story began its TV run in 1973, was responsible for the like-vintage TV miniseries The Blue Knight. William Holden stars as Bumper Morgan, a 50 year old cop on the verge of mandatory retirement. Morgan's last four days with the LAPD are packed with incident, notably the trackdown of the brutal murderer of a prostitute. Lee Remick plays Morgan's faithful lady friend, who is anxious for her man to retire but who will tolerate no criticism from anyone of the job the police are doing. Emmies went to William Holden, director Robert Butler and editors Marjorie and Gene Fowler Jr., while Lee Remick received an Emmy nomination. The film itself is derivative at times (one chunk of dialogue is lifted bodily from the Jane Fonda vehicle Klute), but otherwise is as realistic a portrayal of police work as TV censors would allow in 1973. Originally telecast in four one-hour installments, Blue Knight was cut to 103 minutes for syndication; a second Blue Knight TV movie, filmed in 1975 and starring George Kennedy as Bumper Morgan, served as the pilot for a short-lived TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Buck Henry team up again (after collaborating on The Graduate and Catch-22) for this adaptation of Robert Merle's best-selling adventure novel concerning dolphins who become pawns in a plot to kill the president. George C. Scott plays Dr. Jake Terrell, a researcher who, along with his wife Maggie (Trish Van Devere), is investigating dolphin intelligence, believing they have the capability of speech. Harold DeMilo (Fritz Weaver), in charge of a major corporation, sponsors their work. But undercover work by government agent Curtis Mahoney (Paul Sorvino) reveals that DeMilo is working with a right-wing group planning to kidnap the dolphins and use them to blow up the presidential yacht. Jake and Maggie have to race against time to save both their dolphins and the president. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Archie's blind faith in the infallibility of the United States receives another blow when he finds himself under the scrutiny of the FBI. At first, the Feds seem more interested in one of Archie's closest friends, but then the investigation hits closer to home. Though Archie survives with his confidence in the Red, White, and Blue intact, the ultimate price he pays is a painful one. Also in the cast are future Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman co-stars Graham Jarvis as Larry Grundy, and Jon Korkes as Bradford. Uncompromisingly written by Michael Ross, Bernie West, and Susan Harris, "Archie and the FBI" was first telecast on January 15, 1972. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Mike Nichols and writer-actor Buck Henry followed their enormous hit The Graduate (1967) with this timely adaptation of Joseph Heller's satiric antiwar novel. Haunted by the death of a young gunner, all-too-sane Capt. Yossarian (Alan Arkin) wants out of the rest of his WW II bombing missions, but publicity-obsessed commander Colonel Cathcart (Martin Balsam) and his yes man, Colonel Korn (Henry), keep raising the number of missions that Yossarian and his comrades are required to fly. After Doc Daneeka (Jack Gilford) tells Yossarian that he cannot declare him insane if Yossarian knows that it's insane to keep flying, Yossarian tries to play crazy by, among other things, showing up nude in front of despotic General Dreedle (Orson Welles). As all of Yossarian's initially even-keeled friends, such as Nately (Art Garfunkel) and Dobbs (Martin Sheen), genuinely lose their heads, and the troop's supplies are bartered away for profit by the ultra-entrepreneurial Milo Minderbinder (Jon Voight), Yossarian realizes that the whole system has lost it, and he can either play along or jump ship. Though not about Vietnam, Catch-22's ludicrous military machinations directly evoked its contemporary context in the Vietnam era. Cathcart and Dreedle care more about the appearance of power than about victory, and Milo cares for money above all, as the complex narrative structure of Yossarian's flashbacks renders the escalating events appropriately surreal. Confident that the combination of a hot director and a popular, culturally relevant novel would spell blockbuster, Paramount spent a great deal of money on Catch-22, but it wound up getting trumped by another 1970 antiwar farce: Robert Altman's MASH. With audiences opting for Altman's casual Korean War iconoclasm over Nichols' more polished symbolism, the highly anticipated Catch-22 flopped, although the New York Film Critics Circle did acknowledge Arkin and Nichols. Despite this reception, Catch-22's ensemble cast and pungent sensibility effectively underline the insanity of war, Vietnam and otherwise. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide