This weekend, I watched what has to be my favorite movie of 2008 thus far. It was a traditional film in many senses, featuring a successful director (Jay Roach of the “Austin Powers” series and “Meet the Parents”) and critical acting darlings such as Oscar winner Kevin Spacey (“American Beauty”) and Tom Wilkinson most recently of “Michael Clayton.” However, this film, “Recount,” following the 2000 presidential election, had one very untraditional aspect to it: It was a TV movie.
While HBO has long banked on its popular slogan “It’s not TV. It’s HBO,” for clarity I’m just going to go ahead and say that HBO technically counts as pay cable television.
You might think on a weekend with blockbusters already out such as “Indiana Jones” and “Prince Caspian,” a girl like me wouldn’t need to turn the long-reviled subcategory of TV movies, but “Recount” was everything a great, well-rounded and thoroughly enjoyable film should be.
The acting was superb, especially with Lauren Dern as Katherine Harris, the music was soft but spectacular, and the sets were detailed and well-done. Above all, the story itself was equal parts fun and drama and managed to maintain a strong level of suspense even though the movie had a very well-known ending.
Many times I have used this column to look back on the way we were as a filmgoing public. There were video stores with “Be kind, rewind” stickers, movie tickets only costing $4, etc. However, the changes happening to mass media across the board, motion pictures included, are a-comin’ and they ain’t slowing down for no one.
TV movies have been around only a few years less than television itself but, with the exception of the most-viewed TV movie ever, “The Day After” in 1983, the infamous male tearjerker “Brian’s Song” and select others, they have been known to be hokey, contrived and humorous when intending to be anything but. My personal favorites include “The Babysitter’s Seduction,” “Fifteen and Pregnant,” and “Friends “˜Til the End,” all which are shown from time to time on the TV movie mecca Lifetime.
As conglomerate companies such as Universal and Fox take over cable and the independent film projects, going to TV and other alternative formats may be the best solution to the decreased influx of creativity in today’s entertainment.
One big difference between the big screen and the small screen is that people feel much more insecure about going to the theater alone than watching something in their house or apartment alone. Therefore, films that appeal less to a broad demographic such as “Recount” don’t do as well because people may be less able to talk their friends into seeing that than “Indy.” Also, in today’s poor economy people are much less likely to surrender $10 sight unseen whereas they already pay a certain amount of money per month for an entire list of cable channels. So there is no precise fee, unless it’s pay-per-view, for that particular film.
“Recount” would have been great for a stadium-seated movie theater with popcorn and speakers to blare the tense music, but story-driven and original films such as this one are hard to come by in times when studios would rather remake old TV shows or do another sequel than take a chance. The experience of watching the movie itself may be very different, but the reward of watching an all-around great film will always be the same.
So while TV movies are anything but new, it seems this face-lift could be a turning point for the format.
Shannen Doherty’s filmography be damned, there’s hope for TV movies after all.
If you want to join Stanhope for a bad TV movie marathon, e-mail her at kstanhope@media.ucla.edu.